I know I’ve used this line before, but it’s especially apropos  in this case.  So here goes: When people ask me what kind of music I like, ...

Waddy Wachtel has amassed an impressive resume of production and session work over the course of more than 40 years in the record business...

Billy Squier had a handful of catchy guitar-driven tunes in the early 80s.   What makes him interesting to me is how illustrative he is of...

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is not even close to being a perfect record.   A double-album is, by definition, imperfect in my world,...

I dig the idea of non-racist rednecks.   Rock redneckery , as it were, consists of two poles, the light and the dark, and  t he juxtaposit...

With Eric Clapton, we’re talking about a staggeringly talented guitarist who in the end turns out to have staggeringly bad taste. But it ha...

I’m sure there have been many articles, books and even Ph.D. dissertations written on this subject, but it’s pretty cool that Stax Records...

Nick Drake may be as English as Marmite, but I'll always associate his music with the sense of infinite openness and possibility I fe...

I put John Martyn in the same group with Nick Drake and Richard Thompson.   All three are English foklies from more or less the same genera...

Blue Oyster Cult made music for pimply, burnt-out heschers from Long Oyland.   And this should be taken as high praise… For about a year an...

Looking at You sounds to me like the prototype for City Slang.   It’s also the ultimate blueprint for how to do hard rocking guitar music....

Tonight we bring you the marvelous City Slang, in which everything that there is to worship and adore about the late Fred Sonic Smith is co...

There’s a warm place in my heart for artists who arrive on the scene, seemingly from out of the ether, and then disappear just as quickly...

It doesn’t get more corporate than Boston, but they make it work with great tunes and an appeal to our basest instincts.   When I think...