the one after the big one

The 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album DÉJÀ VU was a highwater mark for all involved in terms of sales and musical impact, but it was the tour supporting that record, as well as a 1974 reunion jaunt across...

How were Mason Proffit not a huge band? Built around brothers Terry and John Michael Talbot, this Champaign, Illinois-based collective made five records – three for small labels, two for Warner Bros. – that deftly mined the same country-rock elements...

The overwhelming success of 1984’s CHICAGO 17 shook Chicago (the band, not the city) to its core. It was the biggest-selling record of their then-17-year career, racking up a fistful of hit singles (including the immortal “You’re the Inspiration”) and...

Let us all rise and sing in praise of the great Kip Winger. No mere lite metal god he; a classically trained musician and ballet dancer in his youth, Winger went from backing Alice Cooper in the mid-’80s to fronting...

Things don’t always happen when we think they should happen. Kids say mature things before we expect them to. Winter can come and go with nary a flake dropping from the sky, and then April comes around and with it...

Robert Plant made big news on 1988’s NOW AND ZEN as he, for practically the first time in his solo career, seemed to fully embrace the legacy of Led Zeppelin. It was something he had studiously avoided on previous records...

Long a songwriter’s songwriter, Beth Nielsen Chapman seemed to be on the cusp of greater renown with her self-titled 1991 album and 1993’s YOU HOLD THE KEY, both of which had spawned Adult Contemporary hits in “All I Have,” “That’s...

Though short-lived, the Jimmy Page/Paul Rodgers partnership that resulted in The Firm did just what most anticipated it would do – make loud, arena-ready rock music that hearkened back to the glory years of Led Zeppelin and Bad Company, the...

Has there ever been a more obvious title for a record than Otis Redding’s 1966 release THE SOUL ALBUM? Did Otis Redding ever record anything that was not soulful, ever perform at any function without practically sweating out soul, ever...