Irma Thomas' lost early-70s soul sides

After relocating from New Orleans to Los Angeles, soul queen Irma Thomas largely disappeared from public view for a few years. But a series of singles produced by Jerry Williams (a.k.a. Swamp Dogg) on the indie Canyon, Roker and Fungus labels led to this eight-track release in 1973. Williams had proven himself…

What can I tell you? I’ve been a fan of Emmylou Harris since I first saw The Last Waltz at the cinema in 1979 and Rodney Crowell ever since a friend gave me a copy of Diamonds and Dirt on cassette as a birthday present. So, finally seeing not only one of them in concert, but both together had made me nervously excited for weeks in advance.

If you don’t know it, the Sage Music Centre on the Gateshead side of the banks of the River Tyne is an amazing building that…

All twenty-eight of Eddy Arnold's chart-topping singles

For most artists, a twenty-eight track collection of their biggest chart hits would be a fair representation of their commercial success. In Eddy Arnold's case, twenty-eight #1 singles only very lightly skims the surface of nearly thirty-nine consecutive years of chart success that stretched…

By day three I'm starting to flag, but Canada House at the Blind Tiger looks intriguing: a line-up sponsored by music organisations from three of the western provinces. I'm off to Alberta at the end of July, so this could be a good warm-up.

'We're here to show you that Western Canada is about more than just wheatfields, gravel roads and kissing your cousin behind the barn,' says the man from Manitoba Music, introducing Winnipeg sextet Royal Canoe.

"Of…

"You don't make music for immortality, you make music for the moment, capturing the sheer joy of being alive on planet Earth... Everybody should live it that way."    Ray Manzarek  

In the summer of 1967 The Doors played the Anaheim Convention Center. I was 12 years old. I was completely transfixed by the band. Having an older musician brother, playing the Sunset Strip, signed to United Artist Records and playing frequent live gigs, made me no stranger to live…

Brown Bird's Dave Lamb faces a crisis, and his fans have his back in a big way.

Spend a few minutes hanging at the warm side of street musicians’ guitar case, lost in the rawness of word and melody, and a niggling sense will creep into your reverie: Playing for quarters and raggedy dollar bills is a scary way to make a living. That musician, however, might have paying gigs too.  Hell, they might even tour with a partner or band.  What a life!  Unfortunately, no…

Rivers flood broad expanses of the Southern imagination. The mythic Mississippi rolls through literature, our watery national spine, by turns torpid and apocalyptic. But there are countless intimate tributaries and every Southerner knows one. Flowing water provides blessed relief in summer, spiritual cleansing and profane recreation.  If you grew up messing around in creeks and rivers, you pushed through thick, brown water past insect skaters skimming the surface in sunny pools -…

FTB podcast #211 features The Moorings by New Orleans singer/songwriter ANDREW DUHON. Also new music from FREE RANGE FOLK, SAMANTHA CRAIN and HE’S MY BROTHER SHE’S MY SISTER.

Here's the direct link to listen…

Moving and socially significant Australian country music

Though country music is most typically associated with the Southern United States, its impact has been felt all around the world. In addition to Nashville and Texas exports, a strong but little-known strain developed among Australian aboriginals in the second half of the twentieth century.…

It was definitely Billy Bragg's day, with a strong contender for performance of the year, not just of TGE. In comparison with the other stuff I saw, it's a bit like wondering how the rest got on when Mo Farah turned up for the dads' race at sports day...

It was probably the fifth or sixth time I've seen Billy over the last 25 years or so and the first that he's had a full band available throughout. We still got some solo and stripped-down numbers, but it was…