Having been compared to everyone from Bessie Smith to Dinah Washington to Diana Krall, Mississippi blues mama Eden Brent summons them all, and more, on her second album, recorded in New Orleans with some local ...

The jazz-pop singer Norah Jones is no stranger to collaboration. Even before the world came to know Jones through her 2002 multi-platinum Grammy- winning debut Come Away with Me, she had turned heads the previous ...

In a deeply satisfying work of self- exploration, Eric Clapton dives into some blues, gospel, pop, and southern-flavored rock ’n’ roll past and present; assembles crack bands on each track that include the likes of ...

Neil Young has long had a talent for writing lyrics that are elusive yet compelling. Although many of the lines in “Tell Me Why” from After the Gold Rush elude me, that doesn’t make it ...

Upon its release in 1975, Blood on the Tracks became the target of critics who disparaged the album’s “shoddiness” (Rolling Stone’s Jon Landau) and dismissed it as possessing little more than a “functional” sound (Greil ...

Now 77, Willie Nelson has been part of America’s cultural consciousness for so long it’s hard to remember that this brilliant, braided, pot-smoking iconoclast spent the beginning of his career penning tunes for others, because ...

The 1970s was a golden decade for singer/songwriters, and one of the purest voices to bring this repertoire to life was Linda Ronstadt. Known for her inimitable styling, gutsy power, and in later years her ...

It’s been twenty-five years since country’s first supergroup, the Highwaymen— Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson—joined forces to record. These four giants shared a deep and complicated friendship through the years as ...

The Beatles disbanded in 1970, leaving a rich cultural and musical legacy that included 19 hit albums in the States. Three years later, Capitol Records released two greatest hits albums: the first sported a red-framed ...

Black Dub’s self-titled debut album imaginatively combines 60s-style psychedelic guitar riffs with reggae-tinged blues, female soul singing, and gospel music. With Daniel Lanois on guitar, Trixie Whitley on lead vocals and keyboard, Brian Blade on ...

In the 1960s, Jerry Garcia joined up with Sandy Rothman and David Nelson to play bluegrass and old-time music. Twenty- some years later, the trio reunited; along with John Kahn, Kenny Kosek, and David Kemper ...

The buzz around the debut of Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen is well-earned. A lot of what makes the quartet special is found on the first track, the hard- charging Solivan original, “Driftin’ Apart.” The ...

Coming off White Sugar, one of the most promising blues debuts of recent years, Joanne Shaw Taylor’s Diamonds In the Dirt is proof anew that far from being moribund the genre is in fact being ...

There can be a good deal of snobbery in audiophile circles, not only when it comes to audio equipment but also music. Now in some ways this disposition is understandable. Snobbery can sometimes be hard ...

Sufjan Stevens fans tend to cut their hero a lot of slack. After all, his last full-length album of new material was Illinois—a towering blend of rock structures, classical composition techniques, and poetic lyrics. His ...