Before "Who's Johnny," before the heartbreaking string of legal troubles and before last year's subtle comeback album Second Chance, El DeBarge was the silver-tongued frontman of one of Motown's last great pop acts: DeBarge. The family unit - Eldra, Mark, Bunny, Randy and James - struck gold on the charts with self-penned jams like "Time Will Reveal" and "I Like It," plus gems from crack pop tunesmiths like David Foster ("Who's Holding Donna Now?") and Diane Warren (the smash "Rhythm of the

“Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day/And tell the world that everything’s okay.  But I’ll try to carry a little darkness on my back/Till things are brighter, I’m the Man in Black.” And though Johnny Cash appeared as that Man in Black, immortalized in his song, he was in reality a man of many colors.  His music reflected a crucial empathy that guided his career as he embraced the various strains of America itself, both its people and its music.  Records preserve Cash walking with superstars

Gumbo’s on the menu, and Rhino Handmade is serving.  The self-titled Bearsville debut LP from Bobby Charles is a N’awlins stew of roots music, laid-back country, soul and pure rock-and-roll from the man who gave the world “See You Later, Alligator,” and Rhino Handmade has expanded the original 1972 LP with two discs of delicious bonus material (RHM2 52663, 2011), shipping today from the label. It’s somewhat ironic that Bobby Charles was recorded in Woodstock, New York, as the man born Robert

Light in the Attic is having a party, and you’re invited!  Fresh from the success of Our Lives Are Shaped by What We Love: Motown’s MoWest Story (review here), the label has announced another exciting anthology.  You might not know Charles “Packy” Axton now, but chances are, you’ll want to get to know him.  Born in Memphis, Tennessee into the Stax Records family (his mother Estelle Axton and her brother Jim Stewart founded the Stax label!), “Packy” picked up the saxophone at a young age and

The British Film Institute describes Ronald Neame’s 1963 film I Could Go on Singing as a “made-to-measure portrait of a singer grappling with her many demons before a London Palladium concert.”  With the singer in question portrayed by the incandescent Judy Garland in what would turn out to be her final film role, it’s only natural to wonder just how much of the film was art imitating life.  Or was it the other way around?  Garland herself had performed triumphantly on the famed London stage as

Audiophile specialty label Audio Fidelity continues to revisit familiar titles in 24k Gold CD editions with its two latest releases, both due August 23: James Taylor's 1970 breakthrough Sweet Baby James, and Heart's 1998 retrospective Greatest Hits. In the documentary film Troubadours, Carole King comments that due to the "generational and cultural turbulence...there was a hunger for the intimacy of what we did." And as 1970 began, listeners certainly did hunger for James Taylor. After the

Raise your hand if you're familiar with Cold Chisel!  If you're not, don't worry - you can still pass "Go" and collect your 200 bucks.  The band known as Cold Chisel comes from the home of Men at Work (of course), AC/DC, Olivia Newton-John, Peter Allen and Helen Reddy: Australia.  Although the band never gained the international fame those other artists did, they remain one of the biggest acts ever in the land down under.  Almost forty years after the band's founding, Cold Chisel kicked off