Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#702 in the Series) is Willie Nelson, Heroes I know what you’re thinking. The world needs another Willie Nelson album about as much as they need another repackaging of The Knack Greatest Hits.  The “All Music” site alone lists 85 albums by the “Red Headed Stranger,” and in the 50 years since his first release in 1962 it was only twice, once in 1964 and then again in 1991, where some sort of a Willie Nelson recording was not released in a calendar year. Of course, with the type of fertile productivity that would make the “octo-mom” blush, there are bound to be a few miss-hits along the way.  The idea of...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#701 in the Series) is Fairport Convention, By Popular Request Fairport Convention, in part to mark their 45th anniversary put us, their fanbase, to the voting box last year to surmise which 20 tracks they would like to see the current, and longest standing version of the band perform. A band which brought, among many other notables, Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny to the awareness of the musical world. Of these 20 tracks 13 were chosen, it is my intent to give a track by track assessment of this outing, one which surely may be placed alongside many of their other finest outings in their long history. You can see it below....

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#691 in the Series) is Ian Anderson’s, Thick as a Brick2 (aka TAAB2) The question certainly could be fairly posed as to whether I am a suitable person to review this most recent outing from Ian Anderson (notably not Jethro Tull, a point itself worth addressing given the original’s importance to the band’s 44-year history). I say this for a reason. All of the following would be true of me: A fan of the band since 1970, and an out-and-out fanatic since one night in 1972 after viewing their staggering performance of the original in Chicago, an individual who, until cutting back to maybe three in the past six years has seen...

    Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#686 in the Series) is Jack White, Blunderbuss Jack White just may be the hardest working man in show business. Barely one year removed from the breakup of his two piece fuzz rock band The White Stripes, he has somehow found time between gigs with his two part-time bands, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, the latter side project featuring the sexy bombshell Allison Mosshart, to single handedly put the Rock back in Rock & Roll, give hope to the hopeless, and create a work that should be very near the top of every major album of the year music list for 2012 with his new release Blunderbuss. With his record...

    Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#684 in the Series) is Zeus, Busting Visions (Arts and Crafts Records) It’s heartening that, in a week when the music world is mourning the loss of Levon Helm, we are able to discover a great new rock ‘n’ roll band that has so obviously been influenced by the legendary drummer and The Band’s ‘70s heyday, amongst other classic groups of the era. It’s a cliché to say the show must go on, but that’s exactly what’s happening in terms of the influence Helm had on musicians the world over. One of those bands carrying on his spirit is Canadian four-piece Zeus, on their excellent second full-length release Busting Visions. This...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#683 in the Series) is The Waco Brothers and Paul Burch, Great Chicago Fire   If  Great Chicago Fire, the most recent Bloodshot Records release by the fantastic Alternative Country act The Waco Brothers is any indication the band known for their incendiary live performances and legendary fan friendly, road-dog touring mentality have proven that they can serve both creative muses with this fine collection of collection of Americana influenced songs which may be their finest work to date. Band leader Jon Langford was one of the founding members of The Mekons that was one of the first bands to meld Punk, Country, Rock, and Folk influences creating a musical gumbo that would...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#679 in the Series) is Chuck Prophet, Temple Beautiful (Yep Roc Records) Chuck Prophet has carved out exactly the type of career he would have envisioned when he joined the psychedelic roots rock band Green on Red in the early 80’s.  Since then with his musical collaborations with Cake, Kim Carnes, Solomon Burke, and most recently with Alejandro Escovedo where he played guitar and wrote half of the songs for the fine album Real Animal, Chuck has set out on his own uncompromising  roots rock journey creating musical masterpieces along way. Between writing credits for Warren Zevon, Kelly Willis, Jewel, and Heart among others, Prophet has released several critically acclaimed albums on...

    Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#673 in the Series) is the debut from Flying Colors  This is the first record from a five some of talented veteran musicians who have mad skills at playing and combining rock, pop, fusion and even a touch of metal. Mike Portnoy is the founder and now ex-member of Dream Theater and even if he is not your favorite drummer, you would have to admit he is one of the best. Bass player David LaRue is a longtime member of Dixie Dregs, who, if you have never heard of them, I can tell you it aint country (though they do a great rock/hillbilly instrumental piece called “Where’s Dixie?). His fellow band...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#667 in the Series) is Centric Jones, The Antikythera Method Centric Jones is a duo of experimental musicians Chris Fournier and Tobe London, and this is their second release. The temptation to label certain music is hard to resist, but this music truly does challenge the mind when it comes to figuring out who it is you may have heard of that they sound like. I guess you could say Tangerine Dream or any of the synthesizer instrumental bands from a time long ago, but it’s less than a fair comparison. You will likely not hear this band talked about on “That Metal Show”, even if they are generally lumped in with...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#653 in the Series) is Lyle Lovett, Release Me  So many people say that there just aren’t any good new albums coming out these days.  Usually they’re the same people that just aren’t looking in the right places. If all you listen to is classic rock and hear the same 15 bands over and over you might indeed think that.  I felt 2011 was a darn strong year and 2012 is starting off quite nicely as well, thank you. The new music release season is really just starting now as acts get new material out so they can tour when they weather is nice and warm.  I loved the new Little Willies...