blues

Arlen Roth Plays Lively Folk Pop Acoustic Guitar Standards

Arlen Roth Plays Lively Folk Pop Acoustic Guitar Standards

Arlen Roth’s Playing Out the String is a blissful treat. The master guitarist delightfully picks and strums his way through well-known 20th-century songs.

Finding a Home with Tom Waits

Finding a Home with Tom Waits

When the light hits the music just right, Tom Waits’ body of work unlocks and reveals itself: to be at home anywhere is to be at home nowhere at all.

Albert King’s ‘In Session’ Offers a Master Class in Mutual Respect

Albert King’s ‘In Session’ Offers a Master Class in Mutual Respect

In Session documents the night a one-time blues jam between guitarists Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan turned into a legendary moment.

How Bob Dylan Reinvented the Blues Highway for Contemporary America

How Bob Dylan Reinvented the Blues Highway for Contemporary America

Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” captures America at the peak of the civil rights struggle when African Americans were forced to fight for a country that had left them impoverished and disenfranchised.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Pays Tribute to Rock

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Pays Tribute to Rock

Blues artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s Dirt on My Diamonds -Vol. 2 is a tribute to rock music, an epistle from a proud disciple to his beatified masters.

Amadou & Mariam Merge Tradition with Innovation

Amadou & Mariam Merge Tradition with Innovation

Malian blues duo Amadou & Mariam just dropped a greatest hits album while noting how they’re intrigued by the sounds of Billie Eilish.

Bo Ramsey Revisits the Past in the ‘Sidetrack’ Lounge

Bo Ramsey Revisits the Past in the ‘Sidetrack’ Lounge

In a world full of shredders, Bo Ramsey reveals the splendor of simplicity in his blues-laden Sidetrack EP. He lets this guitar do most of the talking.

How Underground FM Radio Saved Rock

How Underground FM Radio Saved Rock

This is what happened when college-age music enthusiasts raided empty FM radio studios and played whatever turned them on.

Colin James Finds the Blues While ‘Chasing the Sun’

Colin James Finds the Blues While ‘Chasing the Sun’

Canadian blues artist Colin James rocks out on the guitar on a new album, Chasing the Sun, and reminds us of strings’ power to pull emotions out of one’s heart.

Jontavious Willis Has the ‘West Georgia Blues’

Jontavious Willis Has the ‘West Georgia Blues’

Blues artist Jontavious Willis is more of an entertainer than a purist. He aims to get his audiences moving, tells droll tales, and raises one’ spirits.

Katie Knipp Knows It’s All About Her on ‘Me’

Katie Knipp Knows It’s All About Her on ‘Me’

Katie Knipp’s idiosyncrasies distinguish her from the mass of female blues singers with good voices and mediocre or tried and true material.

Rory Block Pays Tribute to Bob Dylan and New York Roots

Rory Block Pays Tribute to Bob Dylan and New York Roots

Blues singer/guitarist Rory Block reaches back to her youth for inspiration in this tribute to Bob Dylan, choosing tunes that “touched her heart and soul”.