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Baltimore City Paper

Baltimore City Paper

Baltimore City Paper is a free alternative weekly newspaper published in Baltimore, Maryland. It was launched in 1977.

29 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Bob Dylan: Live 1966 (Columbia/Legacy)

Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 4 November 1998

CALL IT the triumph of the bootleggers. ...

Alison Krauss, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Sounds of Heartache: Alison Krauss and Me'Shell Ndegeocello

Essay by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 18 August 1999

IT WOULD BE hard to think of two female singers more different than Alison Krauss and Me'Shell Ndegeocello. Krauss, a straight European-American from the Midwestern ...

Nelly: Country Grammarian: Nelly

Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 6 September 2000

THIS IS WHAT pop music is all about. A radio single with a sing-along hook so catchy and so danceable you can't resist it. A ...

Alejandro Escovedo Under the Influence

Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 25 April 2001

ON MARCH 22, 1998, Alejandro Escovedo introduced a new song at La Zona Rosa in his hometown of Austin, Texas. He was dressed cowboy-formal in ...

Diana Krall: In Defence of Diana Krall

Comment by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 5 March 2002

Diana Krall and Jane Monheit are better than you think. Geoffrey Himes explains why. ...

Husker Du, Bob Mould: The Real Godfather of Grunge: Bob Mould's Modulate

Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 20 March 2002

KURT COBAIN WAS a wonderful musician, but the combination of a best-selling record, a tabloid marriage and a lurid suicide inflated his reputation all out ...

Caitlin Cary, Ryan Adams, Whiskeytown: Life After Whiskeytown: Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary

Comment by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 1 May 2002

Who was the most important figure to emerge from the break-up of Whiskeytown – Ryan Adams or Caitlin Cary? Geoffrey Himes ponders the issue. ...

Al Green: Higher Ground: Al Green Blends His Sacred and Secular Instincts When He Steps Onstage

Retrospective by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 17 July 2002

ALBUMS ARE NOT the only means of making great music any more than movies are the only means of doing great acting. Every time a ...

Solomon Burke: Big Philly Style: King Of Rock 'N' Soul Solomon Burke Returns To The City Of His Coronation

Retrospective and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 2 March 2005

BY EARLY 1964, the 24-year-old Solomon Burke had already been a bishop in his grandmother's church for 17 years but he wanted to be king. ...

Sleater-Kinney: The Gamblers: Sleater-Kinney Makes A Stab At Greatness With Its Ambitious New Album

Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 22 June 2005

RARE IS THE punk-rock band that makes its best music 11 years after starting. Few punk bands even make it to the 11-year mark and ...

Bruce Springsteen: Unplugged Life: Bruce Springsteen Ages Into The Intimate Singer/Songwriter Album With Devils and Dust

Report by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 29 June 2005

HUMAN TOUCH: After mastering the rockin' Bruce album, Bruce Springsteen is now honing the acoustic Bruce album. ...

Drive-By Truckers: Playing Hurt: The Drive-By Truckers Wrestle With Loss and Acceptance on Their Darkest Album Yet

Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 26 June 2006

NOVELIST/CRITIC George Pelecanos has called them "the American band of the decade". Amazon.com extended it to "the greatest band in the world". Blender said they ...

Arthur Alexander: Country's Soul: The Music Of The Late Arthur Alexander Still Provides A Living Link Between Hillbilly Twang And R&B

Retrospective by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 31 October 2007

ON MARCH 18, 1993, Arthur Alexander was the guest star at Jimmie Dale Gilmore's birthday party at the Broken Spoke dance hall in Austin, Texas. ...

Bob Dylan: Jokerman For a Generation: Bob Dylan's Legendary Grin

Essay by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 21 November 2007

SINCE 1968, Bob Dylan's past has been chasing him like a pack of wild dogs. There's a reason he's pegged his concerts as the "Never ...

Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers: Going to a Go-Go: Hip-Hop Repays Its Debt to Chuck Brown

Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 26 December 2007

CHUCKY THOMPSON was just a teenager from the streets of Washington when he became a drummer for Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers in the ...

J.J. Cale: Laying Low: The Elusive J.J. Cale Releases Possibly His Final Opus

Report by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 25 February 2009

THE POPULAR MYTH about the Velvet Underground is that the band never sold many records, but everyone who bought one started a band. As exaggerations ...

The Gift of Music: Anthologies to please

Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 14 November 2012

WHY ARE multi-disc collections of old music still valuable in an era of downloads retrieved from nearly boundless clouds? Because these box sets and greatest-hit ...

Sound City at SXSW

Film/DVD/TV Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 10 March 2013

THE SOUTH BY Southwest Conference got underway yesterday with SXSW Film, one leg of the tripod extravaganza that also features Interactive and Music components. Twenty-two ...

Billy Bragg: SXSW: Billy Bragg plays songs from new album, plus one inspired by the Bible

Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 15 March 2013

"THE PROBLEM with most protest songs," Billy Bragg said Wednesday afternoon, "is people spend all their time on the protest and not enough on the ...

Bob Dylan: DAR Constitution Hall, Washington DC

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 26 November 2014

FOR YEARS, ONE of the pleasures of going to a Bob Dylan concert was the guessing game of "What will he play tonight?" It wasn't ...

The Black Keys: Royal Farms Arena, Baltimore

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 5 December 2014

GUITARIST DAN AUERBACH sings all the vocals, takes all the solos, and plays the fundamental riffs, so why is drummer Patrick Carney considered an equal ...

Kat Edmonson, Robert Ellis: Kat Edmonson/Robert Ellis: Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 25 February 2015

KAT EDMONSON AND Robert Ellis, who brought their tour to Annapolis Tuesday night, are Houston singers with the same final initial and current Brooklyn addresses. ...

Gurf Morlix: Strange Brew, Austin

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 16 March 2015

BEFORE BOBBY Womack and then the Rolling Stones turned it into a romantic-ultimatum pop song, 'The Last Time' was a bluesy gospel song performed by ...

Mavis Staples: The music doc Mavis! lets the powerful performances do the talking

Film/DVD/TV Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 16 March 2015

LIKE THE MARYLAND Film Festival, the South by Southwest Film Festival follows each screening by a discussion with the movie's creative team. After SXSW presented ...

Ray Wylie Hubbard, James McMurtry: Down in Austin, music is something of a family business

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 19 March 2015

AUSTIN MUSIC IS becoming a family business. Parents are passing down to their children songwriter/performer brand names as if they were used-car lots, drug stores, ...

Neil Young's Human Highway

Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 20 March 2015

Neil Young discusses remastering his dystopian sci-fi flick at SXSW ...

The Decemberists: Merriweather Post Pavilion

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 5 June 2015

EARLY IN THE Decemberists' show at the Merriweather Post Pavilion Thursday night, silver-suited lead singer Colin Meloy was explaining how one of his songs started ...

Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket: Jason Isbell outshines My Morning Jacket with powerful Merriweather set

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 27 July 2015

JASON ISBELL came to the Merriweather Post Pavilion Sunday evening just nine days after releasing one of the year's best albums, Something More Than Free. ...

Sam Smith shows effortless talent, tasteful restraint at Merriweather show

Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, 27 July 2015

WHEN YOU HAVE a voice as spectacular as Sam Smith's—an instrument that can glide across multiple octaves without a break or apparent effort—the temptation to ...

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