Paul Butterfield Should Be in the Rock Hall by Now
Martin Scorsese captured something of Paul Butterfield’s singular stature in the way he framed the harmonica player’s appearance in The Last Waltz. Following an interlude in which The Band recounts meeting Sonny Boy Williamson near the end of his life in Helena, Arkansas, the blues portion of the
River Crombie - Light Trails
I first became aware of River Crombie through a YouTube video where he covered John Martyn’s 1967 track “Ballad of an Elder Woman”. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill cover performed by some guy down the street in his living room. This had a timeless quality and was professional and
Coltrane Comes Home, to Find His Deepest or His Most Far-Flung Self?
How far out did John Coltrane go at the end? Or how far inward, to the depths of the universal, Emersonian self most of us rarely touch? Was his quest fueled by mere artistic restlessness or by a sense of how to face, or embrace, his own impending mortality?
Such
Serpents of Reformation - David Childers
Lordy, lordy. David Childers has got religion. Anybody familiar with Childers' work won't be surprised to discover that his worship style is not the head-bowed, on your knees variety, however. Childers is more of an Old Testament type of guy -- a two-fisted, snake handling prophet, shouting
James McMurtry's Continental Riffs
James McMurtry sits at the counter of an Austin diner called Snack Bar, its exterior illuminated by a giant neon phallus announcing the name of the adjoining motel. As he drinks red wine, he briefly discusses his hobbies, of which there aren’t many. He likes to fish and hunt,
The Men They Couldn't Hang - The Defiant
If there is such a thing as an objective music reviewer, I fall far short of the standard. Fine. Whatever. No one is buying an album because of what I write or don’t write anyway. Normally, that’s perfectly okay with me, but not this time. As the self-appointed