Ben Folds: The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective

Ben Folds The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective (Sony Legacy) Rating: Ben Folds has said this collection was an honest attempt to make sense of his career, from Ben Folds Five up to his most recent collaborations with Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, and Amanda Palmer. Not so much, he said, a greatest hits collection [...]

Short Takes: Phil Spector, Laura Veirs, Mayer Hawthorne and More

Mayer Hawthorne How Do You Do (Universal/Republic) Rating: From the Dap-Kings to Raphael Saadiq, retro soul revivalists are a hot commodity these days and blue-eyed crooner Hawthorne is poised for a breakthrough in the genre with his major label debut. The Michigan based singer is not surprisingly heavily influenced by Motown, but also by the [...]

The Devil Makes Three: Stomp and Smash: Live at the Mystic Theater

The Devil Makes Three Stomp and Smash: Live at the Mystic Theater (Milan) Rating: There is something vaguely familiar about The Devil Makes Three. At moments their sound brings to mind early Johnny Cash, full of the youthful fire that emanated from his Sun Records releases. Other times Old Crow Medicine Show seems like an [...]

Sons of Fathers Sons of Fathers

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: Smoking in Heaven

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis Smoking in Heaven (Verve) Rating: Lewis Durham of the young trio Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, has created a time machine in the front room of the band’s North London home. It’s not of the H.G. Wells variety, but rather, a carefully cultivated collection of studio equipment from America’s lost history of [...]

Marc Platt Delivers The Goods With Bitter & Sweet

Marc Platt’s Bitter & Sweet (Dream Wild Records) is a masterpiece, a chain of powerful songs beautifully produced and rendered. Platt has been writing great songs and making powerful albums for years. But this a new level of greatness for him. This is as good as it gets. “Songs should be sturdy,” Van Dyke Parks [...]

Listen: Brendan Benson Covers David Bowie’s “Candidate”

On Black Friday (11/25), 453 Music will drop Volumes 1 & 2 of Upstairs at United, a new series of vinyl albums recorded at the historic United Record Pressing plant in Nashville, Tennessee. Established in 1949, URP is the country’s oldest vinyl record plant. Volume 1 will feature solo artist and Raconteurs member Brendan Benson, [...]

The Velvet Underground And Nico, “Femme Fatale”

Finding the roots of LouTallica’s “Lulu” in an early Velvets classic When downtown rock and roll legend Lou Reed and heavy metal gods Metallica shocked music fans everywhere with the announcement that they were collaborating on a project, we thought it’d be a good time to dig into the American Songwriter archives. We featured Lou [...]

News Roundup: Paul Simon, Amy Winehouse, Wilco, Jeff Mangum

American Songwriter cover subject Paul Simon sat down with indie rock blog Stereogum to discuss his latest album, his upcoming tour, and his plans for the anniversary of Graceland. The concert film Live From Webster Hall New York will debut on PBS December 3. Watch Simon perform “Rewrite” at Webster Hall here. Amy Winehouse’s posthumous [...]

Video Premiere: Indigo Girls, “Making Promises”

The Indigo Girls’ latest video, “Making Promises,” gives a glimpse of the band throughout the years, as they grow from kids to college kids to young Girls. “Who’s gonna say you paid your dues, with the strung out sound man and the promoter dude,” sings Amy Ray on this nicely grooving track from Beauty Queen [...]