Your Gold Teeth III

Your Gold Teeth III A Q&A with Dale DeJoy of Hey Nineteen By Geoff Gehman   Dale DeJoy was a high schooler when he turned a Steely Dan lyric into a Christmas-dinner blessing. It all began when his mother asked him to say grace before the holiday meal. Not knowing any graces, he decided to recite … Read More

You Can Sleep When You’re Dead

A Q&A with Brendan Power Of The Kilmaine Saints By Geoff Gehman Brendan Power is Irish-American or American-Irish, take your pick. He was born in 1976 in County Mayo to a Mayo mother and a Philly father. Four years later he settled with his family in the States, where he grew up listening to blues and … Read More

Wizardly Warrior

Wizardly Warrior A Q&A with Shawn Phillips   By Geoff Gehman   Somewhere in amazon.comdom is someone who ranks Shawn Phillips’ 1970 LP “Second Contribution” among the all-time top pop albums, way up there with Cat Stevens’ “Tea for the Tillerman.” Somewhere in Canada is someone who whistled Phillips’ tunes to make planting trees more … Read More

Wise Lullabies for Brave Adults

Wise Lullabies for Brave Adults A Q&A with Anna Mitchell   By Geoff Gehman   Anna Mitchell burrows to the marrow on “Down to the Bone,” the first full-length record from the Irish singer-songwriter-keyboardist with the Appalachian soul. The Cork resident’s characters yearn to escape to Tennessee, allegedly the land of greener hills and non-smothering … Read More

Wingman for a Wingsman

Wingman for a Wingsman A Q&A with Yuri Pool Of The McCartney Years   By Geoff Gehman   Yuri Pool once stopped traffic on a roof. This remarkable act took place on Jan. 30, 2009 above the streets of London, Ontario, when his band performed a 40th-anniversary facsimile of the Beatles’ fabled final public concert … Read More

Waging Ragged Glory

Waging Ragged Glory A Q&A with Joe Mass   By Geoff Gehman   Broken Arrow is turning a venue in Bethlehem into Neil Youngland. The four Pennsylvanians fill the sold-out room with faithful, liberal versions of songs swampy (“Alabama”) and stampeding (“Cinnamon Girl”), psychedelic (“Cowgirl in the Sand”) and sweet (“Harvest Moon”). At times I … Read More

Twice in a Lifetime

Twice in a Lifetime: A Q&A with Jon Braun of Start Making Sense By Geoff Gehman   The Talking Heads have pretty much been dead for 21 years, but their spirit has been very much alive for a fifth of that time. Launched nearly four years ago in a Bethlehem bar, Start Making Sense reincarnates … Read More

True-Blue Troubadour

True-Blue Troubadour A Q&A with Al Stewart By Geoff Gehman I became an Al Stewart fan in 1976, the year of “Year of the Cat,” a commercial breakout for him and an aural awakening for me. I was hooked, line and sinker, by his crisply melodic, poetic mini-movies about an ecstatic aviatrix, a gloomy sailor … Read More

True-Blue Troubadour

True-Blue Troubadour A Q&A with Al Stewart   By Geoff Gehman   I became an Al Stewart fan in 1976, the year of “Year of the Cat,” a commercial breakout for him and an aural awakening for me. I was hooked, line and sinker, by his crisply melodic, poetic mini-movies about an ecstatic aviatrix, a … Read More

Triple Trouble

Triple Trouble A Q&A with Albert Cummings   By Geoff Gehman   Albert Cummings flirts with fire. He plays electric guitar as if he’s running through a blazing forest, sings as if his belly is full of burning coals, dances as if he’s jigging across a bed of hot rocks. He performs without a set … Read More

Traveling Between the Eternities

Traveling Between the Eternities A Q&A with Jorma Kaukonen   By Geoff Gehman   Jorma Kaukonen likes to call his psychedelic days in Jefferson Airplane, and the ’60s, as “a voice from another dimension.” That voice buzzsawed through him on Jan. 28, the last day for his Airplane comrades Paul Kantner and Signe Toly Anderson. … Read More

Toss a Pebble, Create a Tidal Wave

Toss a Pebble, Create a Tidal Wave A Q&A with Mary Fahl   By Geoff Gehman   Jesus wandered in the desert for a month and change to find his spiritual strategic plan. Singer-songwriter Mary Fahl played a summer of open mikes in the middle of Pennsylvania to find her musical compass. This boot-camp tour … Read More

Tilt-a-Whirl World

Tilt-a-Whirl World A Q&A with Willy Porter   By Geoff Gehman   A tilt-a-whirl operator who yearns to seduce a seven-foot bearded woman. A gleefully greedy banker who has no guilt whatsoever about spanking debutantes and wanking congressmen. A believing non-believer who grills God about non-believing believers. These colorful characters appear in songs by Willy … Read More

Tiara of Creation

Tiara of Creation A Q&A with Joanne Lediger Of Reverend Jefferson   By Geoff Gehman   Joanne Lediger was 14 when Grace Slick became her rock ‘n’ roll queen. The brand-new high schooler pretty much crowned Jefferson Airplane’s co-pilot as a musical pilot. Slick had everything that Lediger craved: a soaring, rallying, thrilling voice; a … Read More

This Is the Year, This Is the Life

This Is the Year, This Is the Life A Q&A with Blake Christiana of Yarn           By Geoff Gehman Blake Christiana once lived on a Lehigh County farm owned by big fans of Yarn, the alternative Americana band he birthed in Brooklyn. The New Tripoli home doubled as a sanctuary for writing songs and escaping the … Read More

These Fires

These Fires A Q&A with Paula Cole   By Geoff Gehman   I once crawled across Paula Cole’s desert of desire. My erotic odyssey unfolded during her 2011 concert at the Sellersville Theater. We all sweated up a storm as Cole and her band mates slow-burned through “Feelin’ Love,” an erotic ode that revolves around … Read More

