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LIVE THE OLD MAGIC
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Greetings Neil, looking forward to the chrome hearts tour. I get to live the magic once again with my dad. We’ll see you in the pit in Cleveland.

P.S. we don’t even care what you play. Make it new, old, and loud! Just glad you’re going back out.

Thanks
See you there
Love neil
Be well

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TICKETMASTER HURTS FANS
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Please tell Neil that using the Ticketmaster Fair …

Neil,
Thanks for the "Sixty To Zero" preview. I'm not even finished listening yet, but I have to say:
CHAD CROMWELL!!!!
That's all. Thanks!
Greg

Thanks Greg
Volume Three has it
love neil,
be well

Is there a reason why you've never done a 2nd Austin City Limits taping? I can't imagine any scenario where the folks producing the show wouldn't love to have you perform again after all these years.

You never know!
love,
be well
neil

Explore Mazzeo Studios West for a vibrant hub of creativity and community.
Discover our mission to empower artists and innovators.

Visit Mazzeo Studios

Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of a different perspective. Because if not, there's absolutely no point.
Not every argument is worth your energy. Sometimes, no matter how clearly you express yourself, the other person isn’t listening to understand—they’re listening to react.
When in doubt a picture is worth a thousand words.

Oligarchy and Democracy

When democracy intertwines with oligarchy, it creates a fragile balance between equality and inequality.

When democracy is threatened, everyone suffers. Parents become preoccupied and distressed, while disagreements divide communities. Children, caught in the turbulence, feel unsafe, confused, and alone. Neil Young warned us.

A Message from Neil. 8-11-20

Hi everyone. I just want you to know that I am aware the paper seems to have a lot of bad news and less …

"I signed off tonight and it's time to move on...I know where I've been but I have no idea where I am going.  This was a therapeutic painting for me on a personal level.  It brought me back into an emotional balance and has cured my stumbling heart."  - Mazz, 6/25/18

Explore Mazzeo Studios West for a vibrant hub of creativity and community.
Discover our mission to empower artists and innovators.

Visit …

UNDERSTANDING DREAMS

By Victoria Cavaleri

I believe dreams have the power to heal the past and bring lost possibilities back to life. In those moments, they allow me to step into the reality that should have been—the one I ran away from. Dreams don’t just remind me of what was; they offer a chance to reclaim what still lives in my heart.
Paintings are like dreams, I am not in charge of them, the create …

Explore Mazzeo Studios West for a vibrant hub of creativity and community. Discover our mission to empower artists and innovators.

Visit Mazzeo Studios

UNDERSTANDING DREAMS

By Victoria Cavaleri

I believe dreams have the power to heal the past and bring lost possibilities back to life. In those moments, they allow me to step into the reality that should have been—the one I ran away from. Dreams don’t just remind me of what was; they offer a chance to reclaim what still lives in my heart.
Paintings are like dreams, I am not in charge of them, the create …

Quote from Mazz (8/20/21):

Friday Night and I just hung my latest painting, HAPPY TEAR at my favorite Italian Restaurant (Tramonti) here in Santa Cruz.
I want to do 7 paintings this year...this is number 3!
I'm just beginning on #4.
I like to hang my newest artworks in my home town before they get placed in other cities and on their way! Before they become caught-up in the game.

Mazz at Tramonti in Santa …

Judgment is a human fallacy that seems to be in full force these days. The practice of negatively evaluating another sometimes serves as a temporary balm for one's own emotional pain.

Passing judgment makes us feel better in the moment. When we watch a show about someone who is a hoarder, we don't feel so bad about our own dirty dishes in the sink.

However, this practice comes with a high price - both for …

Explore Mazzeo Studios West for a vibrant hub of creativity and community. Discover our mission to empower artists and innovators.

Visit Mazzeo Studios

When I need to be understood
You can understand
-Ralph Molina, “It’s Magical”

Sometimes it's hard to find anyone who listens, let alone one who truly understands. It is such a comfort when another really “gets” what you are trying to communicate – be it verbally or otherwise.

Understanding is often referred to as a “meeting of the minds”. A true act of understanding is a meeting of the souls.

