In the end, nothing Carl Perkins tried came close to “Blue Suede Shoes”, the rockabilly standard that, even among his first singles, was a musical anomaly despite its status as cultural landmark. He was a gifted guitarist, a fine songwriter, a sturdy vocalist (inescapably from the Memphis neighborhood), a family man, and Johnny Cash’s friend.
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With all due respect to the labels that have helped to keep the recorded legacy of the original Carter Family in print during the CD era, this new release on Germany’s Bear Family label leaves them all in the dust.
Here, on eleven CDs, are all 287 surviving tracks recorded between 1927 and 1941 by the [...]

Love him or hate him, Hank Williams Jr. is his own man. After years of growing up under the thumb of his mother and her desire to have his career serve only as a tribute act to his father, Hank Jr. rebelled, intent on establishing his own musical vision and honoring his father without being [...]

Though rarely stated, there’s often a knotty challenge implicit in reissue reviews. Whether battling overfamiliarity or the weight of past critical judgment, the writer endeavors to listen with fresh ears, hopefully coaxing original insight and hidden inspiration from long-cherished works.
So be warned, there was a time in my youth when Marshall Crenshaw’s self-titled debut was [...]

In 1987, when the New Traditionalist movement was going strong, Marty Stuart went into the studio to record his second album for Columbia. His self-titled debut for the label had been a raucous, rockabilly flavored affair, and it showed that Stuart, despite his background in bluegrass — he joined Lester Flatt’s band as mandolin player [...]

Noel Boggs is just about unknown these days, yet during the critical 1940s and into the early ’50s he was one of the most popular West Coast steel guitarists, working not only for longtime friend Jimmy Wakely, but for Bob Wills, Spade Cooley and Tommy Duncan. He was popular because he was one of the [...]

Jamie O’Hara and Kieran Kane recorded three albums together, and wrote more songs than that. This, for the moment, is all that the marketplace chooses to offer of their magic.
And it was magic, their voices a wonderful extension of the tradition that connects the Del_mores to the Louvins to the Everlys to the Whites and [...]

Considering their musical pedigree, it’s amazing the Sky Kings were never allowed to take flight. Bill Lloyd (Foster & Lloyd), John Cowan (New Grass Revival), Rusty Young (Poco) and occasionally Pat Simmons (Doobie Brothers) convened in 1991, recorded two full albums for two labels (RCA Nashville and Warner Bros.), played live shows, did the radio [...]