The Real Me(s)

The Real Me(s) A Q&A with David MacDonald Of Who’s Next   By Geoff Gehman   David MacDonald got a bargain, one of the best he ever had, when he met Roger Daltrey, the swaggering, strutting, microphone-lassoing, vocal mountain climbing front man he plays in Who’s Next, which plays songs minted by Daltrey and his … Read More

The Musical Matrix

The Musical Matrix A Q&A with Joe Louis Walker   By Geoff Gehman   At age 16 Joe Louis Walker played house guitar in a San Francisco club called the Matrix, where on any given night you could hear everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Thelonius Monk, Magic Sam to Pigpen. At age 63 Walker is … Read More

The Morrissey Medium

The Morrissey Medium A Q&A with Ronnissey Of The Sons & Heirs   By Geoff Gehman   Ronnie Scott didn’t want to believe the fans and band mates who kept insisting he sang just like Morrissey. Raised as a grunge guitarist, the twentysomething Brooklyn native thought the former Smiths front man was too weirdly neat, … Read More

The Easy Truth

          The Easy Truth         A Q&A with Coco Montoya          By Geoff Gehman               Coco Montoya seizes opportunity like a snake wrangler seizes rattlers. He hit the road with his first blues mentor, the highly influential singing guitarist Albert Collins; a mere three hours after Collins invited him to hit the road. His second blues … Read More

The Congregation of Rhythm

The Congregation of Rhythm A Q&A with Noah Adams Of The Dirty Bourbon River Show   By Geoff Gehman   Anyone who writes “Somebody get this man a tissue because he needs to blow his soul out” has an open-tuned mind, body and, yes, soul. Noah Adams slipped that transcendental thought into a practical ditty … Read More

The Chord Is Mightier Than the Sword

The Chord Is Mightier Than the Sword A Brief Tour of Ed Hamell (aka Hamell on Trial)   By Geoff Gehman Ed Hamell swears that Ann Coulter’s vagina has supernatural powers. He says so in his spoken song “Coulter’s Snatch,” a delightfully devilish ditty about the conservative assassin’s pubic region as a cross between the … Read More

The Changeling

The Changeling A Q&A with Tony Fernandez Of Peace Frog By Geoff Gehman Tony Fernandez was 11 when the Doors began opening his doors to a life without domestic violence. The freedom march began when he first heard “The End,” the psychedelic tone poem that turns apocalyptic when Jim Morrison says, with spooky serenity, “Father … Read More

Surfing with the Sharks

Surfing with the Sharks A Q&A with Montag the Magnificent (aka Ian Hansson) Of Great White Caps   By Geoff Gehman   The first time Ian Hansson heard “Misirlou,” during the opening credits of “Pulp Fiction,” he was hooked line and sinker. Chaperoned to the R-rated flick by his “very cool” parents, the 13-year-old punk-rock … Read More

Surfing the Astral Waves

Surfing the Astral Waves A Q&A with Nick Rhodes Of the Ten Band   By Geoff Gehman   By day Nick Rhodes teaches algebra in cyberspace. At night he surfs Eddie Vedder’s astral waves. Rhodes is the lead singer of the Ten Band, a 12-year-old ensemble that performs songs created and recreated by Pearl Jam, … Read More

Super Trouper

Super Trouper A Q&A with Anne Tormela Of Manhattan Lyric Opera   By Geoff Gehman   Anne Tormela is an equal-opportunity opera singer. The lyric soprano has performed arias in concert halls and hospitals, libraries and nursing homes. She swears that the most animated, honest venue is a subway station. For 14 years Tormela has … Read More

Subversive Sensitivity

Subversive Sensitivity A Q&A with Aimee Mann   By Geoff Gehman   Aimee Mann specializes in writing sensitive, smart-ass, smart songs about the need to control, be controlled and lose control. She dissects domination in tune after tune after tune: “Pavlov’s Bell,” “Deathly,” “I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas.” Her knack for … Read More

Subtle Music That Speaks Loudly

‘Subtle Music That Speaks Loudly’ A Q&A with Seth Walker By Geoff Gehman   Seth Walker didn’t set out to set his compass straight. The singing, composing guitarist didn’t expect that his latest record, “Gotta Get Back,” released last year by The Royal Potato Family, would be all about getting back to elementals–country blues, blue-eyed … Read More

Stone Impeccable

Stone Impeccable A Q&A with Keith Call Of The Glimmer Twins   By Geoff Gehman   Keith Call was 10 when he first heard “Brown Sugar,” the first song he couldn’t forget by the Rolling Stones, the first band he couldn’t forget. The elementary schooler was hooked line and sinker by the crunching opening riff; … Read More

Squeezing Lemonade from Adversity

Squeezing Lemonade from Adversity A Q&A with Cruz Contreras Of the Black Lillies By Geoff Gehman  Cruz Contreras specializes in turning scrap metal into sculpture. The founding frontman of the Black Lillies wrote a lively, tail-wagging song, “40 Days and 40 Nights,” about the band’s first tour, a mess of roadblocks and wrong turns. The … Read More

Soul Cruiser

Soul Cruiser A Q&A with John Nemeth   By Geoff Gehman   The 1973 Cadillac Eldorado convertible on the cover of John Nemeth’s “Memphis Grease” album is much more than a cool set of classic wheels. For the song-writing, harmonica-playing, Memphis-living singer, the sporty luxury car symbolizes the vintage early ’70s Blues City soul—sweaty, sweet, … Read More

