Music

Not the easiest album to find, Road To Memphis by the Paul Berner Band is a wonderful find. It’s a light, contemplative jazz album with bass, sax/clarinet and a pair of guitars. Not noisy. One thing that really surprised me about this album is how real and immediate the sound is. You are there. And then, at the end of the first track, you hear the applause and it […]

The collection of album covers, content and related images in these posts are my musings on music and the albums/tracks that delight and inspire me. The list is practically endless and so I will refrain from simply listing the best albums of all time – enough of those already.  But every now and then when I run across something special and perhaps less well known I will strive to

I’m highlighting the title track of this album in my collection of posts on music because it’s an example of one-of-a-kind, interesting, genre defying music that I find myself revisiting every now and then. And it never disappoints. Every time I listen to this track I think this is why God invented great stereo gear, 15 year single-malt, and weed 😉

RIP B.B. King I woke up this morning to the news that B.B. King had passed away at 89. It rattled me. As sure as death and divorce are the two most profoundly negative events we experience as humans, I’m generally not all that moved by news about the passing of celebrities. Losing B.B. King was different. Why? B.B. was a blues singer and guitar player. An entertainer. What

Active Listening Once you’ve sold the compelling benefits of “actively listening”, the pursuit of higher end audio gear to improve the listening experience may not be that far behind. The paradox of our being awash in technology with ever greater access to the world’s catalog of music (Pandora, Spotify, digital music, downloading etc. ) is that most of us aren’t actively listening to it. Sure, technically we hear it,

Digital Music If you’ve followed the evolution of the music industry these past few years the biggest change has been the advent of digital music downloads via the internet along with the decline of CD sales. To hear industry insiders tell it, you’d think the sky was falling and they’re all gonna die. The antagonist in all this? Illegal downloads – pirating. So of course the music industry launched

Jeff Gold has written an epic coffee table book about the golden age of rock –  101 Essential Rock Records, The Golden Age of Vinyl From the Beatles to The Sex Pistols. Explains Jeff Gold….”The opening essay explains we’re covering the most seminal rock (not blues, not R&B, not straight-ahead folk) albums from the era where album sales dominated–from Beatlemania through the emergence of the Walkman and the dominance of

Bruce Springsteen If music grabs you, moves you, speaks to you, can make you cry, can make you laugh, is part of your life, going way back, to your beginning, and it hasn’t let up, then read or listen to Bruce Springteen’s keynote speech from the 2012 South by Southwest Conference. All of it. In one sitting. You’ll feel it. And love it. The heart and soul of music. And know it’s true. Text:

  I remember the first time I heard Led Zeppelin. It was 1969. Blown away. If you were around back then, you know what I mean. Years later, when I took up learning how to play blues guitar, it soon dawned on me just how rooted in the blues their music had been – and still is. In fact, many of their cuts were actually covers of old blue

Johnny B. Goode Chuck Berry wrote and recorded Johnny B. Goode in 1958 when I was just 5 years old. It’s hard to overstate the significance of Chuck Berry on the emergence of rock-n-roll. In a very real way, Chuck was the father of rock. All who came after including all the great rock guitarists like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards owe their beginnings to Chuck Berry. When you listen