Luxury Liner ranks as Emmylou Harris' best-selling solo record to date, and it's one of her most engaging efforts as well; her Hot Band is in peak form, and the songs are even more far afield than usual, including Chuck Berry's "(You Never Can Tell) C'est la Vie" and Townes Van Zandt's painterly tale of aging outlaws, "Pancho & Lefty."

This set captures Doug Sahm and his band in the mid '70s. Longtime musical cohort Augie Meyers (who was a key member of the Sir Douglas Quintet) is on hand with his rollicking organ playing. The remainder of the quartet is comprised of a rhythm section as well as tenor sax player Rocky Morales…

Guitarist, composer, arranger, and songwriter Doug Sahm was a knowledgeable music historian and veteran performer equally comfortable in a range of styles, including Texas blues, country, rock & roll, Western swing, and Cajun. Born November 6, 1941, in San Antonio, TX, he began his performing career at age nine when he was featured on a San Antonio area radio station, playing steel guitar…

In the aftermath of classic rock in the seventies, many musicians began to gravitate towards R&B and pop. The Rhinestones were one of those bands. The band's core members Kal David, Marty Grebb, and Harvey Brooks released 2 really solid pop flavored R&B albums…

Mardi Gras is the seventh and final studio album by American band Creedence Clearwater Revival, released on April 11, 1972. Unlike previous albums, Mardi Gras had Stu Cook and Doug Clifford sharing songwriting and production with John Fogerty, as well as their own lead vocal contributions for the first time. Following the album's release, the group was officially dissolved on October 16, 1972 in a statement released by the group and its record label Fantasy Records. Mardi Gras is the only album by the band that was not remastered and reissued until the 40th anniversary of their formation, in 2008.

This is one of the most intriguing albums of Emmylou Harris' career, and that is saying a lot. It marked the first album where she wrote or co-wrote all the songs, and the strength of the songwriting makes one wonder why she had never attempted it before…

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils rode the post-hippie wave emanating from San Francisco at the dawn of the '70s. Fusing blues boogie with country-rock rave-ups, full-throated rock & roll and a hint of soul, they didn't quite sound like any other band in the Bay Area in the early '70s…

For the uninitiated, NRBQ is an oddity. How does one, for instance, approach a band who sings a song like "Howard Johnson's Got His Ho-Jo Working?" The answer may be, "not very seriously," but then another problem reveals itself: the songs are so catchy…

As the first album the band recorded after guitarist Henry Garza suffered a serious spinal injury when he fell off-stage during a concert, 2014's Revelation finds Los Lonely Boys revitalized. The Texan trio has never been constrained by genre, but here they let their imagination wild, dabbling in every sound or style that's ever tickled their fancy, easing into proceedings with a teasing bit of traditional Tex-Mex – "Blame It on Love" opens with little more than guitar, accordion, and voice – before diving into every roots or rock style they've ever hinted at in the past. This does include melodic AOR adult pop – "Give a Little More" could be mistaken for the great lost outtake from Santana's Supernatural – and one of the pleasures of Revelation is the ease with which Los Lonely Boys can do this kind of soft rock without losing earthiness.

This live project, which includes the talents of the always great Buddy Miller, is an interesting reflection of an American icon. Eclectic, it is reflective of Emmylou Harris' excursions into areas of music beyond the country and rock spheres she has already conquered. But it is the country arena that best showcases her ever-flowering ability with a song…

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils rode the post-hippie wave emanating from San Francisco at the dawn of the '70s. Fusing blues boogie with country-rock rave-ups, full-throated rock & roll and a hint of soul, they didn't quite sound like any other band in the Bay Area in the early '70s…

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils rode the post-hippie wave emanating from San Francisco at the dawn of the '70s. Fusing blues boogie with country-rock rave-ups, full-throated rock & roll and a hint of soul, they didn't quite sound like any other band in the Bay Area in the early '70s…

Universal's 2018 set The Studio Albums Vinyl Collection 1971-2016 isn't the first time the Rolling Stones] post-Decca catalog has been boxed up. Back in 2010, all the albums up to 2015 (which means it didn't include 2016's blues record Blue & Lonesome) were offered in a set that was a companion to the similarly limited-edition box The Rolling Stones 1964-1969. In a sense, the 2018 set functions as a cousin to ABKCO's The Rolling Stones in Mono – a 2016 box containing mono mixes of all the material the Stones officially released on Decca – but where that set was issued on both CD and LP, The Studio Albums Vinyl Collection 1971-2016 is, as its title suggests, explicitly designed as a vinyl package…