John Morthland
John Morthland began in music journalism as a record reviewer for Rolling Stone in San Francisco in the summer of 1969, and became an associate editor there later that year through late 1970. In 1974-5, he was editor of Creem in Detroit. For most of the 1970s and '80s he was a freelance writer who contributed to the full range of music magazines as well as to various other daily, weekly and monthly publications. His critical history The Best of Country Music was published by Doubleday/Dolphin in 1984. In the 1990s, his writing expanded to such other areas as food, travel, baseball and pop and regional culture. From 1984 he lived in Austin, Texas, where he was a writer at large for Texas Monthly and contributed freelance to a variety of other print and online publications. He was the editor of Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, published by Random House/Anchor in 2004. John died in March 2016.
rockcritics.com interview with John Morthland
138 articles
List of articles in the library
Steve Miller: The Steve Miller Band: Brave New World (Capitol)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 26 July 1969
IF YOU WERE hoping for some new music from the new Steve Miller Band – organist Jim Peterman and guitarist Boz Scaggs have left, and ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Here We Are Again
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 9 August 1969
BERKELEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN the Freak Capital of the Western world. The university of California has long been noted for its political militants, and the ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 23 August 1969
LOOK AT THE picture of Steve Cropper on his new album cover and you see what appears to be a quiet, reserved, young man – ...
Blind Faith: Blind Faith (Atco)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 6 September 1969
THE YEAR 1969 has not been a very good one for rock and roll. Outside of Tommy and the Band's decision to go on tour, ...
Big Mama Thornton: Stronger Than Dirt (Mercury)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 1 November 1969
ANYBODY WHO has ever seen Big Mama Thornton perform will vouch for the fact that she is a consummate entertainer. So good, in fact, that ...
Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On (Reprise)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 13 December 1969
Nowadays Fleetwood Mac is stepping out on its own. Tired of being another British blues band, the group has said goodbye to Elmore James and ...
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 27 December 1969
THERE ARE CERTAIN problems to be encountered by any band that is consciously avant-garde. In attempting to sound "farout" the musicians inevitably impose on themselves ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1970
ON THE surface, Lorraine Ellison and Cold Blood's lead singer Lydia Pense seem to have a lot in common. Both have fine, soulful voices, and ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 2 April 1970
SAN FRANCISCO – When Mountain plays, the walls shake and the audience goes crazy. The band born in a recording studio when Felix Pappalardi produced ...
Electric Flag: Intimations of the Electric Flag
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 16 April 1970
SAN FRANCISCO: The Electric Flag is back – sometimes. The rest of the time, they go by the name "Mike Bloomfield and Friends". ...
Neil Young: Contra Costa Junior College, San Francisco
Live Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 30 April 1970
EVERYTHING about Neil Young’s approach to music has become so highly personalized that when he performs, he seems at first to be oblivious of his ...
Country Joe & The Fish, Jefferson Airplane: Kent Aftermath: Teen Turmoil Poison At B.O.
Report and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 25 June 1970
SAN FRANCISCO — Lou Rhode, a student at San Francisco City College, is a clerk at Tower Records, and wears an "Out Now" peace button ...
Steve Miller: Grand Designs For The Future
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 3 September 1970
STEVE MILLER sits at his kitchen table, bent over a series of diagrams and flow charts he's drawing that outline the business side of a ...
Swamp Dogg: "Whistle Dixie Out Your Ass": Swamp Dogg
Report and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1970
SAN FRANCISCO – Swamp Dogg had just finished taping a four-song set for a quadraphonic television show, and now everyone was up in the control ...
Book Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1970
CHARLIE GILLETT is a very likeable Englishman who recently released the most exhaustive study yet of rock and roll and the music industry. He's 28, ...
Johnny Winter, Rick Derringer: Johnny Winter: On Music, Hype and Happiness
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1970
FOR TOO long there, it seemed to Johnny Winter like he would never be known for his music as much as he would be known ...
Jimi Hendrix: A Funeral In His Home Town
Report by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 29 October 1970
Seattle, Washington – It had been very hot and sunny the last few days in Seattle, most unusual for this time of year. But on ...
