HAPPY HOUR Ted Hawkins Rounder Records 2033 I can still remember feeling shocked during my first play of Ted Hawkins’s debut album, Watch Your Step, in 1982. It was the dawning of the electro-pop era, and Hawkins stood out like some hairy, primordial beast stranded at noon in midtown Manhattan. I don’t mean that Hawkins […]
Category: Music Review
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Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials–Roughhousin’; Johnny B. More–Hard Times
ROUGHHOUSIN’ Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperial Alligator Records ALC 4749 HARD TIMES Johnny B. Moore B.L.U.E.S. R&B BRB 3604 Some of the most seminal events in blues history have been the result of blind luck. Muddy Waters’s beginnings at Aristocrat Records were typical: a chance appearance at a local union hall where an Aristocrat […]
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Los Lobos–By the Light of the Moon
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON Los Lobos Slash/Warner Bros. 25523-1 It is late at night, let’s say. The house is as quiet as a moonlit field, but the mind is full of commotion; it’s an ornery, unsatisfied old cuss, and it’s used to its freedom, including the freedom to move about, which has nothing […]
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Say no to pop: Five arguments for the existence of rock ‘n’ roll
I don’t think there is any such thing as pure pop. What matters is what feeds you. Like the way listening to Meet the Beatles thrills a spiritual/physical nerve ending, like breathing pure oxygen. “Pop” is a self-preservative ploy of London music scene partisans—a tasteless, odorless little nothing of a word used to obscure the […]
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Frank Sinatra–The Voice: The Columbia Years 1943-1952; Jerry Lee Lewis–The Killer 1963-1968; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band–Live/1975-85
THE VOICE: THE COLUMBIA YEARS 1943-1952 Frank Sinatra Columbia CXT 40343 JERRY LEE LEWIS: THE KILLER 1963-1968 Jerry Lee Lewis Bear Family Records BFX 15210 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND: LIVE/1975-85 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Columbia C5X 40558 Boxed sets–those unwieldy but rewarding multivolume compendiums– probably represent the best way […]