52 Albums
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It is not often that music on the radio stops me in my tracks. I remember it happening when I was seven or eight years old, with Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar”, and twenty years after that, with “’t Smidje” from Laïs, the debut album of the trio Laïs – three young women in
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Although I’m only a mild fan of John Michael Talbot’s music, there are three of his albums that I place very high on my list of favorites. Two of them, The Painter and No Longer Strangers, were made with his brother Terry. The Painter was the first music I had ever heard of JMT. When
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What’s not to like about a band made up of three guitarists, bass, drums, a singer who doesn’t sing, and a classically-trained interpretive dancer? Bristol, England’s Blue Aeroplanes had put out several well-received independent albums in the 1980’s but it was their 1990 major label debut Swagger that gained them their first large hearing. I
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Time is short and here’s the damn thing about it You’re gonna die, gonna die for sure And you can learn to live with love or without it But there ain’t no cure The lyrics above are from the title track to John Hiatt’s very excellent 1988 release Slow Turning. I feel like some of
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This is not going to be an elaborate and insightful review of this album or Atkins. What can be said? He is the consummate musician, an amazing and versatile guitarist. He doesn’t pretend to be relevant or important or socially significant or insightful. He simply entertains by producing dazzling guitar. And, unlike, say, Les Paul,
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There was a moment in the mid-1960s when the irreverent new sensibility of English pop music met traditional culture on friendly terms: detached and maybe a little critical, but affectionate. You can hear it in some of the Beatles’ work—“Penny Lane,” for instance. In some of The Who’s songs. In Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone
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I used to be one of those people who thought the Beatles were the best musicians ever. I thought their compositions, arrangements, instrumentation, etc. were genius. My opinion of them has diminished considerably in the past few years. Now I find their music to be simplistic. McCartney is a great tune-smith and their instrumental work
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Imagine my surprise. Although I had read about it in Rolling Stone magazine and bought the cassette tape soon upon its release I was not prepared for the first song, or many thereafter. Rain Dogs sounded shockingly original and amazingly good, and since then I have collected through the years most of Tom Waits’ other
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[Note: There are seven links to YouTube videos in this piece. I more or less arbitrarily picked the first and last to embed for quick access, but thought embedding them all might make the page annoyingly slow to load.–Ed.] At some point when I was a teenager I thought I should like John Cale. I
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I'm going to start posting these on Thursday instead of Wednesday. That puts it closer to the middle of the week between Sunday Night Journals, which are posted either late Sunday or early Monday. My intention will be to post them first thing Thursday mornings, although occasional lapses are possible.
Light On Dark Water 