Jim Avett and Familya record of faith and, well, familycollects songs of inspiration after taking its own inspiration from a multi-generational story: Avett, the father of Scott and Seth of The Avett Brothers, has fed his musical muse over the years as time allowed. Namely, when the work of several careers and hobbies like teaching, […]
Rick Cornell
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Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin Team’s National Champions
If listening to some artists’ music can feel like work, the collected output of Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin Teama blend of pig-picking goodtimes pop (NRBBQ?) and huge-speaker bar-band rockis pure play. Anderson has been at it for more than 30 years, and his tunes have stocked the shelves of the Fabulous Knobs, […]
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Jason and the Nashville Scorchers’ “Broken Whiskey Glass” and Farmer Jason’s “Punk Rock Skunk”
Listen up! Download and or stream them below. If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. Jason Ringenberg and the Nashville Scorchers burnt a hole in Nashville in early 1982 with a country-punk sound that was blasphemous to honky-tonk purists and a blast to everybody else. One of that band’s […]
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A UNC cardiologist stumbles into local music and launches a record label
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. This is the story of two guys, one who had some songs in search of a home and one who decided, after much due diligence, to start offering homes to songs. It’s too early to tell whether it’s a perfect […]
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Local songwriters talk about the best songs for loveand the best for losing it
The Independent asked past and present participants in the Love Hangover, Raleigh’s annual day-after-Valentine’s hair-of-the-dog fest, to share their favorite love and anti-love songs. The findings suggest that love hurts and stinks (although no one cited those two specific songs), but it can be a splendorous thing, too. Richard Alwyn (2000-2003 in Raleigh, 2005-2009 in […]
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Otis Taylor shines new light on an ancient instrument
Listen up! If you cannot see the music player below, download the free Flash Player. This is the story of the alligator and the scorpion. You see, there’s a scorpion who wants to get across a river, but the only way to make that trip is on an alligator’s back. In exchange for passage, the […]
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Joe Bell & the Stinging Blades’ Gizzards & Livers
Joe Bell & the Stinging Blades is a self-described bar band, its stock-in-trade a sound found on the far funky end where Southern rock crosses over to R&B. Call it a trick of the tracks, but Blades numbers that tend to pack the floors of clubsgroovers like “Let Me Hand It to You,” “Wiggle,” “Tastes […]
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John Dee Holeman has guitar, will travel … so long as the road leads home
From a farm north of Hillsborough to, in John Dee Holeman’s words, “Africa, Asia, Thailand, Bangkok, Honululu, Hong Kong, China, and every which way.” That’s where a guitar can take youfar from home. Born in the heart of Hillsborough in 1929, Holeman was 6 years old when his family “went to the country,” moving to […]
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John Dee Holeman’s You Got to Lose, You Can’t Win All the Time
⇒ Read also: “John Dee Holeman has guitar, will travel … so long as the road leads home” The blues are arguably the most direct and conversational form of music. As blues singers unspool their tales, which tend to alternate between the extremes of hardship and conquest, their moans of peril and of pleasure are […]
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Alejandro Escovedo’s “Chelsea Hotel ’78”
The music of Alejandro Escovedo is a kind of haunted folk-rock, fueled by the ghosts of glam and visited by the spirits of everybody from The Band and Townes Van Zandt to The Velvet Underground and The Stooges. He’s a master of dynamics, a king of moving from a whisper to a freak-out, with the […]