Bloggerhythms

I know there have been too many reruns on Bloggerhythms lately, but I'm posting another one today due to the sad passing of the legendary Dolly Parton at age 80 after an unfortunate battle with cancer. This post first appeared here on October 15, 2013. Too many celebrated musicians have said goodbye to us lately. 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 the award winning  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, dobroes, 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 t...

Country, rock and pop artists who perform cover versions or use outside songwriters for their primary source material are never respected as much as the stars who compose their own music, but classical and jazz musicians don't seem to be held to the same high standard. Their updated interpretations of the great composers or definitive jazz tracks are often praised. To me, that just isn't fair, especially when there are superb musicians who know how to properly deliver great songs from the past. Christian Parker, Patrick Cleary, Earl Poole Ball and Jay Dee Maness specialize in celebrating the great recording artists and composers that made names for themselves in country-rock. Last year the foursome revived an entire 1968 LP, Back at Home , originally recorded and released by the late, great Gram Parsons ' International Submarine Band of which both Ball and Maness were members. Now the quartet is back with American Cosmic Revival, ...

There's a store near me - appropriately named The Archive - that sells used books, comics, magazines, old trading cards, old post cards, records, CDs, DVDs, video games, toys, pop culture memorabilia and more. Are you looking for old Mad Magazines? They have them. Old Atari game cartridges? It's a possiblity. The place looks, feels and smells just like the musty warehouse it is, and I love it. None of The Archive's music is ever sold at collector's prices. Anyone can go in and pay a buck a piece for CDs and even their more in-demand vinyl is nicely priced. I visit there on occasion just to see what I can find. That's where I discovered the genre bending, classic album by Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music ,   originally released by ABC-Paramount Records on a 12-inch LP way back in 1962 and on CD by Rhino Records in 1988 with three bonus tracks. First, a little background for those of you who are unaware of the original ...

It's conceivable that many people are sick of Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" because it's played incessantly every holiday season. While it's not my favorite Christmas song I've actually grown to like it more as I got older. I guess it's because this now mature classic rock fan has mellowed. Even though few young people today know Lee outside of her Christmas classic she's among the more popular American recording artists of all time, having sold over one hundred million records around the world. Billboard named her the Top Female Artist of the 1960s. With her song "I'm Sorry" (1960) she became only the second woman to ever hit #1 on the Hot 100. (Connie Francis was first with "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" in 1960.) Her perennial Christmas chestnut is the lead track on Lee's first album of seasonal tunes, simply titled Merry Christmas . The star recorded "Rocki...

The sad, recent passing of Raul Malo encouraged me to pull out all of my Mavericks CDs. I own several of them, but not their Christmas album. I didn't even know they recorded one until a few days ago. Shame on me for not knowing that. I just burned it to CD after downloading it from iTunes. Both the title of the album and it's front and back covers tell you everything you need to know about The Mavericks' foray into Christmas music. You didn't really believe this ten-song set was going to give listeners anything but a chance to party hardy during the holidays, did you?  Hey! Merry Christmas!  may not be   intellectually stimulating but it's not supposed to be. Play it to have some fun in memory of Malo. Hey! Merry Christmas! was recorded by The Mavericks' most recent lineup featuring Malo on vocals and guitar along with axman Eddie Perez who's been with the quartet since 2012. Jerry Dale McFadden also became their permanent keyboard pla...

Sadly, Raul Malo, the leader of The Mavericks, has passed away from cancer at age 60. I knew of his ongoing battle with the disease, but I heard stories that he was doing well. Apparently not. Ten years ago, I saw him perform a solo acoustic show in New Hope, PA five days before Christmas where he played a couple of tunes from his Christmas album. Years later, he also released a holiday record with The Mavericks. I also saw the full band play a concert at Cooper River Park in New Jersey quite a few years earlier. As a tribute, I'm rerunning my review of his acoustic concert because it occurred during the holiday season.    In an almost two hour show at New Hope Winery Raul Malo proved he is a superb singer and that statement should not come as a surprise. As always, The Mavericks' leader and frontman sounded like a graduate of the Roy Orbison school of vocals and all he needed as accompaniment was the solo acoustic guitar he played quite well all evening long. Malo showe...

