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Drive-By Truckers – Holding on loosely
“If we took a year off, a real honest to God year off, it’d drive us all insane. We’d all be dead by the end of it. The five of us have done this because it’s cathartic, and it’s a release for us to...
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Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – Nothing But The Water
Grace Potter is sometimes compared to Norah Jones, and though there are parallels to be drawn between their lightly smoked vocals, they only work on the slow songs. Where Jones tends to smoothly smooch...
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Various Artists – My Old Man: A Tribute To Steve Goodman
Like his beloved and tragicomic Cubs, Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Goodman has never quite gotten the acclaim he deserves. The reasons certainly differ: The Cubs don’t because they’ve been the...
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Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Letting Go
The little prince takes on the wonders of true love in The Letting Go, which means that his eerie, atmospheric lamentations sound…well, not much less lamenting than usual, just with a few more spots...
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Joe Grushecky – A Good Life
One cannot help wanting to like Joe Grushecky. There’s the agreeable simplicity of his major-chord rock, his day job teaching special-ed classes, his personal and sonic ties to Bruce Springsteen, and,...
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JJ Grey & Mofro – Country Ghetto
Jacksonville, Florida, is and always will be Van Zant country, but there are other voices swimming around down near the swamps. On their third album, JJ Grey & Mofro, hooked up now with Chicago’s...
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Jesse Malin – Glitter In The Gutter
While he was out on his ragtime detour last year, Bruce Springsteen became something of a trend story. Bands such as the Hold Steady and the Killers dished up, irony-free and with wildly varying...
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Ike Reilly Assassination – We Belong To The Staggering Evening
A fortysomething from the Chicago ‘burbs with a killer bio — he spent thirteen years as a doorman downtown before trading it in for this much less reliable career path — Ike Reilly has spent three...
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Jason Isbell – Sirens Of The Ditch
Since 2001, Jason Isbell has served admirably as the Drive-By Truckers’ junior senator, the third arm in a guitar/songwriter onslaught that also stars Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Theirs was a...
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Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – The magic’s onstage
Almost immediately after I get them on the phone, it becomes reasonably clear that, in the background, the members of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals are beating themselves senseless with something....
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