Tag Archives: Roots Rock

“I am the blues” – Willie Dixon The recent death of Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson has brought up the august name of Willie Dixon, a name that deserves full attention. If Willie Dixon wasn’t the literal embodiment of the blues — he lived too long and was too well …

The models are about my height – just under six feet tall – yet seem to tower over me in the elevator. Their posture, their svelteness, their perfect hair and the unearthly regularity of their features gives them the aura of demigoddesses. It’s painfully difficult not to stare at them. …

Rock ‘n’ roll and blues piano great Johnnie Johnson — Chuck Berry’s creative partner, melodic and rhythmic foil, and the man for whom “Johnny B. Goode” was named — has died at his St. Louis home at 80. Johnson, age 4, took immediately to the new piano his parents brought …

The spacious, airy song “Amsterdam,” which opens Griffin House’s CD Lost & Found, announces that we’re in serious, sensitive-guy territory.  But though the tune recalls Sting’s “Why Should I Cry For You”, House has an earthy, pop-Americana style that ought to stand him in good stead in a mileu where …

This DVD documents the 2003 Springing the Blues Festival in Jacksonville, FL. Interspersing performances with artist interviews, it conveys the flavor of what’s happening down South on the blues festival scene in the 21st century. The interviewers also elicit from the artists verbal descriptions and private demos of what the …

Joining an increasingly extensive and rich body of new roots music is this first release by The Great Unknowns, a quartet of seasoned musicians fronted by singer Becky Warren. Warren, who co-writes the songs with guitarist Michael Palmer, has a voice reminiscent of Lucinda Williams’s, but her tones are easier …

The great, ageless roots rocker John Fogerty — singer, songwriter, lead guitarist and producer of Creedence Clearwater Revival — is back with his most iconic album since the days of Creedence, as accessible as Centerfield but much more timely and pointed. On this one Fogerty makes it clear he has …

Hey, summer’s over (although it’s a balmy 73 right now). How do I know? Because we are going to a haunted house tonight, so it must be near Halloween – what, you say it’s a month away? The Halloween season is now as long as Christmas. In fact, once October …

The extremely talented but still very young David Jacobs-Strain writes, plays and sings in traditional forms, but (because, I suspect, of not having yet lived the life of which he sings) he sounds like he’s trying too hard. The result is a great-sounding CD that fails to convince. The problem …

If anti-war populist lefty John Mellencamp can cheerfully record a song with gung ho Bible belt Republican Travis Tritt, then there may be hope for us all. The song is called “What Say You” from Tritt’s new My Honky Tonk History album, and the key is that while both crusty …