Robert Johnson

Playbill: John Egan

Get Lit: Rock & Roll Heaven, by Robert Dimery and Bruno MacDonald

Drenched In Blog: My Bloody Valentine Is Back

Brother from Another Planet

Harlem Slim is what happens when a talented white guy with sales experience jumps into the blues

Master Blaster

Cody ChesnuTT sees rock and roll, and he wants to repaint it black

Pretty Ugly

Brooklyn's Barkmarket tries to hack off every oppressively prettified, mass-market notion of music

Eyeballin': Down the Tracks: The Music That Influenced Led Zeppelin

Even the most naïve and surface Led Zeppelin listener tell you at least that they were influenced "by the blues." But this insightful and surprisingly solid documentary goes way further in delving into the sound and the performers which were in the minds (and on the home stereos) of Mssrs. Page an ... More >>

McComb's Second Finest

Even the most naïve and surface Led Zeppelin listener tell you at least that they were influenced "by the blues." But this insightful and surprisingly solid documentary goes way further in delving into the sound and the performers which were in the minds (and on the home stereos) of Mssrs. Page an ... More >>

Rap of Ages Inc.

Even the most naïve and surface Led Zeppelin listener tell you at least that they were influenced "by the blues." But this insightful and surprisingly solid documentary goes way further in delving into the sound and the performers which were in the minds (and on the home stereos) of Mssrs. Page an ... More >>

Digging the Delta

Even the most naïve and surface Led Zeppelin listener tell you at least that they were influenced "by the blues." But this insightful and surprisingly solid documentary goes way further in delving into the sound and the performers which were in the minds (and on the home stereos) of Mssrs. Page an ... More >>

Get Lit: Delta Blues by Ted Gioia

Raw and untamed in its sound, performed by larger-than-life characters who might have popped out of fiction, and shrouded in a (often self-mythologizing) mystery, it's no wonder that the Delta blues attract such interest and scholarship, and is lauded as the most "true" distillation of the genre ... More >>

Zydeco's Birthplace

Hint: It's where you're standing

The Gourds land a real Haymaker!

Dead to Rights

The Collector: The Hoodoo Curse

Bluesman Robert Johnson's shadow stretches long and large

The Collector: Mack McCormick's Huge Archive of Culture and Lore

A great American folklorist has spent a life squirreling away bits and pieces of Texas culture. Now time is running out on him and his inventory.

Racket

Cedric Turner ventures into an abyss far deeper than ones traveled by most bluesmen

Road Outrageous

The Coens take Homer on a Southern-fried odyssey in O Brother

Roy Rogers & the Delta Rhythm Kings

The Coens take Homer on a Southern-fried odyssey in O Brother

Brass Ball

The Coens take Homer on a Southern-fried odyssey in O Brother

Don't Fear the Reaper

The annual return of the Greil Marcus Rock Death Meter

Burnside Exploration

The Record

Hurricane Mixtape

Music to drown by

Deep in The Throes

Tired of guitar-and-drums blues duos? You haven't heard Two Gallants yet.

The Real Deal

Who is the more "authentic" bluesman -- Bobby Bland or T-Model Ford?

The Way We Wore

Vintage Vogue shows how fashion went from pillbox hats to pantsuits

The Boob Scotch Tour

Staying abreast of modern trends in blues with Bob Log III

Elephants Versus RINOs

Party veterans sound alarms at the proposed GOP political-purity rules

Bobby "Blue" Bland

Two Steps from the Blues (MCA/Duke-Peacock)

Racket

Tejano musicians aren't getting the same cut as their Anglo counterparts

Local Rotation

Harlem Slim: Delta Thug

Down the Drain

Downsizing may not be treating city water workers -- or what we drink-- safely

Mo' Better Blues

Art imitates life in the music of Keb' Mo'

The Poetry Winners

Art imitates life in the music of Keb' Mo'

New Blues

Alternative rock robs pop's cradle

Aftermath: George Thorogood's Raucous Rock Party Destroys House of Blues

Photos by Groovehouse​ Since we have long since moved into a digital age of music journalism, Aftermath now takes notes on his cellphone or loads his thoughts onto Twitter. Sifting through our pecking from last night's George Thorogood and the Destroyers show at the House of Blues, we noticed that ... More >>

