Country music went through a seismic change beginning in the mid-to late-1960s, that culminated in the explosion of what was called the “outlaw” movement in the mid-1970s. The movement was primarily spearheaded by folks like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others, even though many of them, Nelson and Jennings included, had been around for a long time.

This change in country music was also affected by the emergence of folk and rock artists who used country as part of their sound or in some cases whose music was directly impacted by the counterculture. Kris Kristofferson could also had been categorized as a key component of this group, but two artists who were also part of the scene, while taking divergent seminal paths, came together for a brief time in the earlier part of the ’70s to make a music all their own. They were Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Parsons died not long after his second solo album in 1973, and that album was helped greatly by Harris, who is still going strong today.

The story really begins with Parsons who must be considered the father of country rock for his work leading the International Submarine Band, who released their one and only album, Safe at Home, in 1968. He was also a key player in the first mainstream country rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo with The Byrds, which was also released in 1968. That would be his one and only album with The Byrds, before he and fellow-Byrd Chris Hillman departed to form the Flying Burrito Brothers with Sneaky Pete Kleinow and Chris Ethridge in 1969 with their debut album The Gilded Palace of Sin.

Parsons would only record one more album with the group, Burrito Deluxe, in 1970, which also included new members Bernie Leadon and Michael Clark, the former drummer with The Byrds. Chris Etheridge had left the group and did not appear on that album.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | 2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees, The Zombies, have entered into an agreement with Q Prime to provide label services and distribution for the band’s iconic 1960s studio recordings. Plans are underway for a series of four definitive physical reissues in 2025, remastered from the original tapes, compiling all the band’s studio output.

The first will be a remastered Odessey & Oracle due out early next year, which included the classic songs “Time Of The Season,” “Care of Cell 44,” and “This Will Be Our Year” and is a regular entry in “Best Albums of All Time” lists in publications like Rolling Stone and Mojo magazine. The album will be released in its original Mono mix, to coincide with the release of The Zombies’ documentary, Hung Up On A Dream, directed by musician and filmmaker Robert Schwartzman, and co-produced by Schwartzman’s Utopia Films, The Ranch Productions, and Tom Hanks’ Playtone.

Q Prime will manage all aspects of marketing, manufacturing, distribution, and licensing for The Zombies’ new label imprint Beechwood Park Records, with a catalog that includes the timeless hit singles “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No,” and “I Want You Back Again.” Q Prime co-founder Cliff Burnstein says, “There’s a very narrow window in a Venn diagram where love, admiration, and business overlap. That’s what the deal is all about.”

The Zombies’ four surviving founding members, lead singer Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, bassist Chris White, and drummer Hugh Grundy, along with Helen Atkinson, the widow, and Estate Trustee of late guitarist Paul Atkinson, acquired the rights to their catalog last year from Marquis Enterprises Ltd., the independent UK production company they originally signed with as teens in 1964.

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Formed in Cincinnati before migrating westward to San Fransisco, cLOUDDEAD emerged at the turn of the century to profoundly impact the sound of experimental hip hop. Comprised of lyricists Yoni Wolf (Why?) and Doseone (Adam Drucker) and producer Odd Nosdam (David P. Madson), cLOUDDEAD debuted with a series of six 10-inch EPs that were in turn compiled to form the group’s debut album in 2001, an eponymous 3LP set that still carries an avant-garde thrust nearly a quarter century later. Superior Viaduct’s reissue is due on November 29.

Experimental (or underground) hip hop was burgeoning from the late 1990s and into the new century, with Anticon, a label formed by seven individuals including the three members of cLOUDDEAD, one part of a wave that encompassed imprints ranging from Rawkus (Company Flow, Mos Def, Talib Kweli), Definitive Jux (Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox, Mr. Lif, RJD2), Stones Throw (JDilla, Madlib, MF Doom), and 75 Ark (Antipop Consortium, The Coup, Dan the Automator).

Anticon was formed in 1998 and gathered a deep roster that crossed over into electronica and indie rock. cLOUDDEAD is amongst the label’s most lauded projects while also being somewhat mysterious, even as all three members were active prior to the group’s formation. Wolf and Drucker met in the mid-’90s and were part of the group Apogee before forming Greenthink as a duo and releasing two albums. With the addition of Madson, they became cLOUDDEAD.

Occasionally the experimental tag has been applied to hip hop that was better assessed as just quirky or raw or perhaps just dense with ideas. But in the case of cLOUDDEAD, the descriptor of experimental really fits, and to the point where some would argue that what they were up to wasn’t hip hop at all. But of course, upon encountering new developments in the music, many have decried “that’s not hip hop” for decades.

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PHOENIX, AZ | Dayglow made their Phoenix stop at the Arizona Financial Theatre on Friday night and the group brought everything they had to the desert. Dayglow the band is on Dayglow the tour in support of Dayglow the album—I’ve personally never seen such a trifecta—but the self-titled project and tour is a true testament to the genuine nature of the band.

