By Devon Wendell Los Angeles. Buddy Guy kicked off the 2015-2016 Center For the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Thursday night with a truly mesmerizing performance. Buddy Guy is the last true prophet of the blues, especially since we recently lost B.B. King. Buddy and his Damn Right… Read More Live Music: Buddy Guy At UCLA’s Royce Hall
By Mike Finkelstein Los Angeles, CA. Cool is one of those qualities that, although hard to precisely define, we sure do recognize when we see it. On Wednesday night at the Greek Theatre, Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons, two of the coolest guitar personalities to ever spank the plank, shared a double bill, and also… Read More Live Music: ZZ Top and Jeff Beck at the Greek Theatre
By Devon “Doc” Wendell Lately I’ve been harkening back to a time in my hazy youth in which rock n’ roll seemed too square and being a jazz musician felt unattainable. I was a frustrated self-taught blues guitar player in his teens in search of something else. As much as I worshipped the blues, by… Read More A Twist of Doc: “Everything Is On The One”
By Devon “Doc” Wendell In my head I can hear Billie Holiday singing “There Is Music Everywhere.” She sang it with such glee as opposed to her better known and more tortured melancholy recordings. And she was right. It’s all around us at any time. Since I became a music journalist several years ago, I’ve… Read More A Twist Of Doc: The Dangers Of Writing About Jazz
By Devon Wendell September 18th, 2013 and all I can think about is Jimi. How his music and legacy has haunted me my entire life. Jimi Hendrix died 43 years ago today, over 5 years before I was even born. Yet every feedback drenched note, cascading soulful ballad, and harrowing wammy-bar dive bomb has almost… Read More A Twist of Doc – An Appreciation: The 43rd Anniversary Of The Death Of Jimi Hendrix
The Wind Cries Jimi The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Purple Box Set) (Legacy Records) By Brian Arsenault The four disc Jimi Hendrix Experience “purple box set” is being released today for the first time in over a decade, with some previously unreleased tunes as well. If you’ve any room on your credit card or have some… Read More CD Review: “The Jimi Hendrix Experience” (Purple Box Set)
By Devon Wendell Blues master Buddy Guy encountered the now 14 year old Quinn Sullivan six years ago after Guy invited the young Sullivan to sit in with him. And he’s mentored this budding electric six stringer ever since. Sullivan’s sophomore CD Getting There is an appropriate title for Sullivan’s blistering blues oriented rock-pop.… Read More CD Review: Quinn Sullivan: “Getting There” (SuperStar Records)
By Mike Finkelstein Last weekend at Royce Hall, CAP UCLA presented another intriguing show, as Robert Randolph and the Slide Brothers delivered a unique clinic on how to make a musical point with a steel guitar. I’m not sure how many of us knew that the Slide Brothers use four or five non-identical steel guitars… Read More Live Music: Robert Randolph and the Slide Brothers at Royce Hall
Tempest (Columbia) By Devon Wendell Savage imagery of Hell on earth, twisted ultra violence, sinking ships, whores, and dying villains mixed with the language and rhythms of true American blues, country, Celtic traditions, and R&B make Bob Dylan’s Tempest a sinister yet melancholy masterpiece. In the rollicking jump blues of the opening track, “Duquesne Whistle,”… Read More CD Review: Bob Dylan’s “Tempest”
By Devon Wendell What was designated as “Blues Night” at the Hollywood Bowl Wednesday night turned out to be what must have been one of the strangest evenings the Bowl has seen in a long time, due to a rather sloppy, chaotic set from B.B. King. But let’s first talk about the Tedeschi Trucks band,… Read More Live Blues: B.B. King And The Tedeschi Trucks Band At The Hollywood Bowl,
The International Review of Music 