Blog

Joe Bonamassa, a young player with the childhood dream of playing music similar to legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix, was 22 when he inked a deal with Epic Records. Hailing from Utica, New York, Bonamassa could play the blues before he could drive a car. He first heard Stevie Ray […]

English singer David Bowie’s Blackstar (stylized as ★), is his twenty-fifth and final studio album. It was released worldwide through Bowie’s ISO Records label on January 8, 2016, Bowie’s 69th birthday. Bowie died two days after its release. Co-producer Tony Visconti described the album as Bowie’s intended swan song and a “parting gift” for his […]

It’s only a matter of time until Hollywood snaps up the story of how singer-songwriter Bonnie Bishop connected with Dave Cobb, one of the hottest producers in the business, to unlock her inner soul singer and record the best album of her career: Ain’t Who I Was (May 27; Thirty Tigers/RED). Even though Bishop can […]

While he was as innovative as Jimmy Page, as tasteful as Eric Clapton, and nearly as visionary as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck never achieved the same commercial success as any of those contemporaries, primarily because of the haphazard way he approached his career. After Rod Stewart left the Jeff Beck Group in 1971, Beck never […]

Building on the Lynyrd Skynyrd Southern rock template, with a good dose of outlaw honky tonk country and a little bit of bluegrass, gospel, and R&B mixed in, Blackberry Smoke (singer/guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist/singer Paul Jackson, bassist/singer Richard Turner, keyboardist Brandon Still, and drummer Brit Turner) formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2000 and quickly built […]

Doyle Bramhall II, was born in December, 1968, Austin, Texas, USA. His father, Doyle Bramhall, played drums with various bands, including Texas Storm, which he co-led with Jimmie Vaughan. Taking up the guitar, Doyle junior followed his father into the world of the blues, touring with Vaughan’s Fabulous Thunderbirds. Late in 1990 he formed a rock band, […]

Big Head Blues Club is essentially Big Head Todd & the Monsters augmented with a rotating cast of blues legends who have included B.B. King, David Honeyboy Edwards, Hubert Sumlin, Ruthie Foster, Charlie Musselwhite and with the latest 2016 release, Way Down Inside: The Songs of Willie Dixon, such Chicago blues stars as Billy Branch (Willie […]

Following their bliss to explore America’s music roots, Hollis Brown is a five-man band where no one is actually named “Hollis” or “Brown.” But if you’re a Bob Dylan fan, you already know their name comes from the Dylan tune, “The Ballad of Hollis Brown.” Friends since high school, Mike Montali and guitarist Jonathan Bonilla […]

The Bright Light Social Hour is an American psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas. The band is composed of Jack O’Brien on bass guitar and vocals, Curtis Roush on guitar and vocals, Edward Braillif on synthesizers and guitar, and Joseph Mirasole on drums. Conjuring a bold new version of psychedelia informed by hard rock, R&B, […]

Bash and Pop is an American alternative rock group formed in 1992 by Tommy Stinson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following the breakup of the Replacements. It released one album before disbanding in 1994. When The Replacements ended their 33-show reunion tour in June 2015, founding bassist Tommy Stinson walked away with his head held high. Armed […]