At 78 years old, Elizabeth King is releasing her debut full-length album. Living in the Last Days connects the past and future of Memphis’ “sacred soul” scene. King fronted Elizabeth King and the Gospel Souls in the 1970s, one of […]
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Sunny War’s distinctive approach to guitar is no doubt influenced by her days busking on Venice Beach: an inexorable wall of sound that is also fleeting like the ocean. On her previous albums, War’s music lived comfortably somewhere between blues, […]
With Morgan Wade’s debut, Reckless, we may be seeing a pivot in outlaw country. Ten years after the debut of Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup,” men singing rollicking tunes about women, weed, and wine on the radio are hardly transgressive. […]
On Daddy’s Country Gold, Melissa Carper demonstrates why the Great American Songbook has been so enduring. While Carper’s effortless bass lines and her band’s elegant piano accents recall an era we now call “classy,” it’s Carper’s ingenious songwriting that takes […]
Chris Pierce’s American Silence is one of those albums that truly feels like a lifetime in the making. Pierce tends to play soul music, and has risen to prominence recently with his song “We Can Always Come Back to This” […]
Smoke ’em if you got ’em — that seems to be the guiding philosophy behind Lydia Luce’s debut album, Dark River. The singer-songwriter is classically trained in violin and has worked with artists from Dolly Parton to Eminem. On Dark […]
Authenticity is currency in the Americana world: Sure, you can sling a guitar, but do you mean it? Is the wide-brimmed hat and affinity for bourbon an affectation or a way of life? Authenticity is impossible to define, but it’s […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: As album releases slow down in December, we like to catch our breath and write about albums that came out earlier in the year that we didn’t get a chance to review but we think are worthy of […]
On her sophomore album, Woman in Color, Raye Zaragoza confronts her audience with powerful, strident protest songs — the kind of direct, timeless lyrics that everyone with a guitar has been reaching for since November 2016. Few have succeeded, and […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: “The New Normal” is an occasional series of stories that look into how the coronavirus has affected artists, listeners, and the music business. Find other stories in the series here. Nobody asked for a summer like 2020, but […]
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