-
Dan Forte
Rick Vito
Cadillac Man
Best known for his “Like A Rock” slide work behind Bob Seger and 1987-’91 stint with Fleetwood Mac, Vito’s lengthy resume also includes John Mayall, Bonnie Raitt, Roger McGuinn, John Prine, and Dolly Parton. Along the way, he has released a dozen solo albums across 30 years. His expressive singing and hip songwriting impress on…
-
Dan Forte
Scott H. Biram
The One And Only Scott H. Biram
Over 24 years, Scott H. Biram has released 13 albums; even a near-fatal wreck with a semi in 2003 didn’t slow him down. The self-described “Dirty Old One-Man Band” shifts gears from sensitive ballads to his low-fi amalgam of raw blues, real-deal country, and folk, peppered with metal and punk influences – in other words,…
-
Dan Forte
W.C. Clark
1939-2024
After seeing a member of country band Jimmy Heap and the Melody Makers playing a homemade washtub bass, W.C. Clark recalled, “I made a guitar out of 2x4s and bailing wire. I figured if he could do that with one string, I could do it with six strings.” Wesley Curley “W.C.” Clark, fondly dubbed Austin’s…
-
Dan Forte
Rick Vito
Cadillac Blues-Rocker
Surveying a small sample of Rick Vito’s resumé, versatility is a given. From the early ’70s, he has been tapped by John Mayall, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Dolly Parton, Maria Muldaur, Roy Orbison, and Boz Scaggs, and his ’80s work with Bob Seger is familiar to television viewers everywhere. He did four years touring and…
-
Dan Forte
Check This Action: Reissues – Living In The Past?
Reissues have always been around in the form of greatest hits and best-of packages. But after then-independent Rhino Records started cross-licensing tracks from major labels to create anthologies and compilations in the ’80s and ’90s, the majors realized there was money to be made by dusting off their own tapes. Music listeners benefitted from CDs…
-
Dan Forte
Justin Johnsoné
The Biscuit House
His online videos are hard to cruise past. There’s his wide stylistic range, but also the guitars he built out of cigar boxes, whiskey barrels, and shovels. It amounts to a cottage industry of CDs, guitars, accessories, and instructional material. Beginning in 2014, the versatile Johnson – who has played on a Bootsy Collins CD…
-
Dan Forte
Check This Action: Monumental Treasures
One of my favorite gospel albums has the mouthful title An Evening With Rev. Louis Overstreet, His Guitar, His Four Sons, and The Congregation of St. Luke Powerhouse Church of God In Christ. Released in 1963, it’s a live (and most lively) recording of one night’s church service in Phoenix. Its cover shows a robed,…
-
Dan Forte
Mr. Sun
Plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite
In 1960, Duke Ellington’s orchestra recorded his reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.” He and arranger Billy Strayhorn took ample liberties with the ballet’s familiar movements, like “Dance Of The Sugar-Plum Fairies,” even giving them new titles, like “Sugar Rum Cherry.” The result swung like mad. To reinterpret the Ellington version for four strings is ambitious,…
-
Dan Forte
Jim Kweskin
Where Jazz Meets Folk
Jim Kweskin grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and in 1958 entered Boston University, placing him near coffee houses at the height of the Folk Boom. Mixing early jazz with folk, blues, ragtime, and country, he formed Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, breathing life into music previously relegated to dusty 78s and influencing groups from…
-
Dan Forte
Shooter Jennings & the Werewolves of Los Angeles
Do Zevon
He may not have found a home in a certain institution in Cleveland, despite overwhelming “fan votes,” but the late Warren Zevon was highly respected among fellow artists. Linda Ronstadt, Dwight Yoakam, the Bangles, Drive-By Truckers, and many others covered his songs, Jackson Browne produced him, and his albums featured guitar greats such as David…