Sonic Mirror

Sonic Mirror A Q&A with Billy Cobham   By Geoff Gehman   Billy Cobham’s first solo record, “Spectrum,” has been a mother-and-father ship for jazz-rock-funk fusioneers for most of its 40 years in outer and inner space. Everyone from Jeff Beck to Chick Corea has been bowled over by the ferocious, ferociously creative grooves played … Read More

Sonic Astronaut

Sonic Astronaut A Q&A with Billy Cobham By Geoff Gehman Billy Cobham loves taking his compositions to new places and spaces. For over 40 years the band-leading drummer has been exploring and expanding his pieces with different arrangements played by different partners, sometimes with different instruments. Whether performing with two or 22 musicians, he aims … Read More

Smashed So Good

Smashed So Good A Q&A with Kevin Miller   By Geoff Gehman   Kevin Miller loves to make you sing, swing, bop, shake your booty, play air drums, high-five strangers, remember your pleasant past and forget your painful present. The Allentown native hits his marks as the drumming, singing founder of Kevin Miller’s Smashed, a … Read More

Rollicking & Roaming & RubberBanding

Rollicking & Roaming & RubberBanding A Q&A with Ryan Shupe   By Geoff Gehman   Ryan Shupe surfs a different wavelength. He’s a snowboarding, singing, song-writing, fifth-generation fiddler with a shaved head and a seriously sly sense of humor. For 18 years he’s been fronting the RubberBand, an elastic quartet that specializes in a hemi-powered … Read More

Rocky Mountain Highs

Rocky Mountain Highs A Q&A with Steve Weisberg By Geoff Gehman   Steve Weisberg played lead guitar, dobro and pedal steel with John Denver from 1973 to 1977, when Denver became a pop-culture king big enough to star in a movie with George Burns as God. It was five years of nirvana, and not just … Read More

Rocking Out on ‘This Big Old Rock’

Rocking Out on ‘This Big Old Rock’ A Q&A with Les Dudek By Geoff Gehman Interviewing Les Dudek is like being strapped to a Stratocaster plugged into a Marshall. A musician’s musician for five decades, he tells amped-up, ramped-up stories about his nice niche in the history of electrified rock ‘n’ roll blues, Duetting with … Read More

Riding with the Gods

Riding with the Gods A Q&A with Dar Williams   By Geoff Gehman   Dar Williams had a crush on Hermes, the Greek god of travelers, long before she was a professional traveler, a touring musician with a ton of tread. So it makes sense that she would write a song where Hermes picks up … Read More

Raise the Roof and the Soul

Raise the Roof and the Soul A Q&A with Winifred Horan of Solas   By Geoff Gehman   For nearly 20 years Winifred Horan and Seamus Egan have run Solas as a global experience with an Irish tilt and a Gaelic lilt. The American-born children of Irish parents have used traditional idioms–reels, waltzes, keening ballads–to … Read More

Private/Public Pilgrim

Private/Public Pilgrim A Q&A with David Wilcox   By Geoff Gehman   David Wilcox regards his songs as “little tools that put my heart where I want it to be.” He encourages listeners to use his tools to rearrange, or arrange, their feelings. One of his toolboxes is “Musical Medicine,” a Web page of his … Read More

Power Trio Heaven

Power Trio Heaven A Q&A with Craig Thatcher   By Geoff Gehman   The Mauch Chunk Opera House is Craig Thatcher’s soul kitchen. The very busy, very talented, very popular guitarist has played the Jim Thorpe house nearly 30 times over nearly 10 years, as a trio leader and an opening act for pals Laurence … Read More

Plucking the Juiciest Apple from the Tree

Plucking the Juiciest Apple from the Tree A Q&A with Dwight Ritcher & Nicole Nelson   By Geoff Gehman   Dwight Richter and Nicole Nelson are relatively young musicians with relatively old souls–and soles. A couple onstage and off, they live in a former shoe factory in Burlington, Vt., his old college town. She jokingly … Read More

Piping Up, Out and All Around

Piping Up, Out and All Around A Q&A with Mike Katz of the Battlefield Band   By Geoff Gehman   Mike Katz is the Frank Zappa of bagpipers. That is, he’s definitely a rare cat: a Jewish Los Angeleno who plays Highland and small pipes in the Battlefield Band, Scotland’s most prestigious, adventurous balladeers, hornpipers … Read More

One Way In, Many Ways Out

One Way In, Many Ways Out A Q&A with Lou Meresca Of Live at the Fillmore   By Geoff Gehman   Lou Meresca is connected to the Allman Brothers Band by a cosmic cord, or chord. The singing guitarist fell for the Brothers the first time he heard them, during a 1970 concert in his … Read More

One True Note Can Slice Every Heart

A Q&A with Scott Sharrard By Geoff Gehman   Scott Sharrard was sleeping at a friend’s house when he dreamed up a beyond-the-grave message from one Allman brother to another. After waking up, the veteran blues/rock/soul musician rushed downstairs, grabbed a guitar, sat on a picturesque porch, and sketched music to suit the cosmic couplet … Read More

One Man Guy

One Man Guy A Q&A with Loudon Wainwright III By Geoff Gehman   “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry” was the first song by Loudon Wainwright III that made me realize that the man has the goods. Released on his 1973 album “Attempted Mustache,” it’s the shaggy saga of a writer whose inability to shed tears … Read More

Noble Stranger

Noble Stranger A Q&A with Nuala Kennedy of The Alt   By Geoff Gehman   Nuala Kennedy has spent many years in Celtic music’s many chasms, coves and hollows. The singing flutist grew up living and breathing performing in Dundalk, County Louth, a heritage she references in an Irish-Canadian quartet called Oirialla. She spent a … Read More

New (and Old) Sensations

New (and Old) Sensations A Q&A with Cory Massi Of KICK: The INXS Experience   By Geoff Gehman Cory Massi is the founding front man of KICK, which performs bold, burrowing, 360-degree versions of songs minted by INXS, the bold, burrowing, 360-degree refiner of old and new waves of rock, soul, R&B, funk and orchestral … Read More

