Category Archives: Music

Various artists’ Sleeping With Schubert

This collection is a companion piece to a book of the same title. It’s a lightweight book about a young woman who suddenly finds the ghost of Schubert somehow sharing her body. This CD, which touches on a smattering of … Continue reading

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Bonnie Marson’s Sleeping with Schubert

A young professional woman who doesn’t realize just how discontented she is with her routine life is suddenly possessed by the spirit of a well-known classical composer. It’s a good premise for a story. Liza Durbin, who lives in Brooklyn … Continue reading

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Anna-Kaisa Liedes’ Utua

Singer Anna-Kaisa Liedes has been a part of the folk music scene in Finland for 20 years. Best known for her work in groups like Niekku and MeNaiset, Liedes has spent her career blending Finnish and Karelian song traditions with … Continue reading

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Waterson:Carthy’s Common Tongue

This review was contributed by Alistair Brown. To embark on yet another review of the offerings of England’s foremost folk ensemble, Waterson:Carthy, is a bit like putting a pebble on top of the great pyramid of Cheops. It adds to … Continue reading

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Neko Case’s The Tigers Have Spoken

A live album often signals either contractual obligation for a musical act that’s treading water, or one that has nothing new to offer and hopes to cash in with a padded set of previously released material. But neither is the … Continue reading

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Cowboy Jack Clement’s Guess Things Happen That Way

We’ve been getting a lot of this genre in lately. Cowboy Song. Essentially it’s a softer, quieter country music. More like folk music in a lot of ways, but still featuring enough twang to rate high on the Western scale. … Continue reading

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Stan Webb’s Chicken Shack’s Still Live After All These Years

Not sure how many American readers will recall the great British band Chicken Shack. I suppose their biggest, or at least best known contribution to the world is Christine McVie (nee Perfect) to Fleetwood Mac. But since 1967 they’ve been … Continue reading

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Giant Sand’s …Is All Over the Map

Tucson desert rat Howe (the “e” is silent) Gelb has been making his idiosyncratic music since about 1980, when he formed Giant Sand Worms with the German guitarist Rainer Ptacek. Through the 1990s, Giant Sand included Gelb on guitar, piano … Continue reading

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Vilddas’ Háliidan

The contemporary folk music emanating from Scandinavia in general, and Finland in particular, has branched out from home-grown traditions to incorporate a great variety of musical styles across the globe, from Western pop and rock to Balkan and Middle Eastern … Continue reading

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Chris Stamey’s Travels in the South

Chris Stamey is an indie-rock institution. He helped define rootsy independent rock in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of The dBs. Since then, the Chapel Hill native has labored away under the radar as a solo act, … Continue reading

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