Happy 80th birthday to the one and only Smokey Robinson. We’re digging deep into our vinyl collection and here are our current Smokey favorites, album by album: “Smokey” (1973): “Holly”“Pure Smokey” (1974): “I Am I Am”“A Quiet Storm” (1975): “Quiet Storm”“Smokey’s Family Robinson” (1976): “Castles Made Of Sand”“Deep In My Soul” (1977): “It’s Been A…
The Atlanta-based artist with a voice of a young Nina Simone is coming to Europe for a short, 8-city tour. Her debut album “To Myself” was released last August on the indie Human Re Sources label and is also available on limited edition vinyl. The power and the beauty of tracks like the album’s opener…
It would have been Leon’s 80th birthday today. He was working on an album before his health deteriorated and “Rainbow Deux”, only available on double-vinyl, with Leon’s own watercolor art on the cover, came out in September of last year. Six of the songs, recorded in 2012 and 2013, were already issued on a Japanese-only…
I recently came across the name of Luca Manning through a tweet by UK vocalist Ian Shaw. I thought if Ian recommends someone, he or she must be worth checking out. So I contacted Luca and received his debut album which came out late last year. And guess what? It is full of surprises. The…
There is something majestic about piano trios, even more so when the leader is an expert on restraint and finesse. I’ve seen Aaron Diehl a lot of times with singer Cécile McLorin Salvant, refining and reinterpreting the Great American Songbook and Salvant originals and this, “The Vagabond”, has seven of his own compositions, one by…
After one solo album in 1983, Ben Watt joined Tracey Thorn to go on a successful career with her under the name Everything But The Girl. After their split, he started to create some of the most fantastic deep house cuts as a DJ and producer with his Lazy Dog series, both a club night…
He was part of the Pat Metheny Group for 27 years, not only playing all kinds of synths and keyboards, but also co-composing with Pat, orchestrating and arranging, like the unforgettable, timeless “James”, “Au Lait”, and “Are You Going With Me?” from the group’s 1982 “Offramp” LP. His 1988 album “Street Dreams” on Geffen Records,…
So here she is at 83, Roberta Flack, winning a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Grammy Awards which has become something of a farce in recent years. Some of the Merit awards winners were announced in a pre-recorded video. None was shown in the telecast. Showbiz411 writes, “Roberta Flack, who is using a wheelchair,…
Saxophonist, composer, and engineer Andre Solomko, born in the Ukraine, has come up with an enticing new track on the Paris-based Favorite Recordings label. After two self-produced albums, he joined Favorite Recorings after a longer stint in Finland and has released another three albums there, the latest, “Le Deltaplane” (2018), a rich mélange of soul,…
Time for female power on singer Robin McKelle‘s new album “Alterations”, her first album of cover songs featuring the work of artists like Sade, Lana Del Ray, Adele, Dolly Parton, Billie Holiday, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, or Janis Joplin. Pianist Shedrick Mitchell has helped her co-produce and arrange the album of which Robin says: “The…