The Boston Phoenix
The Boston Phoenix was one of a number ofalternative weekly newspapers published under the generic Phoenix title in Boston, Massachusetts, and distributed in East Coast cities. These papers emphasized local arts and entertainment coverage as well as lifestyle and political coverage from a liberal perspective. The Boston Phoenix, which started in 1966, ceased publication in 2013.
136 articles
List of articles in the library
Joe Tex: The Soul Of An Underdog
Profile and Interview by Joe McEwen, The Boston Phoenix, 31 May 1977
THE SHOW was held at South Philadelphia's Spectrum, still a brand-new facility in 1969, but it could well have been the fare at North Philly's ...
Michael Jackson: It's 1977 — do you know where your child star is?
Profile and Interview by Joe McEwen, The Boston Phoenix, October 1977
2024 note: "Who cares about Michel Jackson?" was the immediate response from my editor when I first broached this opportunity to spend time with Michael. ...
The Band: The Weight: The Band's Anthology
Review by Dave Marsh, The Boston Phoenix, 1978
IT'S NOT HARD to understand the release of Anthology, the second repackaging of Band material in two years. The group made only eight albums (one ...
David Bowie: Boston Garden, Boston
Live Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 16 May 1978
DAVID BOWIE borrows identities and musical ideas the way teenage girls borrow their best friends' clothes. But no matter whose duds Bowie puts on, with ...
Television: Knock, Knock, Knocking: Television's Adventure
Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 6 June 1978
HE'S THE KID in the back of every high school classroom - the one you never thought could talk. The one you try to remember ...
Sniff 'n' the Tears: Fickle Heart
Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 11 September 1979
BACK BRISTLING, fangs bared, the black cat on the cover of Fickle Heart stares into the cold blue of the gun that's just wasted its ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 15 April 1980
DEAR BOB: It's about your album. A funny thing happened to you on the way to the pantheon. You forgot you wrote most of the ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Boston Phoenix, 21 October 1980
ALL A friend remembers about the Split Enz gig at Paul's Mall a couple of years back was the sign announcing the coming attraction: Tom ...
Al Green: In God He Trusts: Al Green reaches higher
Comment by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 12 January 1982
IN THE '70s, in Memphis, Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell made quietly unstoppable soul music the world still hasn't gotten over. If at first ...
Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Arista)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 9 August 1983
DISCRIMINATING rock-and-roll fans in this country can finally tone down their horrified wails about white British dance bands' ubiquitous, maddening, mosquito-whine electroboogie. Pride in shallowness ...
Profile by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 20 September 1983
No longer one of the girls ...
Marianne Faithfull: As Years Go By: Marianne Faithfull's Voice of Experience
Live Review by Ariel Swartley, The Boston Phoenix, 4 October 1983
IF THERE WERE a casting call for the voice of experience, Marianne Faithfull would win the part. Wisdom? She sounds pickled in it. She's rock ...
Spandau Ballet: True (Chrysalis)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 13 December 1983
THE MADDENINGLY obscure, communications-obsessed songs on True, Spandau Ballet's new album, could have been written by Mary Hartman after years of living abroad. ...
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 10 January 1984
THERE HAS NEVER been a record quite like ABC's slick 1982 debut The Lexicon of Love. Of course, you'd heard a jaded singer as enslaved ...
Johnny Thunders: Diary Of A Lover (Jem); Hurt Me (New Rose, import)
Review by Julie Panebianco, The Boston Phoenix, 7 February 1984
JOHNNY THUNDERS' drug habit has been his brazen insignia since his days with the New York Dolls. In fact, he once led the notorious Junkies ...
Davitt Sigerson: Falling in Love Again (Island/ZE)
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 7 August 1984
WITH OPEN EYES Davitt Sigerson drives into the wreck ol romance on Falling in Love Again (Island/Ze), his American début. ...
The Special AKA: Special Aka: In The Studio (original version)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 14 August 1984
THE 2-TONE ska era was never more than another passing Anglo hip trip in America, but the Specials represented the pinnacle of the idealistic phase ...
