Album Reviews

It's an unacceptable prejudice and this review has nothing to do with me, but I admit to having had a problem with Lionel Hampton because he was a Nixon supporter. Isn't that ridiculous? I mean having a problem with it, not that Hamp supported tricky Dick. His politics are his of course, but this prejudice took hold during the 1970s.

Whether covering Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell, Hank Williams or The Monkees (Boyce and Hart), Cassandra Wilson’s sultry, commanding voice has always worked effectively set against spare, moody backdrops.

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks A/K/A Taj Mahal grew up in Harlem, spent time as a teenager on a Massachusetts dairy farm, attended U of M, gigged around and finally headed west and built a musical career first in Los Angeles and later in the Bay area. The life influences come through in his music: a mix of urban and country blues mixed with world music.

For the very first time, Rhino has released the entirely of Talking Heads’ soundtrack to their seminal September 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, in a remastered 2LP set. In this all-new combo-style tag-team review, Mike Mettler and Mark Smotroff tell us exactly why this new 40th anniversary 2LP SMS set is the best-sounding edition of SMS to date. . .

Dad did love his work, more than his family and marriage to Carly Simon, or more accurately put,  forced to choose between the two by Simon, he chose the road and his career.

A friend told me that Blonde Redhead purists simply hate this album, or at least they’re disappointed by the New York based group’s 7th. Disappointed by what they claim is overproduction, over-thinking and artifice in place of substance.