Focus on the song: "Look at Miss Ohio"
Yesterday, after hours of engrossing myself in the new Dave Rawlings Machine album, A Friend of a Friend, I turned to my Gillian Welch collection. I got caught up on "Look at Miss Ohio" - a song I've certainly heard a thousand times before.
It was the
Wendy Bird hatches a small "Wonder"
I try to cling tenaciously, perhaps naively, to the belief that in music, quality will always win the day; that the good stuff will bubble to the surface and find an audience. It isn’t always easy to hold firm to that notion.
The recent release of Wendy Bird’s
My assignment: Michelle Shocked's 'Texas Campfire Tapes'
A week or two ago, when I was getting ready for a long flight, I asked my Twitter and Facebook followers to assign me an album to listen to on the plane. I promised to pick one at random and listen on repeat, then blog about it here. I made
The Power of Mariachi: thoughts on neglected roots music
Much has been written of the ability of music to move, enlighten and alter consciousness. Writers and musicians alike have expounded on the heart of the blues, the passion of opera, the righteousness of folk or the realness of hip-hop. But, in all my years of devouring music literature
Album Review: Kris Kristofferson's Closer to the Bone
Contuining a collaboration with producer Don Was that began with A Moment of Forever (1995) and This Old Road (2006), Kris Kristofferson went back into the studio this year with Was to make Closer to the Bone, a spare, mostly solo set of new original songs. Major kudos to Was,
Album Review: Lyle Lovett's Natural Forces
Attention, Lyle Lovers: Your man is back with a new album, Natural Forces, his tenth studio album, and third consecutive for the Lost Highway label. Although, as you’ve no doubt learned, if he were always the man that you wanted, he would not be the man that he is.