One of my very favourite virtuoso pianists is a Canadian/German guy named Michael Kaeshammer. The guy absolutely tears the roof off every time I’ve seen him live and what Benmont does here really reminds me of his playing. It’s technically superb, rhythmically perfect, and so, so, so melodic! As much as I love hearing a…

OK, so is this the most complex and musically challenging song that Tom ever wrote? OF course not. Is it have emotional weight or narrative clarity? No and not really? Does it rock, make you want to move your feet, and make you smile? Yes, yes, and yes. The economy and simplicity of the song…

With his ex-wife Jane in a really bad emotional and psychological state, Tom knew that a lot of emphasis was falling on him to keep things together at home for the sake of his youngest daughter, Annakim, and it’s all betrayed in that opening line. “It’s all I can do to keep that little girl…

Today’s episode is my ten questions with the wonderful Mary Beth Donnelly, who very kindly joined me on the kick off episode of season ten to talk about the title track from Wildflowers. We chatted about Paul Simon, Jeff Lynne, and everything in between as we went through my ten questions to find out which…

Today’s episode is another conversation I had with the wonderful Tommy Edwin. We discussed Travis picking and talked about putting set lists together and whether choose the songs you think the crowd should hear, not the songs you think they want to hear. Tommy was wonderfully warm, engaging, and just generally a wonderful hang and…

When I think about the solo in this song, it has a gravity to it that makes it feel centuries old. You could almost imagine that it has been living underground in some secret grotto since time began, just waiting for the right song to come along and feed it. It feels like a primal…

In the liner notes for Wildflowers and all the Rest, engineer Jim Scott remarks that “Tom would write a song like ‘Honey Bee’ on the spot and the band would just follow him. There are dozens of recordings just starting a song and making it up from top to bottom, coming up with funny lyrics.”…

As journalist Jaan Uhelski writes in the Wildflowers and All the Rest liner notes, “If Wildflowers is an album about taking stock of one’s life, “Only a Broken Heart” is a watershed moment on that excavation of self.” Everything about the way the final album version of this song is arranged and produced caters toward…

“It’s good to be king and have your own way. Get a feeling of peace at the end of the day” There’s security in success, but there’s an ominous cautionary tone that creeps into the next line, “And when your bulldog barks and your canary sings, You’re out there with winners, it’s good to be…

Legendary Nashville songwriter, Harlan Howard is purported to have coined the expression “three chords and the truth” and friend and colleague Bob Dylan is also remembered for the great line “All I need is my red guitar, three chords and the truth”. Well that’s all this riff is. Three chords. No passing chords, no fancy…