Category: Music

I videotaped this concert when it aired on PBS decades ago and have been watching it periodically ever since. Every time I see it, I ask myself the same question: Why on earth has this incredible show—which has long been available on CD—never been issued on DVD? As I discovered a while back, I wasn’t...

With The U.S. Albums 13-disc box set, Capitol Records has finally brought the “Americanized” Beatles catalog to CD and iTunes. Though not without controversy, fans can now choose between the original, Beatles-sanctioned U.K. albums or the rejiggered U.S. versions. It should be made clear up-front —these new reissues are, with a handful of exceptions, the...

I literally grew up on the Everly Brothers, as I am sure many of you did. They were amazingly consistent and had a unique blend and sound that will remain untouchable forever. Our paths crossed starting about 1958 when, as a non-shaving member of the group The Royal Teens, I played shows alongside many of...

Nineteen years after it was originally released, The Beatles’ double-disc set Live at the BBC has been reissued in remastered form, its two discs housed in a cardboard digipak matching the style of the 2009 studio catalog reissues. Also available is the long overdue sequel, On Air – Live at the BBC Vol. 2, leaving...

The third album by Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way (originally released in 1993), is also his third to be treated to a two-disc deluxe anniversary reissue. When Kravitz first burst on the scene in 1989 with his debut, Let Love Rule, many wrote him off as a derivative hippie-era ‘60s revivalist. The...

When I was in the band The Blues Project in early 1967, I started writing songs that suggested to me that horns would make them sound better. I asked the leader of the Project, Danny Kalb, if we could add horns to the lineup and he turned me down, saying we couldn’t afford it (true)....

Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series has unveiled many true gems since it first launched in 1991, but the tenth volume just might be the most listenable in terms of feeling like an actual album. The fact that the 35 tracks on Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) – The Bootleg Series Vol. 10 were recorded during one of...

Garland Jeffreys, Truth Serum. When it is time to find the rock singers who started in the ’60s, stayed the course and never lost sight of the spark that first ignited their soul and still, to this day, live in that world of glowing inspiration, Garland Jeffreys is right there on top. On his new...

This column is like the title says – its intention is to fill the gap for those of us who were satiated musically in the ’60s and then searched desperately as we aged for music we could relate to and get the same buzz from nowadaze. iTunes was the answer for me in 2003 and...

What better way to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the King of Rock and Roll’s passing (August 16, 1977) than losing oneself in RCA/Legacy’s new Elvis at Stax deluxe box set? This remarkable release chronicles the dozen recording sessions Presley undertook at the legendary Memphis recording studio Stax, in 1973. While the material has all...