Somewhere out there, the last few veterans of World War I drift off to sleep with their memories of the trenches, the Somme, the gas. The history is still there; the direct human connection soon won’t be. The same might be said of the great era of blues, with a couple of differences. First, the [...]

Obviously, musical styles develop and change over time. But just as obviously, to establish a style is to establish a permanent possibility of expression. If you really want to play like Bob Marley, or the Rolling Stones, or Elmore James, or the Ramones, or for that matter Beethoven, you can. That is of course not [...]

Gurf Morlix, the self-named producer and sideman for everyone, can, it turns out, write like a mother, sing like a mother: in short, deliver like a mother. Alt-country/folk-rock in the vein of once or future Gurflings such as Buddy & Julie Miller and Lucinda Williams, this album also has a peculiar sensibility: head utterly in [...]

Sometimes the recordings of a great songwriter are clumsy or otherwise imperfect. But sometimes that makes them all the more touching and beautiful. Chris Richards’ performance of these ten magnificent songs is not polished, but that is not to say it is not in its own way perfect. The style is melancholy, trad country in [...]