The Immediate Family was formed in 2018 by four of the best, and best-known, session musicians from the ’70s: guitarists and a drummer who played behind Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Carole King, various Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, on and on. I knew the names Waddy Wachtel, Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel, although I couldn’t have […]
I risked my rock’n’roll cred by attending a concert by Mike Love’s Beach Boys at the Granada Theater last Friday (9/21/18). Although not actually billed as such, the tour seemed at least a commercial endeavor, at worst a vanity project, by the former lead singer, who was the only actual original Beach Boy in the […]
In order to understand why he is given so much airplay on Sirius-XM’s Spectrum as well as to keep my mind open to new sounds, I went to see Leon Bridges at the Santa Barbara Bowl September 13. He is a good dancer, although no Michael Jackson or Prince (or maybe Bruno Mars), he has […]
If history, as they say, is written by the victors, it may also be written the survivors, and in this musical at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles the Temptations’ story is told by the sole surviving original Temp, one Otis Williams. They are all equal contributors, of course, but David Ruffin is a diva, Eddie […]
An Appreciation Jackson Browne was my favorite singer/songwriter of the ‘70s – The Decade of the Singer/Songwriter – and both he and his songs have aged well, as his sold-out concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl on August 3, 2018 proved again and again. I can’t think of ever having a more comfortable and pleasurable […]
For my college 50th reunion, a four-person panel reviewed songs that had charted during our four years, September ’64 through May ’68, and came up with a list of 30 nominees to be voted on for a Class Top Ten. The songs selected had to 1)be personal favorites of at least two of us; 2)have been […]
For one evening’s entertainment at my Harvard 50th Reunion, four of us presented 30 songs to be voted on by our classmates in order to arrive at a Class of ’68 Top Ten (see “’60s Top Tens,” above). Each of us took seven or eight songs to champion. Here are the ones I put into […]
From the moment she started singing at the Bowl Saturday night, you knew Natalie Merchant still had one of the greatest, if not the greatest, female voices in rock (not that she admits to being a rock singer). With the power of a foghorn, the timbre of an oboe, her voice is a musical instrument; […]
Although not averse to visiting should I get to Cleveland, I have never considered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to be a meaningful institution. The only “hall of fame” that means much to me is Major League Baseball’s, the oldest and by far the hardest to get into. Although imprecise, there are also established […]
What a privilege to spend 90 minutes listening to Joan Baez from the second row of the Arlington Theater (thank you, UCSB Arts & Lectures)! With appropriate song and still-beautiful voice and brief but intimate introductions, she took us back to 1959 coffee houses in Harvard Square and before, up through the draft-resistance and anti-war movement and […]
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