It’s no exaggeration to say that behind every great reggae band is a great bass player–and the bass player who’s been behind more great reggae bands than practically anyone else is Aston “Family Man” Barrett. His work with the Skatalites, Lee Perry and the Upsetters, Bob Marley and the Wailers…
Roni Size Reprazent: New Forms (Talkin’ Loud/Mercury) Plenty of electronica artists are taking the Prodigy route: i.e., they’re attempting to split the difference between dance music and pop in the hope of coming up with hit singles that will still work in Clubland. Size, for his part, is moving in…
Timbaland and Magoo Welcome to Our World (Blackground/Atlantic) Tim Mosley, aka Timbaland, is a producer who has stepped into the spotlight a la Sean “Puffy” Combs–but unlike the Puffster, Mosley seems to understand his limitations. Rather than positioning himself as an egomaniacal rap word-slinger, he keeps the focus on the…
Shania Twain Come On Over (Mercury) First time around, producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange went through the motions of trying to make Twain, who’s the object of his Svengalism, sound somewhat like a country artist. But even though she’s still being marketed as a C&W chanteuse, her latest release is…
Of all the fan letters received by Cary Hudson, singer and guitarist for the Oxford, Mississippi, trio Blue Mountain, one towers above the rest–and it’s easy to figure out why. You see, this particular note was written by Jimmy Carter and delivered to the band at an Atlanta bar by…
It’s 3:30 a.m. in Paris, and Lee “Scratch” Perry is living up to his reputation as one of reggae’s most colorful–and least stable–characters. “My real name is Death Before Dishonor,” he announces in a gruff, wizened voice. “There is nothing I cannot do. That’s the name of my sword: Excalibur…
Although numerous reggae lovers feel that 55-year-old Justin Hinds is one of the best vocalists in the music’s history, only a handful of Americans are familiar with him–and many of them know him better as a hotelier than as a singer. “I have a big house out in the country,…
At 22, Ryan Adams, frontman for the Raleigh, North Carolina-based band Whiskeytown, has already penned more songs than most tunesmiths do in a lifetime. And even he’s not sure how he’s done it. “Songs just come to me,” he insists. “I don’t really try to write them.” Maybe not, but…
Boulder’s Preacherman and the Congregation got its biggest break yet when it was chosen to open last month’s Reggae on the Rocks concert. But shortly after leaving the Red Rocks stage to a positive reaction from thousands of fans at the beginning of the daylong bash, Preacherman (given name: Herman…
Slaughter Revolution (CMC/BMG) Warrant Belly to Belly (CMC/BMG) Dokken Shadowlife (CMC/BMG) A recent Rolling Stone article declaring the return of Eighties-vintage hair metal probably left many readers wishing that the government would set up a hard-rock subsidy program similar to the ones that pay farmers not to grow any crops…
There has been one constant in Jamaican music from the early days of ska through the mid-Sixties rock steady period to the development of reggae and beyond: Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, leader of Toots and the Maytals. You might think of him as the Forrest Gump of modern Jamaican music, although…
Blues Traveler Straight On Till Morning (A&M) Since the birth of rock and roll, the rise of teen idols has been a surefire indicator of a terrible period in popular music–and indeed, the recent successes of acts like Hanson and Robyn (see review on page 92) have come at a…
Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape (Capitol) Like most of you out there, I figured that the self-titled debut by the Foo Fighters would be on par with a Ringo Starr solo album, so the quality of the disc came as a pleasant surprise. However, the recording’s strength meant…
Sleater-Kinney Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars) When a band has been hyped as relentlessly as this one has, there’s always a risk that heightened expectations will lead to profound disappointment. After all, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss aren’t doing anything that won’t be done tonight at…
When Under the Table and Dreaming first appeared in 1994, it garnered mostly positive reviews: People hailed it as sporting “a beguiling sound all its own,” while the New York Post dubbed it “hypnotic.” But within a matter of months, all that changed. In the years since, People called Matthews’s…
Whether you love him or loathe him, you can’t deny that South Africa-born Dave Matthews has become one of the most popular performers in contemporary music, inspiring the sort of fanatical support that has led to comparisons of his self-named band with the grandfather of all cult acts, the Grateful…
The Holmes Brothers Promised Land (Rounder) Most of the CD stores that stock material by the New York-based Brothers Holmes–and not nearly enough of them do–place it in the blues section, as if that’s the only kind of music that three African-Americans of a certain age could possibly be making…
Veruca Salt Eight Arms to Hold You (Outpost/Minty Fresh) In my review of Veruca Salt’s much-ballyhooed debut, 1994’s American Thighs, I lamented the band’s derivative nature (the Breeders and Sonic Youth were among those paid homage via imitation) but suggested that, given some time, the players might eventually develop into…
Most acts that are part of the so-called third wave of ska promote themselves using a simple formula for success: touring, touring, touring. But Isaac Green and the Skalars, among the best of this new generation, recently discovered that the road can sometimes be rough. “We’ve only been on tour…
Big Head Todd & the Monsters Beautiful World (Revolution) A new Big Head Todd album? Well, sort of. These are certainly new songs–or at least songs that haven’t turned up on previous albums credited to the band. (Three cuts bear 1989 copyrights.) And they’ve been produced by a new guy–the…
Putnam Murdock, guitarist and vocalist for Boulder’s Chief Broom, is not an especially earnest student, but he has learned something important during his time at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “As I grow older,” he says, “I’m realizing that there’s no real point to college.” Luckily for Murdock (and…
The career of the Meditations has mirrored the rise and fall (and rise again) of the roots-reggae style this vocal trio so passionately espouses. But singer Ansel Cridland insists that reggae’s recent resurgence is only partly responsible for his reunion with original members Danny Clarke and Winston Watson after more…
