Steve Earle

Steve Earle Will Perform for Free at the Warren Hellman Museum Today

Country-folk legend and preeminent beard spokesman Steve Earle has a new album, The Low Highway, out now. Local fans may know that there's a song on the new album called "Warren Hellman's Banjo" -- a backwoodsy tribute to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival founder Warren Hellman. Earle is in San Fr ... More >>

The Late Warren Hellman's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Wisdom

This year will be the first Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival missing the presence of Warren Hellman, the late billionaire investment banker and banjo aficionado who founded it. Hellman passed away of complications from leukemia last December, at the age of 77. Back in 2010, just prior to Hardly ... More >>

An Inside Look at New Mission Live Venue the Chapel

Last Friday, amid an avalanche of accidental entendres (One of these, directed at a female SF Weekly correspondent: "Want to go down and see what happens to you next?"; another, aimed at no one in particular: "I'm really not that into VIP-ness") and crude cultural allusions ("It's like a Shakespeare ... More >>

Preservation Hall West at The Chapel, New Mission Music Venue, Announces Opening Concerts

It's going to be the West Coast home of New Orleans' Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as a new, mid-sized live music venue and restaurant in the center of the Mission. And it's called Preservation Hall West at The Chapel or, when the jazz band isn't in residence, simply the Chapel. The long-in ... More >>

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2012: The Full, Final Lineup Is Gigantic

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is the music festival that just won't stop growing. We've posted pieces of the lineup as they've become public -- and thought we'd seen most of it -- but it turns out there have been even more artists added. This week, though, organizers promise that they've finally release ... More >>

Here's the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Lineup, Or Most of It

The folks over at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass are such teases! They've been leaking the lineup for this year's free festival one song medley at a time since late July. And now, it looks like we've got the full lineup -- or at least most of it -- revealed. There are often late adds and sometimes change ... More >>

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2012 Lineup: Here's What We Know So Far

As we reminded you last week, the organizers of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass are once again unveiling the festival lineup as a kind of quiz, by posting medleys of this year's performers online and letting fans take a guess. With two sets of song clips out now -- and the official answers posted on the H ... More >>

Live Review, 2/19/12: Warren Hellman Public Celebration Brings Emmylou Harris, Old Crow Medicine Show and More to Ocean Beach

Old Crow Medicine Show at the Warren Hellman public celebration.​ Warren Hellman Public Celebration February 19, 2012 Ocean Beach Better than: Watching the live stream at home on your laptop. Some of the nation's top roots musicians gathered together yesterday with Bay Area music fans to cel ... More >>

Warren Hellman Tribute Concert Planned for Feb. 19 at Ocean Beach

Some weeks ago, we told you about a concert planned to honor the memory of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass founder Warren Hellman, who passed away in December. The show will feature performances by Emmylou Harris, Robert Earl Keen, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, and others. And now, a location for the event ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

Warren Hellman Tribute Concert Will Feature Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Gillian Welch, and More

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass founder Warren Hellman passed away at the end of last year, but the sprawling free music festival he started will continue. And on Feb. 19, Hellman's family and the festival's organizers will hold a sort of mini-Hardly Strictly as a tribute to Hellman. The bill -- which we' ... More >>

Sunday at Hardly Strictly: Gomez, Justin Townes Earle, and Bela Fleck Help Fuel the Good Vibes

Gomez Justin Townes Earle Zakir Hussein, Bela Fleck, and Edgar Meyer Devil Makes Three The Swanson Family Band October 2, 2010 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Better than: Smuggling vodka into Outside Lands. "This is so much better than Outside Lands!" a girl squealed Sunday after exiting a line of por ... More >>

On the Unifying Power of Angry 9/11 Songs: "It's Like Attending a Memorial"

Toby Keith at Shoreline last month.​ It's a scene that's played out innumerable times since 2002 -- and with the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 here, it will now be executed with even more patriotic fervor and bicep-flexing machismo. Behold, a Stetson-wearing, sleeveless Toby Keith, his American ... More >>