Nantucket-to-North Pole Sleigh Ride

Nantucket-to-North Pole Sleigh Ride A Q&A with Craig Thatcher   By Geoff Gehman   For Christmas 1966 Craig Thatcher received a budding blues-rock guitarist’s greatest gift. His grandmother gave him what he wanted most, a copy of the album “Blues Breakers,” John Mayall’s coming-out party for Eric Clapton. Clapton’s revolutionary guitar-and-amplifier mix—fuzzy, ballsy, mountainous, earth-quaking—hooked … Read More

My Make-up Is My Makeup

My Make-up Is My Makeup A Q&A with Janis Ian   By Geoff Gehman   Many thoughts glow in Janis Ian’s song “I’m Still Standing Here,” a radiant declaration of pride in a body that’s well-lined and well-used. The one thought that glows in the dark concerns bruises and scars so tactile, they can be … Read More

Musical Alarm Clocks (Waking Up to Hank and Woody)

Musical Alarm Clocks (Waking Up to Hank and Woody) A Q&A with Randy Noojin   By Geoff Gehman   Randy Noojin and Hank Williams are almost as thick as thieves. In fourth grade Noojin woke up to Williams records played extremely loud by his father, a Williams fan who recognized the power of Hank as … Read More

Mission: Possible

Mission: Possible A Q&A with Eric Mintel   By Geoff Gehman   Eric Mintel plays two universal languages: jazz and TV theme songs. As a teen the pianist cut his teeth on “Blue Rondo a la Turk” and the “Popeye” cartoon sea shanty, sometimes entertaining his friends with his improvisations. As a quartet leader he … Read More

Minister of Sound

Minister of Sound A Q&A with Alexis P. Suter   By Geoff Gehman   For some reason Carrie Suter didn’t want to take her daughter Alexis to church, their favorite place to sing. The elementary schooler responded by turning a closet into a chapel, where she made up a song about Jesus moving to his … Read More

Melody Gypsy

Melody Gypsy A Q&A with Frank Vignola   By Geoff Gehman   Frank Vignola loves gypsy jazz and the life of a musical gypsy. The 49-year-old guitarist cut his teeth by touring with Leon Redbone, the celebrated singer of Dixieland and ragtime ditties; gigging weekly at a Manhattan club with guitarist Les Paul, the legendary … Read More

Maximum Hardcore R&B Man

Maximum Hardcore R&B Man A Q&A with Curtis Salgado   By Geoff Gehman   Curtis Salgado learned to sing like there’s no tomorrow after watching Buddy Ace, the famously sweaty soul vocalist, work a house party as seriously as a coronation at the Apollo Theater. He learned to live like there’s no tomorrow after receiving … Read More

Making a Joyful Noise

Making a Joyful Noise A Q&A with Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams By Geoff Gehman   Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams are deeply, truly rooted. The musicians married in 1988 under a cedar tree planted by her great-great grandmother on her home turf, a seventh-generation cotton farm in Peckerwood Point, Tenn. She originated the role … Read More

Mad Scientist of Groove

Mad Scientist of Groove A Q&A with George Hrab Of the Philadelphia Funk Authority By Geoff Gehman The best advice that George Hrab, the drummer in a dance band, ever gave his son, also named George Hrab and also the drummer in a dance band, was to imagine himself driving a stage coach onstage. Treat … Read More

Mac Attack

Mac Attack A Q&A with Scott McDonald of TUSK   By Geoff Gehman   Scott McDonald was nine when he suffered, and savored, his first Fleetwood Mac attack. The blows were delivered by the band’s “Rumours” album, which he heard over and over and over again blasting from his parents’ cabin cruiser of a stereo. … Read More

Love’s Rock-and-Rollercoaster

Love’s Rock-and-Rollercoaster A Q&A with Ward Hayden Of Girls Guns and Glory   By Geoff Gehman   Ward Hayden has lived, sung and written plenty of songs about love’s rock-and-rollercoaster His former muse was an eight-year relationship that ended badly and inspired therapeutic tunes like “Inverted Valentine.” His current muse is a four-year relationship going … Read More

Love Me Like a Man

Love Me Like a Man A Q&A with Vanessa Collier   By Geoff Gehman   Vanessa Collier pays, and plays, it forward. Her saxophone playing has some of the bluesiness of Cannonball Adderley, her first sax hero. Her singing has some of the ballsiness of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose song “Up Above My Head, I … Read More

Lord, Deliver Me from Penn Station

Lord, Deliver Me from Penn Station A Q&A with James Felice Of the Felice Brothers   By Geoff Gehman   James Felice answered the questions below while taking a break from chipping wood chopped to make way for a friend’s orchard. It’s the sort of quirky crossroads often found in songs created by the Felice … Read More

Little Big Gestures

Little Big Gestures A Q&A with Adam Ezra By Geoff Gehman Adam Ezra and his band mates treat their fans fantastically. Other truly communal groups may let followers choose an album of songs; Adam Ezra Group members let followers pick 11 tracks from 23 demos for the Boston-based ensemble’s latest record, “Hurricane Wind” (TatteredString Music). … Read More

Leaving the Gate Open

Leaving the Gate Open A Q&A with Caroline Doctorow   By Geoff Gehman   Caroline Doctorow was perusing a gift shop in Woodstock, N.Y., passing time before her concert, when she found the sort of gift that keeps on giving. There, on a piece of wood, was the inspirational saying “Live as if someone left … Read More

Leaping into the Waterfall

Leaping into the Waterfall A Q&A with David Mayfield   By Geoff Gehman   David Mayfield’s musical mantra fits on a bumper sticker: Just Jump In. He jumped in as a rookie guitarist, learning chords on the fly during a concert with a family friend of his family bluegrass band. He jumped in as a … Read More