This is going to be an unusual post. It's a review of a very good, country music CD with a sociological perspective, and I believe it's worth reading even if you're not interested in Patsy Cline or country music. What's under discussion here is one of the seemingly endless, posthumous releases of Cline's recorded work, but this disc,  Birth of a Country Legend , is unique. It's a rare, live CD featuring seventeen songs Cline sang on her visits to Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts . For those of you who are too young to have grown up with him, Godfrey was one of early television's legendary pioneers, and his importance cannot be overstated. In the 1950s, along with Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Sid Caeser, Steve Allen, and others, he helped make the young, popular medium the primary source of home entertainment. Godfrey's talk and variety series was a ratings juggernaut due to his downho...

The kind of country music Kristen P. (KP) Hawthorn creates abandoned the mainstream a long time ago. Not all country songs have twang, and the artists who create them don't all wear cowboy hats, flannel shirts and denim, and hail from Texas or the deep South, meaning California native Hawthorn isn't Miranda Lambert. She offers a distinctly feminine perspective to a heavily male dominated genre without projecting any kind of tough girl image in her music, and that is refreshing. Hawthorn's debut solo set, Til The Glitter End , is being marketed as country music - its nine tracks were recorded in Nashville where she's now based - but it's easy to believe she sounds more like a 70s, Laurel Canyon, singer-songwriter. The SoCal influence is apparent in her sometimes oblique and introspective lyrics, traits most conventional country songs aren't known for. You'll also find the canyon's impact in her musically astute arrangements and high-class...

Until last night I've never been to the Colonial Theater in the very hip town of Phoenixville, PA. It's a historic movie house that dates back to 1902. Today, it still shows films - it's home to the locally famous  Blobfest - and it's also an occasional concert venue where I saw The Jayhawks for the third time. Unlike a lot of older sites, the Colonial has comfortable seats and clean, modern restrooms, so if you visit there you're off to a good start. The concert hall walls are peeling and could use some paint, but that's a minor quibble completely offset by those two more important positives. You also have a good view from everywhere. We were in the second row of the balcony, close enough to take a good photo like the one above, but not close enough to destroy your hearing. The current Jayhawks are lead singer, electric and acoustic guitarist and co-founder, Gary Louris and original member Marc Perlman on bass. They...

The International Submarine Band (ISB) were named after a 1934 Our Gang comedy. Even though their name sounds like they should have been one of the many psychedelic bands of the era, in reality, they were one of the pioneers of country-rock. The quartet was led by the notorious Gram Parsons before his two brief stints with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Four country-rock devotees - Christian Parker, Patrick Cleary, Earl Poole Ball and Jay Dee Maness - joined forces to entirely rerecord ISB's only full-length album, Back at Home , from 1968 and released it in the original track order. It's best to begin with some background on the participants. Parker and Cleary are musicians deeply influenced by Parsons' music. They both played six and twelve string acoustic guitars on these sessions and do all of the singing. Parker has already recorded tributes to The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo  - an album on which Parsons was a major ...

The veteran Americana rock band, The Jayhawks , had been whittled down to a trio by the time they took on an all-acoustic tour that made its way to their hometown of Minneapolis where they played live at The Woman's Club on April 26, 2002. The performance was recorded and released on two CDs, both with a few studio demos and outtakes added as a bonus. It's the only acoustic tour the band has ever done. Gary Louris stars on vocals and acoustic guitar; Marc Perlman plays bass, mandolin and guitar; and drummer Tim O'Reagan also plays guitar and sings. The band played twenty-eight songs during the evening that included much of their standard repertoire: "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," "Save It for a Rainy Day," "Blue," "Waiting for the Sun," "I'd Run Away," and a few other gems. The sound of the show is very good and the crowd noise is minimal, so the songs are front and ...

Although credited to Ringo Starr there should be no argument that the drummer's new country influenced album is a true collaboration with Joseph Henry "T-Bone" Burnett who produced it and wrote or co-wrote nine of its eleven songs. Look Up is a very nice set of tunes that Starr mostly sings in a laid-back style where he always sounds the most comfortable. He also plays drums on every track. Each song has its merits. Without disrupting the mood "Rosetta" is the only arrangement on which the Liverpool legend and his sidemen work up a sweat. Perhaps that's due to the presence of his brother-in-law - rocker and Eagle - Joe Walsh. The rest will easily appeal to Nashville's country establishment where most of the album was recorded. The first single and hands-down standout is "Time on My Hands," a breakup song that Starr sings without any vocal support or multi-tracking. H...