Get Right With God: Gospel Truth
Review by James Hunter, The Boston Phoenix, 18 September 1984
A SMOKY, finger-snapping cavalcade of bold quartets, plainspoken guitarists/vocalists, and feverish singing preachers. Get Right with God: Hot Gospel 1947–1953 (Krazy Kat, UK import) is ...
Captain Beefheart: The Legendary A&M Sessions
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 23 October 1984
SINCE HIS ear-bending 1969 breakthrough, Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart's reputation as rock's most unvarnishedly unconventional artiste has overshadowed the earthy R&B roots of his ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 30 October 1984
SINCE THE DEATH of Bob Marley, the union of message music and popular appeal that he forged for reggae has undergone a widespread breakdown. ...
Chaka Khan: I Feel For You (Warner Bros.)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, November 1984
CHAKA KHAN'S quest to distance her solo work from Rufus' sly, slinky funk led her into an electronic embrace with producer Arif Mardin Two albums ...
Jeffrey Osborne: Don't Stop (A&M)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 25 December 1984
MAINSTREAM BLACK pop embodies the 'It ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it' principle; and so success is measured by a ...
Motorhead: No Remorse (Bronze/Island)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 8 January 1985
IF THE HEAVY-METAL aesthetic boils down to regular Joes recasting themselves in larger-than-life molds, ring up a sterling success for Motorhead, who play the nightriding ...
Review and Interview by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 13 February 1985
"THE GOVERNMENT is trying to lure me into participation in the politics of Nigeria now but that doesn't really mean my situation is very cool ...
The Skatalites: Scattered Lights (Alligator)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 26 February 1985
FOUR YEARS AGO, the Two-Tone ska revival raced through America as another Anglo hip trip, a six-month passing fancy that disappeared in a swirl of ...
Eric Clapton, Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Can Blue Boys Play The Whites Revisited?
Retrospective by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 19 March 1985
ANYONE WHO TAKES the crapped-out lethargy of his recent output as proof positive that Eric Clapton never played a worth while lick in his life ...
Ry Cooder's Mood Indigo Meditations: Paris, Texas
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 4 April 1985
SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS – the genuine article, not song collections assembled in executive suites with an eye for tapping the teen demographic – are inherently strange ...
Burning Spear: Resistance (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 28 June 1985
A FULL DECADE after the landmark Marcus Garvey (Island) album, the voice and vision of Burning Spear (the nom de stage of Jamaican singer/songwriter Winston ...
Danny and Dusty, The Knitters: Old Punks At Home: The Knitters and Danny & Dusty
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 30 July 1985
THE MOST VIGOROUS Los Angeles rock in the past five years has been staunchly traditionalist, the work of true believers rallying around and expanding upon ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 20 August 1985
SOME PEOPLE MAY cherish Holy Cow! (Arista) for making readily available a single-volume collection of Lee Dorsey's irresistible, sublimely lazy '60s hits like ‘Ya Ya’ ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 5 November 1985
ROCKABILLY AND COUNTRY have fit in right nicely with the white-boys-(and-girls)-making-white-noise ethos that underlies the return-to-sources rampage of recent Los Angeles rock. ...
Clifton Chenier: Live at the San Francisco Blues Festival
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 19 November 1985
ZYDECO, the musical marriage of Louisiana's indigenous Cajun and Southern R&B traditions, first crawled out from the bayous and oil derricks of southwestern Louisiana 30 ...
Joe Higgs: Triumph (Alligator)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 18 February 1986
OBSCURITY MAY become some legends most, but reggae singer Joe Higgs has taken that questionable tenet to absurd lengths. ...
Stan Ridgway's Rock Noir: The Big Heat
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 1 April 1986
IF YOU JUDGED him from his work as the mouthpiece of LA’s Wall of Voodoo, you’d be tempted to dismiss Stan Ridgway as an irredeemably ...
