Hank Williams was a drunk, a mean drunk who died at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac. He was a semiliterate plagiarist, a whoremonger, a brawler, and an egomaniac. He was a stingy manager of top-flight musicians and a notoriously unreliable employee who somehow managed to get…
In the spectrum of British female pop phenoms, Shirley Bassey has legs. She has endured the icy rigors of record industry bandwagoning, color barriers, fleeting trends, and fickle fans. Like fellow Brit Dusty Springfield, who rode the hit parade with songs like “Son of a Preacher Man,” Bassey emerged from…
In the beginning, there was No Doubt. Or maybe it was Sublime. And didn’t I hear something about the Mighty Mighty Bosstones putting out an album before 1997’s Let’s Face It? Thus runs the garbled ska gospel according to many of the new fans attracted by the genre’s most recent…
Derek Trucks Band Out of the Madness (House of Blues Records) In the mid-Eighties, a handsome Texan named Charlie Sexton pioneered an unlikely musical trend: the teen-aged blues guitar hero. Renowned throughout the Longhorn State for his uncanny grasp of classic rock and R&B guitar techniques, Sexton signed with a…
In the booklet for Biograph, his 1985 career anthology, Bob Dylan mused on the differences between his rapturously received 1974 “comeback” tour and the contentious series of shows he had given eight years earlier. On the surface, these two tours were similar. In both cases Dylan was backed by the…
Discussing his new quartet’s recent run at the Sweet Basil jazz club in New York City’s Greenwich Village, saxophonist Kenny Garrett is clearly excited. “That was a big party up there!” he shouts. “Some nights we were playing till three or four o’clock in the morning. Not that we had…
Ask a musician what his band sounds like and if not short, such as “blues,” or “rock and roll,” the answer will likely be a reflection of unclassifiable originality, maybe goosed by familiar antecedents. In other words, you’ll get some blather akin to “It’s kinda like the Beatles’ songwriting with…
Lyle Lovett Step Inside This House (Curb) Texas singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett has indulged himself in musical styles as diverse as gospel-soul and brass-driven pop, but he leaves no doubt where his heart lies on Step Inside This House. The 21-song, two-CD set is rich with the rugged, lyrical storytelling that…
Kiss Psycho Circus (Mercury) From 1974 to the present, Kisstory is a winding parable of greed, folly, and ego, but the basic facts are simple to comprehend: In the beginning, there were Paul, Gene, Peter, and Ace. First they rocked. Then they sucked. Then they fought, and two of them…
It’s always tough being ahead of your time, even if you get there by reaching into the past and pulling your shtick from the archives. The swing movement jitterbugging across the country (and only recently embraced by the media) may be seen by many as a retro fad, but to…
Ten years ago a group of graduates from Havana’s state conservatory formed a band and announced the arrival of the future of Cuban music. The members of Nueva Generacion (New Generation), since known as NG La Banda, would go on to employ their academic training in the service of virtuoso…
The harmonica is a curious instrument. Palm-size and usually made without moving parts, it looks so simple, like a toy. Mastering one should require no more than inhaling, exhaling, and fluttering a finger or two. But the innocuous little things have frightened many a would-be musician into a life of…
Marilyn Manson Mechanical Animals (Interscope) Some South Florida clubgoers will remember the days when Marilyn Manson was still known as Brian Warner, the lanky, insecure kid from Fort Lauderdale. Local music fans saw the meek suburbanite create a monster when he booked his act, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids,…
Nick Tosches, author of the definitive tome Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ‘n’ Roll, asserts that rock and roll played out its entire life cycle, from birth to death, in the career of Bill Haley. Tosches writes that Haley cashed in his rockin’ chips for a piece of schmaltz…
Life can be tough when you’re known as the Madonna of the DJ set. Just ask Junior Vasquez, a man who has reinvented himself almost as many times as the pop diva. Vasquez is more than just a guy who plays records for a living. He is one of the…
So how do you get your band on VH1? An October 8 appearance on the national cable network by local rockers the Goods was highly anticipated by members of the South Florida music community. For nearly a decade regional media and many of the area’s key players and promoters have…
Few people can brag of having met while recording a “booty” track — a song made specifically for rump shaking on the dance floor or for being piped through speakers in certain car stereos. One exception is that of musicians Dan Warren and Keith Rosenberg. Four years ago, when Rosenberg…
“Folk art” is a term that terrifies many urban dwellers. Utter those otherwise harmless words in the company of your big-city friends and images of crudely painted farm scenes and hand-sewn rag dolls will leap almost telepathically from one troubled cranium to the next. Misconceptions about the true definition of…
Agnostic Front Something’s Gotta Give (Epitaph) Hardcore bands aren’t known for their longevity. Performing semi-harmonious riffs at supersonic speed and living a rebellious, less-than-healthy lifestyle causes most punks to either crash and burn, fade into obscurity, or, usually, mellow with age. Just ask GG Allen, Jello Biafra, or Henry Rollins…
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones Left of Cool (Warner Bros.) Outside the bluegrass world and the few bluegrass-inspired, traditional country recording sessions that must still be booked occasionally somewhere, banjo players are pretty rare birds. Consequently, even if he were only a mediocre instrumentalist, Bela Fleck would stand out in…
Mentioning the name Vanilla Ice usually elicits looks of disgust, mistrust, and runaway cheeseball feelings. But there’s a new sheriff in Ice Land and he’s laying down tracks that could start to melt even the most skeptical attitude. Vanilla Ice, a.k.a. Rob Van Winkle, has a new CD, Hard to…
As controversial in Cuba as he is popular, Manuel Gonzalez Hernandez is a sign of his times. Gonzalez, known as Manolin, sings in a soft voice, performing catchy dance tunes that employ a rather formulaic mix of peppery percussion, punchy horns, and repetitive, chanted choruses. At his packed concerts in…
