Being the son of a Boston roots-rock legend hasn’t done Jake Brennan, son of Dennis, any harm. For one thing, genetics aside, the singer and songwriter seems to have a good handle on his dad’s record collection, which possibly includes many original Sun Sessions discs and a good number of Elvis Costello records, two things [...]

Kaz Murphy is a storyteller. The stories-as-songs of his second solo disc are lyrical tales set to muted blues, dusky western swing, choogling country and folky roots rock. This Philly native, who honed his Americana skills in Seattle but now lives in Los Angeles, delivers an even-toned set, his dry emphatic voice, with its slight [...]

Brooklyn native and Cambridge, Massachusetts, habitué Kris Delmhorst heads south for influences on her third album. To shape this musical journey, Delmhorst follows the wake and wane of a hurricane, tracing the rising tempest, its ensuing calm, and the deluge of the aftermath as a format for these country, bluegrass, gospel and western swing influenced [...]

With Anglicana, young English folk artist Eliza Carthy waves the flag for old Blighty and coins a term to answer the popular ideal of Americana. Rather than a separate movement, or any movement at all really, Carthy presents the now well-recognized roots beneath American folk and country music. Unlike Americana, which incorporates various influences including [...]

Brooks Williams follows the shimmering folk blues of 2001’s Skiffle Bop with a richer-sounding, tightly constructed, often pop-inflected set that includes several intriguing covers. Williams kicks off with ’80s Scottish popsters Aztec Camera’s “Birth Of The True”. Later he reprises John Martyn’s classic “May You Never”, blues singer and pianist Memphis Slim’s “Mother Earth”, and [...]

The Lonesome Brothers’ musical roots lie in the initial era of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion, the 1950s, and in the seminal alternative culture of the ’60s. Pony Tales, the fourth release from the Massachusetts trio, has shades of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and is deeply colored by the Bakersfield sound and southern rockabilly, not [...]