Email Author Roy Kasten

2001 Stories by Roy Kasten

• Levon Helm and the Barn Burners

  published May 30, 2001

  Jon Carroll once wrote that Levon Helm is the only drummer who can make you cry. Indeed, it's easy to forget how indispensable Helm's... More >>

• Aisles of Miles

  published May 23, 2001

  Standing before a photo of Miles Davis, taken in Copenhagen in 1964, Robert Archibald, president of the Missouri Historical Society, muses about... More >>

• Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys

  published May 16, 2001

  When yet another bunch of punks decides to put on the twang, you'd be justified in expecting the insolence of Southern Culture on the Skids or the... More >>

• The 2001 RFT Slammies

  published May 16, 2001

  Artist of the Year -- Nelly Recording of the Year -- Country Grammar Best Rap Artist -- Nelly We abased ourselves to... More >>

• Robert Earl Keen with Chip Taylor

  published May 9, 2001

  Don't blame Robert Earl Keen Jr. if the twin daughters of our reigning usurper name him as one of their favorite singers. Keen is handsome,... More >>

• Bill Morrissey

  published May 9, 2001

  Like Rob, the record-obsessed protagonist of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, you likely have your own list of all-time breakup albums.... More >>

• Songs of Experience

  published May 2, 2001

  Trying to put words to what Norman Blake has meant to American music, one risks entering a maze of analogy and never finding a way out. He is to... More >>

• Kelly Reinert

  published April 11, 2001

  Unless you're a performer (or a friend of one), you generally attend open mics out of rock-bottom boredom or morbid fascination, or by mistake. On... More >>

• Country-Blues Confessional

  published March 21, 2001

  I shared the stage with Fred McDowell, I was his biggest fan Someone jumped up shouting, "She plays just like a man!" ... she... More >>

• Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise

  published March 7, 2001

  Robert Bradley was a blind busking blues-shouter in Detroit until alterna-rock kids Michael and Andrew Nehra turned on to him -- they allegedly... More >>

• Martin Carthy

  published February 28, 2001

  Martin Carthy wasn't born into traditional folk music. Like many great artists, he had to steal his tradition -- through voracious study and... More >>

• Blue Mood

  published February 21, 2001

  Larry Sparks appears Saturday at the Frontenac Hilton as part of the 11th Annual Gateway Bluegrass Festival, probably the biggest and best winter... More >>

• Sparks Plug

  published February 21, 2001

  Some voices have it: Meeting the diaphragm of a microphone, sending a tremor of electricity toward tape, they unfold and reveal themselves, naked,... More >>

• Dolly Parton

  published February 7, 2001

  Though Dolly Parton has been unsparing in discussing her displeasure with the country-music establishment -- going so far as to board up her... More >>

• Tom Rush

  published January 31, 2001

  The new film Thirteen Days may not always get history right, but it offers a chilling reminder: The year 1962 might have been our last. For... More >>

• Tim Easton

  published January 24, 2001

  Singer/songwriter Tim Easton hasn't landed the big record deal -- he's better off without it -- hasn't had his songs covered by Emmylou Harris or... More >>

• Going for Baroque

  published January 24, 2001

  Peter Tkach's workshop, in the basement of his Webster Groves home, could belong to any craftsman. It's a modest space of long tables, drills,... More >>