BY MIKE METTLER — FEBRUARY 10, 2016
He’s a man who’s been everywhere and done it with everyone, and lived to tell the tales. He’s Dave Stewart, the production wizard best known for his indelible partnership with Annie Lennox in the uber-popular ’80s electronic duo Eurythmics. His new memoir, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This – […]
BY MIKE METTLER — FEBRUARY 3, 2016
The concept of being a true global artist didn’t really exist until the rise of Yanni, the visionary Greek keyboardist/composer who’s played his own unique brand of instrumental music for over 5 million concertgoers worldwide (and counting). Sometimes, you’ll find him and his top-tier “United Nations” orchestra playing for […]
BY MIKE METTLER — DECEMBER 9, 2015
The songwriter’s songwriter is one who adheres to an unwavering standard of excellence. His work is honed, sculpted, shaped, and then reshaped until it feels right to share with the world. These are just a few of the guiding principles Steve Forbert followed while composing the 11 original songs […]
BY MIKE METTLER — NOVEMBER 27, 2015
As iconic as it remains a full half-century later, when Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back was being shot by director D.A. Pennebaker during the Bard’s whirlwind tour of England in May 1965, there were literally no rules to follow. “It’s the idea of the home movie, the kind of movie […]
BY MIKE METTLER — OCTOBER 28, 2015
Standards: Somebody has to set them. And when it came to creating the 20th-century template for how to properly sing popular music, one need look no further than Johnny Mathis, the romantic, soulful tenor whose range and control remain just as vibrant today as when he began taking lessons […]
BY MIKE METTLER — SEPTEMBER 25, 2015
Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes. But when it comes to finally getting producer/engineer James Guthrie’s long-awaited 96kHz/24-bit mix of Roger Waters’ 1992 solo album Amused to Death in 5.1 on Blu-ray in hand, well… the word “good” isn’t quite good enough. “Great” is […]
BY MIKE METTLER — SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
Harmony (/ˈhärmənē/, noun): 1. The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect. 2. A relationship where various components exist together without destroying one another; agreement or concord. See also: America.
If there’s one band from the ’70s that epitomizes the literal definition of the […]
BY MIKE METTLER — AUGUST 26, 2015
It’s hard to believe, but the eternally youthful blues maestro Robert Cray is celebrating five decades of plying his craft with the imminent release of 4 Nights of 40 Years Live (Provogue) in various formats, including Blu-ray + 2 CDs, DVD + 2 CDs, and LP + digital […]
BY MIKE METTLER — AUGUST 13, 2015
In a band of equals, some can appear to be more equal than others. “I always like to have the first word and the last word on albums,” laughs keyboardist Tony Banks, one of the main songwriters in Genesis. Banks has always felt making an impression right as […]
BY MIKE METTLER — AUGUST 2, 2015
When the Irish band U2 began work on their fifth album in 1986, they had one destination in mind to capture the accompanying visual: the American West as personified by the Coachella Valley in Southern California. “We wanted to find places where nature and civilization met. The whole […]
