Who IS she??

Bought the CD - VERY good! She will be playing a joint called the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, MA on Saturday, November 19 and return to CAFE NINE on Friday, January 6!!!!!!

I recently discovered that Sarah appeared at Cafe Nine in New Haven in early September. "Great rootsy rockers this month as well. On Sept. 2, Boston's Sarah Borges brings shades of Lucinda Williams and Lone Justice's Maria McKee to the club. She's considered by many an artist to watch." Damn!

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Even jaded pros sit up for unheralded singer
By Chris Morris
NASHVILLE (Hollywood Reporter) - Sometimes an unheralded young talent can take even the old pros by surprise. That's exactly what happened in Nashville recently. Los Angeles-based Sin City Marketing was throwing a show at the Exit Inn during the Americana Music Assn. conference. During the company's all-hands-on-deck affair, a slip of a girl named Sarah Borges took the stage, plugged in her guitar for a few numbers, uncorked a wall-rattling wail and blew everybody's head off.

A veteran and not unjaded record distributor, watched the performance in slack-jawed bedazzlement. As many in the Exit Inn house did, he showed up the following night for Borges' official AMA show at the Basement -- ignoring a gig by one of his company's own acts in the process. At the end of the show, he stood outside the club, waiting for Borges to sign a copy of her Blue Corn Music debut "Silver City" for him. - complete story

AMG Biography - Walking that fine line between punk and country, Sarah Borges emerged from Boston with her alt-country debut, Silver City, in 2005. Influenced by a wide range of artists including Mahalia Jackson, Sid Vicious, Hank Williams, and Merle Haggard, Borges has a sound that encompasses rootsy barroom country and hard-edged American rock with a fair amount of ease. Signed to Blue Corn after a well-received gig at South By Southwest in 2004, Borges went into the studio to work on her debut. Some tracks from the demo sessions were good enough to make the final cut, and the album was released to critical praise. She spent a good portion of the summer of 2005 touring and promoting Silver City alongside such respected players as Dave Alvin. - CD review

Artist review - Blue Corn Music

Dylan tributes Catfish Hunter

Catfish Written & Performed by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Disc 3)

Lazy stadium night Catfish on the mound. "Strike three," the umpire said, Batter have to go back and sit down. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can. Used to work on Mr. Finley's farm But the old man wouldn't pay So he packed his glove and took his arm An' one day he just ran away. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can. Come up where the Yankees are, Dress up in a pinstripe suit, Smoke a custom-made cigar, Wear an alligator boot. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can.

Carolina born and bred, Love to hunt the little quail. Got a hundred-acre spread, Got some huntin' dogs for sale. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can. Reggie Jackson at the plate Seein' nothin' but the curve, Swing too early or too late Got to eat what Catfish serve. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can. Even Billy Martin grins When the Fish is in the game. Every season twenty wins Gonna make the Hall of Fame. Catfish, million-dollar-man, Nobody can throw the ball like Catfish can. Copyright © 1975 Ram's Horn Music

Is Stevie Wonder back (and should I care)?

Stevie has been a little boring on the ears for awhile now, but some glowing press about his new CD has me 'wondering' if I should listen up.

Stevie Wonder's 'Love' is worth the wait by Renee Graham, Boston Globe Staff - ''A Time to Love" is Stevie Wonder's first studio album since 1995's ''Conversation Peace," though for much of this year it seemed as if the wait might be even longer....Comparable to 1985's ''In Square Circle," ''A Time for Love" is an enjoyable album that should be judged on its own merits. No, it doesn't compare with Wonder's 1970s masterpieces such as ''Innervisions," ''Talking Book," and ''Songs in the Key of Life." Then again, little else produced by anyone in the last three decades does. - complete review

STEVIE WONDER IN LA TIMES Wonder's hear and tell for the press - Stevie Wonder stages a listening party for his new album to prove he is a figure of the present. by Geoff Boucher LA Times Staff Writer - It's an indelicate question to ask: Does a new Stevie Wonder album really matter? .....The new album is a mix of the "different" Stevie Wonders. "Passionate Raindrops" and "Can't Imagine Love Without You" fall in line with the sounds of his more polished recent hits. "Please Don't Hurt My Baby" is a sharp-edged groove about an infidelity that threatens to capsize a husband's home life, and if it sounds like a throwback to the smokestack rhythms of the old days, there's good reason. - complete article

THE WONDER STUFF by Ben Greenman (The New Yorker) - Stevie Wonder will probably never again have the definitive cultural authority he had in 1976, when he released “Songs in the Key of Life.” .....Wonder has always insisted, with the bravery and naïveté of a great artist, on engaging every aspect of the world around him, both politically and emotionally. This can expose his flaws, which range from minor sententiousness to major sentimentality, but his gaudiest excesses are kept in check this time out. “Please Don’t Hurt My Baby” wraps a snaky, viciously funky synth line around a sharply sung tale of infidelity and tattling; it’s like “O.P.P.” with consequences. “Positivity,” goofy, upbeat, and highly prolix, takes its song title from Prince, just minutes after Prince donates a guitar part on “So What the Fuss.” Elsewhere, on melancholy ballads like “Passionate Raindrops” and “Shelter in the Rain,” the forecast is less optimistic. The talk of weather isn’t so precipitate: Wonder, who moves freely between rock, pop, soul, funk, jazz, and Tin Pan Alley, has always been a man for all seasons, more so than any other act except maybe the Beatles. But while the Beatles could appear to divide up their assets among four distinct personalities—cynical John, romantic Paul, spiritual George, clownish Ringo—Wonder has to do it himself: all the parts, all the moods. - complete article

Rolling Stone Magazine review by Tom Moon - Complain all you want about Stevie Wonder taking his sweet time -- ten years of it in this case -- to deliver a new record. On A Time to Love, the soul giant (and notoriously fussy producer) used that go-slow approach where it really counts: in the grooves. The best tracks on this much-superior follow-up to 1995's flabby Conversation Peace reconnect Wonder with a key trait of "Superstition" and much of his storied Seventies output: a rhythm section that keeps to its own sauntering, funky schedule. - complete review

Les Paul Keeps Rocking at Age 90

By CHARLES J. GANS, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Take it from Peter Frampton. Or from Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Peter Townsend or Jimmy Page — they all owe a debt to Les Paul, father of the electric guitar.

