Back when I lived in Austin in the late 2000s, one of my favorite things to do was to see Alejandro Escovedo at the Continental Club. I probably saw him there 6 or 7 times in those three years. This w
Let’s talk some music. We can argue whether Wayne Shorter is the greatest living jazz composer, but we can’t argue that he should be in the conversation. He just turned 85 and here’s
We need some more discussion of Aretha. Here’s a bunch of remembrances. All Songs Considered. Turns out she liked playing a little golf. Her episode of Murphy Brown. Christgau. Finally, this is
We lost another multigenerational political and popular icon this week with the passing of Aretha Franklin. Though she lived a full life, performing right until the very end, I still think 76 is far t
This is the grave of Patsy Cline. Born Virginia Hensley in 1932 in Winchester, Virginia, to a seamstress mother and blacksmith father who later abandoned the family in 1947, Cline dropped out of schoo
So, I was reading Rachel Lee Rubin’s new short book on Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and I learned something I didn’t know but that also didn’t surprise me.
This is the grave of Duke Ellington. Born in 1899 to a pair of pianists in Washington, Edward Kennedy Ellington followed his parents to the piano from a young age. Although he was more interested in b
On this day in 1998, Lucinda Williams released Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, one of the greatest albums ever made. It was the cap on a wonderful early career. She was already middle-aged by this time,