Notice mountaineer Bills Briggs' ski tracks zig-zagging down from the summit of The Grand Teton, an unprecedented feat he accomplished on June 15, 1971, a few years before I climbed with him. Photo by Virginia Huidekoper.

Do I start by saying that Bob Dylan once backed up Bill Briggs on mandolin -- at a wedding reception performance -- while Bill sang and played banjo? Ah, that's a story for the other side of the summit.

Bill Briggs seemed like pretty much a…

The Flatlanders with Jimmie Vaughn and the Tilt-a-Whirl Band in concert, Northern Lights Theater. 

The Flatlanders seem to embody the restless and intricate cultural development called roots music. When they performed last night at Potowatomie Casino in Milwaukee, you could immediately sense the communal and, in this case fraternal, motivation at work. They’re surely brothers in Lone Star spirit, if not blood, having all been born in dusty West Texas as they…

A bit like the Wizard of Oz, avuncular Paul Geremia toils in relative obscurity, as if behind a curtain while mustering his musical wonders. This remains true despite some critics asserting that he's as good as anyone playing country blues. He dwells in the murky corners of the blues history he sheds light on.

Yet Geremia also seems to know which side his humble crust of bread is buttered on. He opened a recent recital at the UW-Milwaukee's MKE Unplugged series with a…

Dicks Pick's Volumes One and Two --The Grateful Dead, released in vinyl limited editions of 2000 in late November 2012.

Many Deadheads will nod knowingly at my comments, but I've never been a true head, who ritualistically followed the Grateful Dead on their pied piper tours. Yet I can imagine doing it, especially after hearing them perform in Columbus, Ohio on the recording from October 31, 1971 from the bootleg series Dick's Picks Volume…

“Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!”

W. B Yeats’ chilling epitaph for his own grave has always haunted me, since I first read it. I suspect it might also haunt singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault.

Because it is the final statement of modern poetry's greatest bard, I see more in it than simple nihilistic abdication.

Casting a cold eye is a striving to understand life and death as clearly as possible, once sentiment is set aside. It is…

This is a mystery story of sorts, with a twist or two, yet the mystery’s not impossible to solve. The question: Why Rodney Crowell is still emerging from the shadows, even though he ranks among the most esteemed singer-songwriters in Americana music today.

I maintain he’s a singer-songwriter comparable in talent to Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams, or in the conversation with a Townes Van Zandt (a big Crowell influence), even if he isn’t quite as prolific as those during…

1. Various Artists – This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark * (2 CD set) When writers as esteemed as John Prine, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Darrell Scott and Ray Wylie Hubbard interpret a man's songwriting, you know he's a “songwriter's songwriter.” But Clark’s no esoteric technician. He carves rough-hewn tales illuminated by glimmers of the heart, traced with bittersweet memory, toughness…

I'm rootin' around again today but hey, it's spring right?

Actually Mr. Bill and Ms. Kitty, proprietors of Café Carpe in Fort Atkinson, gone done it again. They have a knack for digging up genuine borderline geniuses for their small corner of the roots music universe, with the creaky stage chair.

Saturday night it was Malcolm Holcombe. Seeing as he's North Carolina-born, he might’ve evoked something of a historical namesake, one of those original “high, lonesome…

Just a brief note about what appears to be a new moniker for me, Kevernacular.

It's actually the byline for my blog Culture Currents (Vernaculars Speak) at www.kevernacular.com , where most of my NoDep blogs originate. You'll find roundaboutly postings on virtually all the arts at CC  (VS). 

So I figured I'd shore up a little continuity in my online identity. And a tip of the hat to those of you who…

The Legacy CD/DVD set We Walk the Line proves that The Man in Black “came around” consistently throughout his career. Now his fellow artists have, and on this night their collective chemistry was something to behold, perhaps a matter of professional pride in the face of peer competition. Time after time, they dug down to a deeper place than you'd imagine. It’s a moving testament to a great American life because Cash embodied integrity, suffering, perseverance, redemption,…

“Coal kills.” Or can it possibly be “clean”?

The presidential candidates debated the issue because coal remains central to our traditional energy production, which now contributes greatly to pollution, damaging of the ozone layer, and the human toll on those who work in the industry.

We know continued reliance on such carbon-based energy will be environmentally devastating. You don't need to be trapped in a suffocating coal mine to feel the heat. As the earth’s ozone…

Duane Allman died 41 years ago today. It reminds me of how long ago I heard something new rising from the South. I'd bought a new album by a group from Macon, Georgia simply titled The Allman Brothers Band. I let the needle down into the vinyl grooves and my speakers burst with roaring blues-rock, vocals dripping with an earthy Southern growl, polyrhythmic drums (yep, two drummers) and searing double guitar work.

The album cover, a sepia-toned group portrait, exuded steamy…

(PART ONE)

"Revelator," TTB's debut album, won the 2012 Grammy for Best Blues Album

COMPARISON – So what other current American vernacular music group might be a contender for the best band on the scene today? Plenty of you may make staunch cases for innovative and artful bands like Wilco,…

When Susan Tedeschi joined forces with Derek Trucks their combined surnames hardly made for a mellifluous moniker. But this crew is doing some of the heaviest lifting in contemporary music today, and delivering the goods to fresh and fertile places.

Their name’s assonance may grind like a 16 wheeler, but The Tedeschi Trucks Band hauls loads of subtle artistry along with its pile of stylistic influences. And with the results, I say, keep on truckin’.

Is Tedeschi-Trucks the best…

A Southerly Cultural Travel Journal  Vol. 5

A prime motivation for my nearly 800-mile drive from Milwaukee to the Blue Plum Festival in eastern Tennessee was to see the now-venerable Texas singer-songwriter Guy Clark. It was a deeply gratifying experience. Though only 70, Clark is currently walking with a cane (perhaps still suffering from effects of a broken leg in 2008) but when he settled in and warmed up with fellow guitarist and songwriter Verlon Thompson, he quickly…

Levon Helm in his prime. Photo courtesy of stereogum.com

“Listen to this," Ed said to his hirsute companion. "A guy named Robbie Robertson of a group called simply The Band wrote it. He’s from Canada. But the singer is from Arkansas."

The singer, Levon Helm, deftly and powerfully massaged a drum beat, as he sang in the voice of the post-war Southern man, Virgil Caine:

“Like my father before me, I will work the land

And like my…

Pabst Theater, Milwaukee --- Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt sit on a stage with nothing but their two acoustic guitars and a dinky table between them with some water bottles -- like a front porch serenade. To begin, Hiatt mumbled his words and Lovett fumbled his first song, stopping after four lines and saying, “Uh, John, maybe I should leave the singing to you.” But he gathered himself and started singing a completely different song.

So it went, each rummaging around for the next song to…

Friends, Thursday at Shank Hall in Brew Town James McMurtry was dealin’, alone, with nothin' but a 12-string guitar, which surprisingly stacked the deck for a show that turned four aces, period. He’s so skilled fingerstyle -- playing bass accompaniment to his typically deft configurations -- that I never missed his band. The Heartless Bastards. No wonder they didn’t show for this frigid tour.

At times, the 12 string's shining harmonic resonances at a…

No time to comment on each as I’d normally do. The jazz interlopers (Allen, Waldorf & Frisell) illuminate the time-honored American process of roots mutating into art, as does any great roots album that retains the folkloric scruff. Mulvey, Foucault & Camplin are part of a Midwest songwriters mafia in their prime who’ve borne loaded-for-bear sons (and perhaps stylistic kin like Nor’easter Erelli – hear the murder ballads…