Solomon Burke: Soul Alive! (Rounder)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 21 May 1986
THE TRUE TRIUMPH of Solomon Burke's Soul Alive! (Rounder) was neither the spirited elan of performances that transcended mere revivalism nor the startling, albeit chart-invisible, ...
Pere Ubu: Beau Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower
Retrospective by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 10 June 1986
IT’S SHAME THAT Pere Ubu’s debut singles in 1975-’76 consigned the Cleveland band to the remote fringes of that pop reserved for the experimentally minded. ...
Thelonious Monster: Halfway Hilarity
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 19 August 1986
THELONIOUS MONSTER’S Baby...You’re Bummin’ My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion (Epitaph) is one of the all-time dream titles, right up there with ‘Death May ...
Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair: New Orleans Pianos: Talking Fingers
Film/DVD/TV Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 16 September 1986
You don't have to be addicted to New Orleans piano style to savor the rich portrait of Stevenson Palfi's Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together ...
Sugar Minott: Inna Reggae Dance Hall (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 23 October 1986
BOB MARLEY'S international breakthrough spawned a glut of Jamaican journeyman scrambling for the reggae rainbow's seemingly attainable pot of gold but an inevitable byproduct of ...
Joe Louis Walker: Dark Is The Night (High Tone)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 11 November 1986
OVER THE YEARS, persistent claims that a blues renaissance is at hand have sunk to the credibility of the little boy who cried howling wolf. ...
Los Lobos: By The Light of the Moon (Slash)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 27 January 1987
‘ONE TIME One Night’ kicks off Los Lobos's By The Light of the Moon (Slash) with such instantly riveting command and power that it seems ...
Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs: Blues Rooting: Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs
Interview by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 16 October 1987
THERE WAS A time (1980-81) when Top Jimmy (not just a figment of the Van Halen imagination on 1984) & the Rhythm Pigs (not the ...
Roger Troutman, Zapp: Roger Troutman: Unlimited! (Reprise)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 18 December 1987
THE DAYTON, Ohio-based Troutman clan that has given us Zapp and now Roger has developed perhaps the most schizoid personality in black music. ...
T-Bone Walker: T-Bone Underdone
Book Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 24 December 1987
T-BONE WALKER occupies a peculiarly ambiguous place in blues history considering he’s the man credited with inventing the single-string style of electric blues-guitar playing. Virtually ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 18 March 1988
THE RECENT GLUT of African pop releases has now revealed a mesmerizing vocalist, one capable of reviving the hoary show-biz adage that he could excel ...
X: Live at the Whisky A Go Go on the Fabulous Sunset Strip
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 27 May 1988
FOR ALL THE national accolades heaped on X throughout the '80s, the group never stopped viewing itself as an LA band stepped in the nitty-gritty ...
Wipers: Turning the Sage: Boston says goodbye to the Wipers
Live Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 27 January 1989
THE WIPERS, a seasoned punk trio from Portland, Oregon, are headed up by singer/songwriter/guitarist Greg Sage, an electronics wizard offering yet more proof that techies ...
Essay by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 7 April 1989
Why The Fall continue to rise ...
Simon Frith: Music For Pleasure/Facing The Music/Art Into Pop
Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, May 1989
AS A SOCIOLOGIST who draws on Marxist principles to make sense of the Byzantine channels through which pop flows, Simon Frith was the first British ...
The Lemonheads: Getting In Their Lick
Review and Interview by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 26 May 1989
Who needs coherence? ...
Comment by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 18 August 1989
Does Ringo have too many friends? ...
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 20 October 1989
Boxing Bowie: Sound + Vision puts it together ...
Live Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, Spring 1989
Bonnie rebounds with the blues ...
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 1990
Take it to the bridge — Prince's funky graffiti ...
Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, February 1990
WHEN PAUL MCCARTNEY announced his $8.5 million promotion deal with Visa at a recent press conference, he was challenged to explain how his new sideline ...
Live Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 2 February 1990
Let's get improvisational ...
Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, X, Neil Young: Rock Of Middle Ages
Comment by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 9 February 1990
The new traditionalism looks for its roots. ...
Sonic Youth: Will Sonic Youth Keep Rock Honest?