Kind Town Blues

Kind Town Blues A Q&A with Tina “T-Bone” Gorin Of Jane Lee Hooker   By Geoff Gehman   Tina “T-Bone” Gorin has her dream gig in the rock/blues/punk quintet Jane Lee Hooker, which seriously troubles the waters of such standards as “Wade in the Water,” the spiritual bible, and “Mean Town Blues,” Johnny Winter’s turbo-charged … Read More

Jedi master, Zen warrior

Jedi master, Zen warrior A Q&A with Larry Coryell   By Geoff Gehman   “Never finish a phrase” said Miles Davis to Larry Coryell, the trumpeter dropping a nugget of wisdom on the guitarist like a Zen koan. Leave the phrase open so it leaves you open to play something bigger, bolder, better. Why tunnel … Read More

Iron Axe Man

Iron Axe Man A Q&A with Eddie Arjun Peters   By Geoff Gehman   Eddie Arjun Peters was a Queens teen when he was electrified by an electric guitar plugged into an amplifier. The powerful sounds played by his friend Walter, his heavy-metal guru, made him realize that he could actually learn to perform his … Read More

I Feel Like I Win When I Lose

I Feel Like I Win When I Lose A Q&A with Halina Ulatowski Of Dancing Dream By Geoff Gehman Halina Ulatowski fell under the spell of ABBA the night that millions of fellow Europeans were spellbound by Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Bjorn. Then 11 and living in her native Poland, she was totally tuned into … Read More

Honky Tumbleweed Yellow Brick Chateau

Honky Tumbleweed Yellow Brick Chateau A Q&A with Greg Ransom Of Bennie and the Jets   By Geoff Gehman   Greg Ransom was minding his own business, performing songs by Jackson Browne and James Taylor, when the hotel owner suddenly asked him to play a tune by a bigger ’70s star. Ransom shuffled through his … Read More

Hip Gypsy 

Hip Gypsy  A Q&A with Jared Hall  Of Velvet Caravan    By Geoff Gehman    Jared Hall learned his first unforgettable song, “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” from his piano-playing, boogie-woogie-ing grandmother. He discovered his future instrument at the home of a fellow who restores Hammond organs and Volkswagen buses. He discovered gypsy jazz, his future … Read More

Harping with the King

Harping with the King A Q&A with Sugar Blue   By Geoff Gehman   One of the many treasured pleasures on YouTube is a 1995 live video of Sugar Blue, the fine singer and exceptional harmonica player, turning Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” into an erotic odyssey.  Decked out in a black beret and a … Read More

Grooving in the Grove

Grooving in the Grove A Q&A with Erin Zindle Of the Ragbirds   By Geoff Gehman   Erin Zindle had to make a pile of decisions she really, really didn’t want to make. Forced to pay the pied piper of procrastination, she locked herself away and wrote a song, one of her duties as the … Read More

Going All In

Going All In A Q&A with Samantha Fish By Geoff Gehman Samantha Fish is having a ball feeling like the belle. The Kansas City native’s latest album, “Belle of the West” (Ruf Records), is a slow-burning, subtly honest collection of originals (“American Dream”) and covers (R.L. Burnside’s “Poor Black Mattie”) steeped in the raw, relaxed … Read More

Glorious Birds

Glorious Birds A Q&A with Dana Louise   By Geoff Gehman   Dana Louise went to the Azores intending to spend a month and a half painting the magical beauty of wild hydrangea hedges and volcanic gardens. She ended up falling in with some magical scenes that inspired her to learn to play the guitar … Read More

Get Your Ass in the Van

Get Your Ass in the Van A Q&A with Albert Castiglia   By Geoff Gehman   Albert Castiglia was on a blues cruise when he received a priceless tip from a blues captain. Junior Wells, the vaunted vocalist and harmonica player, told the young guitarist to treat his band as a school. Watch what we … Read More

Get Out Yer Ya-Yas & Yin-Yangs

Get Out Yer Ya-Yas & Yin-Yangs A Q&A with Popa Chubby   By Geoff Gehman   Popa Chubby not only makes opposites attract, he makes them kiss, make up and tell. As a guitarist, he’s just as comfortable with punk country funk as low-slung, bucket-seat, hot-rod blues. As a singer, he’s equally effective at Leonard … Read More

Gamblin’ Ramblin’ Man

Gamblin’ Ramblin’ Man A Q&A with Rick Murphy Of Hollywood Nights   By Geoff Gehman   Rick Murphy went to the Spectrum in Philadelphia on Dec. 21, 1976 all ready to rock and roll all night long with KISS, his favorite musicians made up like the faces on Japanese fighter kites. The 11-year-old never expected … Read More

Full Speed Ahead with Full Moon Fever

Full Speed Ahead with Full Moon Fever A Q&A with Rich Kubicz Of Damn the Torpedoes   By Geoff Gehman   Rich Kubicz was a high-school freshman when he really began hanging out in Tom Petty’s musical world. The invitation came from the MTV video for “Refugee,” where Petty roams a subterranean space, swinging around … Read More

From Grace to Grindhouse

          From Grace to Grindhouse A Q&A with Todd Morris             Of the Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival                        By Geoff Gehman            The Victorian Goth Girl is coyly coiled in the menacing, mesmerizing cobblestoned passageway of what could pass for a castle or a prison. She wears a billowy ball gown, a shoulder-to-forearm tattoo and … Read More

Fortunate Adventures of a Naked Mystic

Fortunate Adventures of a Naked Mystic A Q&A with Samuel Saint Thomas Of Bovine Social Club   By Geoff Gehman   Samuel Saint Thomas lost his musical virginity in the first pub he frequented. It was 1990 and he was “a case of beer” removed from life in a Catholic monastic community, his headquarters for … Read More

