Michael Elliott's Blog, page 6

The Best of 1969

Bobbi Kelly and Nick Ercoline at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, captured by Burke Uzzle, August 17, 1969

Where do you start with 1969?

The amount of debut albums by classic bands alone is staggering, not to mention second or third (or in some cases, second, third, and fourth) albums that came out that year that are now undisputed masterpieces. (I can make an argument that the five years between 1968 and 1972 include the greatest music ever recorded in all genres for the entirety of the 20th ce...

August Mixtape: Dog Days Edition

At Truist Park on August 3rd, watching my beloved Braves rack up their 50th season loss.

The dog days of summer are here. I know many are ready for a little pumpkin spice in their lattes, but not this guy. Summer has always been my favorite season. Sure, the heat here in the South can be rough, but it’s the price you pay for beach trips, long days, warm nights, grilling out, baseball, and cool tunes.

Speaking of which, the latest Mixtape collects some of the best songs that have come across these...

Bonus Mixtape: Happy Birthday, Rodney Crowell

Whether you grew up listening to country or rock in the ‘70s and ‘80s, chances are you’ve heard a Rodney Crowell song. For his 74th birthday, here’s a mixtape I threw together of 14 of his songs that I keep returning to over the years from most every signpost in his long career.

Happy birthday to a Texas, and American, original.

A World That's Smolderin' - 55 Years of Green River

This is the very copy I’ve owned my entire life. It’s been worn almost completely out.

One of my very first musical memories was of hearing the raspy shout of John C. Fogerty singing about walking along the river road at night and of moonlit, barefoot, dancing girls. The song was "Green River.” It’s straight, no-nonsense, four-on-the-floor stomp and staccato riff conjured a memory of simpler times, of bullfrogs and skipping rocks. It was imagery I understood, as my mom's side of the family raised...

Remembering John Mayall, the Godfather of British Blues

Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Jack Bruce, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Mickey Waller, Aynsley Dunbar, Andy Fraser, Harvey Mandel, Coco Montoya, Walter Trout, Rick Vito, Joe Yuele, Buddy Whittington, Greg Rzab, and Carolyn Wonderland…those are just some of the musicians that have passed through the ranks of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Without him, one could safely say, there may never have been a Fleetwood Mac, Mick Taylor may have never joined the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton and J...

The Best of 1979

The last year of the 1970s gave us quite a few cinema classics. Apocalypse Now and The Amityville Horror each haunted us in different ways, The Jerk gave us Steve Martin at his wild and craziest, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture capitalized on the Star Wars craze while reminding us that, before Lucas, there was Roddenberry.

I was still a kid, so hands-down my favorite big screen bonanza of the year was The Muppet Movie. Seeing Kermit on the big screen playing swamp banjo in the opening scene is ...

Bonus Mixtape: Here Comes Johnny Blue Skies

Several years ago on his show, David Letterman introduced this guy I’d heard of but never heard. The song was “Life of Sin” and the artist was Sturgill Simpson.

In the radio and music critic world, we get inundated with press releases - sometimes hourly - most hyping the “real deal.” While a few are valid attempts, some are just shameless pandering to an audience hungry for “authenticity”. Yet now and then, that real deal does sneak through. Don’t misunderstand. This isn’t about discovering an ar...

Country Musings: The Oak Ridge Boys

Joe Bonsall, Duane Allen. William Lee Golden, and Richard Sterban. Photo: Jimmy Moore

Some of my earliest musical memories are shelling peas or shucking corn with my maternal grandma (whom I called “Bomma” because when I was little I couldn’t make the “gra-” sound and it just stuck) while listening to Danville, VA’s WAKG (“Country Sunshine”), the only FM country station around when I was growing up in little old Oxford, NC. Bomma didn’t care for George Jones (he sang too “warbly”) but she was a h...

My Favorites of 2024 (so far)

Happy (early) Independence Day weekend! Sending this out a little early to get ahead of all the celebratory stuff. I submitted this list to No Depression for their mid-year best-of list. (You can find that here.)

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list by any means, it’s just the ten I found myself turning to more often than not over the last six months. (Links to listen and/or purchase each album are available by clicking on each cover.)

1. Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

Every now and then, the hype ...

Fernwood, Goodnight

Before Larry Sanders, there was Barth Gimble.

My dad and I watched the irreverent Fernwood 2 Night whenever it aired. It was my introduction to how far and deep comedy could go into its subject. Fernwood was a parody of a local TV show in a small made-up town in Ohio, hosted by Barth Gimble (Mull) and his cluelessly sincere sidekick, Jerry Hubbard, played by the always hilarious Fred Willard.

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