There was a period of uncertainty for Deer Tick, sure. Lead singer John McCauley’s father went to prison for fraud; he struggled with his own addictions that resulted in a broken engagement. He had a death in the family. Life had presented daunting challenges. Continue reading
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Buddy Anderson still remembers the night his life’s path became clear to him.
It was Jan. 12, 1968, and he was sitting in his father’s old pickup that he had driven to play in a high school basketball game.
“It wasn’t completely overcast, but there were clouds,” he recalls, as if the date nearly 50 years ago were yesterday. “I had been struggling with something in my life. It was a moonlit night, but you could see clouds rolling above. And at that point, I felt God talking to me in my spirit and in my heart. He wanted me to be a Christian coach.” Continue reading
Former Birmingham radio station 107.7 The X was responsible for breaking a lot of acts in the 90s and early 2000s; folks like John Mayer and Train. And matchbox twenty, a band that went on to arena rock success, first found its audience when Program Director Dave Rossi decided to play a cut from the debut, Yourself or Someone Like You, that was not being promoted as the single.
That album would went platinum 12 times. Though lead vocalist Rob Thomas has also gone on to a successful solo career, the band reconvenes as time permits. They’ve released three records since, the most recent, North, in 2012.
Guitarist Paul Doucette named the band. He doesn’t really have an explanation for where it came from, but it was his idea that stuck. Ahead of their return to the Magic City, Doucette chats about Rossi’s decision that propelled the band to superstardom and what to expect of the band’s future. Continue reading
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Pylon never took themselves seriously. They tried out a few lead singers before they arrived at Vanessa Briscoe Hay, but she fit best. Continue reading
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Patty Griffin grew up in Maine, but she now calls Austin, Texas home. It suits her and her sound better, though she’s never bothered to fight industry parameters. Continue reading
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Lee Ann Womack, who’ll turn 51 in August, leapt to the top of the mainstream country radio charts 17 years ago with her crossover hit “I Hope You Dance.” Raised in East Texas, she was surrounded by a much different country swing than the popular radio format that she perhaps inadvertently helped create. She was raised on George Jones and Lefty Frizzell, and she developed great admiration with George Strait, with whom she collaborated several times. Continue reading
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Birmingham-based punk band Nowhere Squares are preparing to release their latest full-length album, The Cavemen We Become, through the experimental music label Step Pepper on May 11. In advance of that album’s release, the group have unveiled a new single, “Unstoppable Unremarkable.” Continue reading
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Marty Stuart isn’t yet 60, but the Philadelphia, Mississippi native has already had four distinct phases of a 45-year career. It’s remarkable, really, to consider that some people only know him as a member of Johnny Cash’s band — but he’s also the guy who’s known for his ‘90s country radio successes and collaborations with Travis Tritt like “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’.”
But those were the second and third acts. Continue reading
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Concerts of the Year 2016
These were, in my humble opinion, the ten best concerts that I saw this year in America. Only one of them was in Birmingham. I’m sorry.
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Albums of the Year: 2016
Making this list this year was simultaneously the most difficult it has ever been and the easiest. Ann Powers navigated this better than anyone that I saw, making her list the Top Ten (Beyond the Obvious). In that post, she says:
“The Knowles sisters, David Bowie and Frank Ocean made the best albums of 2016, according to virtually every list; only a handful of others deserve Top 10 status at all. The critical consensus is beginning to feel a bit suffocating; what about the hundreds, nay thousands, of other artists who released music this year to at least some acclaim?”
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Blake Ells 