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 three decades later for Orange Crate...

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 in June. An eponymous disc...

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 the terrific Time Out of Mind in...

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 lived in the U.K. since...