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Sean McDevitt
Reverend Peyton
Return of the Adrenaline
“I got all the ways/I just ain’t got the means,” 40-year-old Josh “Reverend” Peyton of Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band sings on Dance Songs for Hard Times, the blues and roots trio’s latest studio release that’s undeniably timely in the era of Covid-19. That doesn’t necessarily mean misery. The accompanying “Ways and Means” video, filmed
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Sean McDevitt
The Band
Stage Fright 50th Anniversary Edition
Released in 1970, the Band’s third album showed the earthy vibe of Music from Big Pink and The Band evolving into something darker, as the group confronted internal tensions and addiction. That evolution is at the center of this reissue, which re-sequences the album (to align with guitarist Robbie Robertson’s original vision) and offers new
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Sean McDevitt
Selwyn Birchwood
Living In a Burning House
Selwyn Birchwood’s third album for Chicago-based Alligator Records represents new creative frontiers for the 36-year-old Florida native. The robust use of keyboards and baritone sax makes it his most sonically expansive effort to date, and that sound isn’t just expansive – it’s thick. The instrumental wall, fortunately, doesn’t detract from Birchwood’s omnipresent guitar work and
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Sean McDevitt
Joyann Parker
Out of the Dark
Joyann Parker is a powerhouse vocalist and relative newcomer to the national blues scene, first gaining recognition beyond her Twin Cities base courtesy of a well-received 2018 release, Hard to Love. Its follow-up features an expanded array of sounds and styles in a pursuit enabled by guitarist/co-writer/co-producer Mark Lamoine, whose ES-335 can be heard on
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Sean McDevitt
John Lee Hooker & the Coast to Coast Blues Band
Live at Montreux 1983 & 1990
The early ’80s weren’t a high point of John Lee Hooker’s career. Demand for all blues – including his Mississippi hill-country music – had eroded and record deals were scarce. None of that mattered when Hooker played the Montreux Jazz Festival in July, 1983. Before an appreciative Swiss audience, the 65-year-old Mississippian did what he