It is magical indeed.

tamichandlerfineart.com

Some events are beyond our control. However, we often forget about the power that lies within us to shape a great deal of our own future. Our thoughts become feelings, actions, and habits. A single thought can be the catalyst that changes reality.

To live the kind of life we desire, we should strive to ensure that our environment and those we are surrounded by reflect the kinds of thoughts and feelings we want to …

12/4/1970
Carnegie Hall

"The Volume Dealers" — Neil Young & Niko Bolas — Engineer: Henry Lewy

Niko Bolas and Neil Young have been known as “The Volume Dealers” for many years. Today, I rediscovered their work together on Neil’s live Carnegie Hall album, recorded in 1970 and remixed for release in 2010.

The album features songs that are deeply woven into my personal history with Neil from back in the day, as they say. Expecting …

Because of our backgrounds and life experiences, each of us has a different set of perspectives. We all basically want the same things in life, but have varying ideas of how to get where we want to go.

In a collective setting, that can present some big problems - but it doesn't always have to. When it gets down to it, we are more alike than different. We should strive to remember this when dealing …

As the news continues to report on the unimaginable destruction caused by fire in Los Angeles, I found myself searching for songs that could reflect the way I’m feeling in this moment.

In times of doubt, I often call on my higher power for guidance. The first song that came to mind was one I’ve loved since I was a child. To my surprise, I wasn’t even aware that Neil had recorded it, but knowing …

Take my advice
Don't listen to me
It ain't paradise
But it used to be

The world is changing so quickly. Things that were always there are no more. It's hard to comprehend the current devastation taking place.

Yet, in the face of unspeakable tragedy, people find ways to come together. To help. To comfort. To give. No matter how bad situations are, there are certain people who place themselves in the midst of the …

One of my favorite things about Neil Young’s music is how he guides us through the journey from despair to hope—and from hope to success. In a world often divided, where emotions are either denied or expressed through violence, Neil’s music serves as a bridge to deeper understanding.

I believe that consciousness is our higher power, and within that, we have a choice: to listen to the voice of the ego or to align with …

Elvis Presley
On the inside of the front cover.
With Jack White
Holding down the contents page.

I was thinking about the dreams we had back in 1966.
ELVIS was such a big part of those dreams
Jack White fits right in.

The article features a Henry Diltz photo, and I remembered Neil & I, leaving the Whisky, on Sunset Strip, to see our friend Henry Diltz, called Tad in 1966 and the band he …

These days there is much talk about complicated matters. Matters that divide humanity and cause great tension and harm. The thing that is often missing in current discussions is the subject of love.

When the word "love" is brought up, people immediately get uncomfortable, often thinking of romantic entanglements or stressful scenarios. While those things are exciting, love itself is so much more simple than that. Love is respect for another. Love is caring for …

It has been said that a woman is expected to look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, and work like a dog. It's an understatement to say that society expects a great deal from us.

Starting at birth, we are given a pink outfit and a set of expectations: We should always look our best, no matter what we are going through. We should be sweet and loving, no matter …

Numbers are considered to be concrete and factual, and they often are.

However, everywhere we look there is someone quoting a statistic or a poll result. The numbers that so many people hang their hats on are often the result of manipulation in favor of a certain cause or outcome.

While numbers can be helpful indicators in the decision-making process, they should not always be accepted as fact without careful consideration of other factors. There's …

Don’t Take It Personally

Oh that is so easy to say- but it is incredibly challenging to take that on fully and marry yourself to that statement.

Don’t take it personally. I am not so sure I have become an expert on that. How can I? When something happens -to- me, it feels very personal. I think the other side of that coin is we can never know someone’s motivations for how they treat us/you. …

While waiting for the light to change, I looked out my open car window and saw this - a simple message crying out to be shared. A message so obvious, always in front of our faces, yet we overlook it all the time.

We tend to see life as complicated, but it really isn't. As the song says, "Love and only love will break it down". It certainly will. Love is the simple but all-important …

"Internal Compass" 8-18-2024

Monarch Butterflies are an enigma.

