2005 May

At the Michigan Songwriters' Festival at the Ark last January, Ann Arbor native Steve Amick sang "I'm Sorry for You (If You Don't Live Here)," his rousing and only slightly ironic chronicling of a few of...

There was a time when most jazz musicians concentrated on doing one thing really well. Some combined composition with instrumental prowess, and woodwind players may have doubled on a variety of saxophones, clarinets, and even...

The music of George Bedard & the Kingpins is, by turns, as solid and dependable as a '57 Chevy and as flashy and flamboyant as a long-finned '59 Caddy convertible. It's American roots music — rockabilly,...

When I was a kid, my friends and I listened to the likes of Heart and Pat Benatar — real women who wrote and performed their own music with conviction and power. I still love to see women of power on stage. Whit Hill and...

People often compliment the Duhks on their bass player — even though the band rarely uses a bass. Most of the bass sounds you hear in their music come from the Cuban cajón, a box drum that anchors the Latin...

For an accompanist, pianist Kathryn Goodson has an outsize personality. Her enthusiastic playing isn’t merely an accompaniment to the singer or instrumentalist but a full partner and then some. In her recent Kerrytown...

It didn't take long for me to rule out attempting to juggle anything at the juggling festival. I generally duck when things are flying toward me. Besides, I went to the festival to people-watch. I wasn't disappointed....

My dad is not a singer, but without any apparent effort, he can sing a harmony to just about any song. Broadway show tunes, TV commercials, "Midnight at the Oasis" — he hears it once and somehow knows where to...