Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#973 in the Series) is Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot Records) When your father is one of the best singer-songwriters in the business and you are named after another about whom Steve Earle once said “Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that”, the expectations are very high, and with his most recent release for Bloodshot records, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, Justin Townes Earle, the son of Steve Earle and the step-son of Allison Moorer, has emerged in his own...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#966 in the Series) is My Morning Jacket, Circuital A Review of Circuital ….With a Slight History and Very Public Secret Crush Thrown in. When I first heard of My Morning Jacket, their genre was described as “Southern Rock”, which instantly made me turn my head and say bleh. Then, shortly thereafter,  WXRT in Chicago played a song from their 2001 Release, At Dawn. (Bermuda Highway). I remember being in the car, pausing, thinking, then saying to myself. “Who the hell was that?” You see, that was long before I could look anything up in the car, , and I certainly didn’t have the internet at my fingertips, otherwise known as the Pre-...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#964 in the Series) is The Kenn Morr Band “Along the Way.” The Cool Album of the Day site went dormant for way too long.  At times life interferes with life. One thing I’ve missed is finding cool little surprises in my mailbox. Yet once in a while I would still find a nice bubble wrapped package separating bills, coupon packets and info from the latest candidate that promises to make my life better. However, every so often I’d still get one of those care packages. Every so often the content in said package is also a darn good listen. Can you believe that not every gift isn’t always good. Tru dat....

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#961 in the Series) is The  DB’s,  Falling Off the Sky The most difficult thing about listening to this brilliant “must-hear” album is to realize it has been 30 years since their last record together with this, their original line-up. Since then they’ve had a bunch of incredibly listenable songs in their heads and hearts. We are the beneficiaries of their immense talent to produce what really sounds like songs you have heard before even after just one listen. Pop hooks abound, you wonder why radio isn’t listening, but eventually you don’t care, you are just lucky enough to know about it, and now you do, go get it! Inevitably you have to...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#993 in the Series) is The Prog World Orchestra, A Proggy Christmas This is one of those releases you want to share with everyone in the season of sharing. Granted the older folks at the Holiday might not like it, more probable they don’t get it, but this easily the best Christmas release I have heard since Jon Anderson’s 3 Ships and that was more than 25 years ago. There are 10 things that set this apart from every other Holiday record you have heard before, and those are the ten songs that are contained here. Before you suggest this is in the spirit of the Trans Siberian Orchestra, and before I...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#986 in the Series) is Carole King, A Holiday Carole As we inch into December, we’re going to give you a Christmas Album. This is one that caught me a little by surprise when it showed up.  Let’s get a little more specific and call it a pleasant surprise. Inspired by friends like James Taylor that have released Christmas albums, Carole decided to give it a try as well. She looked no further than her daughter Louise Goffin for production help. According to Carole: “Then I don’t have to worry about it, or think about, Louise can take the reins and just do it.”  Make sure you give those reins back to...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#985 in the Series) is Nick Lowe,  Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection For All The Family. I love Christmas albums. I have a pretty good collection of them and I usually find something old every year that I add to it. It is rare that I find something new as I am very picky and traditional about my Christmas music. Let’s face it. We have the traditional carols and then about a dozen or so once original pop Holiday songs penned from the 1930’s through the 60’s that get redone over and over again. It is rare that an artist is brave enough to mess with that and if there is anything...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#954 in the series) is Steve Earle and the Dukes, Terraplane. Steve Earle’s new album Terraplane is being billed as his blues album. We’ll talk about that a bit more in a minute. More importantly I think – it’s a Steve Earle and the Dukes album, and a damn fine one at that.  Steve Earle has had many different personas and approaches in his career, Country rock and roller, hard core troubadour, singer songwriter, bluegrass musician, political activist, you name it  – but mostly I think the best name to fit him – if he even needs one – is a folk singer.  And if you don’t think folk singers can play or sing the blues then you...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#951 in the Series) is Big Country, Steeltown 30th Anniversary Edition The 80s were, without a doubt, a golden era for Scots pop/rock music.  A storm which began brewing deep in the punk and new wave sounds of the late 70’s suddenly gathered it’s forces and unleashed a Tsunami of talent which didn’t diminish for years. One of those talents was the wonderfully gifted Stuart Adamson, a young man who was a founding member of The Skids, a fantastic band from Fife which had great success between 1977 and 1982, became very influential , and which these days has attained semi-legendary status among fans of the Punk/New Wave era. Adamson actually left the band...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#949 in the Series) is Roxy Swain, Restless Hearts Restless Hearts, the second record from local Chicago favorites Roxy Swain, is about as perfectly crafted a set of songs as your ears will enjoy all year. With influences that seem to float from Fleetwood Mac to Emmy Lou Harris, with a hint of daisy-duke era Linda Ronstadt thrown in for good measure, Ms. Swain, the front-woman for the group, with her back of the barroom pipes, slight Americana warble, and abundance of Indie Rock-Chick swagger could be the love child of Chrissie Hynde and Lucinda Williams. There is definitely some palate cleansing retro fairy dust that is sprinkled throughout this highly addictive album...