Bloggerhythms

Like a lot of people over the last decade in our perpetually divided nation it's not always easy for me to discuss controversial topics, especially ones that shouldn't - in my opinion - be so contentious. It's the reason I avoid writing about social and political issues. However, today I'm breaking my self-imposed rule for only the second time in the nineteen year history of this blog. In the Twenty-first century, most Americans are viewed by each side as either being too far to the left or too far right, and we often formulate our opinion of a person's political beliefs based on a single position they hold without exploring what else he or she may have to say. I'm probably guilty of it myself. As an alternative to  X/Twitter , this past July I joined a new online platform born in February 2023. It's called Spoutible and in a lot of ways it's very different from Elon Musk's misadventure. Spoutible ...

I've written about Brinsley Schwarz before, but in case you're not familiar with them a little history may help you fully understand the significance of the recently released box set, Thinking Back: The Anthology 1970 - 1975 . It contains all sixty-eight tracks from Brinsley Schwarz's seven studio albums including It's All Over Now that was recorded in the mid-70s but not released until 1988. Pub-rock is frequently mentioned as the precursor to punk, but personally I don't hear it in the music of Brinsley Schwarz even with the knowledge that someone possessing a punk sensibility like the young Elvis Costello was obsessed with the British quintet. The view from here is that garage-rock and power-pop describe the band's music far more accurately. The group's lineup for their first two LPs included the guitarist they are named after,  Brinsley Schwarz , and keyboard player Bob Andrews. Billy Rankin pla...

Almost as often as aficionados of classical music do, blues fans are willing to listen to updated versions of ancient compositions originally written or recorded by the old masters. Perhaps this is because many of them were produced on old, scratchy, well-worn, 78 RPM records, so new, clean, high-fidelity interpretations are welcome. One of the young talents resurrecting old blues is newcomer Muireann (pronounced " moor -un") Bradley from County Donegal, Ireland. This talented young lady just turned seventeen and recently released her twelve song debut album, I Kept These Old Blues , that was recorded over a three year period with just her voice and her very accomplished acoustic guitar work. The teenager learned to love the blues from her father, John Bradley, who you could say is besotted with the music of the country-blues artists from as long as a hundred years ago. Muireann elaborat...

Petula Clark - now ninety-one years old - was already an established star in the UK when the British Invasion hit America like a tsunami in 1964. "Downtown" - her debut single on this side of the Atlantic Ocean - hit #1 on the Hot 100 in January 1965 making Clark the first female, British singer to reach that lofty position after rock and roll became the dominant pop-music force in the USA. She was only the second British woman to ever accomplish that feat in history. (Singer Vera Lynn was the first one to do it in 1952). Clark's original recording was an exuberant mixture of pop-rock, big band jazz and Broadway that included a muted trumpet solo during the fadeout, something seldom heard in pop music then or now. In 2011, the celebrated Celtic rockers, The Saw Doctors from County Galway, Republic of Ireland, recorded "Downtown" after witnessing the huge reaction it received during one of their concert's encores...

Rocker J. D. McPherson has said that he doesn't like any music after 1958 and he backs that statement up on his debut album, Signs & Signifiers ,   released back in 2012.   The singer/guitarist embraces old time rock 'n roll pumped up by equal amounts of rockabilly and R & B, and he's also a songwriter who can take credit for co-writing ten of the twelve songs on the album. While Brian Setzer and some others who have fashioned nice careers mining the early days of rock often come across as if they're parodying the sub-genre McPherson's work is as authentic as anything its founding fathers created all those years ago. His music is edgier than that of his idol, Buddy Holly, and his singing is just as invigorating as any of the classic shouters of the '50s. Signs & Signifiers was originally issued in 2010 and re-released two years later to a much larger audience on Rounder Records. The album's single and opening track, "North Side Gal,...