The deeper we burrow into the Doors' dark soul, the wider the swings from pole to pole. In "End of the Night," Robby Krieger's whammy bar drops the trapdoor from beneath our feet, Ray Manzarek's organ  …

When their stars aligned just right, the Doors found themselves midway on the high wire between their two manic poles. With its cotton-candy-sky woodwinds and strings, The Soft Parade's "Wishful …

During a painfully brief four-year run, Creedence churned out more bona-fide classics than other "legendary" bands managed in the course of decades. Their greazy stew of rock's roots and fruits, combin …

When you're honoring an artist of Willie Nelson's magnitude, the question isn't "which songs did you put in?" but "which ones did you leave out?" Capturing every awesome nugget in his discograph …

Willie has covered so much ground in his five-decades-and-counting career that sometimes it's almost possible to forget his home base is country music. His jazz standards album Stardust w …

Mose Allison has been murmuring in the world's ear - he's way too cool to belt or croon - since the '50s. Like an existential Nat "King" Cole, he redefined blues and jazz standards with his laid-back ( …

Just who is the real Mose Allison anyway? Is he the traditionalist with a twist who wrings pathos from the peppy country standard "You Are My Sunshine" by reshaping it as a bottom-of-the-well blues? Is …

The soul-soaked hits Alex Chilton tore off with the Box Tops would've been enough of a lifetime achievement for most artists, but they were merely the beginning of his story. Roaring out of Memphis wit …

A true musical historian, Alex Chilton joyously processed the legendary and the obscure, from pop, blues, soul . . . you name it, putting it all back out into the world with that indescribable, off-kil …