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Jo-El Sonnier, who sparked a revival of Cajun music, has died at 77 of a heart attack. Recordings by Cajun singers and players of stringed instruments often reached the Country Top 40 in the 1950s and ’60s. But it wasn’t until Jo-El Sonnier’s arrival three decades later that Cajun accordion music became more than a regional phenomenon. Here’s Jo El putting a Cajun spin on Richard Thompson’s Tear Stained Letter. “Back then, country music was steel, fiddles, drums and lead guitars, so it was a challenge to put the accordion up front,” Sonnier said of ths 1987 single. “We used everything on that record that people thought you couldn’t get away with, and we did.”

Song was written in a bathtub in a suite at the Hotel Earle in Greenwich Village. Fricker wrote it in the bathroom because "it was the only place ... the cockroaches would not go". Peaked at #3 on September 25, 1965.

The first single from Knopfler’s upcoming album “One Deep River”, which was recorded at his state-of-the-art British Grove Studios in London.

Grammy-nominated, Irish born folk singer fuses Irish folk and American country music, making explicit the connections between the two. Backing vocals by Cheryl Wheeler and Zane Baxter; dobro and album production by Jerry Douglas.

Additional guitar by Dan Auerbach, who also produced the album. Duck has devoted his life to the Bentonia Blues. He owns and operates Mississippi's oldest surviving juke joint - The Blue Front Cafe, runs the oldest blues festival - The Bentonia Blues Festival, and recently started his own blues record label - Blue Front Records. For more information, Duck said to "look it up on the computer."

‘There really were 25 baby chickens; well, some of them turned out to be turkeys. They didn't all survive to adulthood, but Annie and Kathy got to visit with one of them.’ Kallick’s been a big player on the west coast bluegrass scene since 1975.

Rush has a new album coming out March 1. On Saturday, Feb. 24, Tom will be at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, MA.

La Force is the name Montreal-born Ariel Engle uses for her solo projects. She also performs with various bands, including Broken Social Scene. She’s been described as ‘ruminative, unclassifiable, and haunting.’

The album is a collection of lyrics and poems from ‘The Man in Black’ set to music. Featuring the Tuscaloosa Horns; Randy Scruggs on acoustic guitar; Matt Combs on fiddle and mandolin; and Jeff Hannah on steel guitar.

A point-of-view from a restless rambler with a heart of gold, one who's a little hard to love. The mandolin featured here carries the thread from Elexa’s folk roots, and Stanley Hotel’s psychedelic soundscape accompanies the transient soul to the other side of the veil, to home.

Baritone guitar – Jamie Hartford, John’s son.

The track takes a long, hard look at what it’s like to work hard for very little and try to stay afloat. Says bandleader River Shook, “People who live paycheck to paycheck are some of the hardest working folks out there, and being broke all the time isn’t always due to laziness or lack of effort. I wrote “Revelations” for working-class people and creatives trying our damndest to live good lives and get through the day as best we can.”

‘B’ side of ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, 1968. First time the Stones worked with producer Jimmy Miller. The song was written during the recording sessions for the “Satanic Majesties” album. Many British bands had a policy of not including their singles on their albums, because they didn't want their fans to have to pay twice for the same songs.

Cath & Phil Tyler play Anglo-American folk music using guitar, banjo, voice and fiddle. Cath was a member of the band Cordelia’s Dad in the 1990s when she lived in Massachusetts. Phil, from Newcastle upon Tyne, has played in various folk, rock and ceilidh bands for many years.

Mance made up his guitar arrangement to a song that he heard sung one evening in 1917, by a guy named "Big George." He tells how Freddy sang his way out of the Marlin jail by singing this song, and Big George brought the song to Navasota, TX, where Mance lived. Freddie, cheating doesn’t justify homicide.

Unlike her previous releases, independent singer/songwriter Emerson produced this one herself. She explains: “The vision I had for this album was crystal clear in my mind. I decided it was time to trust myself and my musicianship.”

Single released Dec. 1964. The band had just changed their name from The High Numbers. It’s been said that the lead guitar was played by Jimmy Page, but Page himself claims to have only played some rhythm guitar in the background. That lead is by Townshend. The recording was criticized as being a Kinks clone, and Townshend does admit to being influenced by them, at the time.