The 23-song setlist includes three encores and a mix of the band’s entire discography. Despite the album title tour, Dayglow delivers all the fan favorites and includes a little bit of the entire five year resume. The venue hosts shows throughout the week, but Dayglow locked in a coveted Friday night slot. With the year wrapping up and tours coming to a close, fans deserve as much music as they can get before 2024 ends—and this one was a high.

The show was opened by Teenage Dads, a young crew from Australia. Arizona Financial Theatre is a big venue and it can be a difficult feat for a young band to engage a crowd, however Teenage Dads not only has the talent, but the personality to make the building theirs. The band began releasing music in 2017 and is presently making their name known in the States. They are traveling with Dayglow for the majority of the tour and seeing what our music scene has to offer. In return they offer American crowds pure entertainment and a ton of energy as a warm-up for Dayglow.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | As the Eagles’ continue their highly anticipated Sphere residency in Las Vegas, Nevada, UMe is releasing a 40th Anniversary vinyl edition of Don Henley’s triple-platinum Building The Perfect Beast album.

Building The Perfect Beast is available now as a 2-LP set for the first time, remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. The album features the hit singles “The Boys of Summer,” “All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” “Sunset Grill,” and “Not Enough Love in the World.” The new 2-LP release will also feature the vinyl debut of the album’s complete track list, as “A Month Of Sundays” was only available previously on the CD, cassette, and digital versions. Order Building The Perfect Beast HERE now. A newly remastered digital version of the album is also available now for streaming and download.

In addition to featuring four hit singles, Building The Perfect Beast garnered five GRAMMY nominations and won the award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male for “The Boys Of Summer.” Don Henley was the biggest winner of the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards, taking home four Moonmen, including Video of the Year for “The Boys of Summer,” which was also the year’s most nominated video.

Best known as co-founder of the legendary rock band, the Eagles, as well as an influential solo artist, Don Henley has maintained an extraordinary commitment to music and various philanthropic efforts throughout his career, including a dedication to environmental issues and artists’ rights. Raised in a small East Texas town, Henley was drawn to the sounds of exotic music broadcast from distant radio stations in New Orleans, Nashville, and Ciudad Acuna, Mexico. These stations introduced him to the blues, bluegrass, gospel, jazz, and rock and roll, paving the way for his future as an artist.

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Celebrating Joe Correro on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

Talk about your camouflage. On the surface Paul Revere & The Raiders were five smiling and well-groomed (at least by Fab Four mop top standards) young men tricked out in Revolutionary War garb complete with tricorn hats. They certainly didn’t look like long-haired sex fiends out to run off with your daughter to San Francisco where she’d die from an LSD overdose. They looked like The Monkees, and everybody knew The Monkees were safe as Milk Duds.

But 1967’s Greatest Hits (Expanded Edition) tells a different story. Boise, Idaho’s Paul Revere & The Raiders weren’t The Monkees. They were a garage rock band like The Seeds and The Standells, and if America’s parents had just listened to them they’d have packed their daughters off to the nearest nunnery and sent their sons off to military school the minute they found a copy of this baby in their rooms.

Most of the songs on the compilation come straight out of juvenile hall. The Rolling Stones comparisons are obvious–the Raiders follow the Stones’ career trajectory from scruffy R&B to subversive “Under My Thumb” pop, and vocalist Mark Lindsay comes off like an American Mick Jagger. But you also get The Who on “Just Like Me,” an intercontinental kissing cousin of “I Can’t Explain,” and some derivative Beach Boys on “Action.”

But what you mainly get is lip and a bad attitude. When Lindsay isn’t laying down the law with a shameless social climber (see garage rock masterpiece “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone”) he’s snarling mad ‘cuz he’s been hearing rumors his girl’s been running around and he isn’t going to put up with it (see “Steppin’ Out”). Our boy has woman problems galore, and he’ll chew your ear off talking about them if you let him.

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Trumpeter-composer Richard Allen “Blue” Mitchell recorded steady as a leader and sideman from the early 1950 until his premature death from cancer in 1979. Along the way, Mitchell played rhythm and blues, funk, rock, and a whole lot of hard bop jazz, the style for which he is most renowned, if too often overlooked. His initial run of sessions as a leader were cut for the Riverside label, and one of the best is Blue’s Moods, a quartet date from 1960 featuring pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Roy Brooks. Added to the Original Jazz Classics line in 1984, it’s available now in a fresh 180 gram vinyl edition cut from the original tapes in a tip on jacket with an obi strip from Craft Recordings.

Blue Mitchell was a perennially inside guy, never dabbling in the avant-garde, even as a sideman. He debuted on record straight out of high school in 1951, playing R&B (unsurprising given his nickname) as a sideman in Paul Williams’ Hucklebuckers. Other R&B bands that benefitted from Mitchell’s contribution during these early days were those of Earl Bostic and Red Prysock. Entering the jazz field during this period, Mitchell worked first with alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, then altoist Cannonball Adderley, who brought him into the sphere of the Riverside label, and after that, pianist Horace Silver.

But if a solidly inside player, Mitchell wasn’t a traditionalist, touring with Brit blues-rock kingpin John Mayall as documented on the 1972 live set Jazz Blues Fusion. Later in the decade, like a few of his contemporaries, Mitchell searched for commercial success by taking a trip to the Funktion Junction, his not highly regarded 1976 LP for RCA.

