Category Archives: Music

Geoff Muldaur’s Blues Boy

Geoff Muldaur’s recent comeback albums (Secret Handshake and Password) have sparked his old label to release this 12-track compilation of tunes from the early years. Long out of print, the albums Muldaur made for Flying Fish Records were recorded in … Continue reading

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Various artists, The Wings Of Butterflies

This CD is unlikely to appeal to conservatives, whether of the “neo” or plain old-fashioned varieties. It is a highly political and often angry recording, aiming its barbs at a range of targets in the past, present and near future … Continue reading

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Russell Smith’s Sunday Best: The Cream of the Solo Albums

Russell Smith and I go way back. I first heard of Russell Smith on a 1974 Jesse Winchester album, when Winchester covered Smith’s hilarious and poignant “Third Rate Romance.” Later Smith’s own band, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, had a hit … Continue reading

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David Ackles’ Five & Dime, Roger Chapman’s Mango Crazy, and Mail Order Magic, and Tommy Sands’ Man, Like WOW!

There is a huge market these days for obscure music. Once only available on vinyl, sometimes only on expensive import copies, now remastered and attractively compiled and packaged, this stuff is finding release by caring archival labels around the world. … Continue reading

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Joan Baez Gracias A La Vida

This album and I go back a long way. Coming up on 50 years, actually. It was introduced to me by my Spanish teacher in the spring of 1974 during my freshman year at university, and at the time I … Continue reading

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Jascha Heifetz’s Brahms and Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos

Johannes Brahms, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77; Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35; Jascha Heifetz, violin; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. The 1879 premiere of Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77 elicited, as … Continue reading

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Liz Carroll’s Lake Effect

Two years on from Lost in the Loop, here’s the latest from Chicago’s Queen of the Fiddle. While Carroll composes almost all the music here (with two traditional tunes slipped in), there’s plenty of variety in found in the various … Continue reading

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Ingrid Heldt’s Love Matters

Lenora Rose wrote this review. This is not modern folk music. It’s a lovely album in the style of pre-rock pop, influenced by some modern singers, but just as often influenced by jazz. Except for the electric nature of the … Continue reading

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Various artists’ From Hell To Gone And Back: Texas Blues

Big Earl Sellar wrote this review. And so here we are, past the effective 100 year anniversary of the blues idiom – if you reckon by W.C. Handy’s rise to prominence – and Vanguard Records’ 50th. To celebrate, Vanguard’s reissue … Continue reading

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TW Henderson & the Blues of Cain, The Wilderness Years

Jeff Skolnik wrote this review for Folk Tales. The brand new Bluetrack Records label, based in Oxford, U.K., purports to have as its goal the preservation of the works of lesser-known blues artists. They chose, for their first outing, to … Continue reading

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