Bloggerhythms

I was hoping to come up with a unique post to honor Sly Stone, but so much has already been written about him that now I'm simply hoping that my words aren't going to be redundant. I'm late to the fair because I wanted my two tributes to Brian Wilson to go online quickly. Even if uniqueness is no longer a possibility I want this post to be - at the very least - worthy of such a talented musician. To this day, there has never been any greatest hits album that I've played more than the one Epic Records issued for Sly & The Family Stone in 1970, and I've been spinning records and CDs for a long, long, long time now. It's almost been a permanent fixture on my ipod. We were all taught in English class that a superlative should never be used with the word "unique" because it means "one-of-a-kind" and something can't be more "one-of-a-kind" than anything else. However, if I ever wanted to add a modifier like ...

This article was first published on November 4, 2010. It's been updated and reposted today with its original comments.      Almost seventy years after rock 'n roll revolutionized popular music there isn't a whole lot of excitement left in the classic guitar-bass-drums-piano formula popularized by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and a host of other pioneers. I still love rock music but many times when I crave more than what the basic rock band lineup has to offer I start searching for something a little more substantial, and often I’ll find what I’m looking for in bands with horn sections. Horn bands can make some colorful music so it's a shame there aren't more of them. Is it because fledgling artists can't absorb the additional expenses of a larger group without promoters shelling out more cash to compensate them? Are many of the small clubs that new artists depend on for gigs not big enough to house ...