Lyle Lovett
Lyle Pearce Lovett is an American singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. Active since 1980, he has recorded 13 albums and released 25 singles to date, including his highest entry, the number 10 chart hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, “Cowboy Man”. Wikipedia
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Eva Cassidy
in memorium
(February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American singer and guitarist known for her interpretations of jazz and blues. In 1992, she released her first album, The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by the 1996 live solo album titled Live at Blues Alley.
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Billy Price
Billy Price
Billy Price is a legendary soul-blues vocalist who has spent over five decades as a cornerstone of the Pittsburgh music scene. He first gained national prominence in the mid-1970s as the lead singer for guitar virtuoso Roy Buchanan, appearing on acclaimed albums like That’s What I’m Here For and the high-energy Live Stock. This early exposure established Price as a premier interpreter of “blue-eyed soul,” a reputation he solidified after forming the Keystone Rhythm Band in 1977. Throughout the 1980s, the group became a regional powerhouse, blending gritty urban blues with the smooth, rhythmic phrasing of Southern soul.
In the years following the Keystone Rhythm Band, Price continued to refine his craft with the Billy Price Band. A career pinnacle arrived in 2016 when he won a Blues Music Award for Best Soul Blues Album for This Time for Real, a collaborative project with his long-time idol, Otis Clay. Price has remained remarkably prolific in his later years, releasing celebrated albums such as Reckoning and Dog Eat Dog, both of which earned further award nominations. His 2024 release, Person of Interest, marked a significant creative milestone as his first collection consisting entirely of original material. Beyond his musical life, Price maintained a long-term professional career in corporate communications at Carnegie Mellon University until 2023. Now fully retired from his “day job,” he continues to tour extensively across the United States and Europe, remaining a vital force in the international blues community.
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The Jayhawks
The Jayhawks
One of the most enduring and beloved groups of the last thirty years, The Jayhawks first emerged from Minneapolis in the mid-1980’s, though their commercial and critical breakthrough didn’t arrive until the release of their 1992 masterpiece, Hollywood Town Hall. Over the ensuing decades, the band would go on to record a series of highly influential albums and tour the world countless times over, sharing stages with everyone from Bob Dylan and Tom Petty to Lucinda Williams and Wilco along the way. Following an extended hiatus in the mid-2000’s, Louris and his long-time bandmates—bassist Marc Perlman, drummer Tim O’Reagan, and keyboardist Karen Grotberg—returned to the studio, most recently releasing the acclaimed Paging Mr. Proust and Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
The 11th Jayhawks studio album XOXO was released on July 10, 2020 through Sham/Thirty Tigers. Recorded in late 2019 at Pachyderm and Flowers Studios in Minnesota, XOXO represents a bold step forward. For the first time, all four members contribute writing and lead vocal duties. XOXO is the most diverse and wide-ranging in the group’s storied history. Rather than marking a sonic departure, though, the collection signals a sharpening of focus for the band, an elevation in understanding of who they are and what they do best. In classic Jayhawks fashion, the songs here mix the influence of American roots music with British invasion and jangly power-pop, but there’s a newfound vitality at play, as well, an invigoration of confidence and energy that could only come with the injection of fresh blood. The result is an album that, much like the band’s lush harmonies, brings multiple distinctive voices together into a singular whole, a collection that, ironically enough, finds unity in individuality and identity in reinvention.