In the spring, the Monarchs that head north will reproduce and perish long before their dear descendants are set to make their own return journey south. In the fall, the butterflies embarking on their own migration have never visited their destination before, yet they instinctively know the way.

It is thought that they rely on magnetism and sunlight for navigation, but many aspects of their migration remains …

People often talk about how busy they are, like it’s something to be proud of. In today’s society, being busy seems to be a status symbol – a state of being one must strive toward. The perception is that if one is very busy, they must be “important”.

Being productive is good, but busy-ness does not always result in productivity. Every hour does not have to have an assigned task. In the hours of what …

Photo Credit Nurit Wilde

“Mr. Soul”
Written by Neil Young

Neil played “Mr. Soul” for me before sharing it with the band (Buffalo Springfield)

I loved the song, so did Donna and we encouraged him to insist on singing it himself.

I don't view the song as being tied to the 1960s; rather, I see it as a reaction to being typecast by someone who doesn't truly know you.

Playing the “Whisky” put Neil in …

There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. Often, it is a matter of perspective.

Being lonely can occur while spending time solo or in the company of others. Loneliness is a sad, empty feeling that is sometimes hard to remedy.

Being alone can be life-changing. Much can be gained from time spent solo. New things can be learned. Creativity can flourish. Or, one can just simply be.

We all need to …

“Big Time”
written by Neil Young
Recorded 3-25-1996.

Gonna leave the pain behind
Gonna leave the fools in line
Gonna take the magic potion
Gettin' in an old black car
Gonna take a ride so far

To the land of sun tan lotion
Gonna take it state by state
Til I hit the golden gate
Get my feet wet in the ocean

I'm still living in the dream we had

For me it's not over

…

The Spring winds are blowing in, bringing with them hope and new opportunities. Opportunities for rebirth and growth. Opportunities to be a better version of ourselves.

The best way to become a better person is to simply love more. When we fill our heart with the light of love and gratitude, it opens like a flower bud, glowing with beauty for everyone to enjoy.

Your open heart, radiating with love, causes a ripple effect. Soon …

“Reaction is Fatal”
Larry Collins, a guitar prodigy mentored by renowned flat picker Joe Maphis, and half of the ’50s brother/sister act The Collins Kids, died January 5 in Santa Clarita, California.
Larry spent his childhood on the road with Tex Ritter, Joe Maphis, Johnny Cask and many other well know Country Greats. They drove in Cadillac’s from town to town and when one of the seasoned country …

Astrid Young

ust because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. look deeper. the tides are always restless.

Astrid Young

floating buoyant in the salty sea as the wave rises up above you. don’t move. whatever comes next is inevitable. full circle. puts things in perspective. we are small.

Astrid Young

No two moments are alike, colors that don’t exist anywhere else but right here, right now. Press button “surprise” and drink it in. gone in a second, if there is even such a thing as linear time.

It was a typical day in LA – sunny and hazy, with everything bathed in the soft, yellow light that only the right amount of smog and sun can provide.

Donna Port, a tall girl of twenty-one with long brown hair, dressed in a Mexican peasant blouse, bell-bottoms, and sandals, sat impatiently tapping her fingers on the dashboard of her powder blue ’65 …

Pivot to Love, through the darkness and into the light as they say. Easier said than done. Time heals every wound. Oh those statements are quite irritating and I guess they are also true. Not sure—check in with me in about a year.

Life has dealt me an interesting hand. One that I would never have chosen for myself but …

MAY 3, 1966:
BY VICTORIA CAVALERI
The Buffalo Springfield’s first Hollywood audition was held at the Trip, I had been asked to determine if the band could be danced to. Once the contracts were signed I introduced myself to the cute dark haired guitar player.
Donna, my roommate, and I paid eighteen dollars a week for a one-bedroom apartment at “The Commadore Gardens”, a 1930’s art deco apartment building, located off Hollywood Blvd, Outside the …

(This poem was inspired by a Neil Young song called “I’m the Ocean,” particularly the final two lines, "I’m the ocean; I’m the giant under-tow.” I decided to emulate Neil by using a first person narrative and employing Nature as the persona (speaker) in my poem about the devastating effects of these atmospheric rivers. Love Earth!)

