purchase [ The Philosophy of Modern Song ] If you use Amazon as your guide to the number of books Bob Dylan has written, you'll end u...

The mythological lure of the road has long attracted attention in way more than just musical memes. We’ll get to that in due course, but it ...

The Dexateens : Shelter [ purchase ] I seem to be writing about my song selection process a lot lately, which may mean that I’m trying t...

Buddy Holly : Crying, Waiting, Hoping (Apartment Tapes version) [ purchase ] This may be the hardest theme we’ve tackled here, and I’ll ...

  purchase [ Slow Train Coming ] Muscle Shoals has a special place in the pantheon of music from the 1960s on. It's the name of multipl...

Neil Young : Southern Man [ purchase ] Bob Dylan : Girl From The North Country [ purchase ] Bob Dylan w/Johnny Cash : Girl From The North ...

Keith Jarrett : My Back Pages [ purchase ]  Over at Cover Me , in honor of Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday earlier this week, the staff, includ...

Have you ever realised how many Jones's there are in music. And I don't mean performers, I mean in the material. Is it the commonest...

To say I am fond of pedal steel guitar would be an understatement; I bloody adore the instrument and how it sounds, whether as high lonesom...

  purchase [ Woody's version   ] <No, thanks> or <no thanks>. There is a difference. Syntax/punctuation matters. Actually, I...

O, shame the poor wag who suggested the name of the album was a suggestion to the band. Cripes, they aren't that ugly, are they? Hardly ...

purchase [ Can't Wait ] Dylan's <Can't Wait> went through various gestations before appearing on Time Out of Mind....

In the Madness I'm going to stick with the sanity and sense delineation, not least as there is seeming so little about of late. An...

I knew this guy had to get a mention ahead of year end, having briefly invoked his spirit in an earlier post. But once again I fear I may...

Rick Robbins : Low & Lonely [ purchase ] You know how in “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” Arlo sings that it: all started two Tha...

Ms. Gilmore has had a couple of brief mentions here previously, but really deserves the option of a fuller piece, given the pleasure her...

Sure, you know this, of course you do. You may have sung it as a child; it certainly sounds as if you should have sung it as a child. I d...

 purchase [ Christmas in the Heart ] For the last few themes, J David has been the brains, me: the brawn. When I put up the Seasons ...

Cheap Trick : Surrender (live) [ purchase the full concert—it’s cheaper than the original version! ] When you Surrender, it is The En...