And a few, those with an eye to the moment and that moment's place in time, haul a camera around with them to shows, to attempt to capture, in the words of the late Alan Lomax, that instance when the artist ‘is spinning at the apex of creation’. Just such a fellow is Joseph A. Rosen, known simply as Joe by those of us lucky enough to call him a friend.

Photographer unknown So now the New England music scene has lost another one. As most of you will know by now, Bob Angell passed away on December 6th - he had been suffering from cancer.  Bob was not just a musician leading his long-established group Blues Outlet, he wrote for the Providence weekly The New Paper, he taught English - in short, he was a regular Renaissance man. He was also a tireless evangelist for the blues.  As a journalist, he knew the importance of publiciz

Photo by Ken Kay Like everyone who knew him, I was horrified to learn over the weekend that Rory MacLeod,  while out walking his dog, had been killed by an out-of-control automobile driven by an out-of-control woman early on Saturday morning, December 6th. in Hopkinton, RI. Doug James, the baritone saxophonist for Roomful of Blues, introduced me to Rory shortly after I started working with Roomful in 1981, and our mutual interest in music drew us together immediately. Rory wa

Jimmy's groundbreaking album on Trojan Records The news of Jimmy Cliff’s death on Monday, November 24th, 2025 buried me in a veritable blizzard of emotions, memories, and long-forgotten scenarios, in all of which his music had been the soundtrack.   My first job at Island Records in 1965, looking through the racks of 45s down in the basement at 108 Cambridge Road, and noting the titles by him, ‘Hurricane Hatty’, ‘Miss Jamaica’, ‘Since Lately’, ‘One Eyed Jacks’, ‘King of Kings

by Opal Louis Nations and Bob Bell A short note here: As Opal writes below, the first installment of this piece ran in Blues and Rhythm 155, over twenty years ago. Opal and I brought it up to date and submitted it to B & R who unfortunately re-ran the first piece instead of this one. This is what can happen in these days when cyber files are tossed around like paper aeroplanes. This listing does not purport to be definitive in any way at all - first of all, the entries here

A MODERN 78RPM READER THE LUST FOR SHELLAC: Confessions of an addict, Part 2. My good friend Josh Rosenthal who heads Tompkins Square...

A MODERN 78 RPM READER THE LUST FOR SHELLAC: Confessions of an addict, Part 1. My good friend Josh Rosenthal who heads Tompkins Square...

Rhode Island guitarist and singer Duke Robillard, a musician steeped in the blues, has teamed up with Rhode Island’s Soulshot, a band steeped in Jamaican music, to make one of the year’s most interesting, listenable and danceable records, ‘Two Guitars - One Sound’, a mainly instrumental album featuring Andy Bassford and Mark Berney.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuIscCrlrCo Rusty Zinn is one of those musicians, whether singing or playing the guitar, who has perfect...

A living archive of post-war music of America, from blues to San Francisco psychedelia, and a whole bunch of entertaining tales along the...

Photo: Britt Hallquist Sometimes you hear a sound that changes things for you forever. You had no idea it was coming, and when you heard...

After the show at The Bottom Line, NYC, April 5, 1981 L-R Jimmy Wimpfheimer, Doug James, Al Copley, Ronnie Earl, Danny Motta, John Rossi,...

The first volume of ‘The Island Book of Records - 1959-1968’ filled 390 pages and covered the first ten years of Island Records. Volume 2...

I find it hard to believe that it was 50 years ago that John Broven, the indefatigable English blues scholar, first published his...

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM American Rhythm & Blues In England 1962 – 1966 The Unseen Photographs of Brian Smith ISBN: 978-0-9561439-4-5 . Arts,...

Ron Levy at the window - Porky in the passenger seat. Roomful had owned an interesting assortment of vehicles before I met them,...

For many years Roomful of Blues traveled the country in a converted bookmobile, made by Gerstenslager of Worcester, Ohio. The vehicle...

Wes Dover - Thee Reggaeologist My wife Britt spent the weekend cleaning out the desk in her office. The last year of her working life was...

Chris Blackwell started Island Records in Jamaica in 1959, recording local talent. His first three releases all made the Jamaican charts....

So Richard is gone. Although his breakthrough hits were in 1955 in the USA, strangely his record label Specialty didn’t have a UK outlet...