AP - Jul 23, 2008
It was more than 50 years ago but Ry Cooder remembers it like it could have been last week; he was 8 years old and Johnny Cash came on the radio singing Hey Porter. A third-grader with a guitar was hooked...
More »Reuters - Jan 26, 2007
The music of the civil rights era is on the mind of soul legend Mavis Staples. Her forthcoming spring album, We ll Never Turn Back, leans heavily on songs from the period in which the Staple Singers...
More »Reuters - Dec 14, 2006
Guitarist Ry Cooder will follow his 2005 album Chavez Ravine with My Name Is Buddy, due March 6 via Nonesuch, sources told Billboard.com. On it, Cooder narrates from the perspective of Buddy Red Cat,...
More »Reuters - Sep 6, 2006
West Africa time is liquid and the evening air saturated with equatorial humidity. Cotton clothes are drenched with sweat, and the distinctively Malian polyrhythms are luminous as jazz vocalist Dee Dee...
More »Reuters - Aug 27, 2006
Before Hurricane Katrina hit, Tanio Hingle lived in a house in the Treme section of New Orleans with his wife and three kids, gigging around town with the New Birth Brass Band. The eight-piece played...
More »Reuters - May 19, 2006
Posthumous albums often disappoint, generally being incomplete recordings that would never have emerged had the artist lived. That s not the case with Savane, the self-penned final album by two-time...
More »AP - Mar 7, 2006
The renowned African musician Ali Farka Toure died Tuesday after a long illness, Mali s Culture Ministry said. He was in his late 60s. Toure, one of Africa s most-famous performers, played a traditional...
More »Reuters - Sep 25, 2005
Bettye LaVette landed a top 10 R&B hit with her very first single. In 1962, when she was only 16, her My Man, He s a Loving Man peaked at No. 7. The following 43 years, however, have not been as kind...
More »Reuters - Sep 21, 2005
The evening might have begun with a funeral dirge, but the atmosphere Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden was hardly funereal. Rather, this all-star benefit concert for the Gulf Coast victims of...
More »Reuters - Sep 13, 2005
Tom Waits, Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio, John Mayer Trio, Joss Stone and the Meters have signed on for a September 20 benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims at New York s Radio City Music Hall...
More »Reuters - Sep 13, 2005
Tom Waits, Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio, John Mayer Trio, Joss Stone and the Meters have signed on for a September 20 benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims at New York s Radio City Music Hall...
More »AP - Sep 10, 2005
Clarence Gatemouth Brown, the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died Saturday in his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape...
More »Reuters - Aug 6, 2005
Ibrahim Ferrer, the mild-mannered singer of the Buena Vista Social Club group that took him from shining shoes to world fame late in life, died on Saturday in Havana, a funeral parlor employee said. He...
More »AP - Jun 10, 2005
Roots is a term that gets thrown around quite a bit in music, particularly for those bands digging into its most cavernous tradition. In the case of the North Mississippi Allstars, that concept just happens...
More »AP - Mar 17, 2005
Eduardo Lalo Guerrero Jr., who for 60 years created songs in Spanish and English chronicling the Mexican-American experience, including Pachuco music later used in the play Zoot Suit, has died. He was...
More »Reuters - Mar 1, 2005
Cuba s music industry unveiled a new venture on Tuesday to plug into London s cigar and cocktails scene and show it has more to offer than the veterans of Buena Vista Social Club. Cuba s main state-...
More »AP - Feb 25, 2005
Ry Cooder loved riding around Los Angeles from his home in Santa Monica, Calif., as a youngster, seeing all the different neighborhoods. But there was one place he didn t go, fearing it was too tough...
More »AP - Feb 23, 2005
Ry Cooder loved riding around Los Angeles from his home in Santa Monica, Calif., as a youngster, seeing all the different neighborhoods. But there was one place he didn t go, fearing it was too tough...
More »AP - Nov 21, 2004
Terry Melcher, a record producer and songwriter who aided the careers of Ry Cooder , the Byrds and the Beach Boys, has died, his publicist announced Saturday. He was 62. Melcher, the son of actress...
More »Reuters - May 14, 2004
With a string of dazzling performances substituting for such artists as Andreas Haefliger and Peter Serkin, Jonathan Biss seems to be classical music s newest overnight piano sensation. But the 23-year...
More »Reuters - Jan 16, 2004
Rykodisc, recognized as one of the world s foremost independent labels, will celebrate its 20-year-anniversay with a double-album compilation CD due Feb. 3. Ryko issued the first music on CD by Jimi...
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