Is rockabilly a nearly lost traditional American art, or just a peculiar kind of drag for straight people? Kind of depends on who’s playing it. Ruthie & the Wranglers neither add to nor subtract from that equation with “Rockabilly Song #10,” which seems an intentional pastiche of traditional subjects and styles, delivered with the full [...]

Okay, first of all, imagine Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello had a child. The result would be Chris Trapper, songwriter/vocalist/guitarist for Boston trio the Pushstars. The music? Get out a piece a paper and draw a line. On the left side, write Vulgar Boatmen. On the right side, write Hootie & the Blowfish. Draw a [...]

This six-song disc opens with “Cactus Wine”, which on first listen sounds like a Texas fat string shuffle. But there’s more to it than that: Lots of twang and an unexpected modulation before the chorus make this a pretty cool song. The second song, a cover of Steve Earle’s “The Rain Came Down”, is pretty [...]

Listening to The Buried Life is a little bit like driving out of the city to a tattered old farmhouse to visit a couple of married friends at the end of the day. Which makes sense, given that the band is led by the husband-and-wife duo of Carey Kemper and Kelly Bell.
They split the lead [...]

The Iguanas are like a Big Easy version of Los Lobos, a soulful roots outfit fusing rhythm & blues with Tex-Mex. Several times during an Iguanas show, the band figuratively hops into a phone booth and is transformed from a bajo sexto-and-accordion conjunto to a New Orleans soul combo featuring double tenor saxes. Super Ball, [...]

Patty Griffin’s debut is in most ways a simple affair, 10 songs presented with only her voice and guitar for company. Her voice, however, travels an uncertain road, with stops to visit Rickie Lee Jones, Lucinda Williams, Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman. Left to her own, Griffin has a strong, sometimes breathy voice, with a tone [...]

The Ray Mason Band has been an established outfit in the New England area for many years. Their new Ocean Music disc, Between Blue and Okay, is a re-release of an album that originally came out in 1994; the Chunk disc Missyouville, which came out in 1995, is actually the band’s most recent recording.
There’s some [...]

My guess is that these Portland, Oregon, folks have spent more than a few minutes playing their old Stones albums. They’ve got that Keef rhythm down to a tee, and on the opening track, “Held Against You”, they’ve even got the fairly direct influence (okay, so they borrowed it) of “Dead Flowers”, speeding away from [...]

As bassist and erstwhile leader of San Francisco’s finest Tex-Mex-surf-polka-country-pop band the Movie Stars, Jill Olson shared songwriting duties with three diverse writers. Their two indie releases showed the band to be masterful musicians and interpreters but only hinted at their respective songwriting abilities. After the Movie Stars disbanded, Olson spent time performing with British [...]

Simply because the dobro and the banjo have traditionally been employed in country settings does not mean that’s all they’re good for. Bourbon Rosewater has the distinction of being the only disc in memory dedicated both to Bill Monroe and Baba Allauddin Khan (Ravi Shankar’s late guru), and to have a cover endorsement from George [...]