Email Author Rick Mason

2009 Stories by Rick Mason

• Bob Schnieder

  published November 11, 2009

  After 20-some years, Bob Schneider is pretty much an institution in his adopted hometown of Austin, where he's led a succession of bands that have... More >>

• Dirty Dozen Brass Band

  published November 11, 2009

  New Orleans's Dirty Dozen are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their first album release. My Feet Can't Fail Me Now only confirmed the... More >>

• David Wilcox

  published November 11, 2009

  Call it spiritual or psychological, the current running through most of singer-songwriter David Wilcox's songs is one in which he tries to make... More >>

• John Gorka (CD-Release)

  published November 11, 2009

  In many ways, John Gorka is a quintessential folkie: sensitive to the forces of nature and the political trade winds, personally reflective but... More >>

• White Denim

  published November 4, 2009

  >Fits, indeed. Austin, Texas, power trio White Denim's second album is veritably defined by fits and starts. Not only do individual songs... More >>

• Steely Dan

  published November 4, 2009

  Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are the latest to jump on the recent trend of recreating live entire classic albums, all songs in their proper... More >>

• Herb Alpert & Lani Hall

  published November 4, 2009

  This long-married couple separately made indelible marks on the pop landscape in the 1960s. Trumpeter Herb Alpert was leader of the phenomenally... More >>

• Tim Eriksen

  published November 4, 2009

  A onetime Minnesotan now restored to his native Massachusetts, Tim Eriksen is an ethnomusicologist and renaissance man of roots that extend from... More >>

• The Mountain Goats

  published November 4, 2009

  The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle (pictured) is a serious literary type whose songs, stretching back almost two decades, detail human failings,... More >>

• Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers

  published October 28, 2009

  When Bruce Hornsby started out a couple of decades ago, he was a roots-influenced piano man with a knack for writing relatively interesting songs... More >>

• Asleep at the Wheel

  published October 28, 2009

  Western swing—packing a potent mix of big band jazz and country—reigned in the 1930s and '40s with the likes of Bob Wills, Milton... More >>

• múm

  published October 28, 2009

  Blame it on the cold or midnight sun or essentially being adrift in the North Atlantic or whatever, Iceland keeps producing bands that revel in... More >>

• Loudon Wainwright III

  published October 28, 2009

  You gotta believe Loudon Wainwright sees a lot of himself in Charlie Poole, by all accounts a rambler, a gambler, a cad, and a rogue who led a... More >>

• Dave Brubeck

  published October 28, 2009

  The accolades keep piling up for jazz piano icon Dave Brubeck, even as he shows no signs of slowing down. Declared a "living legend" by the... More >>

• Federico Aubele

  published October 28, 2009

  Tango and bolero are at the heart of Argentinian singer-songwriter Federico Aubele's music, but it also draws from numerous other dimensions,... More >>

• Great Lake Swimmers

  published October 21, 2009

  Toronto's Great Lake Swimmers splash about in an atmospheric realm of spare but elegantly etched folk music blended with superior strains of... More >>

• The Klezmatics

  published October 21, 2009

  Although klezmer was the original inspiration and remains the definitive heart of the Klezmatics' music, the band has taken the often raucous,... More >>

• Miguel Zenón

  published October 14, 2009

  Miguel Zenón is an outstanding young alto saxophonist and composer whose consistently intriguing work bristles with exciting variations of... More >>

• Mindy Smith

  published October 14, 2009

  Singer-songwriter Mindy Smith mines an indefinite middle ground of country, pop, and folk, anchored by a pretty soprano voice that ranges from a... More >>

• Maria Muldaur's Garden of Joy Jug Band

  published October 14, 2009

  When Maria Muldaur leapt into the general consciousness in 1973 with her debut album, which included the sultry, chart-climbing charmer "Midnight... More >>

• Meshell Ndegeocello

  published October 14, 2009

  As sinisterly ambiguous as its title, the primary theme of Meshell Ndegeocello's brand new album, Devil's Halo, is the treachery of love,... More >>

• Ruthie Foster

  published October 14, 2009

  Graced with sensational, classic soul pipes and a smoldering intensity, this Texas native more than lived up to the title of her 2007... More >>

• STS9

  published October 7, 2009

  Northern California's Sound Tribe Sector 9—a.k.a. STS9—are heavily into electronica, with all the gadgetry, dance beats, and space... More >>

• Asobi Seksu

  published October 7, 2009

  New York-based Asobi Seksu initially established themselves as weavers of densely layered pop dreamscapes, thoroughly atmospheric with a serious... More >>

• Bob Mould

  published October 7, 2009

  Arriving 30 years after Hüsker Dü first emerged in the Minneapolis rock scrum, 20 years after his first solo album, and the year before... More >>