blues
TRACK: The Lost Highway Tapes – ‘Something To Say’: stripped-down funky blues with The Infadels
THE LOST Highway Tapes is the project of a serendipitous encounter for Fabyl Records’ Nick Faber, who was out on a crate-diggin’ exploration of the American South. He was in the south of Florida when he came across a weatherbeaten busker bringin’ the blues on a steel guitar, tapping straight into the main source. He …
Track: Robert Plant reveals the unreleased Charlie Patton Highway (Turn It Up – Part 1) from upcoming compilation
Out October 2nd on his own Es Paranza label is a new career-spanning 2cd retrospective of the career of the legendary Robert Plant, Digging Deep. It includes tracks from across his eleven solo albums, but also includes three unreleas3d numbers – ‘Nothing Takes the Place of You’, written by New Orleans musician Toussaint McCall and …
Premiere: The Son(s)’ icy, baptismal video for ‘Lord, I Am Grateful’
EDINBURGH’S The Son(s) are not a band to shy away from the raw side of living in their creative pursuits. The video for their latest song, which the band are premiering today with Backseat Mafia, is the absolutely soul-wide-open paean “Lord, I Am Grateful”, and which was filmed immersed in the icy, peaty currents of …
TRACK: William Shatner and Canned Heat decide: ‘Let’s Work Together’
AND now he’s back. From outer space. The rebellious re-interpreter of “Mr Tambourine Man” and “Lucy in the Sky in Diamonds” on his album, The Transformed Man, in 1968. Brilliant bewitcher and bemuser of lyricist Bernie Taupin at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards in his theatrical, declamatory, absolutely seminal take on “Rocket Man”. And …
Remembered : Leon Redbone
Leon Redbone was one of those characters that seemed to have stepped out of an E.L. Doctorow novel, or an Our Gang comedy. Playing Tin Pan Alley shuffles and ragtime ballads on the guitar and whistling like a drunken bum with just a swig of whiskey left in his flask. Except instead of appearing out …
Track: The Wave Pictures – Jim
They don’t know this of course (well, not till they read this) but I’m sort of very proud of The Wave Pictures. Before landing in Sheffield I lived in a little village outside Loughborough, Shepshed (no, you won’t have) and growing up there was very little in the way of cool music that came from …
Classic Compilation: B. B. King – His Definitive Greatest Hits
B. B. King was a legend and legend is not a word I use lightly. He was and remains an icon of popular music. A blues guitar player whose career ran parallel to rock and roll and who managed to maintain a dignified career for multiple decades, he outlasted contemporaries, weathered constantly shifting fashions in …
Album Review: Son Volt – Notes Of Blue
I think if you went back 22 years to 1995 you’d find the running thoughts on the trajectories of Son Volt and Wilco would be significantly different than what actually ended up happening. While Wilco’s debut album A.M. was decent enough, it didn’t hold a candle to the gritty and windswept Midwest epic that was …
Track: Barry Adamson – Sweet Misery, plus UK tour dates
After a lifetime in music, Barry Adamson has announced details of a new six tracks EP Love Sick Dick, which drops on 14th April. From it, he’s released a new track, Sweet Misery, which Mark Radcliffe premiered on his 6Music Show. The whole EP Adamson sees as a blues – one lovelorn guy in all …
See: Little Brother Eli reveal video for Oceans
Once again creating an incredible dose of beard envy, Little Brother Eli are back with a brand new music video for their song ‘Oceans’, the opening track from their album Cold Tales. Beginning at once with plenty of atmosphere in its soundscape, this only gets deeper with each element that’s added to it as it …