Comment by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 16 March 1990
EVER SINCE punk failed to explode rock's dysfunctional excess with red-faced ire, hardcore noisemakers have been wrestling with the problem of how to be outrageous. ...
Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia)
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 22 April 1990
Their Own Worst Enemy? Fear of a Black Planet; seductive music, muddled message ...
Van Morrison: Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 27 April 1990
Soul to burn — the spirit moves Van Morrison ...
Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, May 1990
IN A CLIMATE where the Reverend Louis Farrakhan can make a comeback on Donahue proposing a separate black state as a God-given right, the void ...
Profile by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 25 May 1990
Parsons's Grievous Angel returns ...
Comment by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 27 July 1990
DEFENDING 2 LIVE Crew's right to party feels more like a chore than a privilege. Graphic slapstick writ large, As Nasty As They Wanna Be ...
Yo La Tengo: Fakebook (Bar None)
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 14 September 1990
Yo La Tengo's pop mother lode ...
The Replacements: All Shook Down (Sire/Warner Bros.)
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 21 September 1990
Refining the metal – The Replacements shake it down ...
Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, October 1990
THE BRITISH have always tried to claim Hendrix as their own. This argument falls apart right away not only because he was an American, but ...
Guide by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 7 December 1990
The perfect party tape ...
Led Zeppelin: Lead Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin (Atlantic box-set)
Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, 21 December 1990
Dead Zeppelin: New Led box is full of hot air ...
Queen Latifah: Nature of a Sister (Tommy Boy)
Review by Amy Linden, The Boston Phoenix, 6 September 1991
Queen of love: Is Nature of a Sister Latifah's ticket to pop success? ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 17 July 1992
IF THERE'S ANYTHING all great rock-and-roll bands – from Muddy Waters' early-'50s Chicago electric outfits to Chuck Berry's Chess session players to the Rolling Stones ...
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, The Boston Phoenix, 11 July 1997
IT USED to be easy to dismiss Tindersticks - to deride them as boho poseurs, as wannabe Nick Caves, as provincial boys who came to ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 13 October 1997
GREEN DAY have dropped another load of Dookie upon us. By which I mean the band have made a big pile of new songs as ...
Lori Carson: Everything I Touch Runs Wild
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 13 October 1997
IF THERE'S BEAUTY in sadness, it comes from the honest outpouring of emotions that sadness causes. ...
Mike Watt: HMS Watt: Contemplating the Engine Room
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 27 October 1997
WHAT BECOMES a punk-rock legend most? In the case of Mike Watt, it's love. His new Contemplating the Engine Room (Columbia) brims with the stuff. ...
Ruth Brown Keeps Deep R&B's Fire Blazing
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 27 October 1997
MISS RHYTHM is on stage working the blues, and she's got the audience on a string. Sashaying up to the microphone in the ballroom of ...
The Pixies: Death to the Pixies
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 10 November 1997
THE DOUBLE BILL looked great on paper: the Pixies and Throwing Muses at Avalon. Actually the Lansdowne Street club was called Metro then, back in ...
Metallica: Metal Memories: Ten years of close encounters with Metallica
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 17 November 1997
THE MONSTERS OF ROCK Tour in '87 was my wake-up call. Even if waking up in Akron is like rising with a hangover. ...
Various Artists: #1 Soul Hits of the '60s (and some that should have been), Vols. 1-3 (Relativity)
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 24 November 1997
IMAGINE GETTING your first driver's license and the keys to a '76 Corvette on the same day. That's the kind of introduction to soul music ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 1 December 1997
POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend than Robert Palmer, the critic and musician who died l POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend ...
Jimmy Bowen and Jim Jerome: Rough Mix (Simon & Schuster)
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 5 January 1998
JIMMY BOWEN is the music-biz sharpie who made Nashville's country industry what it is today -- a multi-billion-dollar-generating machine. For that, he's both loved and ...
John Lee Hooker: The Sound of Teardrops: John Lee Hooker
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 5 January 1998
HOW DEEP IS John Lee Hooker's blues? "You can't go no deeper than me and my guitar," he says. "I open my mouth, and it's ...
