On his first-ever solo outing, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons marries his band’s bedrock Texas-blues boogie with more recent obsessions, most prominently Afro-Cuban rhythms. It’s the sound of a Havana moon shining down on Rio Grande mud. The 65-year-old guitarist’s musical anthropology is loving and loose, with nods to hip-hop and funk (the… Source: RollingStone Link: Perfectamundo

Prosecutors have dropped the final charges of sexual abuse against folk musician Roy Harper, ending a lengthy legal battle based on allegations stemming back to the Seventies, The Guardian reports. “This case should never have gone as far as this, or taken so long to resolve,” Harper said outside the courthouse. “The… Source: RollingStone Link: Roy […]

Few artists have impacted New Orleans music history — and, by extension, the history of modern soul, R-B, funk and rock — as deeply as the late Allen Toussaint did over the course of his decades-spanning career. Toussaint’s best-known studio work commenced during the golden age of New Orleans rhythm and… Source: RollingStone Link: 5 Allen […]

One Direction’s fifth album, Made in the A.M., showcases the band’s full range of influences and capabilities. The latest in a series of songs they’ve released to preview the LP is the break-up ballad “Love You Goodbye,” co-written by member Louis Tomlinson. The power ballad follows in the heartbreak footsteps of… Source: RollingStone Link: Hear […]

Kate Bush’s incredible 22-night stand at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in the summer and fall of 2014 was billed as the singer’s first concerts since her 1979 tour, but that didn’t mean she never stepped on a stage during that 35-year gap. Major British events like the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala… Source: RollingStone Link: Flashback: Kate […]

Thirty-two years ago today, on November 10th, 1983, Miranda Lambert was born in Longview, Texas. Raised in nearby Lindale, Lambert began playing guitar and writing songs in her teens, playing dozens of honky-tonks in her home state before landing a recording contract with Sony Music Nashville in 2003. With her 2005… Source: RollingStone Link: Flashback: […]

Apple has released a beta version of Apple Music has on the Google Play store, its second app created for Android. Devices running Android 4.3 and above can download it for free from Google Play. Google levies a 30% transaction fee on all applications and in-app products that sold on Google Play, while Apple Music […]

When Sam Hunt wrote his debut LP, Montevallo, he was pulling from a life before the spotlight: one of small-town romance in a shifting south, where both Usher and George Jones offer equal solace for a broken heart. But after a year of incessant touring, CMA nominations and three platinum… Source: RollingStone Link: Sam Hunt […]

The road to Justin Bieber’s upcoming album Purpose has been an apologetic one. In fact, saying that he’s sorry for his past has been one of the premiere promotional tools for his highly-anticipated follow-up to 2013 compilation Journals. Even before he kicked off his notorious string of bad behavior in 2013 and 2014, however,… Source: RollingStone Link: All […]

Iconic songwriter Allen Toussaint passed away today at age 77. A New Orleans native, and a mainstay of the city’s musical life for well over 50 years, Toussaint wrote, arranged and produced for Big Easy legends such as the Meters, Dr. John and Lee Dorsey. Rolling Stone reached Toussaint in the days immediately following Hurricane… Source: RollingStone Link: Allen Toussaint: […]