In a mere five years, Memphis’s aptly-named Reigning Sound have managed to cut some of the finest rock ‘n’ roll albums in recent history. The brainchild of former Oblivion and Compulsive Gambler Greg Cartwright, their first two discs, Break Up… Break Down and Time Bomb High School were masterworks of beautifully produced rock ‘n’ roll [...]
If you’ve never heard of Wild Jimmy Spruill, you’re not alone. But if you’ve ever grooved to the magnificently churning guitar solos on Dave “Baby” Cortez’s “The Happy Organ” or Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City,” you’ve certainly dug his way with a six-string. And once you crank this disc up, Jimi Hendrix may suddenly not seem [...]
It lasted for only 26 episodes but it was very possibly the hippest show to ever grace a television screen. It’s been unavailable for viewing since the mid-’60s yet one glimpse is likely to render any R&B fan absolutely speechless. It’s The!!!!Beat, brainchild of the great William “Hoss” Allen, the pioneering disc jockey who’d been [...]
Troy Shondell If you take Highway 90 (or “Route 90” as Clarence “Bon Ton” Garlow would have it) out past Mosca’s Restaurant to the settlement of Des Allemands you’ll see the Lucky 7 Truck Stop on the left hand side of the road. Next door is a general store of sorts that houses Somme’s Marina [...]
The evening of Saturday, July 15, will be a milestone for filmmaker Dan Rose. On that night at One Eyed Jacks, he’ll screen Wayne County Ramblin’, the film that he’s dedicated the last 15 years of his life to making. Like any self-respecting rock ‘n’ roller born and raised in the Detroit, nothing that Rose [...]
The Bush Hogs are such an unbelievably great band that it’s absolutely heartbreaking that A) They don’t play more often than they do and B) That they don’t have a stack of albums on the market. But with guitarist DM Bob keeping the South Louisiana swamp sound alive in Germany with his famed one man [...]
If there’s a singular source of pioneering Pachuco artistry that laid the groundwork for every Latino rock ‘n’ roll band from Sunny and the Sunglows to Sonny Ace and the Twisters, from Sam the Sham to Santana, from the Sir Douglas Quintet to ? and the Mysterians, from Little Joe and the Latinaires to Los [...]