Robert Wyatt: Deep Shleep: Robert Wyatt Gets Personal
Interview by Mac Randall, The Boston Phoenix, 20 January 1998
"THE BIG PROBLEM I have with rock and roll is the rock end of it," says Robert Wyatt. "But I love the rolling. I'm into ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 2 February 1998
CATS ARE SUPPOSED to have nine lives. Rockabilly cat Carl Perkins had at least three. The first got spent in '56. As Perkins was driving to ...
Gov't Mule: Psycheblues: Gov't Mule Don't Mess with the Fat
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 9 March 1998
BIG, BAD-ASS blues rock. Nobody's got the nuts to play it nowadays. Not in a pop world where it's more important to sound alternative or ...
Marilyn Manson with Neil Strauss: The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 16 March 1998
MARILYN MANSON might be a cultural liberator, but he's certainly a shameless asshole. Well, not utterly shameless. In this autobiography penned with help from Rolling ...
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 23 March 1998
How one man is gobbling up the nation's concert business – and what it could mean for you. ...
The Beach Boys, The High Llamas: Pet Sounds and High Llamas
Review by Mac Randall, The Boston Phoenix, 6 April 1998
THERE CAN'T BE MANY classic rock albums that rock less than the Beach Boys' 1966 opus Pet Sounds. The fruity orchestral arrangements are about as ...
Producer in Paradise: Joel Dorn Revisits a Golden Age of Jazz
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 13 April 1998
JOEL DORN describes himself as "a stand-up guy. I grew up on the street corners and in the playgrounds, and I was raised to believe ...
Honeyboy Edwards: Delta Delight: Honeyboy Edwards, Country Bluesman
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 18 May 1998
THE BLUESMAN Honeyboy Edwards got arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1936. His crime was being a black man. ...
Down-home delights: The soulful blues of Malaco Records
Report by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 29 June 1998
THIRTY OR 40 YEARS AGO, the Jackson-based Malaco Records would have been called a "race" label. That was the tag for outfits like Specialty, King, ...
Absolute Kristal: CBGB's new punk rock label
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 6 July 1998
HILLY KRISTAL'S MAD AS HELL and he's not gonna take it anymore. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But the 66-year-old hipster who owns the New ...
The Hard Stuff: Almost a Dozen Reasons to Like Metal Again
Review by Chuck Eddy, The Boston Phoenix, 20 July 1998
A FEW YEARS AGO, bored by grunge and late speedmetal and still lamenting the loss of pretty glam in prettier haircuts, I thought loud guitar ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 10 August 1998
THE TORCH OF electric blues has burned no brighter than in the gritty clubs and studios of Chicago in the '50s and '60s. It was ...
Mr. Airplane Man: Mississippi Queens: Mr. Airplane Man's Delta dreams
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 31 August 1998
A RAIN’S PEELED the edge off a steamy August night in the Mississippi Delta. But a two-piece jukehouse band are roaring on stage in Clarksdale's ...
R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough: Blues Chaos Theory: Burnside and Kimbrough file absentee albums
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 21 September 1998
"OH SHIT, I can't see," said the great Mississippi hill-country bluesman R.L. Burnside as he stepped toward the microphone – just loud enough that it ...
Dale Hawkins: Rockabilly Hipster Dale Hawkins Returns
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 26 October 1998
DALE HAWKINS'S FIRST HIT launched two of the greatest careers in rootsy American rock. But not without a left-field nudge from famed record producer Jerry ...
Myth and the Mississippi: PBS explores the songs and heart of Middle America
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 4 January 1999
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER covers a lot of history along its 2,350 miles. Sometimes literally. There are communities that have been washed under its high waters, ...
Adam Gussow: Mr. Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (Pantheon)
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 25 January 1999
NO, AUTHOR Adam Gussow hasn't sold his soul to Ol' Nick for wealth, fame, and power. Just the opposite, in fact, is the usual blues ...
