Curtis Mayfield

Adrian Younge: New Soul Legend

The composer and producer reimagines old-school hip-hop

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: FIDLAR, Pissed Jeans and Lamp

KCRW BROADCAST #202 02-16-13 See also: Henry Rollins: Football, Violence, and America Fanatics! Tonight's show is a great one from top to bottom. I am listening to it right now and I am excited to roll it all out for you. I just got the Fidlar and Pissed Jeans records last week and am digging the ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Weekend

Friday, December 14 Thrill Jockey 20th-anniversary party with Wooden Shjips, Liturgy, Trans Am, Kid Millions THE ECHOPLEX Back in the '90s, arty Chicago alt/indie warhorse label Thrill Jockey basically drew the map for marginalized music's move into the mainstream, with a roster including Tortoise, ... More >>

Music Picks: The Weeknd, That '70s Soul, Power of the Riff

Ten Jazz Albums to Hear Before You Die

By Joseph Lapin Because there are multiple decades of jazz, it's almost impossible to pick the top 10 albums of all time; the hip cats with their canes and cool shades will throw their used saxophone reeds in my direction and call me a young whippersnapper. Top Ten Jazz Albums for People Who Don't ... More >>

Georgia Anne Muldrow Is the Most Soulful Woman in the Western States

To invoke Bobby Byrd, Rakim and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, soul is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. It can't be calculated, borrowed or bought. The idea is more ancient than Scripture, and its effects are equally ineffable. "Soul" is pure cliché and an unavoidable as ... More >>

Brenda Holloway Was Motown's First West Coast Artist; Tomorrow She Plays With the Gaylads

American soul music and Jamaican reggae are closer kin than you might think. "Basically every '60s ska and reggae band refers to Curtis Mayfield as one of their biggest influences," says Mark Morales, a concert promoter and DJ based out of Los Angeles. Tomorrow, Morales' Hot Shot Sounds will host a ... More >>

Music Picks: Amanda Palmer & Jason Webley, Tinariwen, Mastodon

Also: Wadada Leo Smith's Ten Freedom Summers, Danzig and others

Henry Rollins: The Column! Curtis Mayfield
 Songs in Haiti

​[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] I have been curious about Haiti for many years. The history of the country is as fascina ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: A Time Change and Curtis Mayfield

​KCRW BROADCAST #131 for Saturday, September 10 Fanatics! I'm writing to you from Port Au Prince, Haiti. I have been here for about a week now and tomorrow will be flying back to Los Angeles, getting a few hours of sleep, and then coming into the studio at our new time of 8 pm to do the show ... More >>

Nick Waterhouse: The Young Man Who Makes Old R&B

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: MC5, Tinariwen, Dax Riggs and More

​KCRW BROADCAST #1245 for Saturday, July 30 Fanatics! We have put together a stellar playlist for you to check out tomorrow night. It took me a long time to get into the MC5 album Back In The USA. It wasn't that the songs weren't great -- they are. It was always the production that bugged me ... More >>

Music to Pick Up/Download

Music to Pick Up/Download

Henry Rollins Column: Rollins on Komodo Dragons (They Blow His Mind!), Deerhoof and Orange Republicans

Maura LanahanOur eminent columnist, Mr. Henry Rollins!​[The one and only Henry Rollins contirbutes a weekly column and far-reaching reportage to the music section of the LA Weekly. Look for your weekly Henry Rollins fix right here on West Coast Sound every Monday and make sure to tune in to He ... More >>

Pete Rock, Legendary Hip-Hop DJ and Producer, to Perform at Boombox's Anniversary

​Everybody loves to reminisce about the golden era of hip hop, those glory days of DJ Kool Herc MacGyvering power lines for his two-turntables-and-a-microphone and spinning breakbeats for all the b-boys and b-girls. Except, as then, hip hop's held in the fierce grip of the young, most of wh ... More >>

Our Man in Pyongyang: Our Intrepid Reporter Henry Rollins Ventures Into North Korea

Maura LanahanOur eminent columnist, Mr. Henry Rollins!​[The one and only Henry Rollins will be contributing a weekly column and far-reaching reportage to the music section of the LA Weekly. Look for your weekly Henry Rollins fix right here on West Coast Sound every Friday and make sure to tune ... More >>

