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1957. This song became a classic of the early rock and roll era, and was recorded by many other performers over the years. An ugly but all-too-common story here: Hawkins wrote the song with bandmate Robert Chaisson, but when released, Stan Lewis, the owner of Jewel/Paula Records and whose daughter Susan was the inspiration for the song, and Eleanor Broadwater, the wife of Nashville DJ Gene Nobles, were credited as co-writers to give them shares of the royalties. And there were tons of royalties!

From their debut album, released back in 1989.

"Wet Coast" singer/songwriter, author, playwright ‘Wyckham Porteus is blessed with a remarkable vision of life and an almost uncanny ability to paint vivid images with his prose’ ‘The album was released, and appreciated, in Europe long before finally coming home, perhaps because Porteous doesn't shy away from sounding intelligent, adult, even radio indifferent.’ Album was produced by Jimmy LaFave.

Brandy Clark won a Grammy on Feb. 4 for Best Americana Performance for 'Dear Insecurity', another track on this great album. She was nominated for 6!

What a great voice this guy has! Ray is originally from Nashua, New Hampshire. He and his wife just recently sold their Pioneer Valley property for $4.5 million!

Sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers from Muscle Shoals, AL. LaMontagne was the first person to ever invite them on tour, over a decade ago. The album was recorded mainly at Muscle Shoals’ historic FAME Studios.

The single, his first, was released in 1957 on Cobra Records. Magic Sam was a leading representative of the ‘West Side’ sound that arose in Chicago in the late ‘50’s. It combined a modern electric lead guitar with a small-combo format, without any horns. Magic’s career was cut short when he suddenly died of a heart attack in December 1969. He was only 32 years old. Mighty Joe Young - guitar, Stockholm Slim - piano, Earnest Johnson - bass and Odie Payne, Jr. - drums.

Vermont father-daughter duo. Sarah say, “It’s really a moving song for us, because it’s a story about an interaction between father and child.” “Bob and Sarah Amos have that magic of kin in their voices which has been such a presence in Country Music from The Carter Family on down. The kind of honesty found here is a rare commodity these days and is to be taken in and cherished.” - Jim Rooney, Grammy-winning producer.

‘In the summer of 1966, an 18-year-old Laura Nyro auditioned for Milt Okun, one of the most respected music producers of the day, and Artie Mogull, an A&R man for Warner Brothers. She had been writing songs for about a year but had yet to venture into music professionally. After the session, these eventual music business legends, were so blown away that Mogull became her manager, and Okun signed on to produce her debut record, More Than Just A Discovery.’ ‘When playing her great records there is regularly a sense of the bygone listening public being stricken with collective knuckleheadedness in regard to picking up what Nyro was laying down.’ This snippet of a song was never fully developed for a studio recording, which is a shame, because she really had something here!

Jackson Browne- Vocals, Piano; Leland Sklar- Bass; Russ Kunkel- Percussion; Zakir Hussain- Tablas; Giovanni Hidalgo- Congas; Raul Maldonado- Guiro; Jorginho Gomes- Drums; Rajhesh Vaidhya- Veena; Char- Guitar; Sherieta Lewis- Vocals; Roselyn Williams- Vocals; Chavonne Stewart- Vocals; Mayla Valentin- Shakers; Rafael Pacheco- Cavaquinho; Ali Diarra- Xylophone; Bayakanda- Drum Group. Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel played on the original 1972 recording, as well.

Joan collaborated on the writing of this song ‘with Austin’s Bill Callahan, who also sings with a Greg Brown-esque rumble.’

Flemons, the ‘American Songster’, co-created the Carolina Chocolate Drops with fellow multi-instrumentalists Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson. He has built on the fingerstyle guitar approaches that he learned firsthand from blues masters like Algia Mae Hinton, ‘using the thumb-led bass note and then putting a little bit of melody on the top.’ Flemons plays a banjo-guitar called Big Head Joe on this track. ‘It’s a giant six-string banjo, tuned like a guitar, which comes from an interesting sort of forgotten chapter of American music. It was made circa 1919, so it’s over a hundred years old.’

