Kris Delmhorst Opens Her Door on ‘Long Day in the Milky Way’
The heart of Kris Delmhorst’s Long Day in the Milky Way is, fittingly, in the middle of the record when, on “Skyscraper,” she softly sings: “You could be an open door. What are you waiting for?”
Across her eighth album, Delmhorst is inspiringly open and honest and is not
Arlo McKinley Keeps It Simple and Sublime in Debut ‘Die Midwestern’
If there’s one lesson to take away from Arlo McKinley’s Die Midwestern, it’s the importance of getting back to basics. Musically, the 40-year-old’s solo debut — released on the late John Prine’s Oh Boy label and championed by Prine himself — is the kind of barroom meat-and-potatoes
THE READING ROOM: Book Gives ‘Nashville Cats’ Their Due
In 2015, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville mounted an exhibit titled “Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City” that ran for almost two years. As Kyle Young, CEO of the Hall and Museum, pointed out, the exhibit was “a testament not only
Instrumental Flourishes and Fun Distinguish Twisted Pine’s ‘Right Now’
With navigating the current world becoming more challenging every day, Twisted Pine delivers the kind of album that makes it feel like everything is going to be okay. Instrumental virtuosity — the band’s calling card — abounds on their latest album, Right Now, but so too do moments of sheer pop
Emma Swift Brings New Spirit to Dylan Songs on ‘Blonde on the Tracks’
Can a record of cover songs ever be new? Oh yes. Bob Dylan lends himself to this pursuit on both sides, having released many albums on which he performs the songs of others for nearly 60 years — most notably Good As I Been To You (1992), and three albums of
Gangstagrass Makes a Timely Statement on ‘No Time for Enemies’
The most striking moment on No Time for Enemies, the fifth studio album from bluegrass/hip-hop trailblazers Gangstagrass, comes toward the end, during a reimagining of the Stephen Foster standard “Hard Times Come Again No More.” After a faithful first verse and chorus sung masterfully by Grenadian-Canadian soul-folk singer Kaia