Talk about a spot-on name. I mean, seriously, this group is deep and totally dark. Songs with titles like My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent, The Place I Left Behind, The Gallows, The Sun Never Shines, and Mary's…
Read moreTalk about a spot-on name. I mean, seriously, this group is deep and totally dark. Songs with titles like My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent, The Place I Left Behind, The Gallows, The Sun Never Shines, and Mary's…
Read moreHave you heard of Kelly Willis? She's been around the music scene for a long time. But somehow I'm guessing that most of you (if there's anyone actually reading this) could not name any songs that she's recorded - -…
Read moreI've seen Bruce Springsteen three times. The first time was in 1995 when Bruce played at the Tower Theater in 1995 in support of his The Ghost of Tom Joad album. It was just Bruce and his acoustic guitar (and…
Read moreI've seen Steve Forbert about, oh, 50 times or so. Starting back in the late 70s and as recently as last year, he's always been one of my "if he's in town, I'll go see him" guys. Back in the…
Read moreThis post could be about the Everly Brothers, but it's not. I mean, The Cactus Blossoms are this century's reincarnation of the Everly Brothers, but they're not the Everly Brothers.
Still, they're brothers. Jack Torrey and Page Burkum. Jack, 29,…
Read moreI stumbled upon Sam Baker 10 years or so ago when, naturally, I was searching for songs about baseball. He wrote a song called Baseball on his first album, called Mercy, which he self released in 2004. Twelve songs, each…
Read moreWhen my oldest daughter Molly (I'm writing this as if anyone besides my oldest daughter Molly is reading this) was working for a little independent candy company in Brooklyn, one of the company's owners told Molly about Jonathan Coulton. And…
Read moreI heard this guy on WXPN a few weeks ago. David Wilson was the Philly Local Pick of the Day on Helen Leicht's show. The song that Helen played that day was good, but it didn't grab me; it was…
Read moreWhen I was in high school, the music was changing quickly. The sweet sounds of the early / mid 60s were turning to the harder edged / protest rock of the late 60s and the early 70s. You just have…
Read moreSometimes you kinda stumble on a group. You know, maybe you hear a song on the radio (that would be WXPN, usually) or Spotify / Pandora plays something "new" and unexpected. Or maybe iTunes leads you to a cool song.…
Read moreSo, on this Independence Day weekend, is there anything more American than baseball, apple pie and a great bar band? No? Agreed. And maybe the best bar band of them all is NRBQ.
NRBQ (which stands for The New Rhythm…
Read moreIs there a better group these days than The Avett Brothers? I mean, is there? They are pretty much awesome. And they have a new record that just dropped this past Friday. It's called "True Sadness." And it's filled with,…
Read moreMoving from the 50s to the 60s to the 70s to 2016. So, there's this kind-of-new group called Darlingside. Four Williams College grads. Yeah, maybe it would be a better story if they went to Amherst, but that's not really…
Read moreI'm sure that there were wonderful voices before Emmylou Harris. But, when I first heard Emmylou sing in the mid-1970s, I couldn't imagine that anyone possibly could have a more beautiful or sweeter voice. She's just angelic. And, well, perfect.
…
Read moreYou're back? Nice.
So following Song One, Buddy Holly's "Dearest" from the 1950s, let's move to the 1960s. Doc Watson was an American treasure, who died in 2012 at the age of 89. Born in Deep Gap, North Carolina, in…
Read moreHi. You're here? Cool. I won't keep you long. But here's the thing: There's so much good music out there. You've heard lots of it. And you know much of it. They play some of it on non-commercial radio stations…
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