Jenny Lewis’ musical career is the second act in her working life. She first achieved fame as a child star, appearing in commercials then movies like The Wizard and Troop Beverly Hills. She largely quit acting in the mid-1990s to…
Jeff Buckley is best known for his sensitive reading of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. It’s well done, but taken alone it undersells Buckley’s immense talents. Far more than a crooner, he was also a talented guitarist and a sophisticated songwriter –…
Congratulations to the Punk Panther and to Rich Kamerman, who both scored 20/20 in last week’s Classic Rock Cover Match quiz. This week, you’re invited to join regular readers in identifying which artist a greatest hits collection belongs to. Even…
Lloyd Chudley Alexander was stationed in Wales during the Second World War. He was inspired by the country’s scenery and castles, as well as the Welsh mythology of the Mabinogion. He took names and ideas from Welsh mythology, mixing them…
Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965-1968 and was…
There were plenty of healthy scores in last week’s hard-to-Google band quiz – noone’s score could be described as “paltry”, “meagre”, or “meager”. EclecticMusicLover and Tony both scored 17 This week’s quiz is surprisingly tough. The median score is only…
One of this week’s artists is almost four times as old as the other – 81-year-old veteran Paul Simon has released his fifteenth solo album (along with five with Art Garfunkel). Meanwhile, 22-year-old Arlo Parks has just released her sophomore…
Despite writing hit songs in the late 1960s and her induction into the rock and roll hall of fame, Laura Nyro is a niche figure compared to contemporaries like Joni Mitchell and Carole King. But the piano playing singer-songwriter from the Bronx made some…
Congratulations to James Kalyn, who scored 18/18 in less than a minute in last week’s Hard to Google Bands quiz Just like last week, your challenge is to identify a band from two of its popular songs. All of these…
This week, we have two female songwriters, both from the northwest. Country/Americana artist Brandy Clark is from the Pacific Northwest originally. Meanwhile, Susanne Sundfør is from Norway, the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Both explore their heritage…