The Atmospheric River

I’m the atmospheric river
I’m the rising water in the streets
The warming Earth evaporates the …

James Mazzeo
"North Beach Nights"
Acrylic on Canvas, 1994


This Mazzeo painting was featured onstage in my Coastal tour last year.

Collage I made from the original cover of my Buffalo Springfield Scrapbook
Happy New Year!! "May it be a good one without any fear"
Love and Peace,
Bruce Cannon

Visit the Astrid Young Site.

Music is Art. Music is Not Dead.

My name is Astrid Young. In my career, I've achieved many things, played massive stages all over the world, worked with some real legends in the music industry, and played or sang on dozens of records. My voice is even on an album (Neil Young's Harvest Moon) that's been "officially" played in space!

But in my estimation, none of that compares to what …

Originally published March 17, 2019

The pentagon and third painting in my latest Triptych artwork.
24”x30”
Fluorescent acrylic and Iridescent acrylic on canvas

"How To Be An Artist. AKA: Showing Up"

Full disclosure: I don’t know how to be an artist, other than just showing up. I haven’t taken any lessons and I imagine my technique would improve if I took some. But mostly, I just like to sit down and paint. My life on the planet is improved anytime I have my hands in paint or my heart in my notebooks, writing. I try to encourage everyone …

I dream of a place like Paradise. I grew up there- but I still dream of a place like this. I haven’t been home to my hometown of Lahaina, Maui in over a decade. I can still remember the luxury of being lulled to sleep by the clapping of the palm fronds in the tradewinds; the trees applauding me for turning in for the night and letting the earth reset itself in a tropical atmosphere. …

I dream of a place like Paradise. I grew up there- but I still dream of a place like this. I haven’t been home to my hometown of Lahaina, Maui in over a decade. I can still remember the luxury of being lulled to sleep by the clapping of the palm fronds in the tradewinds; the trees applauding me for turning in for the night and letting the earth reset itself in a tropical atmosphere. …

Originally published February 3, 2019

I try to be a positive soul on this incredible planet...In doing so, I find other positive, life affirming and kindred souls to reflect from. . . . if you are negative about others, and perhaps the world itself, then one finds negative circumstances, negative  people, and a life full of negativities, and those will become your reflections . . . . you are responsible only for the course …

Originally published December 29, 2018

Dear Human:
You got it all wrong.
You did not come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you'll return. You came here to learn personal Love. Universal Love. Messy Love. Sweaty Love. Crazy Love. Broken Love. Whole Love.
Infused with Divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling.
Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up. Often. You didn't come here to be perfect. You …

Originally published November 21, 2018

There are many things in this life that I do not admire or respect, things that I will not cower to or allow them to overwhelm me… things that I will actively resist, and actively oppose….. but, as for hate, I use caution in its presence because I know that hate is corrosive and has a poisonous effect upon one's Mind and Soul.

I bear the gift of creativity, I …

By Bill Bentley

When a mountain disappears from our world, it feels like we are moving toward the end. When it's a musical landmark like blues guitarist Bill Campbell, who passed away not long ago, it can be a deceiving event because so many people never even realized the mountain was there. Campbell, born and raised in Smithville and Austin, was as powerful a presence in the area as anyone who ever played the most …

By Bill Bentley

Jimmie Vaughan is the kind of musician who captivates the imagination from their very first note. There is something in the way he approaches the bandstand, like it's a sacred ground where there is really no telling what will unfold. He holds his Fender Stratocaster guitar like it is part of his body. Vaughan's relationship with his instrument is obviously endless. He's been playing the guitar over 60 years, and what he …

By Bill Bentley

I fell in love with Lou Reed twenty-one years before I ever met him. It was in a small listening booth at Moses Melody Shop in Houston. In 1967, you could take the store’s records into the booth and listen. For free. Nothing was shrink-wrapped then, so everything was fair game. I would spend hours there, lost in the sounds of the universe.

