Prog-rock acts such as Genesis, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer are most remembered for the often unbearable pretension with which they attempted to mold rock ‘n’ roll onto classical music frames. But they had another, worthier mission: to move British pop music away from the crusty, city-bound, dance-hall tradition, and to find instead [...]

The triumphs and travails of Sara Hickman in the music industry are the stuff of minor legend. The budding folk-pop diva established herself with her 1989 debut Equal Scary People and was musically aligned with rising artists such as Tracy Chapman and Michelle Shocked, but her focus on the politics of the heart placed her [...]

No strangers to hard traveling, Robin & Linda Williams once again find themselves on treacherous terrain, where familiar faces turn into masks, words confound the listener, and that hooded guy with the scythe lurks in the shadows.
Drifting across the landscape, never quite connecting with each other or even themselves, are broken-down bar musicians, hell-bound gunslingers, [...]

Wagon emerged in 1996 with the Lloyd Maines-produced No Kinder Room on HighTone, following with more low-key country-rock in 1998 with Anniversary on overseas label Glitterhouse. Given that they hail from St. Louis, it’s no surprise this sturdy quartet displays imprints of their hallowed homeboys, Uncle Tupelo, as well as pre-split Jayhawks. Of course, you [...]

Testimonial #1: This record was the first outside project released on the imprint started by Kepi and Roach from punk-popsters Groovie Ghoulies. Testimonial #2: Dusty Wakeman and the Maddog crew provided support for three of the album’s eleven tracks. Testimonial #3: I like it (yes, this would probably be the least significant of the three).
Not [...]

When heard from a distance, the debut CD from Portland, Oregon, band the Dickel Brothers owes more than a passing nod to some of the Stones’ first attempts at country material (think of the tongue-in-cheek rendering of “Dear Doctor” and you’re getting there). Upon closer inspection, however, this surface similarity fades, replaced by a sound [...]

Georgia born and Manhattan savvy, Robert Burke Warren is a storyteller of depth and complexity. Accessing heartfelt memories and elusive images like a dusty old scrapbook, Warren showcases a variety of American folk forms with clear-eyed enthusiasm and dutiful craftsmanship.
…To This Day is filled with songs written from mature experience and authentic perspective, blending back-porch [...]

For the last couple of years, this rocking retro-countrypolitan band has shined like a klieg light between the cracks of Dallas’ college rock vs. swing vs. honky-tonk music scene. In this case, defying categories allows them to be booked into just about any joint seeking a spirited original band that’ll have dancers spinning and [...]

Over the last twenty years most of us have given up on Alex Chilton ever recapturing the soul-deep, emotional bull’s eye of songs such as Big Star’s “What’s Goin’ Ahn.” Maybe Alex has, too. Once upon a time, he could do “lonely” as well as anybody who ever sang into a microphone. Sinatra, Gram Parsons, [...]

While nowhere as sprawling, haunted and ambitious as her 1998 breakthrough Moon Pix, Cat Power’s latest, The Covers Record, finds Chan Marshall bewitching listeners with a quiet, understated charm. Both elegant and raw, The Covers Record draws one in slowly, nearly to be dismissed as an uninspired underachievement.
From the Stones’ “Satisfaction”, to Michael Hurley’s [...]