Latest Stories

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  Scorpio Rising: Dennis Coffey Gets Funky and Jazzy on Live Record

  February 4 at 4 a.m.

  It sounded like the greatest theme song to a gritty ‘70s cops-criminals-drugs movie that never came out. But in 1971, guitarist Dennis Coffey’s funky, rocking, slashing instrumental “Scorpio” was a million seller, hitting No. 6 on the Top 40. And it’s one of the few tunes by a white act...

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  The Sound of '50s/'60s New Orleans Returns on New Anthology

  February 1 at 4 a.m.

  In the annals of New Orleans music, you’d be hard pressed to name a tune more representative of and imbued with the spirit of the Crescent City than Professor Longhair’s 1959 version of “Go to the Mardi Gras.” And the power of the piano-and-percussion fueled tune with its laid back...

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  Tweed Smith Keeps Her Birthday Party Rolling

  January 24 at 5 a.m.

  Growing up in 1950s/60s Houston, young Alice Faye Smith – named for the popular performer from a couple of decades earlier – always knew she wanted to be a singer. There was really no other career path for her, simply because it was all around her. Everyone in her family...

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  The Story of Alligator Records and its Blues-Centric Label

  January 1 at 4 a.m.

  Bitten by the Blues: The Alligator Records Story By Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts 336 pp. $30 University of Chicago Press Music business entrepreneurs start record labels for all sorts of reasons, but few have the story of Bruce Iglauer and the blues-centric Alligator Records. Iglauer – in the...

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  How Stax Records Merged the Music and the Message in 1968

  Monday, October 22, 2018 at 4 a.m.

  As both the history books and an endless stream of 50th anniversary documentaries have taught us, 1968 was an Especially Important Year in the United States. It was a time of particular upheaval with civil rights and jobs issues, the Vietnam was spiraling out of control and sparking protests, sharp...

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  Country Blues are a Big Damn Deal to This Musical Preacher

  Friday, October 5, 2018 at 5 a.m.

  Call the Rev. Peyton a “throwback,” and he’ll likely take it as a compliment. Looking like he stepped out of a 1930s kinescope about rural mountain people (or a “Popeye” cartoon), the singer/guitarist/songwriter gets both inspiration from and is a practitioner of the kind of acoustic fingerpicking country blues that...