"Area 52" was simply meant to be a placeholder in the career of Mexican-born guitar duo Rodigo y Gabriela. The duo, who met while performing in a Mexico City-based metal band, won fame for playing flamenco-flavored acoustic guitar from a ...

Nothing spurs interest in an album more than when the company contracted to put the album out says the artist contracted to put the album together created something the company doesn't want.

Lana Del Rey has stirred up a storm even before her first physical album is even released.

Guy Clark is what you call a songwriter's songwriter. If he'd only written "Desperados Waiting on a Train" and "L.A. Freeway," he'd probably still be a legend, but his catalog of great songs is vast. More than 30 artists deliver ...

The song "Knoxville Girl" had been around for a long time when the Louvin Brothers recorded it. But it's Ira and Charlie Louvin's version, from the classic 1956 album "Tragic Songs of Life," that remains iconic. It's fitting that the ...

Erin Zindle has the category of her band the Ragbirds: "World music inspired folk rock," says Zindle. "I just have this love of world culture and the diversity of people. I can see it as a mosaic of this beautiful ...

I gave up saying what the "best albums of the year" are a long time ago. No, all I can say is what albums meant something to me during the year. What albums did I go back to and they ...

It's Christmas time again, and there are plenty of musical presents for Santa to put under the Christmas trees of music fanatics.

John Prine would probably laugh at the comparison, but listening to his first recordings on "The Singing Mailman Delivers" is a little like finding Da Vinci's first crack at the Mona Lisa. The performances on Prine's debut album were maybe ...

It's that time of year again. Christmas CDs are everywhere. Here's my guide to the good, the bad and the ugly:

Colin MacDonald quotes the Dandy Warhols to explain his relationship to rock 'n' roll:

After playing Bonnaroo in 2008, being featured in a Turner South TV promo and performing for thousands before a Nickel Creek Sundown in the City concert, Tennessee Schmaltz has been a little quiet for a while.

The band Beirut does not make Balkan or gypsy music. The pop group that has quietly been gaining a dedicated following since the album "Gulag Orkestar" was released in 2006.

Maynard James Keenan knows that he has a reputation of being difficult with fans.

"Working in Tennessee," Merle Haggard (Vanguard): Merle Haggard is one of the last real country music legends standing. Not only is he still standing, he's still making great music and he's still writing good songs. Haggard, of course, would have ...