Music
Corey Harris, Greens from the Garden (Alligator)
Joy— pure joy — that’s what you’re dealing with here. Look at Corey on the cover: gravity-defying dreadlocks bound up in a topknot, a big ol’ grin, a blue business […]
Various Artists, The Orleans Record Story (Orleans Records)
Even if you’ve only got a small assortment of contemporary New Orleans music, in all probably you’ve got at least one Orleans Records CD. Carlo Ditta’s Orleans label has been […]
Astral Project, VoodooBop (Compass)
In their twenty year history as a band, these five New Orleans jazzmen have developed a sound completely their own, embodying the highest ideals of art, while maintaining a childlike, […]
Kermit Ruffins, Swing This! (Basin Street Records)
Swing this? Well, bam!, like that celebrity chef from the Crescent City likes to say, let’s kick it up a notch, which is exactly what Kermit Ruffins has done here. […]
Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band, The Mountain (E-Squared)
In 1995, after serving a sixty day sentence for heroin possession in Nashville’s Criminal Justice Center, Steve Earle walked out of jail and embarked upon one of the music industry’s […]
Tab Benoit, Debbie Davies and Kenny Neal, Homesick for the Road (Telarc)
Cross the talents of two veterans of the Louisiana blues scene with a former featured guitarist for the late Albert Collins and – in this case anyway – you’ve got […]
Sleater-Kinney, The Hot Rock (Kill Rock Stars)
Almost by definition, punk music takes risks, and when Carin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney sings, “Bless me with Athene/there’s no meaner, she’s the best,” she invites the charge of pretentiousness, but […]
Tim Hagans, Animation Imagination (Blue Note), Russell Gunn, Ethnomusicology Volume 1 (Atlantic)
“There’s no point in making the same kind of record that Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton or Wallace Roney makes,” says trumpeter Tim Hagans. But electronic rhythm machines, reprogrammed backing tracks, […]
Louis Jordan, The Anthology 1938-1953 (MCA/Decca)
It’s not just the creation of the small-scale jump band or the development of jazz nuance married to a shuffle beat, not even the unprecedented use of electric guitar, blues […]
Various Artists, Men Are Like Street Cars…Women Blues Singers 1928-1969 (MCA)
Women and the blues make “an odd coupling,” says Mary Katherine Aldin, a well-established researcher who is the guiding force behind this historically comprehensive, musically compelling 2-CD collection. It’s the […]
