DIXIE DREGS Tuesday, March 6, 8 p.m., $45–$75 Carolina Theatre, Durham www.carolinatheatre.org While groups like Snarky Puppy are putting jazz fusion back on the radar, the singular blend of rock, jazz, and country influences Augusta, Georgia’s Dixie Dregs brought to their 1977 debut album, Free Fall, has yet to even be imitated, let alone duplicated. […]
Jim Allen
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Singer-Songwriter and Producer Joe Henry Shares in Durham
JOE HENRY Thursday, Nov. 30-Saturday, Dec. 2, Various times, free–$38 Various venues, Durham www.dukeperformances.duke.edu Joe Henry has been a sui generis songsmith since the mid-eighties, traversing and transcending genres over the course of fifteen albums. As a Grammy-winning producer, he’s helmed projects by legends like Solomon Burke, Mose Allison, and Allen Toussaint, as well as […]
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Mahavishnu Orchestra’s John McLaughlin Looks Toward Retirement After Half a Century of Groundbreaking Guitar Work
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN & JIMMY HERRING Sunday, Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m., $10–$85 Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham www.dukeperformances.duke.edu Even if John McLaughlin had never released a single solo album or formed his pioneering fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra, he would still be regarded as a visionary who changed the game for guitarists and profoundly altered the course […]
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Jake Xerxes Fussell Unearths More Hidden Gems of Folk Music on His Excellent New Record, What in the Natural World
JAKE XERXES FUSSELL | Friday, March 31, 8 p.m., $10 | Nightlight, Chapel Hill If a song is strong, it’s gonna last a long time,” says Jake Xerxes Fussell. He should know. Fussell is a folksinger not just a ballad crooner with an acoustic guitar, but a sincere champion of traditionally rooted tunes. Fussell, who […]
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Power-Pop Powerhouse Peter Holsapple Is Solo Again After Playing in Other People’s Famous Bands
“I’m not sure that an album is the way to present things anymore,” says Peter Holsapple. He ought to know. Over the last three and a half decades, he’s been involved with some of the biggest, most acclaimed albums around and some of the most exceptional-but-underappreciated ones too. The Winston-Salem-bred singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist first […]
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Song Premiere: Peter Holsapple Returns to Solo Work with a New Single
Peter Holsapple, who co-fronted power-pop cult heroes The dB’s in the eighties and subsequently worked with everyone from R.E.M. to Hootie & The Blowfish, has plenty of recordings to his credit, but up until now there’s only been one solo outing in his discography: the 1997 album Out of My Way. That’s about to change […]
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Record Review: Chatham County Line Bends its Boundaries Even Further on Autumn
When is a bluegrass band not a bluegrass band anymore? It’s a question Raleigh’s Chatham County Line has wrestled with for some time now. On its self-titled debut album thirteen years ago, the quintet maintained some strong ties to traditional bluegrass despite its overt newgrass leanings. And though the band’s roots do still show themselves […]
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Willie Nelson, Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton: Three Very Different Generations of Country Songwriters in Three Days
STAPLETON (FRIDAY): KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, CARY 7:30 p.m. $43–$50 CHESNEY (SATURDAY): COASTAL CREDIT AT WALNUT CREEK, RALEIGH 7:30 p.m. $30.25–$652 NELSON & KRISTOFFERSON (SUNDAY): KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE, CARY 7 p.m. $49.50–$59.50 There have long been two kinds of country singersthose who combed the catalogs of Nashville songsmiths in search of tunes and those who have […]
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Record Review: Tonk Sticks With Classic Country on Second Nature
Tonk doesn’t play alt-country, but that’s the camp in which the Raleigh band is likely to locate the most simpatico ears. In reality, Tonk’s sound is an unadorned Bakersfield echo. In the current country climate, that puts the group firmly in the realm of outsiders and underdogs. When roots-conscious country bands can feel like they’re […]
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Once a Leading Candidate to Be the “New Dylan,” Sammy Walker Deserves a Second Listen
There should be a long German word for the phenomenon by which we endlessly seek new iterations of an irreplaceable cultural force. You’ll find few better examples than the music world’s desperate quest to anoint a “New Dylan,” starting in the sixties, continuing apace through the late seventies, and, to some extent, still happening now. […]