The most frightening musical term for me is “free jazz.” So it’s odd that I should enjoy this nine-minute noodle by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. (more…)

This old earworm has taken up residence in my head and it won’t go away. Which is annoying as I didn’t much like it way back in 1970. (more…)

A mash-up before mash-ups were invented, this finds the great/bonkers Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, taking two classic reggae tunes, pulling them apart and putting them back together. (more…)

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys brought Western Swing to the fore in the 1940s and helped define the ‘other’ half of Country & Western music. (more…)

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen come together for an emotion-packed vintage-sounding country-tinged duet. (more…)

If Jimmie Rodgers bridged the gap between blues and country, then The Carter Family did the same for folk and bluegrass. (more…)

Jimmie Rodgers might not have been the first country musician to make a record – that was Eck Robertson. But with his Blue Yodels he was country music’s first superstar. (more…)

Eck Robertson was the first country musician to make a record. He might have been called “the Hendrix of the fiddle” if only he’d been born half a century later.

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Here is Marlena Shaw reimagined in a deep house tune by Benny Blanco – probably the most successful guy in the entire music biz. (more…)