The first time I went to the record shop …

Some musicians are born to run. And never stop. Nils Lofgren is that long-distance hero. Starting in the late 1960s, Lofgren staked out the rock & roll territory in Bethesda, Maryland. He was looking for the sparks to fully light his musical fuse. Coming from Chicago, where he began playing accordion at age 5. But that was just a step in the right direction, and like so very many young Americans, when the Beatles came …

There are musicians who take on the characteristics of ghosts. They begin their musical life with all the hope and promise of those with an aura of invincibility. It is like they have inherited a way to connect with a force that promises them infinity, that their songs and performances move from ordinary strengths into that place which cannot be described. It doesn't really happen that often, especially in our modern times when everything is …

Blues isn't always built in a straight line. Someone who finds this feeling coming into their life might not even know what it is. Rather, the blues can be a feeling that overtakes the spirit like a near-religious belief, one that offers strength and hope beyond all odds. As a sound it knows no bounds. There aren't any markings on the music that define where it came from or where it can go. Rather, it's …

Once your life is taken over by music, there really is no choice how it's lived. The songs you hear and the music you see become the stepping stones from childhood to older age, and the journey feels like one that will never end. Music becomes the one thing that can always be counted on to move forward and never disappear. It is not an obsession. It is a life.

When I was very young …

I first met Doug Sahm over a half-century ago. He had started hanging around Austin in the early 1970s, fresh back from several years ripping and running through the Bay Area. I had never met anyone like him, either. Doug had a way of seeing the world as if he was in the middle of everything. He could play any style of music better than just about anyone else, talked faster than all of them …

Age makes it seem the world goes faster. And while slowing it down might be a wonderful hope, the reality is that there is no way to make that happen. No one has any control on how quick time is passing. It's all in the perception, and as any time traveler realizes, perception is all. 

When there is a new Neil Young album, there is an exciting feeling in the air. Life might …

"Well the way is dark the night is long / don't care if I never get home / I'm waiting at the end of the road..." --Jerry Lee Lewis (First  45/1956)

Seeing Jerry Lee Lewis for the first time is not unlike walking into a hurricane. The man had such a fierceness of spirit it could be frighteningly unforgettable. He would look into the audience like he was staring into the eyes of everyone …

There is a lifetime of memories swirling around blues master Angela Strehli. For over fifty years, she has been singing with a feeling so deep inside her that Strehli often sounds like someone whose place on the planet is to share the most profound side of the human spirit, the one that overcomes pain and shows listeners to the other side of life. Blues has been recorded for over a hundred years, and as time …

It was an unforgettable night, starting with a Frank Zappa concert at Austin's Armadillo World Headquarters in 1975 that featured none other than Captain Beefheart in the center of it all. He'd played the Armadillo five years earlier, with Ry Cooder opening, but that was an entirely different vibration. Beefheart, born Don Van Vliet, was circling outer space then, putting the microphone into his soprano saxophone and blowing as hard as he could. For those …

"When you hear that song
crying like the wind
it seems like all this life
was just a dream"

To sit in the upper deck of Dodger Stadium recently on a perfect June night and feel the overwhelming cosmic connection of 25,000 souls to the music of the Grateful Dead, no matter what the band is called now, is to find home. Whether you're a fan of their music or it remains outside the limits …

Professor Longhair

When it's near the end of April, my New Orleans spirit starts to show up strong. There is something about that city, and especially the music that comes from there, that makes the blood feel warmer, and brings back an endless smile for all the years the good times rolled in my many visits way down yonder. This is the time when the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival hosts the first of …

Twenty years ago Starbucks started selling CDs in their stores, and soon created a series of releases titled ARTIST'S CHOICE: music that matters to her/him. It featured various musicians assembling albums of some of their favorite songs. Everyone from Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams to Elvis Costello and Norah Jones joined in. Each one was an eye-opening chance to see what these participants put on their list that really moved them. In the album booklets …

There she was. At the Kennedy Center Awards in December, standing on a stage in front of everyone from the President of the United States to the people who would be working late cleaning the Center after the audience had left in their limousines. The woman walked out and sang a song that guaranteed that this music would go on forever, on or off the earth, and that the beauty of the human soul will …

