Category Archives: Music

The British Push of Americana

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 22, 2013

Just as British rock musicians two generations ago revived and updated American blues for U.S. audiences, it may be the British touch, perversely, that has boosted the music known as Americana. A new film about Americana that premieres tonight, “Nashville 2.0: The Rise of Americana” (PBS, 9 p.m.,check local listings), might not have been made [...]

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Music Review: Randy Newman at the Library of Congress

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 17, 2013

At the Library of Congress Randy Newman concert Saturday, it was kids beware. If they came to hear one of his many songs from Pixar animation — certainly his most successful tunes of the last two decades — they could hear only one. And even then, the inevitable “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” came [...]

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Two Hour Hendrix Biography on PBS

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 5, 2013

One of the amazing things about Jimi Hendrix, subject of a lavish two hour “American Masters” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings) is that he seems to have been born fully formed. Even before Chas Chandler found him in a New York club and took him over to London to become one of rock’s premier [...]

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Opera Review: ‘The Force of Destiny’

By Roger Catlin | Published: October 18, 2013

The Washington National Opera is celebrating the bicentenary of Wagner and Verdi this season, and to honor the latter, artistic director Francesca Zambello has chosen what she called one of his “more elusive” works. Obscure is what she means regarding “La Forza del Destino,” otherwise known as “The Force of Destiny,” and there may be [...]

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The Songs of the ‘Breaking Bad’ Finale

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 30, 2013

Walter White smiled a a tiny smile when he saw his old cooking setup one more time, all in operating order, all working so well, albeit with slave labor. After all this time, the former teacher could finally be satisfied with the knowledge that he had taught Jesse Pinkman well. Badfinger’s “Baby Blue” played in [...]

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‘Million Dollar Quartet’ at Kennedy Center

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 28, 2013

There may not be a better musical focus for a jukebox musical than the sounds of Memphis’ plucky Sun Studios in the 1950s, where Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash (and a dozen more names) came up with their first vibrant hits. Focusing on a chance get-together in the studio of the [...]

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Rockin’ with Dan Baird at the Iota

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 18, 2013

Amid a blistering rock ‘n’ roll performance by Dan Baird and Homemade Sin among other grey hairs holding a torch, one must wonder: Where has Baird been all these years? The answer seems to be Europe, where they appreciate his hard-charging genre-shredding rock ‘n’ roll the same way the Continent appreciated classic American forms from [...]

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WNO Math: ‘Tristan + Isolde’ – Voigt

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 18, 2013

The problem with building an opera around a star is that sometimes, the star will falter. So even as the cover of the Washington National Opera Playbill of “Tristan and Isolde” shows Deborah Voigt’s picture and the program itself lists her as star, with artistic director Francesca Zambello promising an “incomparable artist,” Voigt herself had [...]

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Thinking of Linda Ronstadt

By Roger Catlin | Published: August 25, 2013

I was just thinking of Linda Ronstadt earlier this week, seeing her name on a list of authors who will be in town for the National Book Festival next month. Turns out she has an autobiography “Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir” coming out on Simon & Schuster Sept. 13. But she trumped any of its [...]

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Rosanne Cash Visits Her Southern Roots

By Roger Catlin | Published: August 6, 2013

On a day when she finished mastering her new album “The River and the Thread,” Rosanne Cash played a few songs from it and talked about its origins from deep in the South where her famous father was raised. Her comments — and performance — came at a TV Critics Association summer press tour session [...]

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