By Mikal Gilmore A Beautiful Time is the fifth album in a series by Willie Nelson reflecting on life, death and things in-between, all produced by Nashville’s Buddy Cannon, who also wrote many of the songs with Nelson. God’s Problem Child led off the procession in 2017, and roughly every…

By Alan Light In 1976, the Jacksons stood at a crossroads. As the Jackson 5, the future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers had already made history — they were the first act to see their first four singles hit Number One on the pop charts, and established themselves as…

By Mikal Gilmore In 2019, with Ride Me Back Home [LISTEN], Willie Nelson seemed to be winding up a trilogy — begun in 2017 with God’s Problem Child [LISTEN], followed by 2018’s Last Man Standing [LISTEN]— that was largely about mortality. It doesn’t seem surprising that an 87-year-old singer should…

Sometimes a Fantasy is All You Need: 40 Years of Billy Joel’s Glass Houses It’s 1980, and Billy Joel is trying to solve a problem. The hardscrabble piano player from Long Island sits in a studio with producer Phil Ramone, who’s collaborated with Joel on blockbuster albums The Stranger (1977)…

by Mikal Gilmore — With Willie Nelson’s Ride Me Back Home, the artist rounds out a trilogy about mortality that began in 2017 with God’s Problem Child and was followed in 2018 with Last Man Standing. To sure…

Willie Nelson doesn’t want to be the last man standing, he declares on the title track of this new album, made up of eleven original songs co-written with producer Buddy Cannon. After a moment’s consideration, he adds: “On second thought, maybe I do.” — The song is a wry concession to an overshadowing truth that accompanies Willie Nelson and his music every step at this stage of his life: He’s an 84-year-old man who is one of America’s most preternaturally active and creative artists, and he keeps on going. He still performs something like…

On February 1st this year, in the middle of an opening date at Las Vegas’s Venetian Theater, Willie Nelson announced a new song he hadn’t sung in public before. “I’m not sure if everybody in the band even knows it yet.” The five musicians alongside Nelson accompanied him into “Still…

Transcripts of Lou talking about his own favorite songs. Available now: The RCA & Arista Collection Vol. 1. “Who Am I?” This popular mix is one of two versions of the same song. The other version was done by producer Ric Wake, minus my band. This one is a…

The Wonder of You: Elvis Presley with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, New album features powerful Elvis vocal performances with brand-new orchestral accompaniment. Follow up to the global phenomenon IF I CAN DREAM released in 2015. — I still find myself captivated by many of Elvis’s songs. His style of translating lyrics with music gives the listener the sense that even though he’s singing…he’s speaking his feelings and living them throughout the song. When I listen to “Don’t,” which he recorded when he was only 22-years-old, I…