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2011: Robert Plant, Thurston Moore, Broken Social Scene, and More

Broken Social Scene is one of more than 90 acts playing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this year.​ The lineup for this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is out, and good luck figuring out whom to call the "headliner." For the festival's 11th year, organizers have put together another insane ... More >>

Reba McEntire & Ronnie Dunn: Today's Country Is Yesterday's Coldplay

On occasion, All Shook Down gives a listen to the music that is to real America what brine is to a cucumber. This is one of those occasions. Reba McEntire, "If I Were a Boy" Since Americans only got around to segregating their mongrel pop music into discrete categories like "Race" and "H ... More >>

On the Hunt for the Best Jukebox in S.F.'s Richmond District

The jukebox at the Bitter End.​The heyday of authentic jukeboxes is long over. With many bars installing those nasty touchscreen digital Internet boxes, the old school record-flipping kind of jukebox is a dying breed. And this is in the town that originated the concept of jukeboxes back in 1889. S ... More >>

Warren Hellman talks about Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2010: A Sneak-Peak at This Year's Lineup

​The lineup for this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival -- the free, three-day mega-bash that brings great artists of all sorts to Golden Gate Park -- hasn't yet been announced. Rumors have been swooshing through the tubes about this year's bill, with no official confirmation. But we heard ... More >>

Earle-y to Rise

The Devil Makes Three gives roots music hedonistic attitude

10 Things To Do This Weekend For Under $10

Caroliner @ the Lab (Sat. and Sun.)​Hardly Strictly Bluegrass @ Golden Gate Park (Fri.-Sun.)Wait, what? Steve Martin and MC Hammer and Neko Case and Steve Earle? Yeah, it's the city's biggest free hootenanny with a cross section of roots music fans. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass kicks off today at 10: ... More >>

Last Night: Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Wayne Kramer, Sammy Hagar, Boots Riley, Corey Taylor, Joe Satriani and Damian Kulash

Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Wayne Kramer, Sammy Hagar, Boots Riley (The Coup), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Joe Satriani, and Damian Kulash (OK Go) Thursday, March  26, 2009Slim'sBetter than: Playing Guitar Hero.It was midway through the Tom Morello hootenanny when Rage's shredding machine grinned at ... More >>

Special Guests Announced For Tom Morello's Slim's Show

EKAphotographySomebody's Watching You: Tom Morello Back in the pre-Obama days, Tom Morello was like, the only guitar god with a conscience. While Slash and Jack White were doing bumps off of stripper tits, Morello was playing demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention (with Rage Agai ... More >>

Death Cab will possess your vote

Hardly Strictly's outlaws hold a S.F. roundtable

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Keeps Piling It On

Reports from the Road: Bun B's "II Trill" release party

Justin Time

The Devil and Doctor Octagon: Kool Keith returns

Carolina Chocolate Drops: A Treat from S.F.'s Bluegrass & Old-Time Fest

They Don't Really

Bluegrass Philanthropy

Warren Hellman takes S.F.'s free roots music festival into its sixth year

Weapons of Mass Construction

Oakland's Coup takes political rap to the next level

Hear This

Talking work and sex with Beep Beep's unhappy-hour dance party; Steve Earle reminds us that he's a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll

Bluegrass Alfresco

Hello Emmylou, goodbye heart

Steve Earle

The Revolution Starts Now

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Reps Etc.

Pine Valley Cosmonauts

The Executioner's Last Songs Vol. 2 & 3

Dem Blues

The left, turning right, was plain wrong to attack pop culture

Townes Van Zandt

For the Sake of the Song | Our Mother the Mountain

Wedding Albums

Buddy and Julie Miller are virtual unknowns in the Nashville scene they now call home. So why are country artists lining up to cover their songs?

Riff Raff

Audra, Oprah -- Oprah, Audra, Strange Bedfellows, Free Ink

Reviews

Reviews

Words + Guitar (+ Beats + Skronk)

What mattered and what splattered in pop, 1997

Recordings

Recordings

Samples

Recordings