General

We’ll kick things off with our own little version of “name that riff”: Mystery Riff John Lennon’s snarling intro to Revolution? Guess again… Blues guitarist Pee Wee Crayton laid down this [...]

RCR checks in with our good friend Gunnar Menzel at iCrates – the Berlin-based online magazine and phone app for vinyl lovers everywhere. T.Q.: We’re big fans of the iCrates online magazine. It’s [...]

Here’s a soundtrack for you multi-taskers out there: MDQ I’m not a Broadway musical kind of guy. I blame it on the gritty, gut-wrenching films I watched as a kid, like Mean Streets and The [...]

Fall has arrived in Northeast Ohio, which means five glorious days of breathtaking color. The other 83 days? Take your pick between sort of a rain/mist hybrid or bone-chilling cold, compounded by [...]

Want to stare into the very depths of someone’s soul, or at least find out if a long drive together is a bad idea? A few of the following questions about music preferences might help. Beatles or [...]

Just when you thought two-piece bands had run their course, into the sandbox jumps Husky Burnette. And yes, he’s part of the same bloodline that brought us Johnny and Dorsey Burnette (if [...]

More lost treasures for your listening pleasure… Born and bred in New Orleans, Champion Jack Dupree was more of a barrelhouse blues piano player than a second-line syncopater (although his [...]

The brave new world of digital music. Millions of songs available through subscription services like MOG and Spotify. Immediate ownership of any song you like through iTunes and Amazon. What more [...]

If you spend any amount of time following our blog, you’ll know we’re a little nutty about boogaloo. Can’t get enough of that Latin soul as practiced by Joe Cuba, Willie Bobo, Pete Rodriguez, Joe [...]

Do you have little patience for country music of any stripe? Do you think of Western Swing tunes as bouncy, brainless singalongs for Texans who drink too much? If you just answered yes and yes, [...]

Here’s a re-post of an item we first published back in October 2009 (RCR’s third post… we’re now up to 115). It remains the most visited page on our site, by far – and it [...]

Let’s say you’ve put together a little bar band – something that won’t set the world on fire but might get you a gig at some corner dive. Or maybe you’re the manager… work with me. A couple folks [...]

There’s a curious scene in the movie “Cadillac Records” when the Rolling Stones show up at 2120 South Michigan Avenue to record at the legendary Chess Studio. Of course Mick and the boys were [...]

So maybe I should explain what this MOG stuff on my site is all about. A few months ago, I received an email from someone at MOG inviting me to join their network of music bloggers. And I [...]

Can’t tell what’s putting off more heat: the baked leather of my car seat or this bad boogaloo on my stereo. Brother James and I had a ball putting together RCR’s post on Latin [...]

Recently I took a peek at Google Analytics and noticed that RCR’s readership was up. So I thought, I’ll fix that… Time to do a post on soul jazz. What exactly is soul jazz? Well, I’ll give you my [...]

Think of the many streams that flow into that big river called early rock ‘n roll – blues, gospel, R&B, doo-wop, country… You can hear all of those influences and maybe a few others (Southern [...]

Cleveland. Where DJ Alan Freed first coined the phrase “rock ‘n roll” and hosted the form’s coming-out party, the infamous Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952. City that launched the careers of David [...]

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 [...]