The second of the three Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band reunion-tour shows I attended was no mere concert, but a blow-out bash; and while not the favorite Springsteen concert that I’ve enjo…

We watched Ordinary People last night. It’s a film we’d both seen before, though not in decades. Diane first saw it in a movie theater not long after its Sept. 19, 1980, release and I first saw it …

Mellow. Meandering. Mesmerizing. Those three words define what is Neil Young’s umpteenth studio set, this one finding him backed again by the Chrome Hearts, aka the Promise of the Real with Micah N…

Truth be told, for much of the year, I haven’t been inspired to put a proverbial pen to proverbial paper (i.e., tap-tap-tap on a keyboard) and crank out reviews the way I did in years past. Sitting…

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Last weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, we traveled 440+ miles of highways, byways and back roads from North Carolina to Philadelphia in order to witness Bruce Springsteen and his mighty E…

Emophilia is a word I learned from singer-songwriter Lillian Leadbetter. She used it in an interview while promoting her shimmering 2023 debut, State of Romance, explaining that it’s a psychologica…

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What becomes a concert most? For those who ventured to the Union Chapel in the London district of Islington on March 4, 2026, to see singer-songwriter Lucy Rose, well, the memory has been preserved…

Oh my. Oh my my. Since Sunday last, my head’s been spinning like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist due not to demonic possession, though some may say just that, but a mind-blowing discovery: Maria McKe…

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(Nanci/Flyer tour booklet) Diane and I were in a doctor’s waiting room yesterday afternoon, when a quick glance at my phone revealed the sad news: Nanci Griffith had passed away at the age of 68. I…

Mottled sunlight flows betwixt gray-hued clouds and casts a hazy tint on the day. The air is thick with mist, while the grass is cushiony and damp from dew. It’s a jingle-jangle morning in summerti…

August 4th, 1982, a Wednesday, was a good summer’s day, weather-wise, in the Delaware Valley. The high topped out at 89, while the overnight low was 69. In the headlines: Israeli tanks rolled…

As It write, it’s been 17 days and 12 hours (give or take 20 minutes) since my last cigarette. On the morning of the 13th, instead of stepping onto the back porch while my K-cup machine powere…

There’s a line in “Spring Petals in the Snow,” a ruminative number found on Mikaela Davis’ Graceland Way album, that has resonated with me since I first heard it: “Time moves forward but I’m lost i…

A few years back, I spotlighted the classic Gerry Goffin-Carole King song “Up on the Roof,” first recorded by the Drifters in 1962, about seeking escape from the drudgeries and pressures of life by…

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the adjective “sublime” as “very beautiful or good : causing strong feelings of admiration or wonder.” That’s the concise summary, at least. The extend…

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Earlier this week, I tripped through the time portal that is Richard Haswell’s With the Changing Light and landed in late 1983. Most weekday mornings that autumn, I boarded a SEPTA bus in downtown …

In early 1996, a few months after the passing of fellow traveler David Briggs (1944-95), Neil saddled up the Horse and took it for a much-needed ride. The result: Broken Arrow, which was released o…

The passage of time is much on my mind, these days. The first things are becoming the last things. Will an encore follow? Or will the house lights nudge us into the night without one last turn in t…

I’m in the car, not driving far—to the grocery store and back—and yet it feels like I’ve jetted into the past. During my distant college daze, I routinely saddled up a rusty ol’ Chevette and rode i…

I dreamt last night that Diane wanted to burn a CDR of songs for the car but couldn’t recall how. I still remember the process, I said, but was pretty sure it’s become an overly complicated endeavo…

We pressed play on the new Paul McCartney album on the day of its release. Road noise, conversation, and my ancient iPhone’s occasional conniption fits—it can no longer handle the Music and Maps ap…

June 16th, 1967 was a momentous day in the world of rock ’n’ roll: the three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival kicked off. Wikipedia provides the specifics for the now-legendary event, …

I’m grooving to the Dream Syndicate’s 2022 album, Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions, at the moment. It’s a tremendous set that, for good and bad, is forever linked in my mind to my moth…

Just before May folded into June, as I noted last week, Diane and I undertook an arduous journey into the past in order to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in our former stomping grounds…

Last evening, Diane and I watched a film we’d never seen before: St. Elmo’s Fire. For those unfamiliar with the movie, which was released in June 1985, it’s a so-called “brat pack” picture about th…

Last weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, we traveled 440+ miles of highways, byways and back roads from North Carolina to Philadelphia in order to witness Bruce Springsteen and his mighty E…

I have no idea as to where I was, or what I was doing, on this day in 1986. I can say, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, that it was a Tuesday and a fine, fine day and great night, given that …

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Too often, especially as we age, the waves of time wash over the sturdy landmarks of our youth like the ocean during high tide; and, when the water recedes, what’s left are merely dull fragments of…

On this day in 1967, a Sunday, the Middle East was headed toward the conflict now known as the Six-Day War; it would begin on June 5th when Israel launched a preemptive strike against the Arab armi…

1978 was a monumental year in my life, so much so that I’ve littered this blog with posts about it. (Click here for those.) For the uninitiated: I was 12 when the year dawned, and 13 when it faded …

Although it seems daft to me now, in the early and mid-‘80s I often bought albums on cassette, and cassette only. I’d love to say that, for a time, I did so due to me taking not one, but two buses …

Who Am I? Why Am I Here?

Barack Obama pays tribute to American songs and artists that have shown our country the way forward, from country to blues, Motown, jazz, and more.

Since beginning this occasional series in 2017, I included this italicized explanation at the top of my picks until earlier this year: “As noted in my first Essentials entry, this is an occasi…

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Thirty-five years ago the Village Mall in Horsham, Pa., became my second home. At the time, it was an indoor shopping experience. A Woolco – where my parents bought me Elvis’ Golden Hits…

It’s an album that flummoxed critics and fans alike at the time of its April 30, 1973, release, though it topped the charts in the U.S. and peaked at No. 5 in the U.K. It still flummoxes many now.&…

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Where has the time gone?! It seems just like yesterday that I was a studious sixth-grader (yes, that’s me to the left) successfully navigating the rigors of academia at Loller Middle School, …

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Tomorrow night, weather and health permitting, we’ll be situated in über-expensive first-level seats at the Wells Fargo barn in South Philly and grooving to the sing-along stylings of Sir Paul McCa…

April 1985 wasn’t a particularly busy month for me, music-wise, but it was a monumental one nonetheless. On the 17th of that month (31 years ago to the day as I write) I picked up, on cassett…