Music
Little Freddie King, Chasing tha Blues (MadeWright Records)
While Chasing tha Blues gets off to a promising start, it begins to lose steam well before the conclusion of the chase. King is New Orleans’ resident free-form country bluesman, […]
Chris Thomas King, Antebellum Postcards (21st Century Blues Records)
I often think that it must be hard to be Chris Thomas King—to have a restless musical imagination that prompts him to explore a host of styles and the chops […]
Bobby Michot, Gone Back (Independent)
When Cajun musicians often talk about playing it the old way, they mean music played in an accordion-fiddle or accordion-fiddle-guitar configuration. Bobby Michot’s solo debut is a good example of […]
Ruthie Foster, Let it Burn (Blue Corn Records)
When Ruthie Foster first played Jazz Fest in 2008, I sat next to her as she sang during our interview on the Music Heritage Stage. At arm’s reach, her voice […]
Gravity A, Renegade Masters (Independent)
On this three-track EP, Gravity A generates an impressive selection of sounds, amalgamated within the tricky livetronica genre. Against the yardstick of an electronica DJ, many bands would come off […]
Jimmy C. Newman, Swamp Country (Independent)
When you’re an octogenarian with an illustrious, seven-decade career as a country-charting artist and a regional Cajun icon, you can pretty much do whatever you want at the twilight of […]
The Dukes of Dixieland and the Oak Ridge Boys, When Country Meets Dixie (Independent)
If it sounds, both to ear and brain, like a no-brainer—country two-beat infused into Dixieland spontaneous jubilation—well friends and neighbors, it’s a sandwich served fresh and worth salivating over. The […]
Various Artists, Aimer Et Perdre: To Love & To Lose Songs 1917-1934 (Tompkins Square Records)
Released appropriately and sarcastically enough on Valentine’s Day, this new set of 78s is summed up aptly by Robert Crumb, who always loved this sort of stuff and who furnished […]
Los Nombres, Los Nombres (Numero Group)
Lorain, Ohio. Who knew this Lake Charles-size town 30 miles west of Cleveland produced such a microcosm of America in the ‘60s? In the post-war era of the early ‘50s, […]
Junior Wells’ Chicago Blues Band, Hoodoo Man Blues (Delmark Records)
For decades, this set has been considered one of the top 10 post-war blues albums. “Set” is a good way to describe Hoodoo Man Blues, as the original 1965 LP […]
