Americana

The persistence of Indie Lindi Ortega

Entertainment / Music Her old label decided she’s no Lady Gaga, as one listen to Ortega’s lonely, affecting tunes should have told them.    Singer/songwriter Lindi Ortega Nick Krewen Special to the Star Published on Mon Nov 29 2010 When The Killers’ Brandon Flowers visits The Sound Academy Saturday to support his new album Flamingo, he’ll have a local hired hand singing backup that everyone should keep an eye on. Though raven-haired and…


Remembering Shel

  Nick Krewen GRAMMY.com Nov/Dec 2005 Legacy Recordings’ reputation for mining its vaults and producing superb compilations received another boost this past summer with the release of such acclaimed packages as Johnny Cash‘s 4-CD box set The Legend, Miles Davis‘ quintuple-disc The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions and Bob Dylan‘s Martin Scorsese-driven No Direction Home. One watershed anthology, however, got lost in the shuffle: the best of Shel Silverstein – his…


Stacey Earle is the Gearle

 Nick Krewen For the KW Record November 4, 1999   Stacey Earle is making up for lost time. The younger sister of country renegade Steve waited until she was 38 to release this year’s Simple Gearle  album, a stunning collection of roots-driven folk, blues and alternative country. “I always tinkered around with music and played it, by ear, around the house when we were younger,” Earle said from her Nashville…


Cracker

PUBLISHED IN THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR AUGUST 25, 1998     NICK KREWEN Hamilton Spectator August 25, 1998   TORONTO:   Seems American rock critics can’t quite get it right when it comes to defining and describing Cracker, the sardonic Richmond, Virginia-based rock group led by singers and songwriters David Lowery and Johnny Hickman. So the band made it easy for them on their new album Gentleman’s Blues. “I had to…


Robbie Fulks: South Mouth’s Gonna Do It Again

A version of this appeared in The Toronto Star on Monday, February 15   Robbie Fulks: South Mouth’s Gonna Do It Again   By Nick Krewen     At first glance, the pairing of Robbie Fulks and Ben Folds Five for Wednesday’s sold-out show at The Phoenix might seem odd. But it’s a mismatch made in heaven. On one hand you’ve got Folds, the piano-pounding wonder geek whose incisive, sonorous…