Email Author Lawrence Kay

2001 Stories by Lawrence Kay

• Charley Patton

  published December 26, 2001

  Although he never got the notice Robert Johnson received through Eric Clapton and his crowd, Charley Patton is generally considered the... More >>

• John Hartford

  published December 12, 2001

  It was a sad day last June when country/ bluegrass innovator John Hartford passed away after a long struggle with lymphoma. Hartford was an... More >>

• Slack Keys and MP3s

  published December 5, 2001

  On a Sunday morning in El Cerrito, as the gray skies turn to drizzle, several silver-haired, denim-clad collectors at Down Home Music's monthly 78... More >>

• Start Slacking

  published December 5, 2001

  Sol Hoopii -- Master of the Hawaiian Guitar, Vol. 1-2 (Rounder) Dazzling guitar work by one of the best-known... More >>

• The Velvet Underground

  published December 5, 2001

  When the Velvet Underground toured the West Coast with Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable back in 1966, the response was underwhelming to... More >>

• Sweet Musette

  published November 14, 2001

  When she was a young girl in Paris in the '60s, Odile Lavault was not particularly aware of the seismic upheavals in French popular music... More >>

• SF Music Awards 2001

  published October 17, 2001

  It was a strange experience putting this show together in the midst of so much turmoil. The timing was all wrong. I found myself sending out... More >>

• Various Artists

  published October 3, 2001

  Several years back -- around the time of John Hughes and Flashdance -- soundtrack albums lost their link to the movies they accompanied,... More >>

• The Clean; Slumber Party

  published September 19, 2001

  In the late '70s, when the alternaworld sprang fully formed and safety-pinned from the head of Zeus (or John Lydon, depending on whom you ask), a... More >>

• The New Tweedy Brothers

  published August 22, 2001

  By the time the New Tweedy Brothers put out their only album in 1968, the group had been on the San Fran scene for several years, opening for the... More >>

• Steel Away

  published August 1, 2001

  The pedal steel guitar is an ungainly, baffling instrument -- a complicated gadget with two necks, strings that bend like saltwater taffy, and a... More >>

• Teenage Fanclub

  published July 18, 2001

  Glasgow's Teenage Fanclub is a textbook case of a band that fell victim to its own early brilliance, as well as the mercilessness of circumstance... More >>

• Various Artists

  published June 27, 2001

  The granddaddy of all rock reissues, the Nuggets series dates back to 1972, when Patti Smith's future guitarist Lenny Kaye assembled a... More >>

• Breakfast at Bluesville

  published June 20, 2001

  When British Prime Minister Tony Blair swept back into office a couple of weeks ago, English garage rock goddess Holly Golightly was not among the... More >>

• Various Artists

  published June 20, 2001

  It's natural to assume that Brazil -- with its potent African heritage and tradition of heavily syncopated, percussive pop -- would have embraced... More >>

• Lucinda Williams

  published June 13, 2001

  It's remarkable to hear so powerful and potent an artist as Lucinda Williams sounding as victimized and forlorn as she does on her sixth album.... More >>

• Moreno Veloso + 2

  published May 16, 2001

  Brazilians love experimentation and magical moments; they love assimilating far-flung musical styles, blending them with local rhythms, and... More >>

• Young Fresh Fellows vs. The Minus 5; Soft Boys

  published April 4, 2001

  Seattle's Young Fresh Fellows formed in the early '80s, between the '60s garage glory of the Sonics and Nirvana's grungy '90s, when not a lot was... More >>

• Margo Guryan

  published March 21, 2001

  You could be forgiven for suspecting, even just momentarily, that this record is an elaborate put-on. After all, phony "lost masterpieces" are... More >>

• Gram Parsons

  published March 14, 2001

  Gram Parsons pioneered the country-rock scene back in the swinging '60s, at a time when rednecks battled with longhairs for the soul of the nation... More >>

• LiLiPUT/Kleenex

  published March 7, 2001

  For decades, the Zurich-based art-punk ensemble Kleenex has held a peculiar fascination for high-minded music listeners. From 1978 to 1983, this... More >>

• Hear This

  published January 17, 2001

  Halley's comet passes the Earth only every 76 years, and though their schedule is less infrequent, an appearance by the Original Comets -- Bill... More >>

• Holly Golightly; Ludella Black

  published January 10, 2001

  Since its debut in the early 1990s, British garage rock goddess Holly Golightly's grrl group, Thee Headcoatees, has carried the banner of stylish,... More >>

• Los Shakers; Various Artists

  published January 3, 2001

  Let's face it: Half the fun of listen-ing to foreign-language rock 'n' roll oldies is hearing how goofy and clumsy the performances were, or... More >>

• Hear This

  published January 3, 2001

  One man towers -- literally and figuratively -- over the West Coast retrobilly scene, and that man is Deke Dickerson, the good-natured guitar god... More >>