JON DEE GRAHAM AND WILLIAM HARRIES GRAHAM News broke last Friday night that Jon Dee Graham had passed away that morning. What was already a SXSW performance highlight suddenly felt like something more. Jon Dee had battled serious health issues for years, making his reflection on the experience and performance of “I Can See Clearly […]
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 […]
The Montvales on Rehearsal Space Interlopers and How They Financed Their 2nd Album
Cincinnati-based duo the Montvales talk about touring survival mechanisms, investing in one’s relationship with creativity, and the time that they were billed as a French-Appalachian folk group.
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 […]
Monday Morning Video – John Moreland
Few artists mine the depths of emotion like John Moreland. “Break My Heart Sweetly”, from 2013’s In the Throes, is a prime example—raw and heartbreaking, capturing that brutal moment when you know exactly where a relationship is headed but can’t bear to reach the destination. Stark, beautiful, and deeply moving, it’s Moreland at his most […]
Monday Morning Video – TopHouse
Some shows remind you why you fell in love with live music in the first place. TopHouse delivered one of those last week in Boston. The Montana-bred group is rooted in bluegrass—intricate instrumentation, rich harmonies—but their songs are something else entirely: brilliantly crafted pop songs that hit like a gut punch. Live, those punches land […]
From Busker to Believer: The Hard-Earned Songs of Slaid Cleaves
Slaid Cleaves lives in Wimberley now, tucked into the folds of the Texas Hill Country, playing closer to home, keeping the circle small. The road that once stretched from Maine to Cork to Austin has narrowed. The songs, though, are still wide open. There was a time when he measured success in dollars and survival. […]
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 […]
Monday Morning Video – Stephen Kellogg
3000 shows. That’s a hell of a lot of shows — playing a show every night for more than eight years. Impressive enough on its own. But when you factor in the volume and caliber of music Stephen Kellogg has delivered over the course of his career, it becomes something else entirely. He passed through […]
Monday Morning Video – Matt Charette
Early last week, Boston singer-songwriter Matt Charette showed up at his barbershop to find it underwater. Literally. An upstairs neighbor didn’t take proper cold weather precautions, a pipe burst, and water came pouring down into the shop. The damage was devastating. But Charette’s doing what DIY musicians do—skip the pity party, roll up the sleeves, […]