Mike Barnes

A year after her self-titled debut set out Raitt’s blues/folk/jazz template, the singer, songwriter and slide guitar master decamped to Woodstock’s Bearsville Studios to repeat the trick. The result, mixing new songs and reimagined standards, was a classic

In 1972, Bonnie Raitt told Joe Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle that she didn’t want to be a star. ‘The music business works to make you a star and I don’t want any part of that. I’ve seen the whole trip’. It was a theme she would return to in interviews, deeming stardom as ‘superfluous’ and having no interest in ‘the cult of personality’ that builds up around musicians. Instead, she enjoyed playing smaller venues so audiences could connect with her as they would do a friend.

This month we review: Humanist, Louise Patricia Crane, Simon Fisher Turner, and Seasick Steve

The guitarist's first album for Warner Bros saw him put together a twin-keyboard band and dig even deeper into his fusion-jazz style. The result? A set that topped the Billboard charts and brought him a Grammy award for its only vocal performance...

Overall, I think the jazz police never forgave me for taking George Benson from the jazz area to where he became a pop artist', record producer Tommy LiPuma told jerryjazzmusician.com in 2022. 'I was always a pop music freak, but I was also a big jazz fan.'

This month we review: Jane Weaver, Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Rural Tapes, and Caleb Landry Jones