The Mavericks are back! Eight years since their last album, and twenty-two since their first, In Time is a gratifying return. It’s bursting at the seams with passion and desire, delivered with The Mavericks’ signature combination of Cuban rhythms, country, and even tango, topped by Raul Malo’s sublime vocals. Don’t miss this week’s CD Of The Week, The Mavericks’ In Time, uninterrupted, tonight at 8 on 90.7 FM and wfuv.org.
Being independent is admirable, but it’s what you do with that independence that defines your work. Erin McKeown seems to know this. She is an independent artist in the truest sense of the word, especially now, as she strikes out on her own with her self-released seventh album, Manifestra. What Erin has done with her independence over the years is to experiment with musical genres (folk, jazz standards, pop, rock), mixing and matching them as different vehicles for delivering her always-smart, honest lyrics, and therefore defying easy categorization.
Some of us get totally into the incessant holiday music that is coming out of every speaker this time of year, and some of us…well, not so much. So it’s refreshing and exciting when our favorite artists breathe new life into the holiday songs we love, and we can still discover something new to get us into the spirit of the season. Enter the new compilation called Holidays Rule, featuring artists we know and love, and some less familiar, but equally fantastic. Everyone from Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, to The Shins, Calexico, The Head & The Heart, and Andrew Bird.
We love both these giants! David Byrne has a knack for choosing collaborators - probably most famously, Brian Eno. Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, was one of several musicians to appear on his last collaborative effort, with Fatboy Slim, Here Lies Love.
Charmer is Aimee Mann's 8th solo studio album since fronting the band ‘Til Tuesday in the ‘80s. “The first song I wrote for the album was called ‘Charmer,’ so that’s kind of what started it,” she says. “And there are obviously songs that aren’t really on that topic, but it was a thing that I kept coming back to, because I do think people who are super-charming are really interesting.
Tune in for the WFUV CD of the Week Thursdays at 8 pm on 90.7 FM in New York City (radio broadcast only).
Describing his new release, Standing at the Sky’s Edge, Richard Hawley recently told The Observer, "It's an angry album. The gloves are off. I don't really write political songs but like most right-minded people I'm angry at what's happening here in Britain.
Lisa Marie Presley is the only child of the king of rock 'n' roll, Elvis Presley. She was also once married to the king of pop, Michael Jackson. So, it’s taken a while to find her own place in the world and to find her own voice as an artist. Following two pop/rock releases (To Whom It May Concern and Now What) Presley took her time to formulate her latest, Storm & Grace. This album is more self-directed and truer to her personal vision.
How did an obscure album by an American singer-songwriter become the soundtrack to the liberal youth in apartheid-era South Africa? That is one of the questions you'll see answered in the recent documentary Searching for Sugar Man. Rodriguez emerged from the Detroit music scene in the Sixties and released his debut in 1970 and its follow-up in 1971. Both albums flopped, so Rodriguez gave up on music and turned to manual labor. Meanwhile a bootleg copy of his debut found its way to South Africa.
Ben Howard was first encouraged to make music by the surfer community – the surfer community in England. Yup, apparently the waves are gnarly in southwest England and that’s where Ben grew up, learned to surf and learned to play guitar. His mother's collection of Joni Mitchell, Donovan, and Richie Havens records inspired Ben to write his own songs. He dropped out of school one semester shy of earning his journalism degree to pursue music full-time.
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