Category Archives: Music

Richard Thompson’s The Old Kit Bag

In these angst-ridden times, it’s appropriate that Richard Thompson subtitles his first studio release in nearly four years, “Unguents, Fig Leaves and Tourniquets for the Soul.” But one can rarely take anything about Richard Thompson at face value, except for … Continue reading

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John Mayall’s The Turning Point

I was 18 years old in 1969, when this record was first released. I was just beginning a lifelong interest in the blues. A friend played Muddy Waters’ The Real Folk Blues album for me, and I was hooked. I … Continue reading

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Sir Douglas Quintet’s 1+1+1=4 and The Return of Doug Saldaña

Sir Douglas Quintet was but the first of many vehicles through which Texan Doug Sahm brought his sprawling musical vision to the world. The band had two charting singles, the Texas-garage-rock-meets-British-Invasion pastiche “She’s About a Mover” and the psychedelic-folk “Mendocino.” … Continue reading

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Calexico’s Feast of Wire

In Feast of Wire the Tucson, Arizona-based Calexico has made the most overtly political statement in its brief but prolific history. Their fourth full-length CD offers a cohesive vision of the collision of cultures in the desert borderland between the … Continue reading

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M. Ward’s Transfiguration of Vincent

With Transfiguration of Vincent, M. Ward is batting .1000. He has three solid albums released in a little over three years. The young Portland, Oregon-based musician just keeps turning out charming, idiosyncratic albums that mark him as an American original. … Continue reading

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Steve Forbert’s Any Old Time and various artists’ The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers

Jimmie Rodgers continues to be one of the most influential of American roots musicians, which is nothing short of remarkable for a scrawny, untutored consumptive whose recording career barely spanned five years, seven decades ago. But contemporary musicians keep recording … Continue reading

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Various artists’ The Rough Guide to the Music of Mexico

Mexico is a huge country. It has an immensely varied geography and a multitude of facets to its culture, born of the interraction between numerous native and European societies. Small wonder, then, that its music is so varied. The Rough … Continue reading

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Sweet Honey in the Rock’s The Women Gather

Sweet Honey in the Rock celebrates its 30th anniversary with this disc, a dozen-and-a-half songs in their trademark style. Sweet Honey is a women’s vocal ensemble that draws from the full range of African-American music — rhythmic chants, field chants … Continue reading

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Little Sue’s The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye is the third full-length CD by Portland, Oregon based Susannah Weaver, who performs as Little Sue. In the same way that 1999’s Crow was a cut above her 1997 debut Chimneys and Fishes, so The Long Goodbye … Continue reading

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Frank Zappa’s Zappa Picks by Jon Fishman of Phish

Frank Zappa was an iconoclastic American musician. He surfaced in the ’60s but was decidedly non-hippie and anti-drug, and his music drew more on jazz, classical and cabaret than the folk and acid-rock of that decade. If I had to … Continue reading

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