Decade of Difference

Keane rose to prominence in a wave of sensitive indie pop that came in a post-Coldplay wave in the UK. The band started in East Sussex in 1994 as a college-age-focused cover band playing the local pub circuit. By 1998, the band began producing original music and recorded their first album in 2000. Momentum was slow to develop until the band played a London gig with a record label exec in attendance. Keane’s next single got UK radio exposure and 2004’s Hopes and Fears hit the top of the UK album charts a week after its release.

The 2004 album release coincided with a world tour by the band. While the album was incredibly successful in the UK, becoming one of the country’s all time best selling albums, it was slower to sell elsewhere. Some opening dates for U2 in the US helped the band and earned them a Grammy nomination for Best New Band in 2005.

Even before the end of the first tour, Keane was working on a followup album. The load of the tour and new record, then a second world tour before the completion of the next album lead to personal problems and the band had to cancel a portion of the tour.

Keane followed their breakthrough album with two others that topped the UK charts. Keane then began to shift their sound by returning guitars to the mix–their big success early had come as a trio after founding guitarist Dominic Scott left the group in 2001.

One more album would appear before the band entered an extended hiatus from 2013 through 2019. While not officially an end, the band members pursued separate projects.

The band initiated their comeback in 2019 with a new album and several public appearances. This past year the band introduced a new EP on Record Store Day. Most recently, lead singer Tom Chaplin was revealed to be ‘Poodle’ on the UK version of The Masked Singer.

Del McCoury’s long career traces back to a move from his native North Carolina to Pennsylvania where he began playing professionally. Later, he and the Virginia Mountain Boys were asked to play with Bill Monroe in New York in 1963. Monroe hired the picker, and he was soon elevated to lead vocalist. After recording one single with Monroe, McCoury left for North Carolina and marriage.

In 1967, McCoury formed the Dixie Pals and played with the band for over 20 years, before renaming it the Del McCoury Band and added his two sons to the group. The band carefully bridged the gap between the interesting song choices and instrumentation of the best progressive bluegrass groups, while still retaining the high lonesome style of traditional bluegrass. In early 1999, the band reached a whole new group of listeners when it backed singer/songwriter Steve Earle on his successful traditionally themed album The Mountain.

In 2008, McCoury started DelFest, an annual bluegrass festival in Maryland. The festival continues to draw a wide range of brands that represent the crossover sounds pioneered by McCoury.

His career has exposed a whole new audience to bluegrass through his appearances at non-traditional festivals for bluegrass artists like Bonaroo and the Newport Folk Festival. Continuing his collaborative work, McCoury has appeared on stage many times with Phish and Donna the Buffalo.

Del McCoury is a member of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and has received a National Heritage Fellowship lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Infuse a folk band with tent revival music and some psychedelic rock and you’ll get something that sounds like Portland’s Ages and Ages. Bandleader Tim Perry formed the musical collective after his previous solo effort turned band Psuedosix broke up.

Drawing influences from his religious upbringing to a range of secular music, the band debuted in 2011 with an album of sing-along, clap-along, stomp-along pop rock that vaulted the band into elite company. Locally, they were named Portland’s best band.

After playing South by Southwest and gaining exposure on NPR, the band seemed ready to impress nationally, but a series of personal tragedies slowed the momentum. It took three years for the group to recover and produce a second album, and then they were ready to move on.

Ages and Ages integrated hardships into their 2nd and 3rd albums in 2014 and 2016. Despite the buoyancy of their sound there is a dark angle to it. The theme continues on the band’s most recent release We You They We.

Tim Perry delivers lyrics, sometimes in a near whisper that gives the band’s tunes a subtlety that makes songs with murkier subject matter flow easily. For example, it is hard to tell that the latest single release from the album Needle and Thread is a reminder to resist the urge to let day-drinking and lethargy dictate your disposition.

Los Lonely Boys is a band formed by three brothers: Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza and they play a style of music they define as “Texican rock.” A 2nd generation band. Garza’s father had a conjunto band, and then formed a band with his three sons prior to Los Lonely Boys.

Hoping for success, the family moved to Nashville but the father and sons did not hit paydirt, and they returned to Texas where the boys began playing clubs on their own. A demo got into the hands of Willie Nelson’s cousin, and Nelson came to a show. This led to Los Lonely Boys appearing at Farm Aid and led on to their recording and performing career. Their self-titled debut album was a huge success, selling over 2 million copies and earning the band a Grammy.

