Curtis Mayfield Street Soul 1990 (Live 1990) Shockwaves 1990 was meant to be the comeback in Curtis Mayfield’s career. It started off that way too. A new studio album, his best in a while, and wiping the taste from the 1985 flop; like a lot of artists that made their name and rewrote the rules […]
It was going to be the last gig I saw ahead of lockdown, though I couldn’t know that then. It was the Arts Festival and I had been to a few shows and enjoyed most of them and I was very interested to see Nadia Reid – because I had enjoyed seeing her shows, previously. […]
We aren’t always what we pretend to see and the future is not what it was going to be. But things can always be worse and this too as they say shall pass I’m still able to pluck out a verse I won’t tell you where this one was stuck.
Boris Gardiner, Everything To Me (1986) I first learned about Boris Gardiner due to a random library-find, back in those busy toddler-caring days of finding some salvation by digging in the library’s music section. The album, Every Nigger Is A Star, a soundtrack album to a banned movie was the one. A fantastic album. Gardiner […]
Welcome to episode 214 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T and Yeastie Boys . Now – as you probably know, as well as the usual platforms (this site, soundcloud, iTunes/Apple) you can now get to Sweetman Podcast on Spotify – follow it there and have it saved in your […]
I always love having a chat about music on RNZ – I look forward to the chance every month or so to have a natter and for this feature I got to talk about Tori Amos – specifically the early albums – I was a fan from when I first heard them. I haven’t always kept […]
the death of music journalism happened one day while I was still writing someone pronounced it dead – despite the various typos a quick fact-check revealed it was never actually alive – despite the claims from many that a pulse was charging through it right from when Gay Talese caught Frank Sinatra’s light sneeze in […]
Chris Dingman Embrace Inner Arts Initiative / Chris Dingman It’s like the cue for an obscure, subversive joke – a vibraphonist named Chris Dingman, but this is not the jazz edition of Doonesbury, this is the third album by virtuoso vibes guy Chris Dingman – here he pares the sound back to that of a […]
Ken Boothe, Everything I Own (1974) Ken Boothe is a sort of journeyman Jamaican vocalist – made over in the early 1970s to sing some Johnny Nash-styled pop-reggae vibes. I like the best of his work a great deal, fantastic cover versions and he wrote a few tunes too. He has great musicians in support […]
When I saw Brian Wilson play he looked like he might have left the iron on at home, or was wondering if he’d put his car-keys in the salad bowl, or left the cat-food in the swimming pool (again). His hands traced tiny circles as they hovered over the prop-keyboard. Stabbing here, there and sometimes […]
The great Jimmy Cobb has died, aged 91. He was the last surviving member of the dream team that played on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – the jazz album that even non-jazz fans know and love (and probably own). Cobb was one of the great jazz drummers – a master of sensitivity and taste, […]
The Necks Three Northern Spy Records / Fish of Milk / Shock Celebrating the passing of three decades together – pointing to the fact that there’s been no line-up changes, the three founder members remaining (still and always) Three is also comprised of three individual 20-minute instrumental pieces; where often The Necks play for one […]