High Road Touring

[Grammy.com] During the pandemic, Jay Farrar had more time than ever to craft Son Volt’s new album, ‘Electro Melodier.’ The result is among the 30-year-old band’s most personal, oracular and muscular works to date When the Americana heroes Uncle Tupelo broke up during the Clinton administration, they left two unbelievably different rock institutions in their wake. ...

[LA Times] BY RICKIE LEE JONES Musician and bandleader Chuck E. Weiss died on July 19 at 76, after an extended battle with cancer. Here, Rickie Lee Jones, who famously name-checked Weiss on her breakthrough 1979 hit “Chuck E.’s in Love,” recalls days and nights spent prowling L.A.’s hipster demimonde with Weiss and his partner-in-crime, Tom Waits. ...

[American Songwriter] BY PAUL ZOLLO The new single from his upcoming album The Horses and The Hounds, coming in August “Lyrically gritty, musically gutsy, go tell ‘em all- we need James McMurtry bringin’ us more.” —Andrew Farrris, INXS “James McMurtry may be the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation.” —Stephen King “The ghost of Warren Zevon seems to be ...

[Rolling Stone] By JOSEPH HUDAK  Austin City Limits has announced the 2021 inductees into its Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. Lucinda Williams, Wilco, and Alejandro Escovedo make up the new class. There were no 2020 inductees because of the pandemic. Read full article here (warning: pay wall).

On her second album, the Brooklyn pop experimentalist looks within. [New York Times] By Jon Pareles “I think I am always surrounded by ghosts,” said Taja Cheek, the songwriter who records as L’Rain. “I like to be haunted. I’ve been revisiting the past to try to understand where I am now.” Yet in a video interview from ...