Difficult to label — tequila roots-rock? southwestern E Street? — Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers’ music marries Clyne’s instantly recognizable vocals to music that shifts moods, rhythms and textures among pop, rock, reggae, Tex-Mex, and more. The impassioned narratives within that music involve criminals lethally ensnared by events spiraling out of control (“Switchblade” and the [...]

Minnesota’s Red House Records label recently asked its talented stable of singer-songwriters to pick any song from Bob Dylan’s vast catalog and record a cover of it for inclusion on the label’s tribute to native son Bob Dylan in honor of his 60th birthday. Faced with selecting a song from almost 40 years of music, [...]

There are basically two ways to review a covers record. You can listen to it as simply another new album by the artist under consideration, or you can examine each cover and compare/contrast it with the original version of the same song. Thumbing through my personal collection, I was pleased to find that I had [...]

“I wish I had a blue guitar/A blue guitar to play all night long/Singing songs of loss and love/Singing songs…’til morning comes.” “Blue Guitar”, the second song on Miles From Our Home, typifies the Cowboy Junkies on several levels. The Junkies have made a career out of singing songs of love, loss and loneliness, and [...]