T-Model Ford: Huntin' Possum: T-Model Ford's You Better Keep Still
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 25 January 1999
IF T-MODEL FORD had the wings of a beautiful dove, he would fly to the gal he loved. If she spurned him, he would find ...
Luther Allison: Moonshine Blues: Luther Allison Revisited
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 29 March 1999
THE GREAT blues guitarist and singer Luther Allison once told me about an incident from his childhood that he carried as close to his heart ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Repackaging Stevie Ray Vaughan
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 19 April 1999
YEAH, HE NEVER played alternative rock, and to him hip-hop was something the Easter bunny did. He also wore his influences like a neon suit. ...
Michael Gira, Swans: Black Saint: Michael Gira Goes Solo
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 10 May 1999
FIRST IMPRESSIONS do last, so I'll always remember Michael Gira as the "revenant black saint" he goes on to describe himself as in the lyrics ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 7 June 1999
HERE'S MUD IN your ear: a dozen new or reissued blues albums that capture the gritty spirit of the music in a passel of different ...
Deep River: The Bounty of Alan Lomax
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 14 June 1999
THE CD STARTS with a banjo picker burning on a hoedown called 'Cripple Creek,' progresses along a chain of mountain songs to 'Arkansas Traveler,' and ...
Kelly Joe Phelps: Zen Guitar: Kelly Joe Phelps Heads East
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 5 July 1999
KELLY JOE PHELPS is a traveler. With a pair of acoustic guitars in his car's trunk and notepads scattered about its seats, he drives across ...
Newport Notes: How the Jazz and Folk Festivals made history
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 9 August 1999
"WELL, THIS IS real bullshit!" yelled Eddie Condon. ...
Ben Sandmel: Zydeco! (The University Press of Mississippi)
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 23 August 1999
DEEP SOUTHERN places like Louisiana are packed with little mysteries. At least for us Yankees. We shiver in winter and enjoy a summer that's merely ...
Kim Richey: Her Country: Kim Richey's Nashville fusion
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 23 August 1999
THERE SEEM TO BE four kinds of country music these days. There's the pop stuff, a mix of up-tempo numbers and sugary ballads plied by ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 23 August 1999
BRITISH SINGER-SONGWRITER Kevin Coyne is a strange one. As influenced by the rough-and-tumble sounds of Mississippi blues as by his job as a counselor to ...
Wilson Pickett: Still Wicked: Wilson Pickett's Raw Return
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 18 October 1999
THE HOWL is unmistakable. Raw as fresh meat, gritty and powerful as sandblasting. That's Wilson Pickett shouting thunder over the fatback grooves of a new ...
Hall-of-Fame Hitter: Drummer Earl Palmer gets his due
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 31 January 2000
LIKE ANY GOOD GRANDFATHER, Earl Palmer has tried to find interests to share with his grandkids. So far, coin collecting has been a favorite. It's ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 28 March 2000
ONE OF THE beautiful things about art is that it restores one's faith in humanity – in the gifts of vision, creativity, and awareness that ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 10 April 2000
LIKE THE ALEWIFE and the manatee, Lou Reed has enjoyed a sort of protected status in the wake of punk rock. The truth is, he's ...
¡Cubanismo!, Jesús Alemañy: ¡Cubanismo!: Jesús Alemañy goes beyond Buena Vista
Report and Interview by j. poet, The Boston Phoenix, 17 April 2000
IT'S BEEN EASY to get the impression over the past couple of years that Cuban music starts and ends with the Buena Vista Social Club. ...
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 24 April 2000
IT WAS A Saturday night in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And blues were pumping through the door of the Rivermont, a low-ceilinged club tucked tight against the ...
Ali Farka Toure: Connections: Ali Farka Touré's Cross-Cultural Blues
Profile by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 31 July 2000
THE BLUES CAME to America in chains, contained within the hearts of the enslaved people of Africa. Two hundred odd years later it went back, ...
The Ramones: Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, The Boston Phoenix, 31 May 2001
IT'S FUNNY HOW memorials often take on the character of the person they honor. The sold-out "Life's a Gas – Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash" ...