One of the reasons I like writing for the Times-Contrarian is because I can take it wherever I want to go. It feels a lot like when I started working on newspapers back in 1974 in Austin, Texas. I was a typesetter for the University of Texas' Daily Texan. Then some friends decided to start an alternative paper called the Austin Sun, and asked if I would be the typesetter. Which is actually a grueling …

Copenhagen 1965, Bent Rej

Charlie Watts died on August 24th. It was my birthday, and it felt like that was the only way it could be. There are certain people who enter your life from the side door, but before long can seem to be the only person standing in the room. Looking back, what starts as almost an accident comes to be something so important it is obvious that it couldn't have been any …

1928 / Smithsonian

Louis Armstrong died in the summer of 1971, 50 years ago, and it felt like part of America died with him. There was something so regal about Armstrong, beyond what he played on his trumpet. He had become an American ambassador around the world, introducing jazz to people who had probably previously thought of the music more as a communication from Mars than anything they could normally listen to. But Armstrong brought …

The end of August used to hit hard. Summer was nearly over, and the return to reality during the school years was always a challenge. Now, it feels like this year's calendar has been torn in two and it's impossible to say what will happen next. The New Abnormal that awaits remains a question mark, maybe good or maybe not, but it's impossible to know. It's also a time when I think of Sterling Morrison, …

Dear Roky,

This is a letter I’ve been wanting to write for over 50 years. It is one that is born out of the absolute love I have for your band, the 13th Floor Elevators, and how they gave me a life. That is not an exaggeration. When I saw the Elevators for the first time in early 1966, something happened inside me that had never happened before. I felt my heart open up in …

"'Don't look back' I heard somebody say / but the old times feel so good and I'm better that way." --Allan "Jake" Jacobs

JAKE WITH
THE FAMILY JEWELS

Music is so much about discovery. To find a new album that lights up
the sky is like meeting a new best friend. The world becomes a little
warmer, and the questions that really have no answers become less
important. It's like the swirl of confusion that …

"It's like deja vu all over again..."
          --Yogi Berra

Longtime baseball legend Yogi Berra had a circular way with words, and even when they didn't make total sense, they still rang true. Just like DEJA VU. The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album first released in March 1970, covers a lot of territory on its ten songs, sometimes feeling like four different artists are each on their own run to eternity. But things also …

"Ultimately, none of us has more than the love we share." --Todd Barkan, Keystone Korner

That sentence from a jazz club owner in San Francisco almost 50 years ago might seem like a strange way to open a story about a record company executive, but considering that this executive is Mo Ostin, and there has never been anyone like him in the music business, makes it fit. He started his career working for Norman Granz's …

Dear Neil,

When the big white cardboard box with the YOUNG SHAKESPEARE release arrived inside, I wasn't too sure of its story. I know how vast your Archives are, and it never ceases to amaze me what sometimes comes to the surface. But this one definitely felt like a left-field find. A live album and a film of the concert it comes from: things started to seem like the jackpot had been hit.

I started …

"Something good will come out of all things yet------And it will be golden and eternal just like that------There's no need to say another word." --Jack Kerouac

When I recently read those words again at the very end of Jack Kerouac's novel BIG SUR,, I thought of Elliot Roberts. And I'm not sure why, so I started remembering the reasons. Roberts, who would have been 78 on February 25, was someone who saw into the deepest …

In writing about music it's often helped me to make lists of albums to
see how things come together or fall apart. Year-end best of lists
help, but as the mind wanders the subject of the lists themselves can
expand. I started writing about music for the AUSTIN SUN in 1974. I
had no idea what I was doing, and still don't. Not really. When I was
a freshman in college my first English professor …

There is only one way for me to listen to the new 50TH ANNIVERSARY AFTER THE GOLD RUSH release: head for Topanga Canyon. There's a twisting and turning road that runs through the mountains and deep canyons there. Driving through it feels like a trip to another land, one far away from the endless freeways that course through Los Angeles like the automobile arteries they are. It always seems like things are happening in the …

