Every Moment Has A Song

Recommended Albums #117

25 May 2026 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: revenge!, robbie fulks

Robbie Fulks: Revenge! (2007)

Countercountry singer/songwriter/wiseass Robbie Fulks is an unconventional guy. And Revenge! is a typically unconventional live album.

The double-length CD package is divided into discs labeled “Standing” and “Sitting”. The first, with opening cut “We’re On the Road” setting up the premise of the live album in amusing fashion, features full electric performances from his long-serving live band, who rival Lyle Lovett’s for tight, high-energy performance and virtuosity.

The “Sitting” disc features a more stripped-down, acoustic set.

In both settings, the musicianship, both of Fulks and bandmates, is evident, as is the humor.

But the humor and the jaw-dropping guitar skills are only half the story: it happens that when it comes to songcraft there are few better, as many previous posts on this blog have shown.

If you learned Robbie Fulks grew up with a guitar-playing dad and an autoharp-playing mum it’d make sense. It’s just a bonus to hear he had an Aunt Mildred who played violin and an Aunt Stella who played banjo. I mean, really?

Young Robbie clearly absorbed plenty.

Fulks has backed Steve Martin on tour and on the Tonight Show. He’s recorded with Tim O’Brian. His bluegrass credentials are undeniable.

But he’s never felt constrained by genre. “Let’s Kill Saturday Night” is more Steve Earle than Bill Monroe. “That Bangle Girl” is hardly a banjo and mandolin workout. Fulks released an album of Michael Jackson/Jackson Five covers in 2010 that’s more pop and R&B than country and bluegrass.

2025’s Now and Then, which Fulks has described as “post-stylistic”, owes little to bluegrass or even traditional country.

And “Fountains of Wayne Hotline” shows his chops in the realm of parody, nailing the sound (and the formula) of that band brilliantly, not to mention being one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard, frankly.

If you like your music neatly categorized and you prefer artists to stay tightly locked in musical boxes, Robbie Fulks may confound you.

But if his mood-swinging, bi-polar, genre-hopping musical excursions keep fans on their toes, his consistently fine writing makes him an artist always worthy of attention.

But hey–enough of my yackin’. What do you say? Let’s Boogie!

Listen to: “We’re On the Road”

Listen to: “Cigarette State”

Listen to: “Let’s Kill Saturday Night”

Listen to: “I Like Being Left Alone”

Listen to: “Bluebirds Are Singing For Me”

Songs You May Have Missed #844

24 May 2026 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: keola beamer, lei 'awapuhi (yellow ginger lei)

Keola Beamer: “Lei ‘Awapuhi (Yellow Ginger Lei)” (1995)

Repeating the words of my previous Beamer post:

Keola Beamer is a fifth-generation musician and master of the Hawaiian slack key guitar style. He’s also the composer of “Honolulu City Lights”, one of Hawaii’s biggest-selling songs of all time.

Moe’uhane Kika: Tales from the Dream Guitar was produced by George Winston and distributed by Windham Hill subsidiary Dancing Cat Records, so it might be mistaken for New Age music.

But the album is mostly comprised of tranquil instrumental versions of familiar Hawaiian songs–or songs that would be familiar to Hawaiians.

This isn’t New Age, but it is World Music. It isn’t wimpy, but it is serene. It isn’t steel guitar and ukulele, but it is music with deep Hawaiian roots.

And it’s gorgeous.

Songs You May Have Missed #843

24 May 2026 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: andrew bird, the new saint jude

Andrew Bird: “The New Saint Jude” (2016)

“Ever since I gave up hope I’ve been feeling so much better” is Andrew Bird’s dose of backhanded optimism.

Hopefully we can all appreciate this tune on a sardonic and not a literal level.

Video of the Week: Tiny Desk Concert–Amaia

24 May 2026 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Video of the Week Tags: amaia

Spanish singer Amaia is walking contradiction. She’s a multi-instrumentalist, easily traipsing between piano, chair flute and — not featured in this Tiny Desk performance — her signature harp. But all of this hardly compares to a voice that dances between ferocity and softness.

Recommended Albums #116

20 May 2026 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Recommended Albums Tags: matt duncan, soft times

Matt Duncan: Soft Times (2013)

Matt Duncan, who calls himself “the Elvis of self-doubt”, is a purveyor of tuneful soft rock that sounds like it ought to be playing from an AM transistor radio.

In a good way.

Though actual 70’s pop spanned a single decade, in the four-plus decades since we’ve been hearing people try to approximate its magic.

And though plenty of contemporary artists catch interest for their retro 70’s musical dialect, seldom does their mere facsimile of sound actually summon the aura of that decade.

Maybe the secret is to not try too hard.

Duncan acknowledges his first LP Beacon lived in the 60’s, and that his sound moved onward one decade for this, his second.

But while he cites Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell among others as influences, his music is never mimicry. Did you hear an Atlanta Rhythm Section groove in “The Keys”? A little Van Morrison in the horns on “Idle Hands”? The influences are hard to pin down because it’s all more evocative than derivative.

Duncan just tastefully employs a variety of elements: soulful violins, sax, scratch guitar, and harmony vocals span the album. He arranges with lots of pauses, breakdowns and tempo changes, ensuring that “mellow” never becomes “dull”. And it’s all done with an impressive overall gloss and sophistication.

Lyrically, Duncan avoids cliche territory completely, and a barbed line here or there is a pleasant surprise.

One might call this lightweight stuff, but so were Hall & Oates after 1980. Not everything has to be “Kashmir”.

Soft Times feels like a pleasant escape back to 1977 and a brief respite from our own hard times.

Listen to: “The Keys”