The Faces, Rod Stewart: Rod Stewart: In Conversation
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 24 December 1970
"I was very pleased with it when we finished, and I still am," Rod Stewart said of his first solo LP. With good reason. ...
Swamp Dogg: Rat On! — Swamp Dogg
Review by John Morthland, Creem, June 1971
Swamp Dogg don’t fuck around. Besides writing or co-writing (many with U.S. Bonds) eight of the album’s 10 songs, he arranged produced, played piano, did ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, June 1971
BOZ SCAGGS' FIRST solo album was so close to perfect that it must be considered a tough act to follow. Still, one might have hoped ...
Johnny Winter: Johnny Winter And Live
Review by John Morthland, Creem, June 1971
HOW, YOU MIGHT be asking yourself, could this not be a killer album? After all, it may have taken two albums and several tours, but ...
Brinsley Schwarz: Despite It All
Review by John Morthland, Creem, October 1971
THE TITLE apparently refers to the incredible hype this group received when they first played Fillmore East and their management blew $120,000 to fly over ...
Hawkwind: Hawkwind (United Artists)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1971
THE COVER, IN BRILLIANT colors, shows these creatures that seem to be part reptile, part human, and part falling leaves. The songs have titles like ...
Johnny Otis: Doin' That Hand Jive With His Feet
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, November 1971
When the Johnny Otis Show appears on stage, it brings years and years of rhythm and blues history with it. ...
The Chi-Lites: For God's Sake Give More Power To The People (Brunswick BL 754170)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1971
'(FOR GOD'S SAKE) Give More Power to the People' is one of my favorite singles so far this year. After the opening Moog blast comes ...
Jimmy Page, The Yardbirds: The Yardbirds: Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page
Review by John Morthland, Phonograph Record, November 1971
THE YARDBIRDS must be one of the most oft-recorded live groups. There's the 1963 set at the Marquee available on a British import (parts are ...
Sly & the Family Stone: Sly Stone & the Family Stone: There's A Riot Goin' On (Epic)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, February 1972
AS MANY HAVE noted, Sly Stone's style revolves around so many factors that it may, paradoxically enough, be as limited as it is ground-breaking. Combine ...
Little Feat: The Continuing Saga Of Little Feat
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, March 1973
DESPITE REPORTS published in nearly every existing music paper that Little Feat has broken up, it ain't so. Understandably, Lowell George is mightily pissed off. ...
Guide by John Morthland, Creem, April 1973
WHERE TO begin an article about Hank Williams! How about with the kind of gross overstatement that it's impossible to disprove (or prove)? To wit: ...
Alan Price: O Lucky Man! and This Price Is Right
Review by John Morthland, Phonograph Record, October 1973
ABOUT THE ONLY thing these two albums have in common is that they show a remarkable number of influences absorbed by Alan Price. After that, ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1973
THE SEARCH for the most commercial mating of country and rock continues unabated, and it's working both ways. In the wake of Kristofferson, the Young ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer Staggers On
Report by John Morthland, Creem, March 1974
THE MAN from Mercury is nervous, very nervous. You can see it easily enough as he paces around Steve Cropper's TMI Studios in Memphis. Up ...
Review by John Morthland, Phonograph Record, April 1974
IT'S A SAD DAY indeed for guitar freaks when two of the best in the business turn out the spottiest albums of their careers. But ...
The Rolling Stones: It's Only Rock 'N Roll (Rolling Stones)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1974
HEY, IT'S not bad — not at all. ...
J. Geils Band: Howlin' At The Moon
Live Review by John Morthland, Creem, February 1975
J. Geils Band: Cobo Hall, Detroit ...
Clive Davis: Clive: Inside The Record Business with James Willwerth (Morrow)
Book Review by John Morthland, Creem, March 1975
THE LONGEST PRESS RELEASE ...
Nashville: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (MCA)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, September 1975
EVEN MORE THAN most soundtracks, this one is totally inseparable from its film. Taken alone, it’s damn near unlistenable. ...
Allen Toussaint: Feel Like Staying Home
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Creem, September 1975
NEW ORLEANS, LA – Allen Toussaint has moved into the pop spotlight lately via Labelle and Paul McCartney but it's not his first time there. ...
