Remembering Aretha

Aretha Franklin passed away on August 16th, 2018 at age 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Her name was nearly always followed by” The Queen of Soul”, a regal title she earned and represented throughout her legendary career. Her voice and ability to connect with audiences have left an indelible mark on the world.

She was the daughter of a Baptist preacher and developed her gift singing in the church choir. She was recognized for not only her multi octave vocal range, but her ability to convey emotions through her singing. She blended the emotive delivery of the gospel style with rhythm and blues in her hits, “Respect”, “Natural Woman”, “Chain of Fools”, “Think”, “Who’s Zooming Who” and “Freeway of Love”. Over her nearly 60 year career, shehas been awarded numerous accolades including 18 Grammy Awards.

Review of Aretha Franklin’s 1968 album Lady Soul

In celebration of Labor Day in the United States, here’s a few songs:
“Back on the Chain Gang” by The Pretenders
“Up On Cripple Creek” by The Band
“Working Man” by Rush

This month’s episode of Maggie’s Corner features the New Jersey based quartet, The Outcrops, who play a mix of drawing from a wide variety of genres such as rock, Americana, blues and soul.

Read the Article

• “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix (8/05)
• “I Don’t Want to Wait” by Paula Cole (8/12)
• “Freewill” by Rush (8/19)
• “Moths” by Jethro Tull (8/26)

Our Ever Growing Music Network

The River of Rock is a network of affiliated music-centric websites, privately owned and based in  Pennsylvania.The core of our network are four “Rock Review” sites. Modern Rock Review is an international hub for new, independent music, Classic Rock Review is a repository of original album reviews from the classic rock era of the late 20th century.. Roots Rock Review, focuses  both on the classic American genres (blues, jazz, rockabilly, classic country, R&B, soul, Gospel, etc.) dating back to the start of the 20th century, while Keystone Rock Review focuses on Pennsylvania-based music, past and present, as well as events, art, technology and culture based in the Keystone state.

Thank you for your continued support of our music network!
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On the 49th anniversary of the first men on the moon, we revisit a list of the best space-oriented rock songs throughout the classic rock album era.
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 See the Top 9 List

Keystone Rock Review has launched a new feature called Maggie’s Corner, which will offer unique interviews and insights by our correspondent Maggie Rose Neiswender. The initial article of this new feature focuses on artists who performed at the 21st Briggs Farm Blues Festival earlier this month.

Read the Article

• “Up On Cripple Creek” by The Band (7/01)
• “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt (7/08)
• “Tennessee Flat Top Box” by Rosanne Cash (7/15)
• “Deacon Blues” by Steely Dan (7/22)
• “Funeral for a Friend” by Elton John (7/29)

Blue October

This young month has, unfortunately, seen more than its share of tragedy in the music world. On Sunday night there was a horrific shooting which took the life of scores of concert-goers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. This news was compounded with the sudden death of rock legend Tom Petty, who died of heart failure yesterday.

On a personal note, this past week also saw the untimely passing of the guitarist from my first rock band  during our  high school years.

Life is short folks, make it count.

Ric Albano
Editor-in-Chief

On a more upbeat note, this weekend (October 6, 7, 8) marks the beginning of the Reading Blues Fest, a three day celebration of blues music in Reading, Pennsylvania with performances by top notch artists.

More on the Reading Blues Fest

As a tribute to the late great Tom Petty (1950-2017), we’ve got a list of some of the artist’s lesser known quality tracks. We have also included a bonus Top 9 List of Petty’s greatest hit songs.

See the Top 9 List

Hello everyone! This newsletter will feature a shameless self-promotion.

Today (June 26th) marks the release of my latest and great album, called The Journey, under my artist name Sinclair Soul.  The album consists of seven tracks which range musically from straight-out rock/pop to the fusion of roots musical elements like country, folk, blues and jazz. Lyrically and thematically, these tunes are personal, philosophical, spiritual or a blend of all three and presented in a way where each can be interpreted distinctly by the listener.

