Eric Church’s third album, Chief, was released last July. The North Carolina–born country singer had previously scored a couple of Top Ten hits, but he wasn’t exactly making major waves.

Not so long ago, Dare Dukes was just another part–time musician and frustrated novelist living in a crummy flat on the Lower East Side of New York.

Forget ABBA for a minute, OK? There’s much more to Swedish music than Bjorn, Benny and the girls.

Constantly on the move, both physically and creatively, Kylesa is home for the holidays for what’s become the band’s one consistent annual break in a grueling – but fun – schedule of playing to metal fans all over the world.

In rock ‘n’ roll, as in life, the only constant is change. The Chicago–based band Styx has followed an extraordinarily complex evolutionary road. Founded in the early 1970s by singer/pianist Dennis DeYoung and lead guitarist James “JY” Young, both of them songwriters with big visions (and big egos), Styx landed on a winning formula when the two mainstays learned to play to one another’s strengths (DeYoung as a balladeer with a taste for the theatrical, ...

Every interview with Vince Gill is punctuated by frequent laughter. Not only is he the most honored man in country music, with 20 Grammys and a garage–full of Nashville industry awards, he’s really, really funny.

The Wailin’ Jennys are sort of a Canadian folk music version of Crosby, Stills & Nash — each member of the harmonizing trio had an illustrious career before coming together, and each, despite the group’s tremendous success, maintains a healthy schedule of solo writing, recording and performing.

Last week, Joe Bonamassa was in New York City, where two sold–out nights at the Beacon Theatre were taped for a live DVD. Among his onstage guests was the iconic British vocalist Paul Rodgers.

While singer/songwriter Dodd Ferrelle is a native Savannahian, he left for the greener musical pastures of Athens, Ga., over ten years ago, and has been playing and recording up there ever since.

For a year now, John Mellencamp and his band have been touring America with a show ostensibly to promote No Better Than This, the acclaimed lo-fi album Mellencamp recorded in various historic locations - including First African Baptist Church in Savannah.

After Shannon Whitworth's performance at the 2010 Savannah Music Festival, many people - this writer among them - predicted great things for the Asheville singer/songwriter.

At 46, Terrance Simien is now one of the grand old men of zydeco. He’s part of the second wave of musicians keeping the Creole music of Southern Louisiana alive; most of the old guys are long gone. As a songwriter, bandleader and music historian, Simien has traveled the globe many, many times in his three professional decades, speading the Cajun gospel. An eighth–generation Creole from St. Landry Parish, the Grammy–winning Simien sings and plays ...

Every hour, every day, some classic rock radio station somewhere is playing a 38 Special song - "Caught Up in You," "Hold on Loosely," "Back Where You Belong" or a half-dozen others - as if it were hot off the presses.

Wish Me Away is not only the title of the documentary film about country singer Chely Wright, it's one of the highly personal songs she wrote for her Rodney Crowell-produced 2010 album, Lifted Off the Ground.

Anyone who saw Sonia Leigh and her band during the inaugural Savannah Stopover Festival will remember the diminutive, scrappy woman with black hair hanging over her left eye, hammering away at her electric guitar and singing strong, and clear, and powerfully at the head of a kick-ass combo.