Los Lonely Boys has remained a close-knit family band over the years, despite some significant problems recently. The band cancelled shows in 2013 after Henry was seriously hurt after falling off the stage in Los Angeles and in 2015 the boys mother passed away.

The latest album Revelation was recorded during this period, and shows a little different style than the previous albums from the band. Incorporating elements of conjunto and reggae, it is also the first album from the band to use co-writers for some of the songs.

In 2019 JoJo Garza announced his departure from the band, leaving Los Lonely Boys on an indefinite hiatus. The remaining members posted that “We need time to decide what directions our musical careers will take without our brother and musical partner.”

Photo from Flickr by scannerFM

The Columbian band Bomba Estéreo comes from an earlier loose collective of musicians originating in the local alt rock scene called A.M. 770. It came as part of a movement to incorporate electronic beats and dance music into traditional rhythms including salsa and cumbia.

Simon Mejia began to focus on the emerging style, releasing Vol. 1, which was essentially a solo project but with the new name of Bomba Estéreo. Soon Mejia had recruited some of the studio musicians he used on the disc to form a full-fledged band.

Bomba Estéreo’s second album came to the US in 2009. The single Fuego from the record was an international hit and helped propel the band to number one in MTV’s poll for Best New Band in the World conducted through Iggy, their channel focused on alternative world music artists.

Using South by Southwest and Bonnaroo to expose a larger audience to their unique sound, Bomba Estéreo has been an active touring band. By their fourth album, the band also had success with music placement. You may have heard their music in the FIFA video games as well as movie soundtracks.

The band recorded their latest album Deja in early 2020, a time of civil unrest in Columbia. Flying a group of collaborators to a small Colombian beach town, the group was able to stay clear of the conflict through refuge in the natural world and created a concept album about healing ourselves politically, socially, and spiritually.

When you name your band after a keyboard shortcut – Pressing ‘alt’ and ‘J’ simultaneously on a mac keyboard produces a delta symbol that is the actual band name – you can expect that the band will defy easy classification.

Forming at Leeds University in 2008, the band took four years to release their first album, An Awesome Wave. Recorded when the band could get spare studio time, the debut album won critical praise. BBC Radio 6 awarded them Music Album of the Year 2012 and they also won the 2012 British Mercury Music Prize. One reviewer summed up the band as follows: “Alt-J surely understands that intrigue, however precious, is its best currency.”

In 2013 the toll of heavy touring led to the departure of band member Gwil Sainsbury. alt-J continued as a trio and released their second album, This Is All Yours, in 2014. Ith debuted at number 1 in the UK and earned a Grammy nomination. Several singles and a third album followed, but alt-J’s biggest successes came in TV and film placements.

In March, the band will release their fourth album, The Dream. Earlier this month, the group played live in front of an audience for the first time in three years. They had taken all of 2019 off – each member focused on their personal projects which were not at all music-related. Reconvening in 2020, the band began to work on the now completed new album.

Frontman Gus Unger-Hamilton was reassured by the process of making the new record, saying that “musically we’re still finding our feet.” He means it as a positive – “we’re not repeating ourselves.”

Over her six decade career, few R&B stars received the consistent acclaim as that heaped upon Etta James. James had 20 R&B hits, but despite her vocal talents only belatedly gained the attention of a wider audience. James also lived a hard life – suffering through addiction and bad relationships as well as legal and medical problems.

Born Jamesetta Hawkins to a fourteen year old mother in L.A., James never knew her father. Mostly raised by family and friends, she began attending church with her grandparents and was quickly added to the choir, becoming the featured soloist at twelve. After her foster mother passed, James moved to San Francisco to live with her birth mother. With little supervision, she quickly fell into juvenile delinquency.

At the same time she grew her interest in music, joining the Creolettes who soon changed their name to the Peaches. After a few minor R&B hits, James left to go solo. It took a few years for James to hit her stride.

Etta James had numerous R&B hits in the ’60s, but drug addiction took its toll and James faded in the ’70s. She fell into petty crime to support her habit, and after entering rehab she mostly supported herself touring small clubs. It was longtime fans the Rolling Stones who brought her back to larger audiences by having her open some shows on their 1978 tour.

In 1994 Etta James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and also won her first Grammy with an album of Billie Holiday covers. This sparked a productive eight years with James releasing one album a year.