Little Feat: The Valley Of The Punks
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Creem, September 1975
IT HAPPENS TO Little Feat most everywhere they go in Europe, and sometimes even in the States. People just naturally assume they are from Texas, ...
Gary Stewart: You're Not the Woman You Used to Be
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 25 September 1975
THIS COLLECTION OF old singles was released to scoop up some of the financial overflow from country music's current hottest new item. ...
Millie Jackson: Still Caught Up
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 25 September 1975
AND STILL GETTIN' it while the get-tin' is still good. Those who enjoyed Caught Up, Millie Jackson's last song cycle, won't be disappointed by this ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 25 September 1975
POOR SLADE. The biggest band in England for a while and in the States they couldn't get arrested. Last time out, they toned down and ...
George McCrae: George McCrae (TK)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, October 1975
GEORGE McCRAE and the TK studio hands don't sell songs on his albums, they sell a mood, an ambience. ...
Millie Jackson: Gettin' Her Piece
Interview by John Morthland, Black Music, November 1975
MILLIE JACKSON raps. That's what her fans come to see her for, she figures, and she'll rap about anything—though, nowadays, she raps most often about ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Caught In The Act (Capitol)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 6 November 1975
IF GRAND FUNK was once a publicist’s tool, this new live album shows the extent to which they have become a producer’s tool. If once ...
Travis Wammack: Not for Sale (Capricorn CP-0162)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 6 November 1975
NO DOUBT about it, Travis Wammack is a terrific guitarist — flashy, instinctive and intelligent. On a club stage with a hot band, he's probably ...
The Ohio Players: Money, 'Honey': Ohio Players on the Royalties Road
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 20 November 1975
NEW ORLEANS — It's midafternoon as the limousine containing the Ohio Players is swallowed up by the giant, saucerlike shell known as the Louisiana Superdome, ...
Rod Stewart: Atlantic Crossing
Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1975
COMING AS IT does amidst sweeping changes in Stewart's career and personal life, the unsettling nature of Atlantic Crossing isn't that much of a surprise. ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 4 December 1975
DESPITE ITS UNEVENNESS, this is a vast improvement over Street Lights and accomplishes much of what that LP set out to do in the first ...
Billy Swan: Rock 'n' Roll Moon
Review by John Morthland, Creem, January 1976
BILLY SWAN is one of those strange Seventies mutations, a product of a time when musical boundaries are breaking down at an accelerating rate. ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, January 1976
SINCE HE ELECTRIFIED audiences In The Harder They Come, Jimmy Cliff has been his own worst enemy. His songs in that film bristled with passion, ...
Archie Bell and the Drells Still Dance All Night
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 8 April 1976
NEW YORK – Archie Bell interrupts his rushed, businesslike replies for a moment and works up the faintest trace of a smile: "I didn't know ...
Hank Williams Jr.: Hank William Jr. and Friends
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 8 April 1976
LAST AUGUST, on a hunting trip near the Great Divide at Missoula, Montana, the recently divorced Hank Williams Jr. fell 500 feet down a mountainside, ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, May 1976
WHAT MOST attracted rock fans to Gary Stewart's first album was his raw, exuberant singing, and the subsequent suspicion that he was really a closet ...
Speedy Keen: Y'Know Wot I Mean?
Review by John Morthland, Creem, May 1976
SPEEDY KEEN'S basically comical persona is good enough by me: the inebriated ex-Mod, a tad daft, struggling for equilibrium in a world whose quirks don't ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 6 May 1976
GOSPEL MUSIC is certainly closer to Charlie Rich's natural milieu than anything he's done since he and Billy Sherrill hit on the ‘Behind Closed Doors’ ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, July 1976
DR. FEELGOOD is building on a fine and noble tradition. Their music is rooted in Chicago rhythm and blues, but while they may have gone ...
Johnny Paycheck: John Austin Paycheck Tries It Again
Profile by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 9 August 1976
JOHN AUSTIN Paycheck bounded onto the stage at the Other End last Wednesday, repeatedly rubbed his belly or tugged at his new beard, talked too ...
