Fireworks Vol. 2 follows three other quality compilations released by Sweden’s Sound Asleep Records, a.k.a. hardware-store guy by day, label titan by night Jerker Emanuelson. Thus, saying that this 25-song collection is the strongest yet is meant as high praise. Emanuelson’s passion is music that falls somewhere along the pop-to-roots continuum – Sound Asleep has [...]

A similarly sports-minded friend and I have an annual discussion about the type of professional athlete we like to watch. He prefers the Naturals, the ones who make it all look so easy, while I appreciate the Pluggers, the kind who scrape and work double overtime for everything they get. This no doubt goes a [...]

Just gotta say it was enormously gratifying when The Boss fessed-up in a recent USA Today interview that he’d been groovin’ to The Raspberries’ Greatest Hits when he wrote a bunch of those pop tunes that made The River such a breath of fresh air in 1980. You could almost sense the cloistered Boss-heads recoiling [...]

On his third album for Rounder, hard-core Virginia bluegrasser James King opted to use his road band, supplemented by the great Bobby Hicks as guest fiddler. That’s a gutsy move, considering the high caliber of the backup on his previous albums, and while it has a price, it sounds as though King is a tad [...]

Texas-raised Ian Moore built his reputation as an ace blues guitar player, but his new album attests to his songwriting talent, showcasing the diverse styles of his original compositions.
“Airplane”, a ballad with a mysterious edge, features a pretty string quartet arrangement. The psychedelic rumble of “Closer” builds, then retreats like crashing waves on a beach. [...]

Merle Haggard didn’t say it first, but he probably said it best when it comes to smoke- and twang-filled homes away from home: “I’ve got swinging doors, a jukebox, and a bar stool.” On the album-opening title track of Little Honky Tonks, songwriter Buck Quigley and the rest of the Steam Donkeys have their say, [...]

Oregonians love to complain about the impact of transplanted Californians on their Eden — gridlocked highways, escalating property values, the “Californication” of the urban landscape. But the northbound migration has paid one dividend: an infusion of talent to the Portland music scene. Singer-songwriters are finding they can earn a living and even thrive in Portland [...]

Following up on the promise of their debut Cloud 9 Ranch, Memphis band the Pawtuckets show on Rest Of Our Days that they’ve tightened considerably between records. Guitars weave like Jimmy Miller-era Stones while maintaining a string-pulling country edge. Piano and electric piano are used judiciously, while touches of mandolin, harmonica and pedal steel keep [...]

Geoff Muldaur’s genius sprawls messily across styles and genres, all of them grist for a creative mill now well into its fourth decade. Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music is a convenient starting point for understanding Muldaur’s music, but it’s only that. Over the years, that substrate of blues, jug-band and hillbilly music has [...]