You’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “but for the grace of God, there go I.” For St. Louis native Adam Gaffney, sometimes God’s grace wasn’t around and so he went down a few harmful paths. He has a new album coming out next month, Product of Another Sad Song, and it’s centered around some of […]
Ben Musser Song Premiere – Sentimental Fever
Like all things artistic, it’s hard to predict where one’s musical muse is going to be. A lot of musicians find a move into some beautiful surroundings provides the necessary inspiration–there’s nothing like Mother Nature to open your mind to the wonders of life. Wyoming resident Ben Musser found the opposite. After spending years in […]
Andy Hedges – The Westerner
It used to be called country & western. Then two or three decades ago, for reasons I’m sure the ethnographers still debate, it just became country music. Western just sort of slipped out of the vernacular, except for maybe a strip of North America from around Calgary to somewhere near El Paso. Fortunately, there’s still […]
Krislyn Arthurs Song Premiere – Missin’ Man
When you grow up in a small town you learn young that one thing you’ll never have is anonymity. So you quickly figure out how to smile and be polite because you just can’t avoid anyone. That does not mean people don’t make bad decisions, and then live with the results of those choices. Krislyn […]
Joe Troop & The Truth Machine – Joe Troop & The Truth Machine
Joe Troop is a poly-polyglot. He speaks several languages, notably English, Spanish and Japanese but also Arabic and French. He plays many instruments, most frequently banjo and fiddle. He also mastered, among other things, the Moroccan kamancheh and the Japanese shamisen. His musical style favors folk music from around the world, from bluegrass (U.S.) to […]
Sam Lewis – Everything’s Fine
Is everything OK? Everything’s fine. Uh-oh. Your interpretive skills are just about to be put to the test. That kind of verbal misdirection became an anchor point for Nashville’s Sam Lewis’ 7th studio album, Everything’s Fine. It can be equally true and false at the same time, like when you’re having a bad day but […]
Paula Boggs Band – Sumatra
I suppose it’s only natural that a musician from Seattle would use a region’s coffee as a metaphor for the style of one of their albums. Sumatran coffee is generally considered to be bold and full-bodied, with notes of earthiness, spice and chocolate. That’s actually not too bad of a one-line review for Paula Boggs […]
Andy Thomas – Highway Junkie
You know the saying: you gotta dance with the one who brung ya. Having spent years being the frontman and/or guitarist for a few outlaw honky tonk southern rock bands, that was the obvious choice of style for Andy Thomas’ newest record, Highway Junkie. As you might have intimated from the album’s title, he had […]
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Future Soul
If you’re reading this, it’s a safe bet you know about the Tedeschi Trucks Band: a couple of hotshot solo artists who merged their bands and their lives and have proven the idiom that one plus one can equal three. They have a new studio album out next week, Future Soul. There’s an important piece […]
Alan Williams – Floating On the Dreamline
If Alan Williams’ life-to-date was a Hollywood movie, it would be one of those where it starts at the end. In this case, it’s his combination retirement/record release party later this month. The album is his third solo release, Floating On the Dreamline. The retirement is from being a professor of music at the University […]