Tag Archives: blues music

Odetta’s Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues

Odetta is one of the key figures in the American and worldwide folk music revival of the 1950s, and along with Pete Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott one of the few still around and performing today. This glorious re-release of … Continue reading

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Patrick McGinley & Family Style’s Patrick, Family & Friends; Bob Neuwirth’s Havana Midnight; and Graham Parker’s Deepcut to Nowhere

Rebecca Swain wrote this review. McGinley’s in Italy with the blues guys, Neuwirth’s in Cuba with the classical musicians, and Parker is, apparently, just in a tizzy. Here’s the scoop. On Patrick McGinley’s enjoyable live (or at least partly live) … Continue reading

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Funks Grove’s Albuminium Blue

Chuck Lipsig wrote this review. In checking back to see what I thought about Funks Grove when I reviewed their EP last May, I find that I wrote: “And here’s one more damn fine folk- based band out of the … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Virginia and the Piedmont

Big Earl Sellar wrote this review. Another disc in the Alan Lomax series Deep River of Song, Virginia and the Piedmont has the fitting subtitle of “Minstrelsy, Work Songs, and Blues.” These great archival recordings are just the thing for … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Black Appalachia

Brendan Foreman wrote this for Folk Tales. In 1978 Alan Lomax, looking back at a decades-long career of field-recording, began to review the huge library of music that he and his father, John Lomax, had compiled in the 1930s and … Continue reading

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Various artists’ Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934

Big Earl Sellar wrote this review. Another set of field recordings made by the Lomaxes, Big Brazos focuses on the songs of the black work gangs in the early 1930s. It’s an interesting disc, another one of those brief moments … Continue reading

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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’ 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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Chris Whitley’s Hotel Vast Horizon

Chris Whitley first took center stage with a stunning debut album called Living With The Law in 1991. Slide guitar, solid rhythms and Chris’s vocals in a Lousiana gumbo … it was beautifully funky. After a couple of changes of … Continue reading

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