In New Orleans music circles, if your last name is Marsalis (or, for that matter, Neville) you have a reputation to live up to.

The All Night Drug Prowling Wolves are far more than just an anthropomorphic lifestyle choice. The quartet makes the kind of uncomplicated, riff–driven pub rock that was bread and butter for late ‘70s, first wave punk acts like the Clash, the Replacements or Social Distortion.

After thirty-some years in the public eye, and 40 million in album sales, John Mellencamp just isn't interested in greasing the rock ‘n' roll machine any more.

There’s something subversive about the Two Man Gentlemen Band, returning to Savannah Friday for a show at the Sentient Bean.

Born in Singapore in the spring of 1981, Emma Anzai spent her earliest years in Tokyo before her family relocated to Sydney, Australia.

After a decade of whacking the hell out of his drum kit with the North Mississippi Allstars, Cody Dickinson is pumped to be playing guitar and singing with his “other” band, Hill Country Revue.

With their pockets all but empty, the four members of Atlanta’s Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun had to find a way to raise enough dough to record all their new songs.

An essential element in the performance of certain Indian classical music, the tabla is a pair of small, hand–played upright drums. One is wooden, the other metal, and they are tunable – meaning their pitch can be changed, the attack and/or decay varied, with a quick twist to wooden dowels connected to the drumhead.

Lori Stuart’s world is a square, cream–colored room in the west wing of Oceanside Nursing Center, a pleasant if nondescript private care facility on Van Horne Street, Tybee Island.

Channeling his restless energy has always been a tightrope walk for Jason Bible. As a kid back in Colleyville, Texas, the headstrong future frontman for the Train Wrecks was hell–bound to turn himself into a professional soccer player, and nothing was going to interfere.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1969. The vibes were so positive Sunday night in the Trustees Theater that any criticism of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - the traveling ragtag hippie band that recently wowed the masses at Bonnaroo and Coachella - will have to focus on the music, not the event itself. This was what used to be affectionately called a "love-in." "Loose" doesn't begin to describe this show. During an informal ...

BIG GIGANTIC At 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3 Live Wire Music Hall, 307 W. River St. $12 advance, $15 day of show. Boulder, Colo.'s dynamic duo of Dominic Lalli (saxophone) and Jermy Salken (drums). Big Gigantic is an elecronica, hip hop and jazz fusion band that utilizes loops, samples, synths and sizzling creative beats, with the live drums and sax laid over the top. It's an exciting, trippy musical experience that doesn't seem as if ...

BROCK BUTLER AND FRIENDS At 10 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 25 Loco's, 301 W. Broughton St. $10 All right, here's the deal. Although nobody will say so, I have a sneaking feeling this will be an appearance by the full Perpetual Groove band. It's billed as a "solo" date from the group's resident guitar wizard, Brock Butler ("and friends"), and Butler (a Savannah native) just played a string of solo gigs around the area this past ...

TUBBY LOVE At 10 p.m. Aug. 21 Live Wire Music Hall, 307 W. River St. Free. There's a song I can't get out of my head this week. It's called "Signs," and it was written (and performed in an utterly captivating YouTube video) by Tubby Love and Emily Elbert, a couple of students at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Anyone familiar with Tubby Love - a.k.a. Savannah native Andrew Terrett - ...

PASSAFIRE At 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 13 Live Wire Music Hall, 307 W. River St. Still cruising at high altitudes on the considerable strengths of 2009's Everyone on Everynight, Savannah's melody-rich reggae/dub emissaries continue to tour the country's swankier rock clubs and jam-band festivals. In fact, they just wrapped up their first go-round on the Vans Warped Tour. Although the band members technically still live in Savannah, they're rarely home; according to singer/guitarist Ted Bowne, ...

COMEDY NIGHT: AL ERNST At 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 5 Pour Larry's, 206 W. Julian St. $15. Let us veer slightly off the beaten Noteworthy path this week to focus on something new at Pour Larry's, a favorite City Market watering hole. Po' Lawrence features live bands many times during the week - this time, however, the night was made for laughs. Atlanta-based Al Ernst's mother lives in St. Petersburg, Florida - "where they're ...

Make your home in Savannah for long enough and it’s almost frighteningly easy to wake up one morning and realize you have inadvertently come to take the inherent beauty of much of the city for granted.

One of the coolest “gets” by this year’s Savannah Music Festival must surely be Saturday night’s exceedingly rare chance to catch the genre-hopping master banjoist Béla Fleck joined by four of the most revered traditional African musicians alive today for an evening of multi-cultural string and percussion music.

ASO & The Marcus Roberts Trio  *** In one of the most curious (and curiously depressing) developments of this year’s SMF, this closing day performance by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Spano has failed to generate the same level of interest and anticipation as the group’s two previous annual appearances at the Festival. Word on the street has it that this high-profile event (the only SMF show to take place ...

When most people think of a "composer," they think of a dead European dude with a powdered wig. Texas-born, Yale-educated, 41-year-old Christopher Theofanidis is none of those, but he is one of the most prolific young composers in America today.

To the best of my knowledge, Rob Gibson has never played a lick of music on any stage in Savannah. 

My mind was totally, terminally blown at last year's Savannah Music Festival performance by Bela Fleck and his African guest musicians. The depth of mastery and feeling shown by those African masters was so profound, so beyond Western norms, so unlike anything else I'd ever heard, that other forms of music seem to pale in comparison for me now.

Saturday, April 3 at the Savannah Music Festival (final day). Here's today's schedule: The Tattnall Shapnote Singers: "Singing the Sacred Harp." At 12:30 p.m., Bull Street Baptist Church. Free. Sensations 5. At 6:15 p.m., Telfair Academy. $47. Bill Frisell Trio/Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba. Jazz guitar and African music. At 6:30 p.m., Charles H. Morris Center. $32. The Del McCoury Band/Dixie Bluegrass Boys. Bluegrass. At 7 p.m., Lucas Theatre. $22-$55. Bill Frisell Trio/Bassekou Kouyate & ...

A stellar cast of talented classical musicians performed one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed events in the Savannah Music Festival's history at Temple Mickve Israel this past Thursday night.

Friday, April 2 at the Savannah Music Festival. Here's today's schedule: Swing Central Competition. At 9 a.m., Lucas Theatre. Free. Sebastian Knauer/Jeffrey Kahane. Classical piano. At 6:15 p.m., Telfair Academy. $47. Bill Frisell Trio/Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba. Jazz guitar and African music. At 6:30 p.m., Charles H. Morris Center. $32. All-Star Swing Summit. At 7:30 p.m., Lucas Theatre. The Clayton Brothers, Marcus Roberts Trio. Wycliffe Gordon, Marcus Printup, Ted Nash and others. $17-$47. Bill ...

Ah, here's what marriage does to a man: The first blistering guitar run of the night came not from Derek Trucks -- premier electric guitar prodigy of his generation and former Eric Clapton sideman -- but his wife, Susan Tedeschi.