Issue Articles
Cory MacLauchlin, Butterfly In The Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole & the Remarkable Story of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ (Da Capo Press)
He was, history now contends, one of the greatest writers New Orleans ever produced, perhaps the only such contender born (unlike Lafcadio Hearn) and raised (unlike Truman Capote) in the […]
Preservation Hall Jazz Band, St. Peter and 57th Street (Rounder Records)
It’s a bit strange that the Preservation Hall Jazz Band would go out of town to throw their own birthday party, but they might as well do it in New […]
Buddy Guy with David Ritz, When I Left Home: My Story (Da Capo Press)
“If I started in on what had become my live style—twisting the notes real hard, playing riffs that sounded like they came from outer space, letting the tape buzz and […]
Alabama Shakes, Boys & Girls (ATO Records)
The Alabama Shakes start with solid grounding, what the late great Lester Bangs called rudimentals. I’m struck especially by Heath Fogg’s guitar, with its liquid twang in lower registers and […]
R.J. Smith, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown (Gotham Books)
“In New Orleans, Brown announced he was retiring soon,” we learn on page 183 of The One. That was circa 1966, mind you, and of course he announced he was […]
The Dukes of Dixieland and the Oak Ridge Boys, When Country Meets Dixie (Independent)
If it sounds, both to ear and brain, like a no-brainer—country two-beat infused into Dixieland spontaneous jubilation—well friends and neighbors, it’s a sandwich served fresh and worth salivating over. The […]
Various Artists, Aimer Et Perdre: To Love & To Lose Songs 1917-1934 (Tompkins Square Records)
Released appropriately and sarcastically enough on Valentine’s Day, this new set of 78s is summed up aptly by Robert Crumb, who always loved this sort of stuff and who furnished […]
Tom Piazza, Devil Sent the Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America (Harper Perennial)
Tom Piazza sits in a car waiting for Jimmy Martin to come out of Jimmy Martin’s house. Jimmy Martin, in case you didn’t know—and Jimmy Martin would have been painfully […]
Various Artists, This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45 RPM 1957-1982 (Tompkins Square Records)
Behold, Mike McGonigal’s curated a second set of obscure, raw, raving, and maybe even revenant gospel sides. This one lacks the assurance of the first one, Fire in my Bones […]
Blind Boys of Alabama, Take the High Road (Saguaro Road)
Updated Listen to Lee Ann Womack take the early lead on “I Was a Burden,” wavering from each pitch like a fast, heavy car struggling through a curve—painful, unpredictable, the […]