Flying into the Sun to Make Notes

Flying into the Sun to Make Notes A Q&A with Todd Snider   By Geoff Gehman               Todd Snider writes songs dosed with sneaky sociology. He believes it’s his job—maybe even his sacred duty–to hang out with strangers for the express purpose of musical storytelling. After all, if he hadn’t accepted an invitation to … Read More

Flying a Musical Time Machine

Flying a Musical Time Machine A Q&A with Rick Benjamin Of Paragon Ragtime Orchestra   By Geoff Gehman   Rick Benjamin is in his 30th year of making the popular music of the silent-film era more popular and less silent. His vehicle is the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, which plays concerts and makes recordings from original … Read More

Fly Like the Eagles

Fly Like the Eagles A Q&A with Ken Darcy of EagleMania By Geoff Gehman Ken Darcy is a vocalist, guitarist and listener enabler in EagleMania, which performs crisp, compelling versions of songs minted by the Eagles, a gold standard for countrified rock and California outlaw rock. He doesn’t look, sound or act like Glenn Frey, … Read More

Fleet Feet

Fleet Feet A Q&A with Noah Wall Of The Barefoot Movement   By Geoff Gehman   The four members of The Barefoot Movement like essential elements. Harmonies that ring, rhythms that zing, songs that sing. Stories about love, loss, legacy. Playing ballads, reels and hoedowns barefooted, around a single microphone, in places as far flung … Read More

Farm to Table to Stage

Farm to Table to Stage A Q&A with Kevin Ruch Of Free Range Folk By Geoff Gehman Three members of Free Range Folk were jamming on a tune most bluegrass-fed roots bands would never dream of fiddling with: “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” forever known as the cosmic alarm-clock theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Banjo player … Read More

Falling Up

Falling Up A Q&A with Jeanne Jolly   By Geoff Gehman   Jeanne Jolly loves old-time over-the-top country heartbreakers; the bigger the break, the better. So when it came time for her to write a tribute to honky-tonk humdingers like “Stand by Your Man,” she naturally poured on the pity. She made “Tear Soup” a … Read More

Everything Always Was

Everything Always Was A Q&A with Seamus Egan   By Geoff Gehman   The last time Seamus Egan played the Mauch Chunk Opera House, in 2016, he hosted a multi-media version of his band Solas’ album “Shamrock City,” a panoramic portrait of Butte, Mont., a brawling, bursting 19th-century center for union organizers, prostitutes and Irish … Read More

Everyone is Someone

Everyone Is Someone A Q&A with Amanda Walther of Dala   By Geoff Gehman   Pretty much everything about the duo Dala is as tight as a peapod. Amanda Walther and Sheila Carabine grew up singing Beatles tunes with their musical dads and brothers in their hometown of Scarborough, Ontario, where they met in high-school … Read More

Ensemble Actor with a Violin

Ensemble Actor with a Violin A Q&A with Esme Allen-Creighton Of the Serafin String Quartet   By Geoff Gehman   Esme Allen-Creighton loves to play chamber works that fill the body’s chambers. The violist’s heart-expanding favorites include Leo Janacek’s “Intimate Letters,” a soundtrack to his wildly mercurial missives to an unrequited object of affection, and … Read More

Electric, Eclectic Gent

Electric, Eclectic Gent A Q&A with Dustin Douglas   By Geoff Gehman   The logo for Dustin Douglas and the Electric Gentleman is a silhouetted, bowler-hatted gent leaning on a lightning bolt. Emblazoned on the band’s bass drum, it’s a suitable symbol for three musicians who play blues and blues-rock with a refiner’s fire. You … Read More

Down and Up To You

Down and Up to You A Q&A with Ruby Velle   By Geoff Gehman   Ruby Velle was in a museum atrium when she hit the jackpot and the sweet spot. Here she was, singing her songs with her band, the Soulphonics; during a celebration of immigrant musicians at the National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian … Read More

Don’t Avoid the Void

Don’t Avoid the Void A Q&A with Peter Kater   By Geoff Gehman   Peter Kater needed an escape from the dead end of playing contemporary jazz. The pianist found his release in the ancient folk-jazz of R. Carlos Nakai, who can make a Native American cedar flute sound earthy and ethereal, personal and universal. … Read More

Doing the B Street Shuffle

Doing the B Street Shuffle A Q&A with Willie Forte Of the B Street Band   By Geoff Gehman   In 1973 Willie Forte had a life-changing experience in Joe Maddon’s Dodge Dart. The former high-school football teammates were cruising their native Hazleton when Maddon popped in an eight-track cassette of the second album from … Read More

Diamonds in the Coal

Diamonds in the Coal A Q&A with Bret Alexander And Pete Palladino Of the Badlees By Geoff Gehman The Badlees are very good at staying in tune by staying fresh. For three decades the central Pennsylvanians have remained vital with infectious roots rock, stick-to-your-soul lyrics and novel projects like the soundtrack to “Lit Riffs,” an … Read More

Deadicated

Deadicated A Q&A with Butchy Sochorow Of Splintered Sunlight   By Geoff Gehman   Butchy Sochorow was way too sick to show up at the show but he showed up anyway. There was no way in hell or heaven that the teen-aged musician would miss the final concert of his first tour with the Grateful … Read More

De(a)dication

De(a)dication A Q&A with Marc Muller Of Dead On Live   By Geoff Gehman   Marc Muller is 52 going on 16 or 13. The multi-instrumental impresario gets to roll and rock back time every time he gigs with Dead On Live, an ensemble that plays fiercely faithful versions of records by the Grateful Dead, … Read More