Rod Stewart: Rod Brings It All Back Home: A Night On The Town
Review by John Morthland, Creem, September 1976
FIRST THINGS FIRST: this is as brilliant an album as any Rod Stewart has made, fully the equal of his first three solo efforts, all ...
Burning Spear: Man in the Hills (Island ILPS-9412)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 23 September 1976
THANKS TO this summer's marketing blitz, virtually the entire spectrum of reggae is now available in America, although not in any depth. ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1976
BY NOW, Ry Cooder has established his niche so conclusively that you already know whether you like him or not. His curiously pinched vocals. His ...
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, December 1976
LOU REED should have a new album out by the time you read this, and unless Lou has had a change of Rock and Roll ...
David Cassidy, Mick Ronson: Mick Ronson and David Cassidy: Will The Odd Couple Come Out?
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, February 1977
WHAT A difference a month makes. About 30 days ago as I write this, I interviewed Mick Ronson in his Manhattan apartment. I had never ...
Neil Young, Stephen Stills: Stills-Young Band: Long May You Run
Review by John Morthland, Creem, February 1977
WHAT A CURIOUS "COLLABORATION" this turns out to be. Neil Young, whose career is at a new critical peak and isn't hurting commercially either, lends ...
Elvin Bishop: The Elvin Bishop Band: Hometown Boy Makes Good! (Capricorn)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, March 1977
IT TOOK ELVIN Bishop years to hit his groove, years in which he played every role from overbearing ham to dependable sideman to journeyman pro ...
The Trammps: Disco Inferno (Atlantic)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, April 1977
If Where the Happy People Go showed the Trammps moving perilously close to routine disco, this followup is proof positive that good things can still ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, April 1977
It wasn't until late 1974 that the Waylon Jennings mystique took hold for me. This is partly because to my mind that's when his sound ...
Live Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 7 April 1977
"THIS ONE goes back to 1936," Leon McAuliffe grinned. "Bob told me, 'Leon, just hit a chord and then I'll say something,' and so I ...
Bob Seger Conquers The World (And About Time!)
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, July 1977
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, Bob Seger is your archetypal Nice Guy – polite, friendly, low key, easy-going, self-effacing, able to laugh at himself with ease. Despite ...
Them, Van Morrison: Van Morrison: A Period Of Transition and The Story Of Them
Review by John Morthland, Creem, August 1977
A Period of Transition is a disappointing album, and at first I thought it was mainly because after his nearly three years absence, I expected ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 8 September 1977
PROVIDENCE, R.I. ...
The Persuasions: The Dying Art Of Friendly Persuasions
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 3 November 1977
NEW YORK – PERSUASIONS leader Jerry Lawson checked the refrigerator in his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment one recent morning and found it nearly empty. ...
Review by John Morthland, The Village Voice, 14 November 1977
Porter and Dolly Go Their Own Ways ...
Betty Wright: This Time For Real…
Interview by John Morthland, Black Music, January 1978
The "Clean Up Woman" cleans up — a report by John Morthland ...
Captain Beefheart: The Number One Weirdo Comes Back To Earth
Interview by John Morthland, Gig, February 1978
ON PAPER, IT probably sounds like just another Captain Beefheart comeback. Lord knows he's had his share. Yet for his fans, it's a most welcome ...
Jerry Jeff Walker: Jerry Jeff Rides Again... Again
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Country Music, March 1978
THEY SAY AROUND Austin that Jerry Jeff Walker can do no wrong, but whoo boy, does he ever give it his best shot. ...
Delbert McClinton: Second Wind (Capricorn)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 18 May 1978
DELBERT McClinton’s music reminds me of a frenzied 1972 R&B nonhit called 'Stoop Down Baby', on which singer Chick Willis runs down many verses of ...
Etta James' long search for stardom
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 10 August 1978
IT IS A cruel irony that had she not been a junkie for thirteen of her forty years, Etta James would probably still be working ...
