Hal Horowitz

Best Of – That Was Only Yesterday A&M Oh, to be the cliched fly on the wall of the marketing meeting at Universal when this baby was given the green light. As one of the least well-remembered, let alone respected, hard rock groups of the late ’60s-early ’70s, Spooky Tooth went on to spawn the silly synth pop of Gary Wright, and the tough boogie of Humble Pie (Pie bassist Greg Ridley was a founding member of Tooth). Still, I haven’t seen a popular uprising recently demanding an anthology of their lifespan from 1968-1973.

Good Luck Man Alligator More genuine houserocking music from one of the most respected – and hottest – of the second generation of Chicago harp blowers, Carey Bell learned his chops from legendary masters of the instrument like Little Walter, Big Walter Horton (with whom he recorded an album) Junior Wells, and even the great Sonny Boy Williamson. You can hear all of these masters condensed into Bell’s powerful blowing which is both mind numbing in its passion and, when appropriate, subtly enveloping in its creeping intensity.

Bluegrass music has never resonated with me. All that plunkety-plunk lightning picking sounds the same after ten minutes, and all the great musicianship in the world can’t make up for what gets tedious too quickly. So I approached this two-time National Banjo Champion with requisite trepidation.

The Essential Album Guide Visible Ink I have no idea what the return on investment is on these music reference books, but there seems to be an awful lot of work put into them, for what would seem to be a niche market and not a big profit. The latest in a line of Music Hound album buying guides (there’s already a rock, country, jazz, and R+B one – Lounge is coming in the spring!) doesn’t have a lot of competition in the marketplace. Only two other blues guides share shelf space with this one, and only the All Music Guide gives comprehensive reviews to individual albums by blues artists in print.

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Two chords, an intermittently missing question mark, and Joe Cocker. Those are some key ingredients behind “Feelin' Alright?,” penned by Dave