Music

The angel choir just got a whole lot sweeter Thursday night. Legendary blues guitarist Riley B. King -- "Blues Boy" King, and better known as B.B. King -- passed away in his Las Vegas home while undergoing home hospice care for dehydration.

King's particular guitar style and soulful voice were instrumental in elevating the blues genre into the mainstream. Together, he and his trusty Gibson ES-355 went on to produce more than forty albums, including "There Must Be a Better World Somewhere," "There is Always One More Time," and the unforgettable "Lucille," named after the moniker he gave his guitar after rescuing it from a burning bar in Twist, Arkansas, caused by a fight by two men over a girl named Lucille.

Twitter today is overflowing with tribute posts from musicians of all genres, a testament to the influence the man had on all of music.

George Lucas gets a lot of Internet anger directed his way. In fact, I've made some choice criticisms about his work over the years.  Still, it's hard to argue that for many of us he created our favorite fictional world.  It doesn't just stop with STAR WARS either. My God, the Indiana Jones trilogy is amongst my most loved films, as well.

While most of the work he's created in the past twenty years doesn't stand up to those classics I mentioned above, he did release the wonderful RED TAILS a few years ago.  Like any creator, Lucas is hit or miss, but his highs are so far above most others, it boggles the mind.

When I was just a small child, I would get my hands on a couple of my mother’s pots and a couple of wooden spoons, and go to town making the most unharmonious racket you can imagine. It wouldn’t take long before those cooking implements were taken away and peace and quiet was restored to the Ritter household. I can’t honestly say that I remember having seen a drummer of any sort before that experience, so maybe it’s more of a primal instinct for humans to make music, however they can manage it. Some people are just plain gifted—prodigies on piano or guitar at a young age that make it look effortless to produce sounds some trained professionals would be hard-pressed to achieve with a lifetime of practice. Some are only concert megastars in the shower or in their car, but either way only in their own heads (that’s me!). Some rare, lucky individuals blaze a new path, turning the kitchenware cacophony of my youth into a fusion of jazz, rock, tap dance and sketch comedy.

SOUL STORIES, releasing May 5^th from Innervision Records, is guitarist Blake Aaron’s fifth album and his first that is entirely self-produced, with 8 of the 10 songs on the CD being original compositions.

From the very first track, “Groove-O-Matic,” it was easy to hear that Blake is no run-of-the-mill guitarist, but rather a highly accomplished virtuoso of the instrument. He plays with a controlled fluency that shines through whether the song is slow, fast, acoustic or electric.

The concept of getting various fairy tale characters to interact with each other in a shared universe is always an intriguing concept (if, not necessarily, a new one, as easily attested to by ONCE UPON A TIME and, even before that, with Bill Willingham's series, FABLES). In this Disney musical, the audience enjoys an interweaving of Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel, orbiting around an entirely new tale of the Baker and his wife who are out to lift a curse put on their family by a witch.

Sit back and let me tell you the legend of a singer. She came from a faraway land called Canada, and she had a voice that could tame wild animals. She was catapulted to fame, and was one of the touchpoints for when country music transitioned into from traditional to pop. And then, one day, at the height of her fame... she was gone.

Her name was Shania Twain, and she was unforgettable.

In 2012, Shania returned for a live performance at The Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. That show, "Still The One," incorporated backup singers, dancers, a full orchestra, and interactivity with a giant video screen, delivering an eye-popping performance of music and memories, Vegas-style.

SPIRIT OF ‘67 is the first album by Vanilla Fudge in 10 years. The group still retains three of the four original members of the band: Carmine Appice on drums, Mark Stein on lead vocals and keyboards, and Vince Martell on guitars. They’re joined by Pete Bremy on bass, who replaces Tim Bogert. The band continues to be true to their original form of playing covers of some of the greatest songs in rock and R&B. The only difference here is that, when they first started, the covers they did were of fairly current songs; now they are bona-fide classics.

On this album they cover songs that range from the Doors to the Stones, the Who to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, from Procol Harum to Marvin Gaye, and others, putting their own touch, their own style on every song.

Some critics will scoff at The Million Dollar Quartet for its thin plot and light conflicts. If you see a review of this show somewhere that does exactly that, you should quit reading those critics because clearly they didn’t get it. This is a show based on actual events in which there wasn’t any real conflict. In fact, what conflict there is in this show is probably somewhat inflated if not outright fabricated. Every musical need not be as densely plotted as Rent or as elaborately staged as Warhorse. Sometimes a simple brick backdrop and four talented actors and musicians recreating a magical alignment of budding stars is all you need to keep the audience’s toes a-tappin’ until they raise the roof during the grand finale.

I'm lucky to have experienced Beatlemania. Unfortunately, it was thirty years after all the other wild teenage girls. I grew up listening to the music my parent's enjoyed like most children. But I didn't just tolerate it, I loved it...with a passion! Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen played on my tape deck non-stop and my radio was always set to the New York area oldies station, CBS-FM. And then, I can't remember what started it, but I discovered the Beatles. When I did, it exploded. I listened to my parents' vinyls, they bought me the CD's as they were released, I watched the Beatles movies on repeat and tried to get my hands on any form of them performing. Remember, this was well before YouTube. I couldn't just type in “Beatles” into a search box and click through all of the results. I had to seek as much as I could and, trust me, I did. I had been infected with Beatlemania and completely understood the allure. And for me, I never lost that adoration.

