By Mark GuarinoIn the suh-un, the group harmonizes, In the su-uh-uh-un. Dollops of sweet guitar bend to the floor, like a Stax house band fatigued after recording until dawn but not yet ready to call it a night. The music lazes as if drifting from a [...]

By Mark Guarino You can make yourself dizzy thinking of ways the Drive-By Truckers and the Hold Steady are similar, because each reason will ring untrue. It just may be that the only thing connecting these bands is their audience: you know, the beer-slugging collegiate types [...]

By Mark GuarinoHurricane Rita huffed and puffed but did not blow down the Austin City Limits Music Festival in late September. Because predictions said nearby Houston would suffer a direct hit, it was assumed fallout storms would force cancellations of a portion or all of the [...]

Kurt Wagner has led a life in music for a couple of decades now, but one thing he had never tried was something most songwriters do after learning their first three chords: Perform solo."I steadfastly tried to stay away from that," he said.Understand the reason: This [...]

By Mark GuarinoJackson BrowneTime the Conqueror(Inside Recordings)On his new album, Randy Newman assesses the state of our nation this way:“Jesus Christ it stinks here high and low/the rich are getting richer I should know/while we’re going up you’re going down/no one gives a shit than Jackson [...]

By Mark GuarinoSera Cahoone is the first person to tell you she is shy. First she hid behind her drums. To curb her constantly fidgeting hands, something her teachers always complained to her about, she picked up drumsticks and convinced her mother it was a practical [...]

By Mark GuarinoFor Mat Brooke, forming the Seattle band the Grand Archives presented a second chance not allowed for many musicians: To grow up.“There’s probably a natural progression of things that come with age. When you’re younger, you’re drinking and going through a ton of relationships, [...]

By Mark GuarinoIt could be no more amusing or surreal: Snow falling, indoors, onto the stage of a high school auditorium in small town Illinois, making a Neville brother, exiled from New Orleans, flick flakes from his shoulder while singing the praises of the Mardi Gras [...]

By Mark GuarinoShe may be mythic to some, but Anna Lee Amsden also makes a tasty fried cornbread. She is serving it to hungry music fans in Woodstock, N.Y., one late Saturday night in early September as Levon Helm, her friend of 60-plus years, is gearing [...]

By Mark GuarinoLet’s assume not many people at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s 50th anniversary concert were in attendance at the school’s opening night: Nov. 29, 1957.Didn’t matter. Original Old Town teacher Frank Hamilton — who was there — gave a sense of what [...]