Musical Theology With John Coltrane, Robert Johnson

​Naxos continues to release episodes from the Masters of American Music documentary series from the '90s, and here are two from the latest releases (the two others profiling Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie). Not a straight biographical doc or even a chronological one about his album releases, The Wo ... More >>

Going Platinum: Artists We'd Pay $10,000 To See - And When

​It started one night on the patio of Big Star Bar in the Heights; over Lone Star and cigarettes, a handful of Houston music wags debated the shows they would pay top dollar to see from lartists, iving or dead. We argued the aspects of an At the Drive-In reformation, seeing Sam Cooke in 1963, ... More >>

Los Skarnales

The punk/ska band adds New Orleans funk.

The Rolling Stones At Hofheinz Pavilion In 1972, Firsthand

Ed. Note: Rocks Off's own Lonesome Onry and Mean himself, William Michael Smith, attended the Rolling Stones concert at Hofheinz Pavilion in June 1972 that was filmed for the movie Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones. Since the movie screens at 7:30 p.m. tonight at several Houston-area theaters ... More >>

Six Things The White Stripes Leave In Their Wake

​In the wake of the White Stripes' official breakup last week, the music world reeled with the loss of one of the defining bands of the past decade. Some applauded the end of a band they saw as too simplistic, buoyed by a sub-par drummer and warbling attention-addict. Different strokes, y'all. ... More >>

Das Racist: Deconstructing The Rappers' References

​Over the past two years, Das Racist has been a Pitchfork favorite and highly revered for their witty, perhaps smarmy delivery of mostly historical and pop-culture references. The duo - trio if you include their hypeman, Dap, and quartet if you include their hypeman's hypeman, Lakutis - is com ... More >>

John Mellencamp

​Over the past two years, Das Racist has been a Pitchfork favorite and highly revered for their witty, perhaps smarmy delivery of mostly historical and pop-culture references. The duo - trio if you include their hypeman, Dap, and quartet if you include their hypeman's hypeman, Lakutis - is com ... More >>

Beautiful Chaos

Psychedelic Fur Richard Butler talks Talk Talk Talk redux.

R.I.P.: Remembering The 27 Club - Jimi, Jim, Janis, Kurt...

​As a student of rock music since he was born and sat in front of MTV and VH1, Craig's Hlist has grown up hearing constant aching throb of the number 27, the end-marker for a collection of rockers who died at that hallowed age, due mostly to their own chemical and/or personal misadventures. ... More >>

Zoo Station: A Noah's Ark Of 75 Animal Songs

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee ... More >>

Lemmy & HeadCat Mates Walk The Rockabilly Walk

​You could say that the members of roots-rock trio HeadCat got together to pay tribute to the King. But instead of the baby Jesus of Bethlehem, these three wise men -bassist/singer Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead), drummer Slim Jim Phantom (ex-Stray Cats), and guitarist/pianist Danny B. Harvey (ex ... More >>

True Blood: Selling Your Soul in a Buyer's Market

Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston. ​What is a soul and, more importantly in this rough economic ... More >>

Four Artists Who Died Before Playing Houston

theindependent.co.uk​When Amy Winehouse died Saturday, almost everyone noted how the troubled British soul singer had joined the "27 Club," the list of legendary musicians who passed away at that age that also includes Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, ... More >>

HPMA Preview: Nobody Leaves Without Singing The Blues Edition

Photo by Brittanie SheyLittle Joe Washington​In the movie Adventures in Babysitting, Houston native bluesman Albert Collins inadvertently assists the getaway of young Elizabeth Shue (meow) and her charges from a gang of thugs, but only after she sings. Collins blocks the attackers with the sam ... More >>

The 10 Most Real Artists of All Time; The Anti-Milli Vanillis

Milli Vanilli​On this day in 1990, the manager for recent Grammy winners for Best New Group Milli Vanilli held a press conference to tell everyone his act was a fraud. They did not do any of the singing on their best-selling record and they lip synced their shows. It was a startling revelation ... More >>