In terms of critical reception, Mitchell’s peak stretch began in 1958, the year he cut Portrait of Cannonball and his first LP as a leader, Big 6, and continued deep into the following decade as a productive run for Blue Note was winding down. Blue’s Moods, Mitchell’s fourth of six for Riverside, stands out in part through the lack of an additional horn in the lineup (his prior albums featured tenor sax and trombone).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | 30 years ago, Roxette released their fifth album Crash! Boom! Bang!, including a stream of hit singles like “Sleeping In My Car,” the title track, “Fireworks,” “Run To You,” and “Vulnerable.”

The album would sell more than five million copies and was followed by their second world tour, which saw them perform for over a million people, including the second performance ever by an international act in China.

We’re celebrating this classic album’s 30-year anniversary with a unique special edition: a double album in black and white vinyl with 18 tracks and an 8-page booklet, as well as an 18-track CD version that also includes a bonus CD with 23 demo recordings of songs considered for the album.

“Roxette were among the three most played artists on American radio during 1989, 1990, and 1991, and we were on top of the charts all over the world. So, it’s no wonder we felt pretty confident when it was time to record the new album,” Per Gessle says. “Having had that kind of success made us feel that we had a perfect opportunity to stretch out into new directions. To show slightly different sides of what Roxette could be. And I still think Crash! Boom! Bang is our best album.”

The 30-year anniversary versions of Crash! Boom! Bang will be released on December 6. Watch out for the fireworks.

Celebrating Graham Parker on his 74th birthday. —Ed.

Some guys just can’t catch a break. Especially if their name is Graham Parker, who released four stellar albums from 1975 to 1979 and never came close to making the big time. Just how good was he in his prime? The English rocker’s first two LPs (1975’s Howlin’ Wind and 1976’s Heat Treatment) made the top five of The Village Voice’s annual Pazz and Jop poll. But has your average music fan heard his music? Not so much. The guy might as well be invisible.

Parker had his own suspicions about his failure to reach the big time, and it was Mercury Records, who in his opinion did nothing to promote his music. He laid out his argument in the scathing “Mercury Poisoning” with its lines, “I got Mercury poisoning/It’s fatal and it don’t get better/I got, Mercury poisoning/The best kept secret in the west, hey the west.” It’s a great song. It never made its way on to an LP. Parker’s new label, Arista Records, planned to release it as a single in 1979, but ultimately relegated it to a B-Side. Too risky to release–Parker could turn on you next.

Parker’s voice bears a distinct resemblance to that of Elvis Costello, but he doesn’t go in for Costello’s witty wordplay. Parker’s songs address everyday concerns in everyday language that Costello’s clever songs never do. Just check out “Local Girls” (don’t bother with ‘em) and “Saturday Nite Is Dead” (“I used to know a good place to go/But now it’s nothing like it was then”).

Parker had a crack backing band in the Rumour, who would go on to release three albums in their own right. Furthermore, ace guitarist Brinsley Schwarz has gone on to record six well-received solo albums, while rhythm guitarist Martin Belmont has released a neat dozen. Keyboard player Bob Andrews, drummer Steve Goulding, and bass player Andrew Bobnar rounded out the quintet, providing more than enough coloring and backbone to fuel the hard rockers and ample subtlety to add nuances the slow ones.

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It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that if a band’s first six albums bore you or annoy you by turn, and you’d sooner contract food poisoning than listen to them, you’re not going to turn on number seven and say, “Wow, these guys make a swell din!” In fact it’s a pretty good rule of thumb you’ll never turn on number seven at all. It’s called aversion therapy.

Yet such is the case with progressive rock stalwarts King Crimson and their 1974 LP Red. They’d been a thorn in my ear since their 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King, and I wasn’t alone—for every listener enthralled by the album (“a surreal work of force and originality” said a Rolling Stone reviewer at the time) there was another who heard it my way (Robert Christgau’s verdict: “ersatz shit.”)

My favorite take on the undeniably/unfortunately influential LP is worth quoting in full, if only because it always makes me laugh. Chuck Eddy: “A history of sixties rock: On March 6, 1959, a month and three days after The Day The Music Died, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller gathered up four violins and a cello and the Drifters and recorded “There Goes My Baby,” which begat Phil Spector, which begat Pet Sounds, which begat Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which begat Days of Future Passed, which begat this shit, which killed everything. But so what, it was already dead.”

After In the Court of the Crimson King the band proceeded to pile pretentious album upon pretentious album until what you had was a veritable Mt. Everest of pretentious albums with pretentious titles like In the Wake of Poseidon and Lark’s Tongue in Aspic upon which (on a clear day) you could actually LOOK DOWN on Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This was not a band anyone would think capable of rocking out, despite the fact that they’d served up a killer rock track (“20th Century Schizoid Man”) way back on their 1969 debut. Which proved they could do it, but obviously found it lowering. Their ambitions lay elsewhere. That’s the problem with art rock. You can take the rock out of the art rocker, and odds are he won’t even know it’s gone.

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