You can listen to the album on the Sinclair Soul Bandcamp page and purchase digitally there or at other popular outlets such as Amazon, CD Baby and many more.

As always, thanks for supporting independent music!

Ric Albano

20th Briggs Farm Blues Fest
This excellent, Pennsylvania based summer festival has grown from hosting about 800 people a day in that initial year to about 7000 last year.

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This year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of Stax Records (originally named “Satellite Records” at its founding). Although this label had less than 20 years as a productive force of original music, the influence of the sound forged there would reverberate through R&B, funk, soul and rock n’ roll.

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Remembering a Couple of Legends

In the past few weeks, the rock n roll world has lost a couple of legends with the passing of Chris Cornell, front man of the group Soundgarden, and Gregg Allman, founding member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band. Both of these guys were unique talents the likes of which we will never see again.

We’ve lamented about how 2016 was a rough year on these matters and 2017 has already seen the departure of Chuck Berry. Let’s hope that some of the remaining rockers stick around for a while and continue bringing us great music!

Roots Rock Review has launched a brand new periodic feature which looks at seven select albums that were recently released. This initial incarnation features the following seven albums:

Spring 2017 Select Seven

A Southern rock band with a truly original approach, the South Carolina based quintet Cranford Hollow seems to have found their niche with their fifth album, 2016’s Color/Sound/Renew/Revive.

Review of Color/Sound/Renew/Revive

Live HMAC and Mauch Chunk Opera House came about as sort of a happy accident by Bret Alexander & Nyke Van Wyk, A few 2016 live performances were recorded for other purposes but the resulting works are reinterpreted songs with fresh, new musical arrangements that are performed differently from the original versions.

Review of Live by Bret Alexander & Nyke Van Wyk

A bit of a turn away from his early psychedelic-influenced work. Dr. John’s Gumbo is a finely performed and produced tribute to the distinct, traditional music of Dr. John‘s hometown of New Orleans.

Review of Dr. John’s Gumbo 

We revisit a list of nine classic rock songs which in some way celebrate the season of Summer. Here we look at some of the great classic rock songs that explicitly mention or implicitly conjure images of Springtime.

See the Top 9 List

Singin’ Songs through the Southland

Hello everyone! It has been awhile since we’ve shared news so there is much to get to in this Spring newsletter. Through the first quarter of the year we have been listening, exploring, curating and creating great music.

A big highlight during this time was a journey through the American South that my wife and I took where we visited some of the rich historic locales from cities like Memphis and Nashville to more rural areas like Muscle Shoals, Tupelo and the Mississippi Delta. Along the way, we walked in the footsteps of legends like Muddy Waters, BB King, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and scores of other legends, while discovering the humble wellsprings that spawned and influenced the greatest music on Earth.

I highly recommend such a pilgrimage for any true music fan.

Ric Albano
Editor-in-Chief

We revisit a list of nine classic rock songs which in some way celebrate the season of Spring. Here we look at some of the great classic rock songs that explicitly mention or implicitly conjure images of Springtime.

See the Top 9 List

The third solo record by seasoned rock veteran Aaron Fink, Galaxies is a 2017 release which features rich and entertaining tunes presented with much diverse rock n’ roll flavoring.

Review of Galaxies

Alexis P. Suter Ministers of Sound celebrated the release of their new album Live From Briggs Farm with a concert at the FM Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Alexis P. Suter at the FM Kirby Center

During the decade of the 1950s, Chuck Berry went from a part-time musician playing local gigs to supplement his income to one of the most successful and influential artists of the era.

Chuck Berry in the 1950s

As a composer, performer, multi-instrumentalist, an producer, Patrick Joseph defines the essence of an independent performer. His 2016 release, Hindsight features a mix of new music and re-interpretations of songs from his previous two LPs.

Review of Hindsight 

Please send any questions, comments or suggestions about our music network to ric@modernrockreview.com.