Day: November 14, 2023

Nilsson’s first RCA album wasn’t a hit, but it showed a versatility that impressed a well-known band from across the pond In May 1968, John Lennon and Paul McCartney held a press conference in New York to announce the formation of Apple Corps. During the Q&A, a journalist asked the new businessmen to name their […]

A grand album by an off the radar singer-songwriter with a keen gift for melody and a taste for melancholy John Cunningham takes long gaps between his album releases. And, with each new record, the production is more textured and more elaborate. Happy-Go-Unlucky (2002) is number four, not counting a debut EP, and for this […]

The Kinks, one of the big three of the early British Invasion, were virtually non-existent on the American singles charts in the late sixties. One rogue music journalist saw to it that the band’s British singles and unreleased gems were made available for hard-core fans One of the greatest joys in my personal music discovery […]

An Unearthed DIY Classic Finally Gets A Proper Release An album like this couldn’t have been made in 1994. Strumming acoustic guitar and angel-like vocals. Minor keys, eerie piano, violin and cello. This isn’t the sound of a grunge band. And it’s DIY, recorded in a house in Livonia, Michigan, when big labels still ruled […]

The singer left a decade of fine albums from the fifties and sixties, but today she seems mostly forgotten Why is one of the best jazz stylists of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s not as well known as other vocalists of her time? This has been a perplexing question since I first discovered June Christy. […]

The Memphis megastar’s second release on Hi Records found its groove in the singers’ early influences. Al Green’s hits from the early 1970s are some of the most luscious recordings ever put on wax. “Tired of Being Alone,” “Let’s Stay Together,” “Call Me (Come Back Home)” “I’m Still in Love with You,” these songs define […]

Of all the blues singers, John Lee Hooker may have been the most productive. A glance at singles and LPs released under his name from 1948 to the posthumous 2003 release Face to Face, reveals one hulking discography of music. This includes studio recordings and live albums, along with all the packaged and repackaged compilations […]

A celebrated album by Brazil’s greatest singer and greatest composer turns fifty in 2024, but many American fans of Antônio Carlos Jobim had to wait until the compact disc era to hear one of the artist’s finest records. In 2001, a group of two-hundred Brazilian musicians, artists and journalists were asked to vote on Brazil’s […]

Burt Bacharach is playing the piano as the well-known arrangement for the second half of “A House Is Not A Home” erupts on the stage at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills in December 2019. The maestro stands to conduct the mini orchestra, just as he always had, going back to his early days when […]

The Bath singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist outdoes himself on his recent release Orchestral pop is hit-and-miss. Done poorly, it can ruin a well-written collection of songs. In just a few short years, Alex Pester has learned how to do it remarkably well. Better Days is a majestic achievement. Pester wrote, arranged, produced and mixed the album […]