Last year, you couldn’t avoid hearing The Black Keys on TV. And I have to admit, it started to annoy me a little bit. But I realize their marketing strategy is dead right. I mean, who listens to [...]

The first real band I joined (“real” meaning paid gigs) was The Warsaw Falcons, a neo-rockabilly outfit based in Cincinnati. I was fresh out of college and just landed a job downtown, editing a [...]

Here’s a quick hit while I’m fumbling my way through Europe… A while back, we featured a great clip of soulmen Sam & Dave tearing it up in front of a TV studio audience in [...]

After I pushed the button on my Dan Hicks/Mike Flowers post, I realized I’d made a big mistake… Should’ve featured those videos in a more appropriate format. Why not put together a virtual [...]

In previous posts, we covered a lot of fertile ground in southwest Ohio – King Records, Fraternity Records, Lonnie Mack, Roger Troutman… But the picture wouldn’t be complete without the man who [...]

Don’t get me wrong… I like to hear John Lee Hooker do the boogie over a driving beat or Allen Toussaint comp behind a funky New Orleans horn section or Thelonious Monk make seasoned jazz [...]

Let’s deal with a few basic facts about the Windy City. The Cubs are hopeless. Rahm Emanuel’s approval rating can only go down. There will never be another Muddy, Wolf or Walter (Big or [...]

Time for our long-overdue follow-up to this post, in which we reported that the soul music revival had finally made its way to the Rubber City. I wasn’t suggesting that Eighties Rock is now out [...]

My wife and I just spent a week at one of these all-inclusive resorts in Mexico – the kind of place that makes you feel like an alcoholic baby in a really lush crib, constantly reaching out to [...]

I like schtick… which doesn’t exactly explain my admiration of the Allman Brothers Band. But I’ll take a little showbiz over shoegazing any day of the week. Given my weakness for corn, I was [...]

Put New Orleans guitarist Fird “Snooks” Eaglin, Jr. near the top of that long list of the criminally ignored. Where do you start with this guy? Most accounts begin with the obvious, [...]

Big-band blues. Urban blues. Blues that knows somebody. Call it what you want… and blow it off at your own risk. Sure, any attempt to move Robert Johnson into a high-rent neighborhood is going to [...]