General

I just read a fascinating book about one of my favorite singers… Seems like a good excuse to showcase the music of Little Willie John while sharing a little love for the excellent bio Fever: A [...]

“Tim, what have you been listening to lately?” Well, I’m glad no one asked! But that won’t stop me from responding with a few random observations that reflect my equally random listening habits… [...]

A re-post, just in time for my own personal Sabbath (I have separate playlists for my Jewish and Wiccan friends)… Sunday morning – a time of worship. And for me, that worship involves a cup [...]

It’s tempting to lump together “The Four Kings of Blues Guitar,” as an enterprising record label named a recent compilation featuring B.B., Albert, Freddie and Earl. But I’m not sure they [...]

Flea market record bins are filled with artists who never got their due. And the fickle ways of listeners and labels alike are especially apparent when it comes to women soul singers. For every [...]

Much has been written about America’s love affair with the automotive vehicle. And I’m certainly not the first music blogger to throw together a “car song” playlist. But I’ll justify this post by [...]

This winter refuses to end. Time to drink (and revisit this post). I’m guessing the first drinking song was written not long after the first alcoholic beverage was served. Something about [...]

So I stumbled into a trendy club where this cretinous DJ of the dubstep variety assaulted my senses and inner organs with pounding, relentless bass drops and seizure-inducing strobe lights. [...]

I recently came across a Hollywood Reporter interview with producer/musician T-Bone Burnett that serves as a perfect summation of today’s music business. Let’s get right to the heart of it as [...]

Here in northeast Ohio, we’ve now arrived at that time of year when we ask ourselves, how did we ever end up in this fresh hell? I was driving along a busy road, watching an unfortunate [...]

It’s cold… damn cold. Time to re-post this piece on Latin Soul. Because I like it like that. Latin boogaloo – one of those great cultural collisions, like fried chicken and waffles or [...]

You might notice that I tend to avoid writing exhaustive profiles of my favorite blues artists. Call me lazy, but I prefer to focus on a specific era or a particularly fruitful stint at a given [...]

In our last post, I didn’t exactly subscribe to the theory that Big Star is the most overlooked and underappreciated band of the Seventies. But I did think of a truly awe-inspiring band that flew [...]

You’re probably expecting me to offer a harrowing account of my addiction to pain killers and several failed shots at recovery. Sorry to disappoint. My most recent addiction involved Apple TV, [...]

Is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum worth arguing about? Some say no – the whole idea of enshrining punks and metalheads in some shiny glass-plated pyramid that many of them would rather [...]

Welcome to RCR’s 5th Annual Holiday Song Roundup (if you need time to review, here are links to one, two, three and four). Not sure if I can put a finger on the prevailing mood this season. I’ve [...]

I’d brag about the music scene we grew up with in the Akron area, but the reality of it is a lot more complicated. Let’s just say it was fitful, but usually memorable. Joe Walsh and [...]

Jazz drummer and bandleader Chico Hamilton passed away last week at the age of 92. Often associated with cool West Coast jazz, Chico also could kick it up a few notches and play a lot closer to [...]

Here’s a re-post that opens with RCR’s formal mission statement (if we had to boil it down into a tidy little tag line, I guess it would be “Pay It Forward, [...]

By now I’ve slogged through at least five recent TV shows about the assassination of President Kennedy. I can describe virtually every conspiracy theory (the CIA did it, says Oliver Stone) and [...]

I should’ve posted this on Veterans Day, but I didn’t come up with the idea until I heard a piece on NPR about the Doolittle Raid during World War II. Led by James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, the raid [...]