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Big Head Todd and the Monsters: Black Beehive
by Doug Collette
Big Head Todd & The Monsters have maintained a solid and occasionally high profile since their formation in 1986. Regular studio and road work has produced a fairly extensive discography of albums and DVD's as well as authorized concert recordings, including their previous project under the pseudonym Big Head Blues Club, 100 Years of Robert Johnson, the flavor and style of which tribute to the seminal bluesman Robert Johnson carries over to Black Beehive. Produced by Steve Jordan, ...
read moreThe Pogues: The Very Best Of The Pogues
by Skip Heller
The hybrid of punk rock and world music is by now expected, and the Pogues are by now the known avatar. But in 1984, when the band's debut album, Red Roses For Me (Stiff), was released, it made no impression. It didn't sell, and it wasn't written about much. Their blend of Celtic folk and English punk rock was audacious, the songs sharp, and the audience nowhere to be found. The reasons for this range from that their label (Stiff) ...
read moreRichard Thompson: Dream Attic
by John Kelman
Few artists have maintained the unerring consistency of Richard Thompson's near-half century career. After leaving Fairport Convention in 1970--cofounded by the British singer/songwriter/guitarist and bringing electrified energy to music born of the British folk tradition--Thompson's own career grew from those innovations to incorporate an even broader range of stylistic references, all filtered through a particularly dark filter. Shoot Out the Lights (Hannibal, 1982) remains one of the most painful breakup records ever released, charting #9 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest ...
read moreLos Lobos: Tin Can Trust
by John Kelman
Prolificity ain't all it's cracked up to be. With but a dozen studio releases in three decades, Los Lobos' discography may be small, but combines substance and style. Since the breakthrough How Will the Wolf Survive? (Slash, 1984) and massive radio hit--a re-visioning of Richie Valens' classic “La Bamba," from the 1987 bio-pic of the same name--Los Lobos has been mining a distinctive and unfailingly honest nexus of roots and rock. They may not sell as many records as Eminem, ...
read moreEmerson, Lake & Palmer: A Time and a Place
by John Kelman
With two-thirds of progressive rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer having just completed its first tour in over a decade--an intimate theatrical tour featuring keyboardist Keith Emerson and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Greg Lake, billed as an unplugged warm-up for July, 2010, when the full trio will reunite for what is, so far, a single date at London's High Voltage Festival---a box set that collects live performances from the group's quarter-century off-again/on-again career seems to make a lot of sense. And with Shout! ...
read moreThe Marshall Tucker Band: Way Out West: Live in San Francisco 1973
by Doug Collette
Of all the band's on Phil Walden's Capricorn label during the heyday of Southern rock in the 1970s, The Marshall Tucker Band came closest to The Allman Brothers in its ability to write memorable material and improvise with a real sense of adventure. Way Out West: Live in San Francisco 1973, forcefully illustrates the band's virtues.
MTB distinguished itself even further from its forebears by its eclectic mix of influences. Blues was no more or less important than country music, ...
read moreHall & Oates: Live at the Troubadour
by Mike Perciaccante
What do you do when you've been releasing albums, CDs, videos and DVDs for almost forty years--and your last release featuring new material was five years ago? Well, there are three choices. There's the Santana route, where one works with all of the hottest new acts on a duets/collaborative disc. Or you can get on the hotline to Rick Rubin and/or Clive Davis and beg for their help in producing a blockbuster CD. Or you can take the route that ...
read moreJoe Tex: First On The Dial
by Nic Jones
Joe Tex had some thirty hits with the Dial label and his earliest efforts for it are collected here. His was a soul voice that lacked both the grit of Otis Redding and James Carr's depth, which ensured that his ability to move was dependent on the quality of his material. He was a songwriter with a huge output, and with one exception here everything comes from his pen.
The earliest sides are representative of a talent still in the ...
read moreMickey Hart & Zakir Hussain: Global Drum Project
by Glenn Astarita
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, tabla master Zakie Hussain and other eminent percussionists who comprise this time-honored outfit continue with their navigations of life's heartbeat. This studio session commemorates the fifteenth-anniversary of the influential Planet Drum (Rykodisc, 1991).Pristinely recorded, the artists use some of the latest and greatest studio processing techniques to augment the inherent instrumental elements. With oscillating chants and orations intermixed, the musicians merge tuned percussion and stringed-instruments into pulsating world-groove motifs. The sonic treatments are ...
read moreHerb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: Whipped Cream and Other Delights
by David Rickert
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream and Other Delights Shout! Factory 2005
One time in high school I flipped through my parents' records hoping that they might have purchased some Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd albums without my knowledge. No such luck, but tucked in between Barbara Streisand and John Denver was a copy of Whipped Cream and Other Delights. “This must be great. Look at the cover! I thought ...
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