From the Blogs

• Interview with Raul Malo from the Mavericks
  May 2013 There are very few singers or bands that have a 100% distinctive Trademark sound; but The Mavericks achieved that very early in their career and in the UK you still can’t go to a Wedding without being corralled onto the dance-floor as soon as you hear the opening bars to Dance The Night Away. After breaking up in 2004 lead singer and songwriter, Rau […]
• The Great Escape, Brighton, 2013: day one
  So, here we are again, tramping the streets of Brighton, squeezing into someunfeasibly small spaces to see bands we've never heard of... I'd been feeling somewhat underexcited by this year's Great Escape because it the only one of hundreds of names on the bill that I knew I liked was Billy Bragg, who appears at the Dome tonight. But a quick bu […]
• Gary Atkinson of Document Records – Keeping the Blues Alive!
  DATC: Gary, tell us what Document Records is and what makes it special? Gary: It is rather unique! I was a CD reviewer when I first encountered it. From the 1970s onwards there were labels that were reissuing pre-war country blues. Artists’ works… […]
• CD Reissue Review: David Allan Coe - Texas Moon (Plantation/Real Gone, 1977/2013)
  Outlaw country three years before RCA named it There may never have been as iconoclastic a country artist as David Allan Coe. Though his rejection of Nashville norms drew parallels with the outlaw movement, he always seemed a notch wilder and less predictable than Waylon, Willie and the boys. Reared largely in reform schools and prisons through his… […]
• CD Review: Ashley Monroe - Like a Rose (Warner Brothers, 2013)
  The Pistol Annies' Ashley Monroe shines brightly in the solo spotlight As part of the Pistol Annies, Ashley Monroe's star power was obscured by the outsized shine of her bandmate, Miranda Lambert. Though the Annies share lead vocals, they present themselves as a trio, with only Lambert's fame standing out individually. But stepping out for her […]
• Show Review: Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses) At The Music Hall Of Williamsburg May 8, 2013
  GRAMMY winner Steve Earle is one of America's greatest living storytellers, but he's not stopping there. Earle's 15th studio album, 2013's The Low Highway, is a road record written about what he experienced from the window of his tour bus while traveling across the United States. His latest tour stop landed him in the heart of one of the […]