Anita Baker and Snoop Dogg Put Final Touches on "Super Fly" Soundtrack Cover

​We hear that last Monday RnB legend Anita Baker was in the studio working on her upcoming album due out in the Fall. This woulnd't be so newsworthy, but we've left two very important details out: she was putting the final touches on a duet with Snoop Dogg and that duet was Curtis Mayfield's " ... More >>

Jazzster Jose James gives the West Side some soul

Jazzster Jose James gives the West Side some soul

Soul Survivor: Aloe Blacc's 'I Need a Dollar' Video (from HBO's 'How to Make it in America')

We all know those people (not necessarily over-40s, but most of them are) who go on and on about how "nobody writes songs like in the '60s," "the lost art and craftmanship of classic rock and soul," and so on. Besides displaying astonishing ignorance and lack of curiosity, those throwbacks really f ... More >>

Raphael Saadiq at the Wiltern: The Perfect-Pitch Frontman

Last Night: Raphael Saadiq at the Wiltern

INCHES002: Five More L.A. Vinyl Exclusives Revealed and Reviewed ( MP3s)

In the unpredictable wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many (with delicious irony) as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES seeks not only to review the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community (one populate ... More >>

Snoop Dogg After Dark: Interview Lite

Up with Lambchop: One of America's Great Country Bands at Largo on Saturday Night

The grand Nashville band Lambchop has delivered its majestically morbid (or morbidly majestic) brand of orchestral country music for nearly 20 years. Its founder, lead singer and songwriter, Kurt Wagner, is a dour dude who smokes like a fiend, grumbles and mumbles into the microphone like he's hoo ... More >>

Filming Snoop's Dogg After Dark: Behind the Scenes at The Kress

We members of the press are gathered on the roof of The Kress in Hollywood, four floors of elaborate clubby terrain beneath our feet, and menacing gray clouds above. It's cold and Snoop Dogg is late by almost an hour. Down on the sidewalk, the doormen are screening and waving through a slow line ... More >>

The 50 Best Albums of the Year (#10-1) (Sponsored By My Secret Identity )

And people acted surprised when Jerry O' Connell landed Rebecca Romjin. 10. Why? Alopecia (Anticon) It's tough to write about Why?'s breakout record without anxiously jotting down a few choice lyrics from songwriter Yoni Wolf's notebook. Not to downplay its musicianship, but Alopecia is forem ... More >>

The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines

Something's slightly skewed inside King Khan's skull. Pause to look at his press photos, where he's either dressed for beach season in Nice or simply in wardrobe on the set of the latest Wes Anderson jaunt. Or consider the possibility whether or not Khan swiped his name from the fabled professiona ... More >>

Bataan Twirling: Fania and Salsoul Star Returns to L.A.

The "King of Latin Soul" also teaches some mean karate kicks

Why My Morning Jacket Is the Best Live Band in the World

In an age when certified rock stars are a dying breed, a Kentucky band stakes its claim

Discovering the Candidates Through Their Playlists

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

Let's Get Lost

U.K. enigma Lewis Taylor unearths the pop jewel his label buried years ago

Oops! Year-Ended Again!

Music Picks

For the week of July 20 - 27

Music Picks

For the week of July 13 - 20

Garth Trinidad & Friends

GARTH TRINIDAD & FRIENDS “Chocolate City” birthday at The Roxy, February 10

Hardcore Middle Class

Kanye West is no savior, but his refusal to be anything but himself just might set hip-hop straight

Mojo A Go-Go

L.A. garage mods the Mojo Filters got soul, feet down below their knees

10 Questions With John Oates

KCRW’s A Sounds Eclectic Evening

Universal Amphitheater, March 12

Resistance Is Futile

The Chemical Brothers push the button and you surrender

When Legend Precedes

The erstwhile John Stephens’ uphill battle with the hype

The Short Fake Life of Charles Hampton

Shockwave Rider

Jennifer Herrema and RTX, rollling free

The Year in Music

Stone Free

Boxing Jimi Hendrix

No Exit

David Holmes’ urban nightmare

Black Steel

Common in commotion

Mas Better Party

Streetology

Joe Bataan's rap on Latin soul

Child of the Night