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Neighbors: Insight into Extended Family Life in Portugal

One of the unexpected delights of our move to this house has been getting to know our neighbors – they live over the field to the right of the house – they are the parents of our landlord and the lady of the house supplies our bread – and our pizza dough, and tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, apples, lettuce, onions, garlic, mushrooms and anything else we have use for.

To say they are farmers is to underrate their innate ability to work with the land and belittles the considerable skills and talents they possess throughout the whole family.

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The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams Review

I am not, generally speaking, a big fan of country music. For some reason when I think of country music today I think of songs with names like “Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through The Goal Posts of Life)” — I know that song was recorded in 1976 but it seems to be a sign of what was to come. When it comes to the music of Hank Williams, on the other hand, I make an exception. He wrote masterful lyrics and sang beautifully. I don’t properly own any classic Hank Williams albums but I have enjoyed listening to recordings of him on Spotify and watching videos of him online.

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Neil Young Divines a Treasure Review

Neil Young is one of our greatest living musicians who writes so beautifully about the American experience.  He’s always cagey and fun and eloquent and challenging.  Neil’s new album is out this week, and it is called “A Treasure” and the music lives up to the album naming.

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Joe Bonamassa is Back in the Dust Bowl

Joe Bonamassa is back, baby!  We were so thoroughly disappointed in his last album — Black Country Communion — because that effort was so un-Joe-like in execution and expectation and style and tone, but today, Joe sets everything right again with the just-dropped release of: Dust Bowl.

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Ten Ninety-Three

In search of another anchor, we severely sever all tethers.

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Lick Me Up, Lick Me Down, Lick Me Outside

I love Licks!  Learning licks is a great way to quickly feel confident learning the guitar.  There are all sorts of Licks book available, but the best one for a beginner is — “Hal Leonard’s Lead Licks” — because that book will give you 220 Licks and five playing styles and a CD to help you study.

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The Amazing Redd Volkaert and His TeleTwang

If you play the guitar, you gotta love Redd Volkaert and his mastery of the Fender Telecaster.  Redd wants to teach you how to play Country Blues in his fantastic and warm and funny DVD, “TeleTwang.”  

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