I don’t find a whole lot of modern music to be my cup of tea. It seems so often overproduced, Auto-Tuned, and predictable. When I discover an act that feels a little different from the rest, an act that features honest vocals, strong musicianship and more mature songwriting than a bunch of “Yeah, yeah, baby, baby, blah blah blahs,” that’s when I get excited.

For a vinylphile like me theses are marvelous times.

Records are making/have made a comeback. Whether it is because people have finally come to their senses that vinyl records sound superior to any other recorded medium, or because records companies are trying to find a way to make money again now that the people who forsook records for ease and portability have now forsaken that medium for the even worse sound but greater portability of digital file music, and they need something to generate cash flow for them now, they’ve realized that the record faithful have never gone away. We’ve just stood in the shadows, intent on letting the trends go by while we bask in sonic superiority listing to great music spinning on our turntables.

Whatever the real reason the record companies have decided to make LP’s again is really irrelevant. The fact is they are back in the groove again, and I am happy.

SUM OF THE PARTS is a 90-minute documentary of the band and artists that are the group Genesis. It chronicles the band’s music from its inception up to their 2007 reunion concert, as well as detailing each member’s solo career with added interviews into present day.

Genesis is almost unique in the music world in that their popularity has stood the test of time. Despite lineup changes, butting heads, changes in musical styles and never really being known as a “rock” band, they have achieved lasting worldwide fame both as a group and as solo artists.

So a couple weeks ago I was fooling around on YouTube, and I made the rookie mistake of actually reading some of the comments on a video. (I know, I know. Sigh).

Anyway, in the comments of a particular video, I noticed a user with the name of “Lucky” advertising his channel and asking people to come check out his videos. I was feeling particularly snarky, so I went to take a look, preparing myself to blast the user with both petulant barrels for wasting my time.

I’m glad I went. Over the next several days, I listened to every video on the channel. Sometimes twice, often more. My regular Pandora stations were completely neglected, and my iTunes account got a reprieve.

I had to try and learn more about Lucky, but didn’t really learn a whole lot. I learned his first name, I learned he has a Facebook account, and I learned he records all of his own stuff on a laptop in a closet. That’s it.

It's a day for building relationships. President Obama has just opened the door to normalizing relations with Cuba, and Live Nation and Hollywood Casino have come together in a multi-year agreement allowing Hollywood Casino to be the new name-in-title sponsor of the (now former) Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, which as of today is the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre.

On hand for the live announcement were Dave Gerardi, President of Live Nation Midwest, and Todd George, Hollywood Casino General Manager.

Joshua Mills has been in the recording business for fifteen years now, but only this year released his first Christmas album. Focused on a theme of miracles -- and the desire to bring miracles back to Christmas -- affected not only the album title, CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, but several of the tracks, which are a blend of original songs and traditional standards.

With Christmas fast approaching, we spoke with Mills about his album as well as the unique production methods involved in making it happen.

How daunting is it to set out to do brand new music for a seasonal niche that's packed with some pretty long-standing standards?

If you read my recent review of the Garth Brooks concert in St. Louis, you would recall that I don’’t consider myself a country music fan. Except for Brooks, perhaps Kenny Rogers and Jimmy Buffett—if he even qualifies as country, I’ve never been sure what genre label best applies to the founding father of Margaritaville—I’ve had no use for it. The greats like Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins are resting in peace, and the modern country I was subjected to my various girlfriends in their cars was all bad yodeling and hillbilly overkill. Chattahoochee is an Indian word given to a river, not a four-word sentence. Everybody sounded like they were describing a “tore nay doe” on the local news. And every song boiled down to four topics: boots, trucks, women and beer. How could anyone listen to such a depressingly limited genre of music?

There’s only one thing better than happy hour after a long, difficult day at work and that is going to the Happy Hour Tour of Straight No Chaser at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. I’ve seen the boys from Indiana University four times now, and I take a little something different from each show. I expect the next four times I see them will be just as entertaining.

As I write this, 17,000 odd St. Louisians and tourists from far and wide are trying to reach a bar set extremely high. You see, more often than not, weeknight music concerts are typically under-attended and underwhelming. This was not the case on Thursday, December 4, 2014, when country music superstar Garth Brooks and his lovely superstar wife Trisha Yearwood returned to the St. Louis music scene after nearly two decades of the quiet life.

I've been a fan of the a capella group Straight No Chaser for a few years now -- and if you've not heard of them before, immediately Google up "Straight No Chaser Indiana Twelve Days of Christmas." Don't make me break out the lmgtfy.com on you! I've only recently (as in, "Frozen" recently) learned about Kristen Bell's singing chops, and I'm equally enamored of her talents.

So bringing these two (or eleven, depending on how you want to count) together for a new Christmas song was both natural and genius. SNC retains their unique harmonics, and Bell's female tones are a welcome addition to the sound. Both also have a unique humor to their music, which makes "Text Me Merry Christmas" a funny, and perhaps personally painful, song for the modern celebration of the holiday.

Oh Les Claypool, you misunderstood genius, what in the world have you done?