Ismay is Bay-area native Avery Hellman. The album, released Jan. 26, was recorded in Asheville, NC. "Stranger in the Barn" is a storyline about a family who discovers a drifter sleeping in the sheep barn. Rather than run him off or threaten violence, the family offers some food and drink. ISMAY turns the song into an allegory about human decency. "The story is about taking down our walls, and rather than meeting the unknown with contempt and anger, instead offering curiosity," Ismay says. Ismay will be @ The Town and The City Festival in Lowell, MA on 4/27/2024.

In 1966, Canadian television network CBC invited some of America's legendary blues artists, including Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and James Cotton, to a Toronto studio, where they spent 3 days recording. The result was a one-off, black-and-white special broadcast as part of CBC's "Festival" series. Muddy’s band: James Cotton, harmonica, vocal; Otis Spann, piano; James Madison, Sammy Lawhorn: guitar; Jimmy Lee Morris: bass.

‘Rooted in vintage country, Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet is an unapologetically beer- and tear-soaked homage to an era when hard-country weepers burst forth from AM transistor radios.’

Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal got back in the saddle together after decades apart and recast themselves in the roles of folk-blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee for this album. Cooder got the ‘electric juke sound’ from his much-modified Stratocaster, nicknamed the ‘Coodercaster’.

Miller discovered that her acre of land in Swannanoa, NC, sat adjacent to, if not in the middle of, a hazardous waste area overseen by the government. Dealing with health issues and eventually leaving the property, Miller finally figured out the connection years later by talking to her former neighbors and independently researching the “superfund” site, so named because of the massive cost necessary to clean up the mess left by irresponsible corporations – in this case, a company called Chemtronics that manufactured weaponry and explosives. "When I realized that my beloved Appalachian home was contaminated with chemicals manufactured for warfare, it seemed natural to merge the word ‘apocalypse’ with ‘Appalachia.’"

Randy Sparks, founder of the New Christy Minstrels, died last Sunday. The group helped to jump-start the folk revival of the early 1960s and launched the careers of performers like John Denver, Steve Martin and Kenny Rogers. That’s Barry McGuire singing lead.

"Jeff Beck's sinewy electric guitar solo is the most identifiable ingredient in the brilliant arrangement," according to AllMusic’s Matthew Greenwald.

In 1971, the band changed their name to PG&E, following pressure from the utility company of the same name.

NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Originally done by Russell with Americana supergroup Our Native Daughters. Here, she began her Tiny Desk Concert set by invoking the ancestors with this powerful song. The stellar band is Allison Russell: lead vocals, banjo, clarinet; Monique Ross: cello, vocals; Chauntee Ross: violin, vocals; Larissa Maestro: cello, vocals; Mandy Fer: electric guitar, vocals; Joy Clark: acoustic guitar, vocals; and Megan Coleman: drums.

According to a reviewer at No Depression mag, this song ‘musically sounds like a long-lost Hank Williams weeper (thanks in no small part to the outstanding steel guitar work by Chris Scruggs), it’s set to lyrics that are very of-this-moment and act as a rallying cry for more human connection.’

‘Probably recorded a year or so before the sessions for his first major label debut as Dr. John on the 1967 ATCO LP, Gris Gris, "Shoo-Ra" is from sessions Mac Rebennack cut in Los Angeles, where he had gone to seek work as a musician, songwriter, and producer and to escape lingering legal problems back in New Orleans.’

Gilkyson says this album is a collection of "songs that came to me in the middle of the night," adding that "the songs that come in the night are very different than the daylight songs."

‘Stormcock’ is the fifth studio album by English folk/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper. "The Same Old Rock" is an attack on government, the history of war, and organized religion, featuring guitar work and a solo by Jimmy Page, credited on the album as "S. Flavius Mercurius" for contractual reasons. The album was recorded between July and December 1970 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, ‘with full supporting cast.’