For over 45 years George Thorogood and The Destroyers have travelled the globe playing gig after gig, until like all of us they were hit by COVID 19 that stopped them in their tracks. In 2019, they were on their Good to Be Bad Tour: 45 Years of Rock tour still packing venues and a dream of life in rock ‘n’ roll was a reality.
Sudden Signs of Grace kicks off things right with a driving track, “It’s All in the Skies” and the album continues song after song of easy listening melodic rock, with cool hooks that draw us in track after track. Solid guitar work all around, including the sweetest thematic lick that could go on forever.
Driving the beat on a few thousand milestone recordings is the legendary percussionist, Russ Kunkel. For decades he’s been a first call drummer for folks like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Seger, Warren Zevon, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Steve Nicks, Dan Fogelberg and a long, long list of others.
The word is out that some of the top session players in the world have formed a new group, The Immediate Family, and they’ve locked into keeping their fans up to date on what’s happening with them individually, as well as a together as they release new songs, work on a new video, and plan the release of a new album on the Quarto Valley Records label.
One of New York areas finest rockers, Debra Devi is a multi-talented artist who can jam with the best of them. She has performed in numerous bands as well as fronts her own group, DEVI. Deb recently released her new EP, A Zillion Stars Overhead…
On her latest album, Waltz for Abilene, she ropes in a cornucopia of styles that range from the opening track, “Foggy Mt. Rock” with guest, Albert Lee, clipping along in driving Western swing style to the Appalachian roots sound of “That Ain’t No Way for Me to Get Along” with Rory Block, and other tracks blended with jazz, R&B, soulful country, country western, and an exquisite final track titled, “Waltz for Abilene”.
For those unfamiliar, there’s a new band in town called, The Immediate Family, that includes some of the finest musicians of our time. One of the five principals in the band is guitarist-producer-songwriter extraordinaire, Danny Kortchmar. Along with Waddy Wachtel (guitar/vocals), Leland Sklar (bass), Russ Kunkel (Percussion) and Steve Postell (guitar/vocals)
Surfacing a couple of years ago in the Washington, D.C., music seen was Jillian Matundan, a multi-instrumentalist with a a talent and intuitive grasp of songwriting, with catchy riffs, cool poignant melodies and a presence that’s at once genuine, earnest and charming.
Moving beyond being type cast as a percussionist, Eric Selby, a first call Northern Virginian session player pushed the envelope with his debut album, Do Baby (Soul Stew Records – 2020), taking on a heavy workload of writing the songs, handling guitar and percussion, singing vocals and helping dial in the sound and the emotional heft of the project, alongside DC’s master producer, Marco Delmar (Recording Arts).
Roaming Smith’s albums, listening to his broad spectrum of songs with their various styles, his work isn’t readily pigeon-holed into a single genre. He colors outside the lines with an eclectic mix of tracks that sometimes shuffle along Cajun style, pump it up with ’80s new wave pop, enrich us with storied accounts that are bound in the new world of Americana-folk