‘A song written to commemorate the late civil rights campaigner, Congressman John Lewis. The title, “The Last Bridge You Will Cross”, is a reference to Lewis’ participation in the infamous Selma Bridge march. Here, Emmylou Harris joins in on the vocals while Matt Slocum’s cello adds to the elegiac quality of the song.’

They were definitely channeling Rick Danko and Richard Manuel on those vocals!

Osborne is determined to make every song she does teach something, say something, or relay a personal experience. You can tell she’s lived this one!

Driftwood's most famous for his songs "The Battle Of New Orleans" and "Tennessee Stud". Driftwood noted about this song, “At the beginning of the Civil War the men in Arkansas where I live, Searcy and later Stone Counties, said they would not fight against the U.S. Government, neither would they fight against their friends in the South. They were rounded up and captured by the southern army and marched away to Little Rock in chains. I was told there were 100 of them and the odd man just wore a ball and chain whereas the other 99 were chained in three's. The man with the ball and chain got into the thick willows in a creek near my home and got away according to legend. He never was captured nor would he ever let the welded chain be cut off his body. Wherever I have sung this song, there have been differences of opinion as to its meaning. Alan Lomax thinks this is one of the greatest songs he has ever heard and he said, ‘Let each individual interpret it for himself.’”

Pinetop Perkins on piano; baritone and tenor sax by Abb Locke. This album collects 15 of her very best tracks from her Alligator releases since 1975. Willie Dixon, the song’s composer, explained that the phrase ‘wang dang doodle’ meant “a good time, especially if the guy came in from the South. A wang dang meant having a ball and a lot of dancing, they called it a rocking style so that's what it meant to wang dang doodle".

“‘Why write a history book when you can write a song? This has been the guiding principle of Julian Saporiti’s musical compositions as No-No Boy, from his debut record, ‘1942’, to his latest release, ‘Empire Electric’. So often, Oregon finds itself at the center of the United States’s founding mythology: think of the violent legacies of Manifest Destiny, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the Oregon Trail. Stories that fall outside of this narrative remain largely unknown or unacknowledged, like the Native histories of the region, which span thousands of years. Also buried in the shifting sands of forgotten histories is what happened in 1603. ‘1603’ is a song inspired by the Oregon coast’s first documented Asian sailors. Julian takes us to that once forgotten moment that Asian sailors spotted Cape Sebastian hundreds of years before Asian American histories typically begin."

When Kiah was seventeen, her mother took her own life. Here, Kiah tries to make sense of what her mother was thinking at the time. “Wild Turkey in the car seat / The bottle’s empty. I hope it gave her some relief,” she sings. “Cause she’s never coming back / No, she’s never coming back.” The song did not come easy. “It took me two years to write because I was finally giving my younger self permission to feel what I was feeling, as opposed to trying to bury it and ignore it,” she says.

‘the public radio performance show Mountain Stage is marking its 40th year. To mark the milestone, the NPR Music/West Virginia Public Broadcasting show is releasing a compilation album showcasing some of the show’s best recorded moments over the years. Out April 19 via Oh Boy Records, the collection features 21 tracks, from Tyler Childers, Steve Earle, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Krauss, Jason Isbell, and James McMurtry, among others. The first single released from Live on Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers is a cover of “Space Oddity” by Wilco, which captures a delightful wave of recognition from the crowd just a few notes into the David Bowie cover.’

This song ‘illuminates the troubles brought on by a romantic temperament.’ “Anytime I see a song with a city or a state in the title I’m so drawn to it—I wish I could write a song about some great old town, but I always end up writing about relationships,” she says. “I think it’s because that’s the thing I don’t understand, the thing that makes me pick up the guitar every time: trying to figure out my place in the world with other people.”

Page says of this album, “With the third album, we had a break from touring and it gave us a chance to work on more of the acoustic stuff… you can imagine our record company getting that in and going, ‘Where’s the Whole Lotta Love?’“

‘A song conceived during a 27-day fast on only water (I'd been celebrating way too long).’ For Mike!