'I Am the Blues and My Life is a Spiritual': Music's Unifying Power
Music touches people’s hearts in deep and enduring ways that words often fail to do. When people hear a certain song, they recall powerfully the feelings they connect with certain events they associate with first hearing that song. Music helps people live through desperate situations, provides soothing comfort in
A Truly Special Relationship: The Transatlantic Sessions, Royal Festival Hall, London
A highlight of my musical year for nearly a decade has been the Transatlantic Sessions, the series of shows put together by Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain. Each year they and their house band are joined by a select group of guests from both sides of the pond. Once again
Super Bowl Halftime Shows, Dilly Dilly
The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LII on Sunday night, and there was much rejoicing in all parts south of Nomans Land Island National Wilderness, the point in the state of Massachusetts closest to the Equator. However, I am here to talk about the Halftime Show, its reception, and the
Wonder Where Dynamic Horn Driven Blues-Soul & Funk Went? It Lives Fueled and Incendiary...
Every now and then I get a collection of tunes that are infused with nitroglycerin. Chris Daniels and The Kings with Freddi Gowdy is one such incendiary delight. “Blues with Horns, Volume 1” is quite a recipe for jumping out of your skin and dancing around in your bones.
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Concerning The Spiritual in The Tedeschi Trucks Band
Wassily Kandinsky, the great abstract painter, offered music as “the best teacher” for aspiring artists in his own book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. “With few exceptions,” he wrote, “music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather
Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks Remember their Roots – and Favorite Shows
It was a night with the Allman Brothers Band that I will never forget. Dickey Betts and the entire band were on fire, and my close friend Paul Rogers and I sat mesmerized in the second row at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California.
Paul and I had attended