Crowning a Musical Knight

Crowning a Musical Knight A Q&A with Lenie Colacino of The Most Excellent Order of Sir Paul By Geoff Gehman Lenie Colacino grew up in metropolitan and suburban New York in the 1950s and ’60s, a left hander in a right-handed world. An avid New York Yankees fan, he felt a little less odd because … Read More

Cosmic Contemplations

Cosmic Contemplations A Q&A with Hiroya Tsukamoto By Geoff Gehman Hiroya Tsukamoto likes to call his music “Cinematic Guitar Poetry.” The acoustic guitarist composes meditative mini-movies inspired by everything from the Colorado mountain town he imagined as a youngster in Japan to the West Virginia mountain home where he heard an opera-house manager recall the … Read More

Cosmic Caravans

Cosmic Caravans A Q&A with Jean-Pierre Durand of Incendio   By Geoff Gehman   When Jean-Pierre Durand feels like bitching about the musical grind, he shuts himself up by remembering how his favorite punk bands refused to bitch about the musical grind. The guitarist tends to forget the hassles of being a professional performer—the touring, … Read More

Communication Breakdowns

Communication Breakdowns A Q&A with Mickey Coviello of Cabinet   By Geoff Gehman   Todd Kopec, the fiddler in Cabinet, has compared performing with his band mates to painting a large mural on the side of a building. Kopec and company basically invite listeners to join their Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn party by offering live recordings, … Read More

Cleaning Out the Cobwebs

Cleaning Out the Cobwebs A Q&A with Julian Dorio of the Whigs By Geoff Gehman   Julian Dorio has done a ton as the drummer for the Whigs, the buzzing, buzzsawing band he co-founded 14 years ago as a college student in Athens, Ga. The 34-year-old Atlanta native has played 10 times for five top … Read More

Chop Wood, Carry Water, Pay Dues with Cash

Chop Wood, Carry Water, Pay Dues with Cash A Q&A with Fred Eaglesmith   By Geoff Gehman   Fred Eaglesmith’s song “Johnny Cash” is a front-door slam at Johnny-come-latelys who began liking the Man in Black when he was fading to gray. It’s also a back-door salute to dyed-in-the-cotton Cash fans like Eaglesmith’s father, who … Read More

Chicago on a Desert Island

Chicago on a Desert Island A Q&A with Rick Johnston Of Chicago Authority   By Geoff Gehman   It took Rick Johnston all of 6:35 to join the Chicago Transit Authority band wagon. Then a high schooler, he was immediately hooked by “Introduction,” the kaleidoscopic first track on the group’s 1969 recording debut. Listening to … Read More

Caravan of Soul Sirens

Caravan of Soul Sirens A Q&A with Ina Forsman And Layla Zoe of the Blue Sisters   By Geoff Gehman   Looking for a rousing, arousing, take-no-prisoners performance of “Chain of Fools”? Look no further than the YouTube video of the Blue Sisters putting a serious hurting on Aretha Franklin’s siren song. Ina Forsman, Tasha … Read More

Can Buy a Thrill

Can Buy a Thrill A Q&A with Jon Herington   By Geoff Gehman   Jon Herington considers his job as Steely Dan’s lead guitarist “the best gig on the planet.” He gets to gig with Dan founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, those mad scientists of precise, popping grooves. He gets to groove with exceptional … Read More

Camp-Fire Sparks

Camp-Fire Sparks A Q&A with Joe Kollar of Driftwood   By Geoff Gehman   The four musicians in Driftwood have the uncanny, canny ability to create the atmosphere of a singalong and a pick-a-long around a camp fire of burning driftwood. They conjure this embracing, bracing mood whether they’re performing a snappy, clappy, Dead-ish original … Read More

Build Me a Sunset

Build Me a Sunset A Q&A with Ari Hest By Geoff Gehman   Ari Hest’s musical career has been a slo-mo yo-yo between yin and yang. He celebrated his independence from a major label by writing, recording and posting a song each week for a year, then let subscribers help program his sequel CD “Twelve … Read More

Bodacious Bassist

Bodacious Bassist A Q&A with Victor Bailey   By Geoff Gehman   Bassists aren’t supposed to wreck the joint. Yet that’s exactly what Victor Bailey did to the Mauch Chunk Opera House during his 2009 gig. He rocked, bopped and generally tore up the psychedelic shack. He did things to the bass that his guitarist, … Read More

Best Seat in the House

Best Seat in the House A Q&A with Corky Laing   By Geoff Gehman   Corky Laing was in the office of a friend’s physician, getting migraine relief from the most serious-as-a-heart-attack doctor he had ever met, a real bummer for a drummer who practices humor as medicine. The medical man’s icy manner began to … Read More

Beautiful Dreamer, Beautiful Danger

Beautiful Dreamer, Beautiful Danger A Q&A with Suzy Boggus   By Geoff Gehman   Suzy Bogguss was a music-loving teen in a rural town when she was first captivated by the beautiful danger of Merle Haggard’s songs and singing. She was a 32-year-old road-tested musician when she had her first charting single with “Somewhere Between,” … Read More

Balls-out Beatles & Beyond

Balls-out Beatles & Beyond A Q&A with Glen Burtnik Of The Weeklings   By Geoff Gehman   The Weeklings are four cool cats. They specialize in splashy, dashing power pop made and inspired by the Beatles, whose 1964 Ed Sullivan summit willed three of them to be musicians. Their repertoire ranges from a slightly psychedelic … Read More

Back to the Eggs

Back to the Eggs A Q&A with Laurence Juber   By Geoff Gehman   Laurence Juber is in a groovy time-warp groove. His new book, “Guitar with Wings” (Dalton Watson), is a photographic memoir of his stretch as a crazy-busy go-to session man in the ‘70s for the likes of Charles Aznavour and James Bond … Read More

