Music
Zigaboo Modeliste, New Life (Independent)
Drummers have the most difficult time going from being sidemen to leaders. Whether you were the propulsive force of your previous band or the featured soloist, the transition to front […]
Dickie Landry, Fifteen Saxophones (Unseen Worlds Records)
Sax player Dickie Landry left south Louisiana in 1969 to push music farther than he could back home as a member of the horn section for the Swing Kings. A […]
Dennis McGee, Himself (Valcour Records)
Dennis McGee (1893-1989) is perhaps Cajun music’s most influential fiddler, an early recording pioneer who contributed a sizable repertoire that illustrated what pre-20th-Century Cajun music was like prior to the […]
The Help, Keep the Beat (Independent)
What much of 1980s nostalgia fails to acknowledge is that there was more to new wave than funny clothes and synthesizers. New wave was, in ways, a means of creating […]
Joe Adragna, Fall Back (Greenleaves Sound)
Joe Adragna’s a pop purist. As the Junior League, he embraced pop’s exuberance as well as the craft that makes great songs. On Fall Back, the energy’s dialed down and […]
Albert King, The Definitive Albert King on Stax (Stax Records)
The very first blues album I ever purchased was Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign. Forty-two-years later, I still have it and play it. It’s been through three years […]
Various Artists, The Big Beat: The Dave Bartholomew Songbook (Ace Records)
Initially, this one blew me away, but this could have been so much better. There’s no way to understate Dave Bartholomew’s contribution to popular music, so many musicians are included […]
Les Amies Louisianaises, Le P’tit Chevrolet (Musique Acadienne)
The debate over of what is and is not traditional Cajun music will likely rage on until judgment day, but credit Les Amies Louisianaises for putting a fresh spin on […]
Alexis Marceaux, Orange Moon (Independent)
With Orange Moon, Alexis Marceaux takes an ambitious leap as a solo artist: stepping out of the prosaic, singer-songwriter nest of her capable 2009 debut, Dandelion, into the daring, cinematic […]
Conun Pappas, Jr., The Other Side of Me (Independent)
Pianist Conun Pappas, Jr.’s second album, The Other Side of Me, is filled with loneliness, despair, isolation, and Auto-Tune—lots of Auto-Tune—and just about every other lo-fi, processed effect imaginable. It’s […]
