Monthly Archives: November 2010

Fans familiar with Coco Montoya’s blistering guitar work and gruff vocals are in for a surprise when they hear I Want It All Back, on which Montoya serves up music tilted to traditional soul. The formula works well on this set, made up of excellent covers except for an original blues shuffle by Montoya. While [...]

Though unauthorized, this 90-minute DVD attempts to get inside Frank Zappa’s head by way of the influences he listed in the liner notes of the 1966 debut of his Mothers Of Invention, Freak Out!. There are interviews with various academics, music journalists, and three Zappa keyboardists (Don Preston, Ian Underwood, and George Duke), along with [...]

When an 18-year-old Geoff Muldaur cut his first album – 1963’s Sleepy Man Blues for Prestige – you could practically count on your fingers the number of white performers recording blues – Koerner, Ray & Glover, Dave Van Ronk, and soon, John Hammond. He quickly joined the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, resulting in several albums [...]

Free was capable of turning out such memorable originals as “Fire And Water,” “Mr. Big,” and its biggest hit, “All Right Now” – all from 1970’s Fire And Waterthe band’s third album. The LP was also the group’s best, in spite of the fact you wouldn’t have to adjust a medium-plod click track much from [...]

Sierra Hull may be the next Alison Krauss. Then again, she could be merely another photogenic young picker. But regardless of her future, she is an impeccably talented mandolin player. At the beginning of the two-DVD set, Hull works on right- and left-hand technique before teaching five original tunes, a kick-off, and a closing lick. [...]

Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein have been playing together for more than 10 years. They first met when T. Michael Coleman, Mike Auldridge, and Klein asked Gaudreau to join them in Chesapeake. When the group disbanded in the late ’90s, Gaudreau and Klein got together occasionally to play concerts in D.C., where they both live. [...]