Around the Horn with a Master Horn Man

Around the Horn with a Master Horn Man A Q&A with Tom “Bones” Malone By Geoff Gehman             Tom “Bones” Malone was a true-blue, bona-fide ringer on April 22, 1978, the night the Blues Brothers debuted on “Saturday Night Live.” The master of many horns—trombone, trumpet, sax etc. et al.–played up a storm as John … Read More

Appalachia Meets Argentina

Appalachia Meets Argentina A Q&A with Joe Troop Of Che Apalache   By Geoff Gehman   Joe Troop likes to topple walls. The wall between the Appalachian music he grew up on in North Carolina and the Argentinian music he discovered while studying Spanish in Spain. The wall between himself and three of his best … Read More

Anything But The Stranger

Anything But The Stranger A Q&A with Mike Santoro   By Geoff Gehman   Mike Santoro was 10 when he discovered Billy Joel in his home in Levittown, N.Y., their hometown. Shuffling through his older sister’s records in her bedroom, he was captivated by the front cover of the album “The Stranger,” a spooky black-and-white … Read More

Anything But Reckless

Anything But Reckless A Q&A with Willy Braun Of Reckless Kelly   By Geoff Gehman   Willy and Cody Braun run Reckless Kelly, their 22-year-old band, as a family of humanity. The brothers and their three comrades perform roots-music branches–country, country rock, alt-country, outlaw bluegrass–with clarity, spontaneity and kick-ass fun. Willy plays robust guitar, Cody … Read More

Alternatives to Alt-Folk

Alternatives to Alt-Folk A Q&A with Dave Wilson Of Chatham County Line   By Geoff Gehman   The four members of Chatham County Line like to add new colors to bluegrass and alternatives to alternative folk. Their ballads and breakdowns have an unusually large cast of characters: a Confederate soldier, Woody Guthrie, the victims of … Read More

Across the Universe

Across the Universe A Q&A with Carlo Cantamessa   By Geoff Gehman   Carlo Cantamessa has spent 37 years soaring across John Lennon’s universe. For 28 of those years he’s played the founding Beatle in The Cast of Beatlemania. For 13 of those years he’s performed Lennon songs and told Lennon stories in “In My … Read More

A Place to Feel at Home

A Place to Feel at Home A Q&A with John McEuen   By Geoff Gehman   John McEuen made exactly the album he wanted to make in a former church in Brooklyn. The esteemed string player, producer and impresario hired a dozen of his favorite musicians, all of whom he knew could nail a song … Read More

A Coney Island of the Mind

A Coney Island of the Mind A Q&A with Neal Shulman Of Aztec Two-Step   By Geoff Gehman   Aztec Two-Step shows are mini-holidays, one-night vacations from the grind and the gristle. Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman unwrap gifts they’ve been creating together for over 40 years. Fluid, flashy acoustic guitars. Branching, brotherly vocals. Topical, … Read More

(Un)locking the Heart

(Un)locking the Heart A Q&A with Heather Masse   By Geoff Gehman   Heather Masse’s voice can stop time and end traffic jams of the mind. She sings with pizzazz, panache and presence whether she’s performing a folk hymn with the Wailin’ Jennys, a shot of stardust sorrow with legendary jazz pianist Dick Hyman or … Read More

‘The Strange, Beautiful, Painful Parade’

‘The Strange, Beautiful, Painful Parade’ A Q&A with Simone Felice   By Geoff Gehman   Simone Felice aims to write about, sing about and march in “the strange, beautiful, painful parade of being a human being on earth.” Over the last four years his parade has been a fish-tailing, cork-screwing, heart-warming odyssey. He received a … Read More

‘Folk Music for Mutts’

‘Folk Music for Mutts’ A Q&A with Ben Taylor   By Geoff Gehman   Ben Taylor is one stand-up singer-songwriter. He raises money for a local-food collective. He considers concerts a form of spiritual nourishment. He added a verse to a song to suit a stranger who said the song helped him recover from a … Read More

‘Folk Music … It Ain’t for Sissies’

‘Folk Music … It Ain’t for Sissies’ A Q&A with Jonathan Edwards   By Geoff Gehman   The headline above appears on a T-shirt advertising Jonathan Edwards as a fierce, fiercely funny facilitator. For five decades he’s been promoting a healthier world through folk and pop, bluegrass and cowboy country; hits above-ground (“Sunshine”) and underground … Read More

‘Ain’t Gonna Take No Mess’

‘Ain’t Gonna Take No Mess’ A Q&A with Cedric Burnside   By Geoff Gehman   Cedric Burnside came to Brooklyn to play a YouTube show and stayed to make a musical autobiography. The drumming, singing guitarist was so comfortable jamming with Brian Jay, the multi-instrumental host/producer of “Jammin’ with J,” he spent two days recording … Read More

Two Musicians, One Brain A Q&A with AJ Swearingen and Jayne Kelli   By Geoff Gehman   The first time AJ Swearingen heard Jayne Kelli perform in person, he was impressed by her distinctive singing, expressive songwriting and unusual poise. The first time Kelli heard Swearingen perform in person, she was impressed by more. “If … Read More

Modest Revolutionaries A Q&A with Brian Buchanan Of Enter the Haggis   By Geoff Gehman   The five members of Enter the Haggis like to make records that test the faith of their fiercely faithful fans. Two years ago the Celtic-infused fusioneers pushed the loyalty of their loyalists to the metal by asking them to … Read More

Sister in the Amen Corner A Q&A with Ruthie Foster By Geoff Gehman   One of the highlights of a Ruthie Foster concert is “Travelin’ Shoes,” a traditional blues that she and her band members rip open into a soul picnic and a gospel pilgrimage. It runs, scoots and zooms on Foster’s remarkably potent, agile, … Read More