North American Artists

In the pre-history of rap, the Jamaican style known as toasting, speaking in rhyme over records, figures prominently. And few toasters had a greater impact in the ‘70s than Big Youth, whose career ...

A bouncy castle is the perfect entertainment for a children's birthday party. The kids pile in, jump around, and you get to sit there with a beer. Well, there's a Bouncy Castle for adults, too. ...

Burning Spear is one of the few reggae artists to have kept the roots flame burning over the last two decades. He's toured constantly and released a string of excellent albums, the most recent of ...

Chris Smither has been around the block a few times. You can hear it in his voice. And you can hear it in his songs, where experience and hope mingle. But at 59, that's only to be expected. On Train ...

Arhoolie Records has been in business for four decades now, a venerable institution of American roots (and recently, world) music. Although it's grown considerably over the years, the label is still ...

Whatever way you look at it, it boils down to two things - the singer and the song. If either one of them isn't up to snuff, you might as well toss it in the bin right now. Which is exactly why ...

Four years ago, Snakefarm's Songs From My Funeral showed one way forward for Americana, adding beats and loops to re-interpreted songs. They cleared the path (and where's the follow-up?), but no one ...

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the wonderfully named Donna the Buffalo. Not a great lumbering beast, and not a denizen of the prairie, this particular buffalo is more likely to be found ...

Truth is invariably stranger than fiction. Few would believe a Hollywood movie where a blind American bluesman teaches himself the esoteric Tuvan art of throat singing, then goes to that Central ...

Gospel music seems to be undergoing a healthy revival these days. Not only have the Blind Boys of Alabama released a superb record, but with Speaking in Tongues, the venerable Holmes Brothers have ...

"We've come for your jobs," say Kultur Shock. And it's true - at least if you happen to play in a band. The boys from the Balkans have been around Seattle for a few years now, playing music with ...

"If you were Mexican-American and got married in Los Angeles between 1973 and 1980, we probably played your wedding," laughed Louie Pe'rez of Los Lobos, whose 1978 self-released debut, Just Another ...

You might not know his name, but he's made a wonderful record. We find out more. you should, too. There aren't many musicians who wait until they're in their fifties to release a debut ...

You might think there are no more great bluesmen, no one fit to join the ranks of Hooker, Waters, Patton, or Johnson. But you'd be wrong. There's Otis Taylor. Like all the greats, his music is ...

It's just a few years since the world at large learned about the Sacred Steel tradition. Arhoolie's Sacred Steel CD (now virtually a franchise) took people inside the Jewel and Keith Dominion ...

There are people who play the blues, and people who feel the blues. Rory Block definitely belongs in the latter category. She's been playing country blues for well over thirty years now, gigging all ...

While some Republicans would have you believe otherwise, modern America is built on immigration. Some was forced, and some came from people searching for a better life. Whatever the circumstances, ...

Look in the dictionary under ecelctic, and there ought to be a picture of Sandy Bull. Long before Paul Simon visited Graceland, before the term world music was a twinkling in some journo's eye, Bull ...

Taj Mahal's music has always been about making, connections, whether it's with the past, or other facets of the black experience. And now, he's really brought it all back home again. To call Taj ...

The remix has become such a part of musical culture that we rarely think about it. But sometimes something comes along that's more than just a remix; it's a re-imagination of music. That's what ...

Dipping a toe (and more) in the waters... The very name of this band, the Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers, is about as good a summation of their music as you'll find. It's homespun stuff, ...