April 17 — EL CORRIDO DE JESSE JAMES, Ry Cooder (2011)

April 17, 2018 by Russ Florence

There’s no shortage of doorways into Ry Cooder’s music. My primary reference points are his one-off album Little Village in 1991 with John Hiatt, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner; his celebrated solo album Chavez Ravine, which tells the story of Mexican-Americans who were displaced by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles in the 1950s; and his role as producer and ringleader of the Buena Vista Social Club, an ensemble of previously unknown Cuban musicians, whom Cooder assembled on a […]

Categories: 2010s, Santa Fe

April 13 — COME ON LET’S GO, Paul Thorn (2018)

April 13, 2018 by Russ Florence

(It’s fitting that I discovered Paul Thorn’s new country-blues gospel record this morning. My Grandpa Florence, a country preacher himself, would have been 105 this weekend. My Grandmother and I interviewed Grandpa in 1996, so that his story would live forever with family. Before printing copies of the transcript, I wrote the following essay about him.) The most enduring image etched in my mind about Grandpa comes from a tattered black and white snapshot taken shortly after I was born. […]

Categories: 2010s, Family

April 6 — NEW WAYS TO FAIL, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers (2018)

April 6, 2018 by Russ Florence

It’s telling when the freshest, most original country music sounds like it could have been blasting from a truck-stop jukebox fifty years ago. North Carolina’s Sarah Shook seems to come by it naturally. She and her band, the Disarmers, channel all the twang, heartache and honesty of last call. Their new album, Years, harkens to the days of AM radio without seeming nostalgic or retro. Sitting comfortably on the shelf alongside Linda Rondstadt, Loretta Lynn, and Jason and the Scorchers, […]

Categories: 2010s

April 5 — THINKING ABOUT YOU, John Mellencamp (2010)

April 5, 2018 by Russ Florence

John Mellencamp’s name came up today during a meeting at the Woody Guthrie Center. That’s not unusual. Mellencamp is one of Woody’s greatest disciples. It prompted me to listen to Mellencamp on the way home, and I chose No Better Than This, from 2010. It’s his strongest work, in my opinion. Mellencamp wanted to achieve a certain sound, so he enlisted T. Bone Burnett to produce and recorded at a handful of charming old studios, including Sun Studios in Memphis. […]

Categories: 2010s

March 31 — BLAZE FOLEY’S 113TH WET DREAM, Gurf Morlix (2011)

March 31, 2018 by Russ Florence

Going into last night, I knew a little about Gurf Morlix. I knew more about Blaze Foley. Now I want to know each of them a bit better. Morlix is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, and Texas troubadour. He’s been part of the Austin scene since the 1970s, working with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, and others. He produced two of Lucinda Williams’ first records. Blaze Foley was as an eccentric, talented, tragic character, a songwriter and […]

Categories: 2010s, Concerts

March 25 — LILAC, The Long Odds (2018)

March 25, 2018 by Russ Florence

For years, the Uptown Bar was one of the most reliable small clubs for hearing live music in Minneapolis. During my time here, I saw memorable shows at the Uptown by the Flaming Lips, Babes in Toyland, Tommy Stinson, and the Jawhawks, whom I saw, alongside Paul Jeannotte and my friends from City Pages, on the last night before moving back to Oklahoma. Meanwhile, just a mile up Lyndale, Mortimer’s was a favorite watering hole for my buddy Leon Hammer […]

Categories: 2010s, Concerts, Friends, Minneapolis

March 23 — WHEN WE WERE YOUNG, The Suburbs (2017)

March 24, 2018 by Russ Florence

Paul Jeannotte and I got acquainted in a hotel room years ago in Washington, D.C. Wait, let me start over. Paul Jeannotte and I met in the summer of 1985 when we were counselors at a youth leadership conference in Washington, D.C. The conference was held at the Twin Bridges Marriott where, for ten weeks, Paul and I shared a standard sized, two-bed hotel room. We were college seniors. We felt like we had won the lottery. When I moved […]

Categories: 2010s, College, Family, Minneapolis

March 18 — LET’S GO OUTSIDE, String Cheese Incident (2014)

March 18, 2018 by Russ Florence

We went out for breakfast this morning and didn’t want to come back. We were at the Toasted Owl, an eclectic place in downtown Flagstaff. It’s like an emporium of all things owl, the funky and the kitschy. Owl art, owl coffee mugs, owl tchotchkes, owl salt and pepper shakers, owl lampshades, owl macrame. There are owl images on the waitstaff’s T-shirts, owl cookie jars above the bar, and a row of ceramic Indians with owl headdresses. Even the children’s […]

Categories: 2010s, Family, Travel

March 13 — WHISKEY MEN, Angelica Rockne (2017)

March 13, 2018 by Russ Florence

Give me a rocking chair on the back porch on a perfect afternoon. Give me a view of the mountains and the scent of wood burning. A chiminea would be nice. Give me a glass of Jack Daniels. (Wait, no. I quit drinking fourteen years ago. Don’t give me that.) Give me the fiddle on Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne, the right accent on a perfect album. Give me the bass line from Springsteen’s “Valentine’s Day.” Give me the lonesome, jangly guitar […]

Categories: 2010s

March 11 — I DON’T KNOW YOU ANYMORE, Bob Mould (2014)

March 11, 2018 by Russ Florence

Bob Mould’s 2014 album Beauty & Ruin has all the markings his thirty-year solo career that started after Husker Du imploded — the urgency, the hooks, the slicing guitar — not to mention some lyrical kiss-offs that would have served the old band well. Today was quiet at our house, as it usually is on Sunday. Reading, yoga, knitting, a movie. Luke and I ran errands this afternoon, listening to a classic jazz radio station. We listened to a Handsome […]

Categories: 2010s, Family