Never say a motivated woman can't hang with the big boys because Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters certainly do. While they describe themselves as an "Americana rock 'n roll band"   their hearts appear to be firmly attached to the country-rock sub-genre, and they play it as well as any testosterone laden band from the 70s ever did. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Poco, late period Byrds, Chris Hillman's Desert Rose Band, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Eagles should all tip their hats to these ladies. If you have any doubts about what I just wrote give a listen to The Riveters' new album, Good Morning, Sunshine . It's mostly an exuberant ride with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure. The music on Sunshine is edgy - but not angry, even while sometimes displaying a social conscience. It's also a party album with intelligent lyrics that will make the sun come out even in places where it st...

Newcomer Annie Dolan is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who recently released her debut album,  Atta Boy Girl , in the fall of 2024. It consists of nine cover songs plus the instrumental, "Fussbudget," the collection's only original composition. She's in the midst of recording a full-length, self-written, pop-rock release, but in the interim she's issued this very fine set of throwback tunes. Dolan gets a lot of help from lead guitar player and mentor  Joel Paterson who produced the sessions for her. Even though he's new to me Paterson is a highly regarded axman from Chicago who has recorded several albums of acoustic and electric guitar instrumentals. He's very much worth listening to, and it seems I've been missing out on his very cool chops. Dolan's album blends both country and rock with the artist's innate pop sensibilities and her strong, very pleasing, vocals. Rockabilly immediately comes to mind, but even ...

The Roamers play a good kind of country music, the kind that is unmistakably country but is heavily dosed with rock 'n roll. Trade out the lap and pedal steel guitars for something heavier, and remove the twang from bassist, lead singer and songwriter Matt Rice's voice and you'll have completely crossed over into that louder and more youthful genre. It shows you how closely related the two popular and seemingly disparate styles of music really are. Rice describes The Roamers as a collective rather than a band. "The reason I named it The Roamers is because the members/players kinda roam in and out of the band depending on what day, week or month it is. There are a lot of us involved, and it's rare that we can all get together at the same time. On this concise, eponymous, eleven song, debut Rice is the bassist, Brian Whelan plays guitars and all keyboards, Luke Adams is the drummer and percussionist, and Matt Pynn contribut...

Cullen Brian Gallagher is a country music newcomer from New York with a very pleasing voice whose eponymously named debut album sounds like it came from a seasoned veteran.  It's an inspired collection loaded with substance. Gallagher's extremely laid-back, twelve-song set of original tunes features the star playing his Gibson acoustic guitar, electric lead, and bass. He's the only musician on the sparsely arranged set. Gallagher is heavily influenced by Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, two artists who always keep it simple and that's what makes this record so good. There is nothing flashy, and every note played is in service to the songs. Gallagher's songwriting is pure country. It's full of bus rides, too many evenings spent at local bars and women he wants to be with but isn't. Song titles like "Tanked at Hank's," "I Can't Sleep Alon...

Let's begin this post with a little history lesson about Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, a duo who are hardly household names even though they've been a consequential part of the American popular music scene since the 1960s. They'll never be deified by the masses like Taylor Swift. Wallace Daniel Pennington is a singer, a renowned composer, and a record producer. He has released only a handful of albums under his own name, and he is heavily associated with FAME Recording Studios  in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Penn has co-written many hits including "Dark End of the Street" for James Carr (#10 R&B, #77 Hot 100) and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" (first recorded by Aretha Franklin) with Chips Moman and "Cry Like a Baby" (#2 on the Hot 100 for The Box Tops), "Sweet Inspiration" (#18 for The Sweet Inspirations), and "I'm Your Puppet" (#6 for James and Bobby Purify) with Oldham. He also produ...

Kimmi Bitter with bass player Ben Neal and guitarist Willis Farnsworth There is an old saying that says "If you remember the '60s you weren't there," but it isn't always true. Californian Kimmi Bitter is way too young to have been there yet she remembers it all quite well. Bitter favors the sounds and fashion of that famously tumultuous and historically important decade that is both loathed and revered.  The singer-songwriter's outstanding new CD of classic country music connects with more than a few people. The music of that era is so important to Bitter that she named her debut album Old School . You can find my review  of it  here . Below are a dozen questions that Bitter generously answered for Bloggerhythms. Keep reading to discover what this talented s...