Johnny Burnette & The Rock 'n Roll Trio: Tear It Up (Solid Smoke SS-8001)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 7 September 1978
OF ALL THE raving rockabilly legends — men like Charlie Feathers and Sonny Burgess — who never gained a commercial foothold, Johnny Burnette was one ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 8 February 1979
"WELL IT'S one for the money/Two for the show/I'd dance/But I'm too old," a beaming, bouncing forty-six-year-old Carl Perkins mocked from the Bottom Line stage ...
Merle Haggard: Serving 190 Proof (MCA)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 6 September 1979
REMEMBER 'OKIE from Muskogee' and 'Fightin' Side of Me', the two Merle Haggard anthems that served as right-wing rallying cries during the volatile turn of ...
Bobby Bare's Down and Dirty Country
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 7 August 1980
The singer's most recent album bucks the pop-crossover trend ...
Kurtis Blow Raps His Way To The Top
Report and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 5 March 1981
The sound of the streets hits the heartland. ...
Interview by John Morthland, Music & Sound Output, May 1981
IN 12 ALBUMS SPREAD out over 13 years, Captain Beefheart has created a body of work that breaks most every rule in American music and ...
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, New York Rocker, January 1982
"THIS NEXT one is called 'Arise'. It's a Western song; not a country song, a Western song. Okay, hit it, boys," commands Norman Odam, a/k/a ...
George Clinton: Putting On The Atomic Dog
Interview by John Morthland, Creem, July 1983
GEORGE CLINTON hunkers down into the couch in the conference room of Capitol's Manhattan offices, pours himself a tall noontime glass of orange juice, and ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, July 1983
I KEEP HEARING about the rise of the new garage bands, who draw their inspiration from the original punks, those brash, anarchistic, one-hit bands so ...
NRBQ: Grooves In Orbit (Bearsville)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, August 1983
AS THE perennial Little Bar Band That Could, NRBQ occupies a special niche. After all, they've existed in basically this form and with basically this ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1983
UB40, A MULTIRACIAL reggae group whose name derives from the code on British unemployment cards, emerged from Birmingham in 1980, right around the time the ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1984
I HAVE THIS theory about why Peter Wolf got 86'd from the J. Geils Band that was refined a couple months back by a conversation ...
Prince: Rock 'N' Roll Feels The Fire
Report by John Morthland, High Fidelity, December 1985
The PMRC isn't only out to censor sex and violence. John Denver could be next. ...
Sleeve notes by John Morthland, Rounder Records, 1989
ONCE, I TRIED to interview Steve Jordan. Oh, I knew it was unlikely I would ever pull it off, because everyone around the Texas music ...
Lucinda Williams: Happy Woman Blues
Sleeve notes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1990
THE DAUGHTER of an English lit professor, Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and spent most of her youth moving from college town ...
Roky Erickson, 13th Floor Elevators: Roky Erickson: I Walked With a Zombie
Retrospective and Interview by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 22 November 1990
Roky Erickson, at ultra-high frequency ...
Sleeve notes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1991
WHEN IT WAS first released in 1979, Ramblin' could not have been more out of step. Lucinda Williams, who did indeed have ramblin' on her ...
Eddie Hinton: Cry and Moan (Rounder/Bullseye Blues)
Review by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 11 April 1991
CRY AND Moan opens with a shimmering, aching backwoods guitar line that will break normal hearts in two, and then Eddie Hinton turns up the ...
Otis Clay: The Real Deal: Otis Clay stokes the home fires
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 7 May 1992
Singing soul like it never really went away ...
Fred Wesley: Comme Ci Comme Ça (Antilles)
Review by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 14 May 1992
LIKE HIS fellow James Brown alumnus Maceo Parker, trombonist Fred Wesley returns to the jazz of his youth to prove that there is life after ...
Alejandro Escovedo: Down to Earth
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 2 July 1992
Alejandro Escovedo puts his arm around a memory ...
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 16 September 1993
But Junior Brown can make a guit-steel sing ...
Butthole Surfers: Feeding the Fish: An Oral History of the Butthole Surfers
Retrospective and Interview by John Morthland, Joe Nick Patoski, Spin, November 1996
CAST OF CHARACTERS Jim Berry Road sound engineer for the Butthole Surfers, 1985-92. Jello Biafra Lead singer of the Dead Kennedys and self-described "absentee thoughtlord" of Alternative Tentacles, ...
