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Nominate-best-2010

Mystic muso

By TED DROZDOWSKI  |  November 4, 2009

Inclusiveness was Palmer’s trump card. He had the rare ability to explain the sound of any music to the layman, and in often colorful language. His take on thorny noise-rockers Swans is a gem. “At first,” he wrote in the Times, “Swans records sound like gorillas beating on pots and pans and muttering incoherently, accompanied by the clamor of a machine shop. Closer listening reveals differences in verse structure, texture, and mood that distinguish one song from another.”

For its breadth, knowledge, and craftsmanship, Blues & Chaos reminds us that Palmer was as irreplaceable on the American landscape as many of the great musicians his writing explored.

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Related: The long view, In action, Birds of a feather, More more >
  Topics: Books , Entertainment, Music, Rolling Stone,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY TED DROZDOWSKI
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  •   RICKIE LEE JONES | BALM IN GILEAD  |  December 02, 2009
    It’s astonishing to think that Rickie Lee Jones would turn out an album this organic and free of cynicism 30 years after her debut with the star-making, retro-hipster hit “Chuck E.’s in Love.” Particularly since her songwriting has always been so acutely self-aware.
  •   MYSTIC MUSO  |  November 04, 2009
    “America’s Pre-eminent Music Writer Dead at 52” was the headline on Robert Palmer’s obituary in Rolling Stone after his liver failed in 1997.
  •   BRENDAN HOGAN | LONG NIGHT COMING  |  October 21, 2009
    Self-released (2009)
  •   DARRELL NULISCH | JUST FOR YOU  |  October 22, 2009
    This Boston-based blues and soul singer’s seventh album might seem an update of the elegantly funky Stax sound, with its deep grooves and smartly harmonized horns.
  •   REVIEW: TOM RUSSELL | BLOOD AND CANDLE SMOKE  |  September 22, 2009
    This LA-born troubadour with a Dustbowl voice works voodoo on his 24th studio album, conjuring ghosts of the ’60s and ’70s along with apocalyptic visions as he relates tales of gun-toting madmen and dark rifts of the heart.

 See all articles by: TED DROZDOWSKI

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