Bloggerhythms

Sometimes you attend a concert to absorb a great musical experience where the performers are true artists and you can fully bask in the glory of their stellar vocals, songwriting, or musicianship. Then there are the times you go to a show just for a good time that is steeped in nostalgia. Former Top 40 hitmaker Peter Noone, and his 21st Century version of Herman's Hermits , played at the cozy Sellersville Theater on Sunday and they definitely fall into the latter category. Noone and his four mates entertained an almost totally baby boomer crowd with tons of hits from their 1965 to 1967 stateside heyday plus a bunch of covers from other band's catalogs from the same era, the highlight of which was a very nice version of The Dave Clark Five's ballad, "Because." Also on the set list were a couple of "B" sides. Right before Noone sang "The End of the World," the flip side of "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am," he said it was his favori...

In 1987 three great female talents formed a vocal ensemble for the ages. In a true collaboration, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt blended their voices together perfectly to record Trio , producing beautiful, Appalachian style, three-part harmonies in the process. They created the kind of music you envision hearing in Parton's Smoky Mountains on 1940's AM radio, back when banjoes, dobros, fiddles, and acoustic instruments ruled, back when the music was still called country and western, and before it became a huge, more urban-centered business. Harris, Parton, and Ronstadt worked together without considering their own egos and the sessions were an obvious labor of love for all involved. One of the finer examples that demonstrates the respect they have for each other is Parton giving Harris the lead vocal on her self-penned piece, "The Pain of Loving You." Jimmie Rodgers' "Hobo's Lament" is a perfect vehicle for Ronstadt. "W...

The Jeff Healey Band, a power trio with Joe Rockman on bass and Tom Stephen on drums, could have been considered Canada's answer to Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble. The small outfit was more of a traditional rock band than Vaughan's group and, like the esteemed Austin blues-rocker, they were proof that the eighties and pre-grunge nineties weren't all synthesizers, gadgets, and gimmickry. The band's sophomore release, Hell to Pay (1990), is a fine followup to 1988's See the Light . Healey, a Toronto native who was one of the Great White North's top rockers at the time, received a Juno "Album of the Year" nomination for this butt-kicking CD that rose to #5 in his homeland, #18 in the UK, and #27 here in America. It was his highest charting effort ever. You can tell the album was put together with thoughts of hitting the big time because of all the heavyweight talent that lent a hand during the sessions. The eleven song disc featured six ...

There aren't very many posts on this blog that mostly appeal to the local audience of the Philadelphia area and that's deliberate because this site is part of the "worldwide" web. If I wanted to "narrowcast" only to a defined geographic area there would only be about three readers visiting here regularly and you probably wouldn't be one of them. However, because of the recent news about the demise of my favorite, outdoor, summertime, music event, the Appel Farm Arts & Musical Festival , I'm making an exception today. In all but one of the last twenty-five years Appel Farm Arts & Music Center , located just about an hour from Philadelphia in the very rural town of Elmer, NJ, held their festival on the first Saturday of June as a fund raiser for their 176 acre, non-profit, arts camp for children. The day usually featured around a dozen artists on two stages. Beginning in 2000 my wife and I volunteered at every festival except for one. ...