Good artists can achieve greatness in their creations, arriving through a combination of luck and hard work at a place where they define themselves. Great artists are measured by the ability to make such work, then transcend it. With Black Eye Galaxy, I believe Anders Osborne has transcended from being a good artist capable of [...]
When interviewed, Allen Toussaint often mentions the jolt he felt at his first encounter with Professor Longhair’s music, the earth-shattering effects of a radical listening experience. One could argue that Toussaint’s gift was the ability to distill and then arrange the pieces of Fess—the thundering left hand, the mesmerizing right—into an unparalleled combination of funk [...]
All best-of collections are subjective, leaving listeners to often say to themselves, “I wonder why they left these songs off and included these?” While Legacy is a splendid listen, what does jump out is the profusion of covers here. Regardless of the song, though, what is most appealing throughout is that Tab Benoit keeps the [...]
Theresa Andersson’s Street Parade is not Galactic’s Carnivale Electricos. The latter is a high-energy, hot-blooded celebration of Carnival while Street Parade’s mood is complicated. The title track/album opener gives listeners a reason to hear the album as melancholy when a mournful trombone glide just seconds into the song sets a blue tone, but the song [...]
Last year I was walking down Bourbon Street on my way to meet a friend when I was stopped in my tracks by a distinctive blues guitar sound. I walked into the club and there was Kipori Woods delivering a sleek, flashy solo that stood out from the rote-copy-band music of Bourbon Street like a [...]
After playing to crowded clubs for the better part of two decades, the Iguanas have likely witnessed a good sin or two. Sin to Sin, their first disc in four years, is loosely thematic, to suit its title. The rockers “You Make Me Sick” and “Won’t Sit Down” seem drawn from the more colorful conversations [...]
In a city known for its larger-than-life musical personalities, Tom McDermott strikes a serious figure. Not so much in his playing, which has its moments of wit and whimsy, but in his general demeanor and in his encyclopedic knowledge of the traditions he’s plumbed. From the withering exercise of All the Keys and Then Some [...]
The idea for this one was to pick up on the plan for the Dozen’s fifth album back in 1991, Open Up: Whatcha Gonna Do with the Rest of Your Life?, with each member writing his own composition. But after 35 years of life together on and off the road, it’s not easy for the [...]
Though a new season is on the horizon, we might consider ourselves residents of a post-Treme culture. Our central narratives, historic touchstones, and musical traditions are now common knowledge to millions of viewers. The world’s flame for New Orleans burns everlasting, but Mardi Gras Indians were on cable and the shadows of mystery recede accordingly. [...]
Kristi Guillory is known throughout Acadiana as a precocious Cajun-French musician with formidable academic credentials and responsibility for fronting Bonsoir, Catin, the leading female Cajun band to emerge from the past decade in Acadiana. She’s been writing Cajun-French tunes since childhood, having been one of the few fortunate musicians of her generation who grew up [...]
