Bully of the Town
“Bully of the Town” seemed appropriate during this week of rude, angry, and petty actions.
“Bully of the Town” seemed appropriate during this week of rude, angry, and petty actions.
Remembering American Treasure Doc Watson this month on what would have been his 100th birthday.
The More to Come readers choose the top Saturday Soundtracks of 2022.
A punk rocker and a roots musician seem unlikely bedfellows, but they both understand threats to democracy.
The Punch Brothers bring innovation and love to their tribute to the late Tony Rice.
Celebrating the 100th birthday of my prized Gibson A-4 mandolin.
A birthday list of 60 things I’ve learned in my (now) 60 years of life.
The Getty Center and McCabe’s Guitar Shop allowed us to follow our passions in Southern California.
Many of my younger (read “hipper”) Facebook friends have regular status updates that read, “Joe Cool is listening to Still Sound by Toro Y Moi on Spotify.” Or something similar. I’m behind the times (what else is new), so somehow I haven’t gotten around to letting everyone know what I’m listening to at any time. Plus, my children would be mortified. They run from the room when my iPod is in the dock. But every now and then I listen to something and want to tell someone. I have to do it the old-fashioned way: through my blog. I don’t usually drive in to work, but today was different. And so instead of the iPod, I picked up a couple of CDs (you remember them) – Norman Blake’s Live at McCabe’s (which I’ve written about before) and the Tony Rice/Norman Blake duet album. These are two beautifully simple albums that are anything but simple musically. Blake and Rice are in the upper pantheon of acoustic country/bluegrass/newgrass guitarists. They’ve both played on seminal albums that set …
The last album in my review of top five albums to take to a desert island may be my all-time favorite. I’ve long loved John Hartford’s quirky, hippy-bluegrass Aereo-Plain album. So it was only fitting that last night, as I was returning from a dinner in Nashville with a long-time friend, I turned on Del McCoury’s Hand Picked show on XM Radio’s Bluegrass Junction and what was coming out of the speakers but Steam Powered Aereo Plane. Damn, Del has great taste in music! I was reminded all over again of why this album is on my list. What do I love about this album? Let’s start with the cover. My mother hated this cover when I was a teenager and my wife hates it still. I loved it so much that I had the father of a high-school friend who was a commercial artist do a charcoal drawing of Hartford with his shaggy beard and aviator glasses. (My friend Judy’s father had a side business of doing spot-on drawings of photographs from 1970s record albums.) …