Category: Entertainment

Bob Dylan, Shadows in the Night. It’s obviously late in the evening when Bob Dylan brings out the Great American Songbook. The moon is full, the stars are shining, and the sky is darker than blue. Still, Dylan zeroes in on some of the greatest ballads ever written, with names like Irving Berlin, Rodgers and...

When I’m on the road or in deep production, sometimes I can’t get a column done on time. To prevent quality loss, I thought I’d go back to our first year (2011) and republish some of the better music that didn’t reach the readership we have now. I apologize to the original readers who are...

Kristin Andreassen, Gondolier. Beginning the year with an inspired singer-songwriter who, among many flights of fancy, wishes her childhood pet dog had been a horse, seems like a good way to get the party started. Kristin Andreassen’s first onstage experiences may have been as a professional clogger in Annapolis, Maryland, but it was clear from...

Hello, my favorite listeners! I wrote 47 columns this year and these were the 25 most talked about tracks in the emails and comments I received from all of you. It makes an interesting list as some of the music is NOT FROM 2014 — but was included in this year’s columns. This is where...

For music lovers, it’s always a kick to pick the favorite albums of the year. So much so that it’s twice as fun to do it twice—once at the end of June and now in mid-December. All the music mentioned below is an exhilarating and often educational ride on the sonic highway, guaranteed to get...

Volume 11 of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series offers a monstrous amount of material in a handsome, boxed-set package. Simply put, Columbia/Legacy’s presentation treats The Basement Tapes as they should be: a culturally and artistically important historical document. After all, the whole concept of the bootleg record started with these recordings. Bob Dylan, staying far out...

Time to clear the decks with a year-end round-up of albums and a novel released in 2014 that made it through the deluge. Each and every one of these 40 titles is worthy of interested ears and open eyes. And don’t forget to pay respect to Father Time on December 13 (12/13/14). It’s the last...

Boasting possibly the most noticeably improved audio fidelity of Paul McCartney’s Archive Collection reissue series thus far, Wings at the Speed of Sound arrives as a newly remastered double-disc set (available November 4). The deluxe book edition adds a DVD and far more elaborate packaging. Notable for being the most democratic of McCartney’s Wings-billed albums...