"Well the first days are the hardest days don't you worry any more / ‘cause when life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door..." Those are my favorite opening lines of any song I've ever heard. It's the kind of lyric that can stop time with its undeniable simplicity. And when those voices came out of the stereo speakers in my tiny Austin garage apartment in the sweltering summer of 1970, it …

Albums will always be my memory markers in life. Their strength and their spirit have a living presence, and define certain events growing up so vividly that nothing else can replace them. To think about important experiences usually comes along with an accompanying album's songs. Put them together and history comes alive. And to hold a vinyl album cover is to enter a time machine to when it first appeared. There is nothing else quite …

In 1963 The Beatles began being heard on American radio stations. It sounded like a new era was being born, with a level of excitement that shot major electricity through the airwaves. There hadn't been anything like it before, and an inescapable feeling of change began reverberating everywhere. Near the end of that year, with President Kennedy gone, America mourned his loss as our fallen leader, yet somehow The Beatles gave hope there would …

As life gets more challenging and humans need to dig deep inside their souls to stay upward, music becomes the soundtrack for stability. It offers solace and shores up strength like nothing else. For me it's always been an audio inspiration that never fails, no matter how rough the circumstances or scarier the situation. Very often it is the only thing that makes sense, and fans the flames of faith when nothing else does. In …

When you've been on the music trail long enough, it's tempting to look back and see a few landmarks that really lit the way forward, and hold them as tight as you can. Some stand in stark relief, casting such a mighty glow they can't be missed. Certain concerts (for me James Brown in 1963; The Everly Brothers in ''64; The Rolling Stones in '65; Bobby "Blue" Bland in '65; Otis Redding in '66; 13th …

He came riding out of San Antonio with an hot-rodded electric guitar blazing, a wild son of Texas that had music filling his huge heart right up to the very brim. Doug Sahm, who left this planet 20 years ago today, was like no other musician in the world. He had so many different sounds up his sleeve, and at any given moment could pull one out and astound whoever was within earshot, whether it …

The ability to walk onto a stage in front of strangers and completely go into their souls to light a fire inside is not something every singer can do. It takes a power beyond the ordinary, and a sense of purpose that is otherworldly. Sometimes it's something that happens without conscious knowledge, like a happy accident the cosmos allows to be born right before our eyes. The great singers achieve that like it's second nature. …

In the early 1970s when Willie Nelson left Nashville and moved back to Texas, not everything for him was coming up chili and beans. He had made a sizable dent in the song publishing houses of country music, writing all-time hits like "Hello Walls," "Crazy," "Funny How Time Slips Away" and dozens of others. So his name was pure gold on certain sections of Music Row there. But with the record labels that released Willie …

No one had a groovier slide in their glide or motion in their ocean than Dr. John. Dubbed The Night Tripper when his debut album GRIS-GRIS was released in 1968, he arrived with enough vibrating velocity, hoodoo juju and mos' scocious magnitude that it felt like the earth was turning a little swifter whenever his music played. One of the most beautiful things about Dr. John, and there were so many, was the way he …

The mid-'70s were a wild-eyed time for rock & roll. Even while the turbulent '60s seemed like they were dying down and President Richard Nixon had been expelled and sent home on a helicopter from the White House, America was still twanging at full speed. It just seemed a little calmer on the surface, in comparison to the previous ten years. As usual, what was really going on could be more accurately gauged by the …

Everyone has one. A live band that tore open the sky for them the first time, and delivered the kind of musical gift which can never be replaced. It usually happens in your teenage years, between childhood and adulthood, when everything in the world is up for grabs and so much of life seems uncertain. Music then is like a flashlight. It throws a beam on the darkness, and helps find the road forward. Not …

After terrorizing small clubs around California in 1982, it was time for Los Lobos to take steps to find a record label to move forward. Their energy onstage was overwhelming, delivering a mix of rock & roll-driven originals and Mexican-American anthems. Lobos' live shows felt like a five-day fiesta of unadulterated joy. Watching them tap into something deeper than just music was a constant reminder of how certain sounds evoke a neural urgency, sending listeners …