Folk

My wife and I were standing on a corner in New Orleans admiring some items in a shop window. Then we heard a voice singing. Memories from my youth flashed through my brain – Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Joan Baez – and I was sure this was a recording. Then we looked toward the source of the sound and saw Christina Friis strumming on her guitar and supercharging the New Orleans air.

The Lumineers, Walk the Moon, and Portugal. The Man headline this year's Radio 94.7 Electric Christmas Concert on December 7, 2017.

These 1983-84 concerts feature a mix of uptempo originals, dark ballads and slow rockers, and traditional folk numbers. Taken together, they showcase Thompson's brilliant songwriting and aggressive, sometimes psychedelic guitar wizardry.

'For Those Who Came Before: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War' from Barbez and Velina Brown, is an amazing example of how music over 80 years old can not only be relevant today, but sound just as exciting and stirring as it did when originally written.

Tragic overtones aside, the smooth beauty of Emily Mure's music leaves a quietly happy echo, while Bob Bradshaw's 'American Echoes' shows a singer, songwriter, and bandleader in full command of his muse.

In a just world, Ray Wylie Hubbard's 'Tell the Devil I'm Gettin' There as Fast as I Can' would be heard on radios around the country.

God and the Devil figure prominently in the Texas troubadour's magnificent and dark new opus. But it's music itself that's authentically sacred in the world he creates.

Shifting Borders is a cocktail that embraces the music of multiple cultures and merges them together into a melodic brew.

'Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World' will make you listen to everything from country to jazz, blues, and rock in a whole new way.

'Something Else' isn't about reinvention in the purest sense, but reimagination. It shows that The Cranberries are willing (and able) to retrofit their formidable canon, and that's not something every recording act is capable of 25 years into their career.