Mission of Burma: Burmese Days
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 11 January 2002
MEMORIES OF THE MISSION: Roger and Clint back in the days when ‘Academy Fight Song’ and ‘That's When I Reach for My Revolver’ blared out ...
Sam Cooke: Keep Movin' On (ABKCO)
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 14 March 2002
THE TRAGIC DEATH of Sam Cooke remains one of rock and roll's great mysteries. Cooke was shot in the wee hours of December 10, 1964, ...
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Review by Wayne Robins, The Boston Phoenix, 21 May 2004
I’M THUMBING through the March issue of Uncut, the comprehensive and entertaining British music monthly, when I hit the front of the review section and ...
Merle Haggard: Branded Man: Merle Haggard Brings The Bakersfield Sounds East With Dylan
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 15 April 2005
WHEN BOB DYLAN CALLS, other musicians listen. Even when they're icons and gifted songwriters in their own right. ...
Diamanda Galás Prepares To Perform A New Defixiones
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 2 September 2005
DIAMANDA GALÁS has had a talent for plucking beauty from the maw of horror for more than 20 years – right from her first solo ...
Review and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 4 May 2006
The idea of fall and redemption is thousands of years old, and it’s laced into the new Godsmack album, where singer Sully Erna’s lyrics spin ...
The Cramps, The Gun Club, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds: Kid Congo Powers
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 14 September 2006
THE LATE 1970s were a time of ignition. Punk rock set a fuse that burned through every aspect of the arts, and the lives of ...
Willard Grant Conspiracy: Faith and Fury: Robert Fisher and his Willard Grant Conspiracy
Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Phoenix, 5 March 2007
"SOBER, BUT NOT healthy, that's the way I always refer to myself," says Robert Fisher, who's dressed in black, sipping hot tea, and nursing a ...
Bryan Ferry: Tangled Up In Bob
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Phoenix, 25 June 2007
"DYLANESQUE" isn't what comes to mind when you think of the suave, new-romantic, once-and-future frontman of Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry. But time and again throughout ...
Marty Stuart: Johnny D's, Boston
Live Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Phoenix, 27 July 2007
Country Hero ...
Judee Sill: Live in London: The BBC Recordings 1972-1973
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 7 August 2007
IF JUDEE SILL'S story isn't fodder for a Lifetime TV movie, then nothing is: the early deaths of her father and brother; an alcoholic mother ...
Queen Latifah: Trav'lin' Light (Verve) ***
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 31 December 2007
QUEEN LATIFAH is never going to be Billie Holiday or even Macy Gray, but 2004's surprise hit, The Dana Owens Album, proved she had a ...
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Phoenix, 17 June 2008
The return of Akron's finest... ...
Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog: Party Intellectuals
Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 25 June 2008
'Out' is in within this NYC avant guitarist’s sonic universe, which, though it’s still expanding, gets covered border to border by his new-kinda rock trio. ...
Book Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 13 January 2009
LIKE ANY GOOD murder mystery, Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction keeps the tension high and the action swift as the search for a culprit drags ...
Captain Sensible, The Damned: The Damned's Captain Sensible
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Phoenix, 3 March 2009
THE Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Jam — they get punk rock respect more than three decades down the pike, but their contemporaries the Damned ...
New York Dolls: Cause I Sez So (Atco) ****
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 28 April 2009
THE BIG NEWS regarding the New York Dolls' second album since their reactivation five years ago is the return of Todd Rundgren as producer. ...
Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown (Reprise) ***½
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 1 June 2009
IF ANYONE HAD suggested, circa Dookie 15 years ago, that Green Day would one day carry the torch for the classic rock opera… well, no ...
KT Tunstall: Tiger Suit (Virgin) **½
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 22 September 2010
THE KT TUNSTALL of Tiger Suit is tougher, louder, and more electronically endowed than the KT Tunstall of its poppy predecessor, 2007's Drastic Fantastic, and ...
back to LIBRARY