Gram Parsons: Sacred Hearts And Fallen Angels (Rhino)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, May 2001
EXCEPT FOR A brief period in the early '80s, when I now believe I was trying so hard I put a clothespin over my crap ...
George Jones: The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001 (Bandit)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, November 2001
IN MOST WAYS, this is a textbook follow-up to George Jones' eerie, surprisingly substantial 1999 album Cold Hard Truth – same basic song ideas only ...
Live Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 13 October 2002
YOU'D NEVER KNOW it from the history books, but San Antonio had an incredibly vital rock scene in the late 1950s and early '60s. ...
Dwight Yoakam: Reprise Please Baby: The Warner Bros. Years
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 December 2002
I GOTTA HAND it to Dwight Yoakam, even if I'm turned off sometimes by what I see as his self-defeating posturing and pretensions (and relax, ...
The Flatlanders: Wheels Of Fortune
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 December 2003
MUCH AS I LIKED Now Again, the reunited Flatlanders' 2002 album, it was also a somewhat frustrating set that in the long run seems a ...
Various Artists: Night Train To Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1976
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 29 February 2004
Nashville really jumps, really jumps all night long I'd rather be in Nashville than to be way back down at home – Cecil Gant, 'Nashville Jumps' ...
Chris Smither: Honeysuckle Dog
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2004
RECORDED WITH producer Michael Cuscuna in two sessions – Woodstock, December 1972, and New York City, Spring 1973 – this was to be Smither's third ...
Johnny Paycheck: The Little Darlin' Sound Of Johnny Paycheck: The Beginning (Koch)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, July 2004
SOMETIMES I THINK the Johnny Paycheck cultists are so enamoured of the sensational goth of stuff like '(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill' and ...
Peter Stampfel & The Bottlecaps: The Jig Is Up
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 October 2004
TWO NEW CDS document the ongoing education of Peter Stampfel, crown prince of the old-timey anarcho-psychofolkadelic American songster tradition at its most contemporary and extreme. ...
Michael Hurley: Down In Dublin
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 December 2004
WITH HIS SIMPLE three-chord songs, unadorned voice and delivery, and straightforward lyrics, Michael Hurley makes it sound so effortless; his music feels like it has ...
Shannon McNally: No Bones About It
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 June 2005
THIS IS A STORY about new beginnings, or at least about keepin' on keepin' on. Or maybe it's about, as some really pissed-off wit once ...
Ray Charles: Pure Genius – The Complete Atlantic Recordings, 1952-1959 (Atlantic/Rhino)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, January 2006
LIKE THE TITLE SAYS, here's everything Ray Charles recorded for Atlantic — six CDs containing 119 tracks (including one LP he produced for his tenor ...
James Talley: Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot Of Love
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 28 February 2006
FIRST RELEASED in 1975, at a time when the Outlaw movement was opening Nashville up to all manner of previously unimaginable sounds, James Talley's debut ...
The Swan Silvertones: Various Artists: Gospel Music
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 28 February 2006
COMPILED BY veteran producer Joel Dorn and veteran photographer Lee Friedlander, this is the kind of album every music fan fantasizes about producing, just as ...
Jim Dickinson: James Luther Dickinson: Jungle Jim And The Voodoo Tiger
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2006
IF 2002's Free Beer Tomorrow – Jim Dickinson's "follow-up" to his 1971 solo debut Dixie Fried – sounded like a well-conceived showcase for his favourite ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Wainwright III
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2006
WHEN HIS FIRST two virtually interchangeable albums were released in 1970 and '71, Loudon Wainwright III was touted as one of the many Next Dylans ...
Otis Rush: All Your Love I Miss Loving – Live at the Wise Fools Pub, Chicago
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2006
FOR A VARIETY of reasons, ranging from producer/label interference to his own notorious mood swings, Otis Rush has probably made fewer great recordings than any ...
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys: Legends Of Country Music (Bear Family)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 August 2006
YOU'D THINK THAT when it comes to Bob Wills' music, there'd be no surprises left. Oh, sure, somebody's bound to turn up another live set ...
