It takes a clever bastard to link, in the space of a three-and-a-half-minute song, acts that include Eurotrash footnotes Nena, college-rock pioneers R.E.M., panty-removal soul brothers the Commodores, and MOR survivor Paul Simon. Even more impressive, Okkervil River singer and main songwriter Will Sheff does this without actually naming names, pulling off the feat in [...]

It could happen. Should anybody ever ask me to define “roots pop,” I won’t say a word. I’ll just walk over to the stereo and pop in John P. Strohm’s 1999 release Vestavia. At least that was the plan until Strohm’s Everyday Life arrived; I now have exhibits 1a and 1b. Both discs feature a [...]

If they gave out “Let’s Do Something Different” awards, Shivaree would clean up. The band’s new album consists of romantic covers, but as you can tell from the skewed title, it’s not a place to look for Gershwin or Lennon & McCartney. Try Motley Crue, Gary Glitter and David Allan Coe. And don’t go looking [...]

Friends and fans of Michelle Shocked have watched her go from being a punk rocker (before she ever made a record) to a folk singer to a pop artist to a folk deconstructionist to a funkateer to a singer-songwriter, and on and on. And now she’s released a gospel record. Recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass [...]

The Pixies reunion didn’t yield a proper studio album, but it did seem to encourage frontman Frank Black to pick up, dust off, and resume wearing his ancient stage name, Black Francis. No one else was using it. In theory, Bluefinger pays tribute to the late Dutch painter and musician Herman Brood, whom Black Francis [...]

This double-disc follow-up to last year’s tribute to the venerable Chicago institution finds ever more obscure performers tackling ever more essential tunes — some ancient, some only sounding that way. On the first disc, Tanglewood churns up the seafaring sing-along “South Australia”; Kelly Hogan & Scott Ligon duet kindly on Tom Paxton’s “Last Thing On [...]

A lot of folks, me included, figured Sonny Osborne’s retirement a couple of years ago would be followed quickly by that of his older brother. Instead, Bobby Osborne appears determined to pursue his own path — one not dramatically but rather incrementally different from that of the Osborne Brothers. On Bluegrass Melodies, his second solo [...]

If Jimmie Vaughan is involved, you know the groove is going to be deep and wide and true as an arrow. This album was conceived by Dykes (longtime frontman for Omar & the Howlers) as a solo tribute to the laconic Jimmy Reed, but after Vaughan was brought in for a couple tracks, he signed [...]

Tracy Nelson’s Mother Earth was one of the first San Francisco bands to embrace country music, after relocating to Nashville in 1969 (before moving to Nashville was cool) and releasing Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country. Drop the first three words and that title would fit this long-overdue sequel, in which Nelson balances the big [...]

The Pigeons Couldn’t Sleep is a lot more pensive than the first album Peter Himmelman released this year, My Green Kite. He’s twice gotten away with issuing two disparate full-lengths in a twelve-month period, and for good reason. He serves two completely different audiences: adult fans of sharply-written pop-rock, and their equally discerning children. As [...]