Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks’s most significant and best-known collaboration was in 1966 for the Beach Boys’ legendary Smile album, which remained unreleased for decades, though a bit of its material surfaced on 1967’s Smiley Smile. Parks contributed lyrics for that project, which gave birth to such elaborately constructed classics as “Heroes and Villains.” The pair teamed up again nearly...
The Explorers Club, The Explorers Club and To Sing and Be Born Again. The Explorers Club, led by singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist Jason Brewer, haven’t exactly been prolific: until last month, they’d issued only three full-length albums since 2008. So it’s a bit of a surprise that the group—whose only original member is now Brewer—simultaneously released two CDs...
Bob Dylan has a habit of showing up with guns blazing just when you think he’s starting to fade. In 1974, for instance, he followed a period that included relative disappointments like Self Portrait and Planet Waves with the stunning Blood on the Tracks. And a series of uneven albums in the 1980s and early 1990s preceded the arrival of...
One benefit of reviewing records is that the job exposes you to artists you otherwise might never have encountered. Many of them are forgettable, but occasionally you stumble upon a soloist or group whose work is as stunning as it is obscure. That’s the case with Jeb Loy Nichols, an American-born and -raised singer/songwriter who has...
An Anniversary Edition of the Dead’s Second Live Album Like the Beatles’ so-called White Album, the Grateful Dead’s eponymous second concert LP (following 1969’s well-named Live/Dead) has come to be known by a description of its cover art: Skull & Roses. The record, which appeared in October 1971, contains performances from March and April of that year...
Steel Wheels Live, the latest in a series of CD/video concert releases from the Rolling Stones, is better and more wide-ranging than its title would suggest: the moniker evokes a recording that simply delivers stage versions of the named album’s tracks. In fact, though, this set features only five of Steel Wheels’ 12 numbers (“Can’t Be Seen,”...
Hate for Sale is just the fourth album to be credited to the Pretenders in this century, but that’s misleading: Pretender-in-chief Chrissie Hynde has also released a couple of CDs under her own name in recent years as well as a collaborative project with Welsh singer JP Jones, and it’s often difficult to see why some albums bear...
John McCutcheon, Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine. If you have fond memories of the days when variously funny and poignant topical songs from artists like Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs occupied the limelight, you’ll probably appreciate this digital-only release from John McCutcheon. The veteran singer/songwriter—who sounds a bit like fellow folkie Richard Shindell—recorded the album in three...
The booklet that accompanies a new anthology from the Honeycombs begins by noting that they are “best remembered” for their 60s hit, “Have I the Right?” In fact, if you recall this British Invasion pop group at all, it is probably solely for that number, which in mid 1964 topped U.K. charts and made it to No....
Bob Dylan, who painted the cover picture for the Band’s 1968 debut, Music from Big Pink, also wrote or cowrote three of its best songs. But if any listeners even flirted with the idea that the group needed him to excel, they likely abandoned that notion after the 1969 release of the Band’s terrific eponymous sophomore...