Marvin Sease: Candy Licker – The Sex And Soul Of Marvin Sease
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 August 2006
YOU'VE PROBABLY never heard of Marvin Sease, but from 'Candy Licker' in 1986 until 2005, he was the only artist in the contemporary southern soul-blues ...
Thee Midniters: In Thee Midnite Hour
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 October 2006
THEE MIDNITERS were best-known as kings of East Los Angeles rock in the '60s, but this collection of uptempo material will hopefully change that: They ...
Tim Hardin: Hang On To A Dream: The Verve Recordings
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, Summer 2006
THE PAIN was palpable in nearly every word Tim Hardin sang, and the pleasure didn't feel all that much better. ...
Junior Wells: Live At Theresa's 1975
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 28 February 2007
IN A SENSE, blues harpist Junior Wells wanted across-the-board stardom so bad after he left Muddy Waters to go solo that it undermined his music, ...
The Insect Trust: Hoboken Saturday Night
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 28 February 2007
SAY WHAT YOU will about the 1960s, the era spawned a lot of good ideas before things went wrong. Musically, the communal band Insect Trust ...
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2007
SEVEN YEARS SINCE her last album, three and a half years after a life-threatening illness, Koko Taylor comes roaring back with an album meant to ...
Mickey Gilley: Too Good To Stop: Greatest Hits 1974-1985
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2007
RARELY HAS A single disc better traced one career's rise and fall. In 15 pre-stardom years of recording, Gilley could best be described as "like ...
Buck Owens: The Warner Bros. Recordings (Rhino Handmade)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, July 2007
BUCK WAS ALWAYS the first to put down his Warners output, but you almost have to hear it all in one place to comprehend how ...
Various Artists: Vee-Jay – The Definitive Collection
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 August 2007
VEE-JAY RECORDS of Chicago was not the first successful black-owned label – Duke-Peacock of Houston stakes a better claim to that title – but until ...
Various Artists: The Cosimo Matassa Story
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 October 2007
YES, YET ANOTHER New Orleans box. But this one's a little different. ...
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 December 2007
HERE'S A MUSICAL manifesto for you: "We live our lives wild and free/Visualize the world we want to see/We never settle for second best/No, no, ...
Eli Paperboy Reed: Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves: Roll With You
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 29 February 2008
HERE'S THE MAIN thing separating Eli Reed from all those other blue-eyed soul (and blues) poseurs: even though he's so obviously working a black musical ...
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 29 February 2008
FIRST CHARTING in 1977 and coming on strong by 1980, John Anderson was a harbinger of the New Traditionalist movement that hit Nashville in the ...
Willie Nelson: One Hell Of A Ride
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 30 April 2008
SOMEDAY, SOMEBODY with great taste, and no desire to be all things to all markets, is going to put together a Best Of Willie Nelson ...
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 29 December 2008
ERSI ARVIZU is best-known for her stint with El Chicano, a jazz-inflected East Los Angeles rock band of the early 1970s, but she sang in ...
The Chitlin' Circuit: Celebrating a Secret History of American Music
Book Review by John Morthland, Wondering Sound, 1 November 2011
FOR YEARS, the Chitlin' Circuit — the network of mostly-Southern, mostly-rural clubs where black artists performed from the 1930s into the '60s — has been ...
Doc Pomus: It's Great to Be Young and in Love
Review by John Morthland, Wondering Sound, 3 January 2013
YEAH, that Doc Pomus, the one who wrote such '50s and '60s rock 'n' roll standards as 'Save the Last Dance for Me' for the Drifters, 'Teenager ...
Elmore James: How Elmore James Invented Metal
Retrospective by John Morthland, Wondering Sound, 25 January 2013
ELMORE JAMES is often demeaned as a one-trick pony — or, in his case, a one lick pony. That would be the swooping, stinging slide ...
Barbara Lynn: How Barbara Lynn Changed The Blues Forever
Interview by John Morthland, Wondering Sound, 12 November 2014
BARBARA LYNN, who topped rhythm and blues charts in 1962 with 'You'll Lose a Good Thing', which also crossed over to the pop Top 10, ...
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