I heard Harry Manx a few years back and instantly dug his performance, which was concert footage from Australia. Manx’s rich slide guitar playing had a powerful enchantment. Steve Marriner, of the raucous swamp blues outfit MonkeyJunk, is a frequent Manx collaborator, and judging from Hell Bound for Heaven, the duo’s first album release, I […]
Jimbo Mathus on Rehearsing in an Old Fire Station and Working to Stay Afloat
Jimbo Mathus recalls riding multiple tour vans into the ground, time spent working as a deck hand for the Canal Barge Company in New Orleans and a blessed career without health insurance.
Roses And Cigarettes – Echoes And Silence
One of the threads that bind us here in Twangville is love for a soaring vocal, screaming guitar, driving rhythm, rock and roll song. Â Not the over-produced kind you get in some arena show, but one that has roots in a dimly lit bar in Memphis or Austin or Muscle Shoals. Â My latest find along […]
Joey McGee – El Camino Real
Although he wrote the rest of the songs on his new album, El Camino Real, the one that most epitomizes the record is a cover of Susanna & Guy Clark’s The Cape. Â Clark told the story, in his homespun way, of one of the crazy characters that inhabited his world. Â McGee adds an electric guitar […]
Melissa Ruth – Meteor
Starting a few miles north of the Golden Gate and lasting all the way to Canada, the coastal redwoods make their way to the very edge of the ocean. Â The climate that supports them cycles from the omnipresent fog in the summer to the waves of rain that blur the distinction between sea and land […]
Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson with the Tennessee Valentines – Amour
Once in awhile there’s a collaboration that turns the music word on its head. Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto was such a pairing when, in 1963, they popularized bossa nova jazz in the United States. Jan and Dean did much the same for surf music, and Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry paired up for a […]
Yola – Walk Through Fire
Yola Carter is well known in her native U.K., and soon she will be just as well known on this side of the big pond. While she has received some recognition stateside, her new album “Walk Through Fire†will no doubt put her front and center of the Americana scene. The album was produced by […]
Hayes Carll – What It Is
By the second song on the new album from Hayes Carll, What It Is, it’s already apparent that he’s moving away from the pensiveness of his last record to something more in line with his earlier work. Â But that’s also not to say he’s not improving his craft along the way. Â The dry wit and […]
Ted Russell Kamp – Walkin’ Shoes
With a resume that includes bass player, lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer, Ted Russell Kamp could be a contestant on The Most Interesting Man In the World. Â Most of those talents are on display on his latest record, Walkin’ Shoes. The first cut, Home Away From Home, sets the pace properly with a walking, […]
Monday Morning Video – Jimmy Cliff and Friends
How about we start off the week with a classic. Jimmy Cliff is a towering voice, both as a singer and a songwriter, and “Many Rivers to Cross” is among his finest creations. Don’t believe me? Look at this list of artists who have covered the song: Bruce Springsteen, Annie Lennox, Jimmy Barnes & Crowded […]