Michael Elliott's Blog, page 7

June Mixtape: Sounds of Early Summer, Pt. 2

As the summer rolls on, here’s the second half of what we started last week. This time, we’ve got hot, sweaty juke-joint jams; breezy, reverb-drenched instrumentals and lazy pop/rock swayers; summer soul grooves and deep-feeling acoustic laments. Pull up a beach chair, grab a drink, and settle in…

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“Juke Joint” - Cedric Burnside

The Burnsides are North Mississippi blues royalty, and fresh on the heels of his...

June Mixtape: Sounds of Early Summer, Pt. 1

The lovely wife modeling her beach hat, Emerald Isle, NC

Living in North Carolina, we’re blessed to have the Outer Banks on one side and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the other. We do love driving up to the home of Doc Watson and do so every chance we get, but our beaches are wrapped up in childhood memories passed down through generations. Memories of the ice cream shop in Beaufort; the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant in Morehead City; the Circle at Atlantic Beach - and everything else up and ...

Bonus Mixtape: Happy Birthday, Hoss

The Waylon catalog is deep and wide, containing many undeniable classics. Instead of focusing solely on the hits, however, I made a mixtape of some of my favorites for what would’ve been his 87th year (if he’d just stuck to pot like Willie). Some are definite hits, some are album cuts, and there are a couple with kindred spirit Tony Joe White and one with Johnny Cash, but they’re all the ones I’ve loved the most over the years.

So turn up the bass, and let’s let this outlaw shit get outta hand…

T...

Rockpile!

l-r: Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Terry Williams, Billy Bremner

This week, 45 years ago, Rockpile released two albums within a day of each other. The thing is, they were on two different labels and under two different names.

In the US, Repeat When Necessary was issued under Dave Edmunds’s name on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, while Nick Lowe’s Labour of Lust came out on Columbia. But what if we took the (subjectively) best tracks from both albums and made one LP-length, kick-ass mixtape?

Thanks for ...

The Best of 1999

It was a time of teen pop: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, ‘NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, and the rest flooded the airwaves with disposable, yet catchy, pop confections - the same way everyone from Fabian to the Archies and the Bay City Rollers to Tiffany and Debbie Gibson had done in the years before. It was also the year two Michigan rappers hit the big time: Marshall “Eminem” Mathers III and Robert James “Kid Rock” Ritchie. Their albums, The Slim Shady LP and Devil Without a Cause...

'Born in the U.S.A.' at 40

Photo: Annie Leibovitz

Originally published elsewhere on June 4, 2019. Revised (and remastered) June 4, 2024.

I was thirteen when Born In The U.S.A. was unleashed upon the world on June 4th, 1984. Though I'd turn fourteen in November of that year, I was already a major music nerd and had been for several years. I was familiar with Springsteen thanks to the local rock station in North Carolina, WQDR, to which I remained glued whenever I wasn’t in school. 

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Shuffle It All: Todd Snider's 'Viva Satellite'

Viva Satellite is my favorite Todd Snider album. But it seems to be everyone else’s least favorite; especially MCA, who dropped him because of it.

Snider has played the role of quirky, wise-ass folk troubadour for over 30 years, but as he’s shown on several occasions, he can also rock with the best of ‘em. Whether he’s fronting the Hard Working Americans or the Nervous Wrecks, Snider channels the effortless hillbilly swagger of Dan Baird (who backed him on guitar during this time) and Jason Ringe...

HBO Stax Documentary Almost Takes You There

Watching the HBO Stax documentary, Soulsville, U.S.A. this Memorial Day weekend inspired me to reach for the music, to revisit the feelings the Stax sound has given me for most of my life.

So I went straight to the shelf and pulled this behemoth down.

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It’s one of my prize audio possessions. I saved up and bought it when it hit stores in 1991. Nine CDs containing every single put out by Stax/Volt during th...

Happy Birthday, Zimmy

Dylan at peak 1983. Photo: Lynn Goldsmith

On Bob Dylan’s latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, much of the attention went to “Murder Most Foul”, a 17-minute epic that acted as a cleansing of sorts for those of us lost in a ball of confusion at the height of the worldwide lockdown due to COVID-19. The song baffled many, proving that Dylan still had it in him to surprise, confuse, enlighten, and get tongues wagging even as he reached octogenarian status.

Yet Rough and Rowdy Ways had so much more to o...

Dispatch from Denver: Gary Clark, Jr. and Mavis Staples at Red Rocks

Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater truly is one of those bucket-list venues. This week, my wife and I headed out west to the wondrous Rocky Mountains to see Gary Clark, Jr. and Mavis Staples at the storied natural wonder.

Red Rocks has been around since America entered World War II. It’s hosted everyone from Louis Armstrong and the Beatles to Jason Isbell and, as of this past Monday night, Gary Clark, Jr. and Mavis Staples. The venue lived up to its legendary status as one of the best and most uniqu...