News

Happy Traum, a stalwart of the Greenwich Village and Woodstock folk scenes and longtime friend and collaborator of Bob Dylan, died on Wednesday at age 86. The Hudson Valley magazine Chronogram first reported the musician’s death, and his close friend and fellow musician John Sebastian confirmed to Rs that the cause was cancer.

In addition to making records on his own and with his late brother Artie, Traum was also a key figure in the post-Fifties folk scene thanks to his role as an instructor. His 1966 book Fingerpicking Styles for...

Even the most casual students of American music will be quick to tell you that it’s almost impossible to find a musical tradition that can’t be traced back to the blues.

From the lyrical repetition and call-and-response structure of countless pop songs to the 12-bar guitar lines that formed the foundation of jazz and rock ‘n roll (which in turn created many of the samples that fueled the genesis of hip-hop), America’s first art form produced many of the creative traditions and stylistic flourishes that we now take for granted.

As the blues artists of the early 20th-century continue to influence a new generation of musicians in both direct and indirect ways, a forgotten documentary featuring many of the genre’s most influential voices is returning to theaters this summer. Roviros Manthoulis’ 1973 film “The Blues Under the Skin” saw the music documentarian traveling through the deep south...

For the majority of John Oates’ professional career, solo work was a means to keep busy and creatively fulfilled between the Daryl Hall & John Oates projects that took up most of his time. But now that the duo has hopelessly fractured after more than 50 years of partnership, Oates has the time to concentrate all his energies on his own music, beginning with his new LP, Reunion, out May 17.

The album is the culmination of years of work and features original compositions he wrote with A.J. Croce, Keith Sykes, Jim Lauderdale,...

No matter the genre, tribute albums tend toward the reverent, as if the musicians and singers doing the saluting don’t want to appear even remotely disrespectful toward their subjects. Thankfully, that’s not the case with his overdue reunion of Americana veterans Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, who first worked together in the cult band the Rising Sons in the Sixties but haven’t made a full album together since.

In its title, cover art, and some of its songs, Get on Board replicates the 1952 Folkways album by blues...

Last June, Justin Townes Earle sat down for a typically frank and hilarious interview on our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. Townes Earle had a lot to celebrate: an excellent new album, The Saint of Lost Causes, and a two-year-old daughter, Etta, at home. In a free-wheeling, emotional conversation, Earle — who died at the age of 38 over the weekend — looked back at his rough childhood, discussed his relationship with his father, Steve Earle, his “bumpy” ride with sobriety, and much more. An edited version of the conversation, previously published only as a podcast,...

“Hey, cowboy!”

Even in a city where everyone’s seen it all, the sight of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott is still enough to turn a few heads, including one of a guy plopped down outside a bodega. On a recent summer morning, Elliott has returned to his former stomping, singing, and drinking grounds of New York’s Greenwich Village. As he has most of his life, he resembles a slightly bow-legged ranch hand on a day off — black T-shirt, slightly scuffed black boots, jeans with suspenders that resemble a woven belt.

We thought all the great vintage music documentaries were accounted for, but Murray Lerner’s look at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid-‘sixties is a terrific time machine to a kindler, gentler musical era. The mix of talent is broad and deep, and we get to see excellent vintage coverage of some real legends, before the hype & marketing plague arrived.

Festival: Folk Music at Newport, 1963-1966

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 892

1967 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 12, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Odetta, Ronnie Gilbert, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Theodore Bikel, Cousin Emmy, Horton Barker, Fiddler Beers, Mimi Fariña, Richard Farina, Mrs. Ollie Gilbert, Fannie Lou Hamer, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, John Koerner, Jim Kweskin, Tex Logan, Mel Lyman, Spokes Mashiyane, Fred McDowell, Brownie McGhee, Pappy Clayton McMichen,...

Guitar great George Thorogood is stepping out from his legendary band the Destroyers for the first time with a new solo album, Party of One, on Aug. 4—and People has an exclusive first listen!

Responsible for a string of gritty rock hits including “Bad to the Bone,” “I Drink Alone,” and “Reelin’ and Rockin’,” Thorogood’s latest will feature 14 blues tracks that range from old school traditional—John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” and Hank Williams’ “Pictures From Life’s Other Side”—to modern classics like the Rolling Stones‘ “No Expectations.”

Party of One reunites Thorogood...

As Brownie McGhee once said, "The blues is life."

Nowhere knows that life better than Chicago, which has been the world's blues mecca for more than a century. And this weekend, a slew of legendary musicians were recognized in a special ceremony at the city's premiere blues club.

The Blues Hall of Fame ceremony at Buddy Guy's Legends read like a who's-who of the local circuit, including performances by Mud Morganfield, Toronzo Cannon and Harvey "T-Bird Huck" Huckstep.

Buddy Guy himself, the man responsible for grooming artists from Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, was on hand to receive his award. Other inductees included Billy Branch and the late Muddy Waters.

Guy was one of the first performers to popularize the Chicago blues style, born after the Great Migration brought droves of black workers from the south to major northern cities.

Late last year, in a...

Kidney Brothers: Coal Tattoo (Hearpen)

Having grown up and loved from afar, forced to do so after I moved to NYC, there are few bands still playing live -- four decades later -- worthy of my unbridled accolades and devotion but so it is with the heady agro-blues of 15-60-75 Aka The Numbers Band. If you dig music and happen to hail from Northeast Ohio, you know what I'm talking about. Having followed their entire career, I can proudly boast that I'm one of their biggest fans. Yet, it's no leap of faith or youthful nostalgia.

If you've seen them live, regardless of the decade, then you know the passion and verve that the brothers Kidney -- singer/guitarist Bob and harpist/sax/keyboardist/vocalist Jack -- share with their audience, regardless of the size, every single time they take the stage. 

Along with horn player Terry Hynde (Pretender...

AP Scottish folk guitarist Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch, who helped invigorate the British folk movement of the 1960s, died today in Hampstead, London, following a bout with lung cancer. He was 67.

Born in Glasgow, Jansch was one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century, counting among his fans and followers Bernard Butler, Donovan, Nick Drake, Johnny Marr, Jimmy Page, Paul Simon and Neil Young. As a solo artist, with guitarist John Renbourn and later as a member of Pentangle,...

I wasn’t very familiar with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee before starting this little blogging project, but as soon as I heard them, I knew I had to feature them. (So thanks for the recommendation, Bee Man Caught In Sting and Batman: The Horse.) Best known as a duo act, Walter “Brownie” McGhee and Sonny Terry (born Saunders Terrell) played together for four decades through the mid-1970s. Here’s a clip from the 1996 video Blues Masters, which gathers performances recorded in 1966 for Canadian TV, with an introduction by Canadian musician Colin James that obviates the need for me to write a bio about them, and I’m always up for letting someone else do my work: Oh, what the hell, I'll write a short bio anyway. Unlike other musicians I’ve featured so far, Terry and...