....At age 90, the man who developed the solid-body electric guitar has finally released his first rock album, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played" — which is remarkable considering that he is a longtime inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He appears with Frampton, Beck, Clapton, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora and other guitar legends on the new CD.

....Paul built one of the first prototypes for the solid-body electric guitar in 1941. After repeated rejections, Gibson finally began mass-producing a guitar based on Paul's design in 1952, and the electric guitar went on to become the lead instrument in rock 'n' roll. Paul also developed many of the recording techniques such as multi-tracking and echo delay that made possible such classic rock albums as the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." - complete article

Lucinda Williams - when are you coming back to CT?

Lucinda Williams News

Williams shows why she's a treasure
By Dan Nailen / The Salt Lake Tribune (9/16/05)

Not many performers actually make sense when they say a song has "music inspired by ZZ Top, and lyrics inspired by Flannery O'Connor," but that's the breadth of experience and curiosity that makes Lucinda Williams one of America's true treasures. "Atonement," the song Williams referred to as a mix of Texas' bearded boogie-band and the Georgia-raised author of Wise Blood, came at the close of an often-stunning performance by Williams and her three-man band, guitarist Doug Pettibone, bassist Taras Prodaniuk and drummer Jim Christie.

A native of southern Louisiana who began performing publicly in New Orleans in the early '70s, Williams deferred any mention of the hurricane-induced wreckage of her native stomping grounds until the encore. Kingsbury Hall's pristine acoustics inspired Williams and Co. to create the show on the fly. "Y'all have made us so comfortable that we're going to do a couple of new songs," Williams said early on, after gently boiling performances of "Reason to Cry," "Over Time" and "Those Three Days." "They weren't in the set list, but the set list needed to be changed."

Breaking out untested material is risky for any artist, but the move took the show to new heights. Williams discussed her inspiration for the new songs, and the band clearly loved playing them. "How to Live" was a mid-tempo rocker, while "Well, Well, Well" came on as a mix of Southern gospel and Appalachian mountain music. "Jailhouse Tears" recalled the hard-boiled honky-tonk country of Waylon Jennings. "Knowing" was a gorgeous ballad Williams said was a nod to the style of Sam Cooke and the Muscle Shoals soul sound. Among the older songs, "Still I Long for Your Kiss" absolutely killed, as did a raucous take of "Change the Locks" and the yearning "Essence." Before the encore that launched with "Crescent City," Williams talked about her mother, a New Orleans native, and her death a year ago.

"I can't begin to tell you how much my heart is breaking with what's going on in Louisiana," Williams said. "I haven't even begun to be able to deal with he loss of my mother, and now I'm dealing with the loss of the city my mother grew up in."

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Songs Sung Blue Sunday Herald (Scotland) 7/17/05

She came from Louisiana, found her way to Texas, and wound up in LA, but for Lucinda Williams, home is where the next gig is. The 52-year-old country genius has spent 34 years on the road … and always writes her best songs when she’s heartbroken. “Like a drink?” Lucinda Williams rummages around in the cluttered kitchen and emerges with two large coffee mugs and a bottle of very good red wine. “Sorry”, she says, “no glasses. As you can see, I’m getting ready to move.”

.......Although Nashville had claimed her as its own when Car Wheels won the Grammy, it still preferred its women to be either cartoon tough gals or tragediennes. Not someone with as much attitude as a punk rocker, who would write about female sexuality with such skill that Time magazine would describe her as America’s greatest songwriter. In Nashville, her friend Rosie Flores, the honky-tonk singer told her: “You can’t really rage”. “She’s right”, Williams shakes her head. “You can’t.” complete article

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Opera House, Boston, MA 7/12/05 - Boston Globe review

For blues-tinged chanteuse Lucinda Williams, even a two-week love affair can yield a new song. Or five. (By Chris Smith) - It’s cheap and easy to label Lucinda Williams as the woman of constant sorrow. From her cult hit “Passionate Kisses” through her 1998 masterpiece, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, to this year’s double CD, Live @ the Fillmore, Williams’s music captures so many fractionate emotions—longing, lust, anger, and yes, even humor—that the seductive 52-year-old is more properly described as a biographer of the heart. Chris Smith spoke to Williams, who plays the Beacon Theater on July 14, about meeting Dylan, the trouble with New York journalists, and heartbreak of several stripes. complete article...

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Lucinda Williams, Musician, 49, Nashville interviewed by Brendan Vaughan (Esquire, February 2002)
The perfect man? A poet on a motorcycle. You know, the kind who lives on the edge, the free spirit. But he's also gotta have the soul of a poet and a brilliant mind. So, you know, good luck. complete interview

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NPR concert at 9:30 Club in Washington, DC
Hell on Wheels -The Guardian 5/17/03

Encore From a Utopia by Robert Christgau for the Village Voice, 6/12/01