CMAT (photo by Sarah Doyle) This was a banner year for recorded music. The sheer number of great albums released makes choosing a top ten an overwhelming task. No doubt today’s listeners will remember 2023 in the way boomers recall 1967, a time in which the Beatles and Motown dominated the airwaves—just as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have conquered today’s concert scene—but it was the variety of other performers, from Aretha Franklin to the Doors to Bobbie Gentry, who left the greatest mark. Today’s musical renaissance is the result of the Covid lockdown, a reaction to the rise of political popul ..read more

Madeleine and Lily Jurkiewicz of the sister duo Lily & Madeleine (photo by Anna Powell Denton) Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz began their musical careers while in their teens. The sisters started writing and singing songs together and posting them on YouTube when still in high school in 2012. They released their eponymously titled first full-length disc in 2013 on Sufjan Stevens’s Asthmatic Kitty label. The duo has gone on to release four more studio albums over the last ten years to much acclaim, including their most recent one, Nite Swim. Their beautiful vocal harmonies have made them a s ..read more

Erin Rae (photo by Bridgett Aikens) Before coming to Iowa as part of her six-week fall tour, Erin Rae will be on stage for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Country music fans revere the venue as the “Mother Church” because of its historic importance. Rae will be there along with Margo Price and S.G. Goodman as back-up singers for Tyler Childers. Rae’s sung at the Ryman before, but now she’s looking forward to playing smaller, more intimate clubs. Rae will perform at Raccoon Motel in Davenport on October 22. She had a show there back in April and has appeared at the Raccoon ..read more

Sonny Burke and Smokey Robinson in the home studio that Paul Squillo helped set up for Smokey. Recently, I was sitting with a friend who has a very good audio system and loves it, so he gets what I do. However, he has a pessimistic view of my business model as an AV expert with a store. He’s sure that the newest generation of buyers feels that they can get all the help they need from a video blog on the internet. He’s certain that they don’t want to pay for expertise beyond free web advice. He also makes his living as an artist and has an MBA, so he is aware of how the internet has changed the ..read more

Lyle Lovett at AmericanaFest 2023 (photo by Steve Horowitz) The joke used to be, “What is Americana? Country music that doesn’t sell.” That’s not true anymore. Top-tier Americana artists such as Jason Isbell and Rhiannon Giddens recently played sold-out shows in Iowa, with most tickets selling for over $100. Americana music has never been more successful. But what exactly is Americana music? Loosely defined, it is a smorgasbord of different styles rooted in folk, country, blues, and soul from the past. For the last 23 years music fans and industry professional have met in Nashville to celebrat ..read more

A recent setup using a vintage Kenwood stereo amp and Atom speakers If I had my way, everybody would immediately hook their new HDTV and video sources to a premium AV receiver and enjoy the full excitement of movies and the realism of music with a ton of detail and impact. Often, however, our budget requires moving forward in steps. For many, the TV is the first step in an AV system upgrade. Every day, as countless people turn on their new televisions, the improved picture may be miles beyond their old TV, but the sound is usually worse than before. Why is this? Instead of researching which co ..read more

Adeem the Artist (photo by Cat Palmer Photography) In a world full of cookie-cutter country music artists, Adeem the Artist stands out as different in a positive way. As a seventh-generation Carolinian, Adeem composes songs that are rooted in the American South. However, Adeem turns the stereotypes inside out to show the deeper meanings implicit in the assumptions people make about others. The results have been praised by the New York Times and Rolling Stone, and the work affirmatively compared to the music of Dolly Parton, the Drive-By Truckers, and Randy Newman. “I grew up listening to count ..read more

Pictured from left: Sean Cleland, Steve Morrow, and Liz Hanley This Saturday, July 29, at Cafe Paradiso in Fairfield, progressive Irish band Mayor Harrison’s Fedora will take you on a journey from the Emerald Isle to the streets of Chicago with scintillating jigs and reels and heart-melting ballads. The all-star cast includes Sean Cleland on fiddle, Jesse Langen on guitar, and Steve Morrow on bodhran. They will be joined by local hero Tim Britton on uillean pipes, whistle, flute, and mandolin, and special guest, fiddler-singer extraordinaire Liz Hanley from New York City. Sean Cleland entered ..read more

Tommy Prine (photo by Emma Delavante) The 27-year-old singer-songwriter Tommy Prine understands patience. Although he’s been writing songs ever since he was a kid, and his father ran a successful record label, Tommy was in no hurry to begin his career. On his new album, This Far South, there’s a line that goes, “Tomorrow seems much too long / and yesterday’s waiting on the phone.” The enigmatic lyric expressively sums up what it feels like to kill time. What is next and what is over are all part of the same distressful experience. Tommy’s father was John Prine, the wildly beloved musician who ..read more

Bon Hiver’s Justin Vernon (portrait by Eric Timothy Carlson & Graham Tolbert) Every year the Pitchfork Music Festival brings some of the best and brightest alternative indie bands and edgy established acts to Chicago. Sometimes the artists function as a bit of both new and old as they use Pitchfork as a launching pad for their latest incarnations. This year is no different. The 2023 lineup features such notable acts as the Radiohead offshoot The Smile, Killer Mike from the rap duo Run the Jewels going solo, and the latest re-formation of Bon Iver (Justin Vernon, Sean Carey, Jenn Wasner, Mi ..read more