Joan Baez

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 […]

Top Ten Songs

In my Top 100, each artist is limited, fairly or not, to one entry. In partial compensation I herewith list my favorite ten songs for my favorite artists – a deep dive, if you will, into the music I like. Bruce Springsteen Jungleland Glory Days The Rising Born to Run Darkness on the Edge of […]

Ryan Adams v. Weezer

Back-to-back nights at the Bowl brought us shows headlined by Ryan Adams (Thursday) and Weezer (Friday). The first was perfect, the latter a disappointment. I only knew about a third of Adams’s songs, but I enjoyed every one. Scoring a walk-up seat in the center of the sixth row made Adams’s exchanges with the raucous […]

Arlo & Friends

Arlo Guthrie’s show at the Lobero on Thursday (4/8/16) was billed as part of his Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour. The tour is spanning three years, which may be testament to his advanced age (my own) or his commercial needs but also encompasses the three years that elapsed between the “massacree” in Stockbridge, MA on […]

The Rest of the Top 100

[fusion_text] Aerosmith, Dream On Lee Andrews & Hearts, Teardrops The Band, The Weight Bee Gees, I Can’t See Nobody David Bowie, Changes Laura Branigan, Gloria Garth Brooks, Callin’ Baton Rouge Jackson Browne, The Load-Out/Stay Mary Chapin Carpenter, He Thinks He’ll Keep Her Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah Sam Cooke, You Send Me Elvis Costello, Allison Jim Croce, […]