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Last night’s episode of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues, called “Godfathers and Sons,” was a fascinating failure: fascinating because it gave insight into what made Chicago special in the development of the blues, especially the electric blues, and had some great recent and archival performances by Koko Taylor, Howlin’ Wolf, …

The MPAA has stopped sending out screening copies of films to its members in advance of the awards season due to concerns about piracy. Independent filmmakers cry foul: The Independent Feature Project, which represents 9,000 independent filmmakers, said that the decision would severely hurt independent films and filmmakers. ….The so-called …

Okay, this is a serious topic about how musicians are going to earn a decent living while the music industry is in a period of “transition.” On the one hand, everything old is new again as playing live returns to its place as the most reliable revenue source (not that …

There is no way anyone can accuse Martin Scorsese of imposing any kind of uniformity of style of format upon the directors he chose for the seven films that make up his PBS series The Blues. Thus far we’ve had his own fairly straight documentary “Feel Like Going Home” connecting …

Sure, it’s a marketing tsunami, and the “Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues” branding on everything but Robert Johnson’s grave is a bit much. But the films have been tremendous, and the music is even better. After a pause due to the departure of our great friend and colleague Jan Herman, …

Steve was right: last night’s episode of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues, “The Road to Memphis,” was fun, powerful and very moving. Director Richard Pearce followed blues superstar B.B. King and mid-level blues veteran Bobby Rush in their respective tour buses as they and other performers converged on Memphis for …

I am really enjoying Martin Scorsese’s blues series on PBS. Sunday night’s debut was a journey, directed by Scorsese himself, from the Mississippi Delta to Mali in West Africa with young bluesman Corey Harris, going farther and farther back in time until all black music conjoined in the primordial, wildly …

Sorry I’ve been scarce – been working intensely on an article, and this afternoon Dawn and I appeared with the brilliant and charming Dee Perry on the Cleveland NPR station WCPN to discuss this old bloggy world of ours and to cast our spell over the masses, needless to say. …

The Isley Brothers have moved fluidly through time and a wide range of musical genres (including R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, funk, psychedelic rock and smooth urban soul) to create an essential body of work. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, brothers O’Kelly (December 25, 1937-March 31, 1986), Rudolph (born April …

In 1982 guitarist-keyboardist-singer Roland Orzabal, and singer-bassist-keyboardist Curt Smith left the ska group Graduate to form Tears for Fears, an ambitious blending of synth-pop and primal psychology. Their first single was “Mad World,” which combined odd, syncopated percussion with moody synths and Smith’s haunted vocals on killer lines to forge …