Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#798 in the Series) is Johnnie Johnson, Johnnie B. Bad On New Year’s Eve 1953, history was made when Check Berry walked on stage for the first time with the Sir John Trio creating an embryonic musical moment pairing up Johnnie Johnson, the Grand Poobah of the Piano, with arguably the greatest guitar player of all time, creating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup worthy blending of scorching three chord guitar rock with boogie woogie piano blues. Using the same “If Lee Harvey Oswald was never born would John F. Kennedy still be alive?” progression of thought, it would be relatively safe, albeit futile, to assume that had Chuck Berry not walked on...

  Today’s Cool album of the day(#770 in the Series) is the new self-titled release by The World Famous Headliners. (Big Yellow Dog Publishing) Out of the blue comes an album that I think will be in so many top 10 lists at the end of the year and no one even saw it coming. I think most reviews are going to start with who are these guys? That’s a good question and it’s a great answer but I wanted to start with what really matters, the music. The album’s 15 tracks slip effortlessly from rock and roll to funk, with bits of power pop, country, and 60’s style rock thrown into the mix. It’s a fun from the...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#726 in the Series) is Jerry Douglas, Traveler I’m guessing that some of you may have never heard of Jerry Douglas, but as a music lover he has been a part of your acoustic life for more than a decade. As THE premier slide dobro player in the business today and a genre spanning artist, he seamlessly flows between Pop, Country, Folk, Bluegrass, and Indie Rock without ever breaking a sweat. Jerry Douglas is to the dobro what Zamfir is to the pan flute. Supporting the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, and even more contemporary artists including his new BFF’s Mumford and Sons, he has lent his...

  THE WORLD FAMOUS HEADLINERS Big Al Anderson, Shawn Camp, Pat McLaughlin, Michael Rhodes & Greg Morrow Debut release from Big Yellow Dog Music August 21, 2012 from the band’s press release … This is rock n’ roll. Big Al Anderson’s first band since the eclectic NRBQ is The World Famous Headliners—Music City’s premiere rock band led by Anderson with hit songwriters Shawn Camp and Pat McLaughlin and veteran musicians Michael Rhodes on bass and drummer Greg Morrow.  The World Famous Headliners debut album with producer Justin Niebank (Eric Clapton, James Cotton Blues Band, Peter Frampton, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Keith Urban) will be released by Big Yellow Dog Music on August 21, 2012. Anderson’s innovative guitar work has...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#682 in the Series) is NRBQ, God Bless Us All I have always felt that God Bless Us All was NRBQ at their absolute peak. In fact, if someone wanted to know an album to start their Q catalog, this was the one I’d always suggest. This was the one that I’d always play at parties and would always get the the Q fans  boppin’.  If you weren’t a Q fan when I put this one on, well you would be soon. “Who’s this?” was a question that was asked more than once when I’d put needle to vinyl. Not only did it catch the band at their peak, but it also...

  We’re only in the first few days of 2012 and we now know of yet another new album in the works. Today we get word of Bonnie Raitt’s first album in seven years. The new album which will be titled “Slipstream” will be released this April. It will be her first new album since “Souls Alike” hit the streets in 2005. “I hadn’t stopped moving in a very long time so I really wanted to take a total break and not concentrate on making a new record or what I was going to do next,” Raitt said. “So that was really valuable because I waited until I was really ready to come back.” The new album will feature...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#503 in the Series and # 51 in the Live, Saturday Night Series) is Bob Marley, Live! This has long been considered the best live album of Bob Marley’s career. It’s also been considered the best live album of the reggae genre for some years now. I’ll let you make that call personally. To each his own as they say, I think the point that “it’s good” can be made, that the idea here. Me, I would have seen a live disc recorded on the next tour. That would have been the one for Rastaman Vibration.  That was my fave, but this will do.  This was the tour for Natty Dread. Bob...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#434in the Series) is Carlene Carter, I Fell in Love Youngsters from musical families have a huge advantage over the majority of society.  Not only is music given to them via their genes, but having it in their ears from before birth is just a wonderful way to grow up. A dear friend of mine was from a musical family.  He’s a guitar player/singer/songwriter etc. etc. He married a singer/dancer and yes, their two children have grown up to be extremely musical in their own write.  In fact the daughter has been headlining places like the Rainbow Room and Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles all this summer. But what else makes...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#339 in the Series) is Al Anderson, Party Favors Al Anderson.  Do you know the name? You might. Al was the long time guitarist for NRBQ.  Besides his work with “The Q” he’s also written a country hit or two, most notably for Carlene Carter. This was actually released about the same time that he was doing well with the Carlene hits. It also was directly before NRBQ was to release one of their few major-label albums, that being Wild Weekend.  That album was on Virgin Records. This album was a side project during that time. Al actually played most of the instruments on the disc. Some reviews have said it had a...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#259 in the Series) is Skeeter Davis and NRBQ, She Sings, They Play. I’m really disappointed that I couldn’t find more videos for this album. This one is really special to me. NRBQ is one of my favorite all time bands. I love when bands do something totally out of their element. That’s what we have here. Skeeter Davis was a country/pop star from the early to mid-sixties. She was best known for the huge hit she had in 1963 called ‘The End of the World.” NRBQ has often been called the world’s best bar band or world’s best garage band etc. They were much more than that. Some of their fans include...