blues
howard.male
Who doesn’t like the rolling swagger of a bunch of seasoned Louisiana musicians? And that’s what New Yorker McCalla has assembled here to create a wider sound pallet for her third album. But we don’t just get a dozen generic New Orleans jazz tunes here. There’s also a calypso, a Zydeco dance number, a rollicking boogie-woogie and a doom-laden rocker with a Hendrix-style solo from Jimmy Horn that's like a knife slashing a canvas. And then to go straight into a Hawaiian guitar-drenched ballad?! I’ve not heard such a delightful collision of moods since the Velvets set “The Black Angel Death Song Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Ashley McBryde had a very busy year in 2018. After the Arkansas singer-songwriter and "curly-headed bourbon enthusiast" played a tiny stage at Country To Country, she released her debut album to huge acclaim and a Grammy nod; toured with fellow no-nonsense country star Luke Combs; played Jools Holland; sold out her first headline show in London – and made Barack Obama’s "favorite songs of 2018" list. She’s now set to play C2C’s main stage in March, sharing the bill with country giants Lyle Lovett and Chris Stapleton.Full of rich Southern storytelling, radio-friendly choruses and gritty blues Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
When Bruce Springsteen’s one-man show opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre on New York’s West 48th Street in October last year it was only supposed to run for six weeks. This being Springsteen, however, demand proved almost limitless, so the season was extended twice, and the Boss (as he doesn't like being called) takes his last bow on 15 December.So you never got a ticket? No worries. There’s an audio version of the show in various formats, and now Netflix is launching a full-scale film of the event, directed by Thom Zimny, which puts you right at the front of the stalls and lets you see Read more ...
Joe Muggs
“I don't peak early / I don't peak at all,” goes the wryly self-aware line in the opening song here, “Take me to the Movies”. Thirty-five years since he started releasing records, Mascis isn't interested in peaking, progress or much else beyond delivering the same he always has.Weary, anhedonic introversion delivered in a cracked Neil Young moan, and primal blues rock guitar soloing, are packed into perfect pop structures with pithy or heartstring-tugging couplets that twinkle like a razor sharp intelligence shining out from behind heavy lidded eyes. The differences between Dinosaur albums Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Founders Huw Stephens and John Rostron announced they were handing over the reigns to Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff’s leading music venue. This fresh injection of enthusiasm and experience was just what the festival needed. This year, Sŵn was spread over four days: large single gigs on Wednesday and Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Formats are second nature to TV: the BBC and Eagle Rock’s Classic Albums will run and run. Like all formats, there’s always the risk that the medium becomes the message, and content suffers under the weight of form. But Classic Albums at least avoids the BBC’s slavish reliance on presenters, and makes possible programmes that draw the viewer in closer than when everything is mediated by the wall-to wall ego of an expert or celeb.Although we have the trademark moments when the album’s different tracks are teased apart at the mixing desk to reveal the architecture of a recorded song, the Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Peyroux made her name by channelling the sultry sensuality and soul of Billie Holiday and breathing new life into well-known songs written by others - notably Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen.She still brings enchantment to covers, but has increasingly found her own distinctive voice, without losing that element of sensual magic - those long drawn-out notes - inherited from the great Lady Day.Her new album is drawn strongly together by impeccable arrangements and production, studio expertise and inspiration that provides the album with welcome variety, as well as a touch of melancholy Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Dress each of the band in the same clothes. Stand them in a line outside the EMI headquarters building on Manchester Square. Get the taller ones with glasses to stand at either end of the row. Put the other taller one in the middle. Have the pair of less tall ones – who could be twins – stand between the taller ones. Symmetry and uniformity duly achieved, take the promotional photograph.The picture seen above was used as the cover of the debut EP by Manfred Mann (pictured below right), issued in the wake of their first hit single “5-4-3-2-1”. It was helped into the charts by being chosen as Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
There’s undoubtedly a memorable film to be crafted from the life of guitar legend and grand old survivor Eric Clapton – for instance, Melvyn Bragg made a very good South Bank Show about him in 1987 – but the longer this one goes on, the less it has to say. Nor is it obvious why it has been made now.Director Lili Fini Zanuck, who used Clapton’s song “Tears in Heaven” in her 1991 movie Rush, has assembled the piece from a patchwork of archive material with interviewees (including Clapton) present only in voice-over, identified by captions. This seems to have become customary documentary Read more ...
Jo Southerd
Gota Fría, or “cold drop”, is a Spanish weather phenomenon associated with violent rainstorms, when high pressure has caused a pocket of cold air to dissociate itself from the warmer clouds. Meteorologists, please excuse my basic and probably erroneous interpretation; the point here is that any person who’s experienced mental ill-health will likely relate to the idea of a sudden dip in temperature, a torrential downpour, and the accompanying isolation. On Gota Fría, the Peru-born, Bristol-based singer-songwriter Beth Rowley explores darkness and light via classic songwriting, delivered Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
“There’s a rhythm in the air around Memphis, there always has been,” Carl Perkins once said. "I don't know what it is, but it's magic." The city on the Mississippi lives up to its musical heritage with performance venues aplenty, and a host of museums dealing with its illustrious musical past: there's Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion with all its garish gold lamé costumes, cars and even private jets; Sun Studios is now a museum; and there is a Stax Museum, a Blues Museum and the much-praised Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum.Memphis-born music journalist, filmmaker and author Robert Gordon has Read more ...
peter.quinn
Hosted by Jazz FM presenters Chris Philips and Jez Nelson on UNESCO’s International Jazz Day, rising stars and international icons were honoured at the fifth Jazz FM Awards on Monday night.A Grammy winner earlier this year for her remarkable 2CD set Dreams and Daggers, watching Cécile McLorin Salvant silence a capacity crowd at Shoreditch Town Hall with her vivdly dramatic reading of “The Peacocks (A Timeless Place)”, accompanied by regular pianist Aaron Diehl, was one of the evening’s standout moments. It followed her acceptance of International Jazz Artist of the Year.Sax player Read more ...