live from your speakers

Author, deejay and (oh yeah) Roots drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson was asked in late 2020 to name his favorite albums. Questlove is a funky drummer, and a walking encyclopedia of all things R&B and hip-hop, so his top ten albums...

Bless whatever force – emotional, spiritual, artistic, commercial, etc. – that brought together Philly soul greats Blue Magic and former Delfonic Major Harris on a bill with the great Southern soul singer Margie Joseph at the Latin Casino in Cherry...

Around the summer of 2007, rumors began to swirl that a Led Zeppelin reunion was in the offing – some said the surviving members of the band (Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones) were rehearsing with Jason Bonham...

BRIEFCASE FULL OF BLUES proved that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s alter egos Jake and Elwood Blues were not shtick, or at least not as much shtick as people might have imagined they were. From their first appearance – as...

In 1974, had you put Stephen Stills in front of, say, a local wedding band, or your neighborhood kids’ garage band, those combos would have instantly become the coolest bands anywhere, by simple virtue of his presence. Or, more to...

Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson were naturally complementary singers who might have been bigger as a duo, had they begun their partnership earlier in their respective careers. As it was, Flack had spent the ‘70s making a brace of classic...

Fans of progressive rock had arguably their best era (certainly commercially, if not musically) in the 1970s, when the giants of the genre stalked the earth and made some of their finest records. By the end of the ‘80s, though...

Dokken was one of the great also-rans of the late-’80s hard-rock bands – a perennial opening act with exceptional instrumental pedigree and some pretty great songs to boot, they blasted apart just short of achieving wider stardom. Legend has it...

There are reasons Phish fans count their New Year’s Eve gig at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden to be one of their best. The show contained everything about the band that was so lovable to their tribe –...