blues
Album: Van Morrison - New Arrangements and DuetsWednesday, 25 September 2024It begins with a superb rendering of his 2018 song “Ain’t Gonna Moan No More”, on which Van is joined by the mellifluous voice of Kurt Elling, and which was recorded alongside the other duets on the album in 2018 and 2019.It then winds through a mix... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Having a Rave-Up! - The British R&B Sounds of 1964Sunday, 18 August 2024“The Rollin' Stones are probably destined to be the biggest group in the R&B scene if it continues to flourish. They aren't the jazzmen who were doing trad 18 months back and who have converted their act to keep up with the times. They are... Read more... |
Album: Blues Pills - BirthdayWednesday, 31 July 2024Swedish-American four-piece Blues Pills are new to this writer but have been around since 2011. Their fourth album makes me wonder why.Of its 11 songs, judged purely on sheer pop-rock chops, nine have real legs. If a friend had put Birthday on and... Read more... |
Paul Alexander: Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year review - setting the record straightSaturday, 06 July 2024It’s often said that nobody mythologised Billie Holiday like Billie Holiday. I’m not so sure.In this fine, clear-eyed biography, Paul Alexander documents Holiday’s propensity for feeding the media inaccuracies and tall tales, her enthusiastic... Read more... |
Album: Madeleine Peyroux - Let's WalkMonday, 24 June 2024Madeleine Peyroux made her name with her second album, 2004’s Careless Love. It consists almost completely of cover versions, delivered in a quiet, jazz-bluesey shuffle redolent of singers from the 1930s. She’s never flown as high again but has... Read more... |
Album: Joanne Shaw Taylor - Heavy SoulThursday, 06 June 2024Heavy Soul, the ninth studio album by British blues-rock singer-guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor, is her first in two years, its 10 songs already released as singles. Produced by Kevin Shirley, whose credits include Aerosmith, Iron Maiden and Joe... Read more... |
Deap Vally, Concorde 2, Brighton review - final blow-out before the rockin' duo quitWednesday, 05 June 2024Towards the end of the encore, Deap Vally bring on their friend Solon Bixler. Frontwoman Lindsey Troy hands him her guitar. Despite this being their farewell tour, these two songs, she tells us, are new. The duo, now briefly a trio, go ballistic, a... Read more... |
Album: Barry Adamson - Cut to BlackSaturday, 18 May 2024Always looking dapper and always sounding cool, Barry Adamson is a man who nevertheless seems to be perpetually of another time. Giving off the vibes of a one-man Rat Pack with a dash of the legendary Lee Hazelwood, his music certainly doesn’t have... Read more... |
Album: Abigail Lapell - AnniversaryFriday, 10 May 2024Anniversary is Canadian singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell’s sixth album (if we include last year’s lengthy EP of lullabies). Her success has not reached much beyond her native land, as is often the way with Canadian acts, but she’s a proven talent,... Read more... |
Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - guitar heroics against a low-key backdropFriday, 05 April 2024The theme tune to John Carpenter’s horror classic The Thing rang out as Slash and his crew of collaborators took to the stage. Unlike that film’s famous climax though, there was no ambiguity here, for these were experienced stalwarts of rock music... Read more... |
Album: Sarah Jane Morris - The SisterhoodSaturday, 09 March 2024Released yesterday to coincide with International Women’s Day, The Sisterhood will surely prove to be one of the brightest jewels in Sarah Jane Morris’s varicoloured discography.A labour of love which Morris has been contemplating for two decades,... Read more... |
Album: Aziza Brahim - MawjaThursday, 22 February 2024Glitterbeat is home to a wildly eclectic and reliably brilliant world of artists, from Korea’s Park Jiha via Slovenia’s Sirom to Mauriania’s Noura Mint Seymali, Turkey’s Altin Gun, and desert blues masters Tamikrest. Hailing from the Sahrawi refugee... Read more... |
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