Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
“Pete Townshend’s suicide note” is how music critic Roy Carr once described The Who’s October 1975 release “The Who By Numbers.” The band’s founder, songwriter and lead guitarist bared his tortured soul on this LP like no other. Yer blogger bought the record at the height of her teenage existential crisis…and needless to say, she … Read more
“Had me a real good time.” That’s the title of a song by Faces, and it totally sums up my feelings every time I rock-and-roll to the music of that premier British bar band. Their keyboard player Ian McLagan, who died suddenly of a stroke on December 3, 2014, would have been 71 today. I … Read more
In the early 1960s, in a foggy land far from the steamy Mississippi Delta, there lived a small band of missionaries who spread the gospel of American blues music to British artists seeking spiritual enlightenment beyond the pulpit of mindless pop and traditional jazz. Alexis Korner, born on this date in 1928, was among those … Read more
Question: what’s the next best thing to seeing your favorite artist perform at a rock concert? Answer: receiving a copy of the show’s program from a friend who attended the gig. Okay, I know that’s a stretch. Sure, you can drool over a concert program all you like, flip its pages till they fall out, … Read more
I was ready to log out of Facebook, with a vow to shake that social-media-monkey off my back for the rest of the day and get some real work done. And then I saw a post about a new video directed by filmmaker Max Weiland, cut to one of Elton John’s classic songs: “Tiny Dancer.” … Read more