Steve Knopper – Page 6

Nathaniel Rateliff is a missionary of a different kind now

December 14, 2018 at 8:50 a.m.

When 18-year-old Nathaniel Rateliff moved with a missionary group from his rural hometown of Hermann, Mo., to Denver, the journey was more difficult than he anticipated. "We actually were caught...

Nick Cave has been singing about mortality for decades, and he's really good at it. Whether the narratives are biblical or pulpy, the victims innocents or death row convicts, the circumstances comprehensible or cruelly random, Cave's songs are on intimate terms with the infinite ways a life can be extinguished. And yet, "Skeleton Tree", his latest album with his estimable band, the Bad Seeds, is a relatively concise song cycle shadowed by death that feels different than all the rest. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/kot/sc-music-nick-cave-skeleton-tree-ent-0916-20160916-column.html" target="_blank">Read the full review.</a>

An older, wiser Jason Aldean hits songs with more substance

December 13, 2018 at 9:39 a.m.

Of the many times country star Jason Aldean has covered Tom Petty's rock classic "I Won't Back Down" in his long career of playing bars, clubs and arenas, the one...

Wye Oak got stronger and louder by cutting back

December 13, 2018 at 9:23 a.m.

As a duo, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have only so many hands and feet. They've made most of their albums by playing their instruments roughly as if...

The unflappable beauty of the Breeders

May 11, 2018 at 5:46 p.m.

At the center of the Breeders' biggest hit, 1993's "Cannonball," Kim Deal sings a line that suggests an inside joke, or possibly a musicological riddle or zen koan: "I'll be...

The Chicago Afrobeat Project is back to cutting loose

December 14, 2018 at 12:46 p.m.

When famed Nigerian drummer Tony Allen joined the Chicago Afrobeat Project last year, it was as if Hank Aaron showed up to spend a month with the White Sox. "He...

Catching up with Ruben Studdard, the ‘Velvet Teddy Bear’

December 14, 2018 at 11:44 a.m.

Ruben Studdard brings up his mother, Emily, a schoolteacher, in just about every interview. She first heard him sing in public when he was 2, and had the foresight to...

If you know Springsteen, you know Max Weinberg

December 14, 2018 at 11:06 a.m.

The other week, Max Weinberg's Jukebox was playing a bar in Minneapolis, and somebody shouted a request for the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black." And while the longtime drummer for...

Lucy Dacus, from a 2016 Lollapalooza performance at the BMI stage. She is scheduled to perform April 6, 2018, at the Empty Bottle.

Six reasons to live for music, from Lucy Dacus to Ministry

December 14, 2018 at 9:47 a.m.

Every year around this time, touring stars finally wake up from their post-holiday naps and start pulling their vans up to clubs around the country. In Chicago, that means concerts...

The Go! Team used Detroit as the spot for its sonic hijinks

December 14, 2018 at 6:00 p.m.

For some reason, Ian Parton's parents had been out of town during the week, some 15 years ago. "Maybe they were on holiday," he recalls. "I had the whole place."...

Meshell Ndegeocello finds a new voice after a dark period

December 14, 2018 at 4:59 p.m.

Some musicians work out personal problems through writing songs. Meshell Ndegeocello, the veteran singer and bassist, went the other way. Her father died of leukemia in 2016; her mother, who...

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