In 2010 it was revealed that James had been treated for dependence on painkillers and also suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. In 2011 Etta James released The Dreamer, which proved to be her final album. Etta James died of terminal leukemia in 2012.

One of the first Cajun musicians to successfully transition to a rock and country artist, Doug Kershaw became a Louisiana music legend. Along with his brother Rusty, he began playing a fusion of cajun and rockabilly in the 1950s as the band Rusty and Doug. The group peaked with a top 10 hit in 1961 and after the brothers parted ways, Doug went on to a successful solo career.

Kershaw was born in Cameron Parish, the son of an alligator hunter, and did not learn English until he was eight – the family spoke French at home. Music came quickly and easily to Doug. Over his lifetime, he has mastered 28 musical instruments so far.

His first band, the Continental Playboys, performed only in French, but a promoter convinced the brothers to also sing English songs, expanding their audience. Doug Kershaw was slow to develop his solo career. After the brothers separated, Doug Kershaw began songwriting, then moved on to recording in the late ’60s.

Doug Kershaw seemingly appeared out of nowhere to most rock fans when he opened for Derek and the Dominos in a week-long engagement at New York’s Fillmore East in 1969. The success there secured a long term recording contract and a spot at the Newport Folk Festival, joining James Taylor and Jerry Jeff Walker as first time performers.

Over the decades, Doug Kershaw would appear on the country charts from time to time while remaining a sought after session artist. In addition, he also occasionally recorded Cajun records and for a long time ran a restaurant in Colorado.

The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame and National Fiddler Hall of Fame member still performs and says that “I’m relearning songs I wrote 65 years ago. I have to laugh about it. I am so honored that my music has lasted this long. It’s just incredible.”

Marcy Playground formed in New York City although the band members were all from the Midwest. John Wozniak moved to the city from Minneapolis and developed a musical relationship with fellow Minneapolis native Dylan Keefe. Both had attended high school at the same time but did not know one another. Keefe’s friend from college Dan Rieser filled out the new group on drums, hailing from Ohio.

Wozniak cites being intimidated by other students during his time at Marcy Open, an experimental elementary school as a foundation for his future self. The band takes its name from the school and the playground, which ultimately Wozniak refused to visit due to his issues with other students.

Marcy Playground released their self-titled debut album in February 1997. Several months after the album’s release, rock radio picked up on the group’s single Sex and Candy, which pushed the album up the U.S. charts and, eventually, to platinum certification.

Marcy Playground was unable to avoid the sophomore jinx that affects so many bands who have a big success with their first release, but they were ultimately susceptible to the aforementioned “curse,” as the resulting album, 1999’s Shapeshifter, was widely panned by critics and sank from sight shortly after its release. The group shrank away from the spotlight but continued releasing albums.

During a hiatus, Wozniak bought a recording studio, Keefe went to work for NPR and Rieser went on tour with Norah Jones. By 2009 Wozniak had a new solo record, but that eventually morphed into a Marcy Playground album titled Leaving Wonderland. They then invited fans to remix the songs, releasing Remixes from Wonderland with the fans sharing in the royalties.

Two time Grammy winner Robert Palmer counted the US Armed Forces Radio Network amongst his early musical influences. The son of an officer in British naval intelligence, he moved with his family to Malta, where he heard blues, soul and jazz on the network.

After returning to the UK, Palmer joined the Alan Bown Set, with whom he recorded three albums. When the band folded in 1974, Palmer signed a solo record deal with the same record label. Palmer moved to the US to record his first album, landing in New Orleans with Little Feat as his backing band. While Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley did not chart in his native UK, it cracked the top 100 in the US.

Palmer followed up with another album heavily influenced by Little Feat with Pressure Drop and then toured with the band as their opening act.

Robert Palmer’s music pivoted more towards rock in the ’80s where he found greater commercial success. After developing a friendship with the band members of Duran Duran, Palmer along with Andy and John Taylor from the band formed The Power Station when Duran Duran went on hiatus. The new group had two hit singles from their debut album, but Palmer abandoned the group to return to his solo career.

In 198,5 he released Riptide which featured his biggest hit Addicted to Love. The song won a Grammy and the accompanying video has proven to be some of the most memorable imagery from the MTV days, and is one that has generated a tremendous number of parody videos. Even Palmer himself parodied the video, replacing the all girl band in the original video with animated geese.

Robert Palmer died in 2003 at the age of 54. He was in Paris recording a TV special and suffered a heart attack in his hotel room.