Bettye Lavette: Late Bloomer Gets Her Mojo On

After Atlantic Records shelved what singer Bettye LaVette had hoped would be her breakthrough album in 1972—an album recorded in soul-music hotbed Muscle Shoals, Ala.—the Detroit native spent more than three decades exiled on the farthest fringes of the music biz, singing for her supper in dives and lounges...  read more

Calexico's Favorite Musical Thrift-Store Finds

Every Calexico album is full of unusual instruments and Garden Ruin is no exception.  read more

Production Notes: Calexico

Calexico co-leaders Joey Burns and John Convertino are sipping espresso at an upscale Italian restaurant...  read more

Production Notes: Ethan Johns/Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams ended 2005 by releasing a dramatic reminder of his gift...  read more

Production Notes: Devendra Banhart

More than any of his contemporaries in what has become...  read more

Production Notes: Brian Setzer

In a sense, Brian Setzer’s 23-song Rockabilly Riot: Vol. 1: A Tribute to Sun Records was a piece of cake...  read more

Production Notes: Soundtrack of Our Lives

Svenska Grammaphon Studion—the room where The Soundtrack of Our Lives recorded its new Origin Vol. 1...  read more

Production Notes: Brad Wood

Ben Lee has impeccable timing. A few months ago, the Australian artist called his producer friend Brad Wood with some news. “He told me he had a bunch of new songs...  read more

Production Notes: Matthew Sweet

Throughout the first half of the ’90s, Matthew Sweet was perhaps the preeminent purveyor of left-of-center pop...  read more

Production Notes: John Fields

Fields motions to the gleaming Mac G5 that awaits his next command. “I have a lot of ways to fix stuff now, enabling the first-take performance to be the final performance...  read more

Production Notes: T Bone Burnett

Filmmaker Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) had good reason to call on T Bone Burnett to produce the music for Cold Mountain, his cinematic adaptation of Charles Frazier’s acclaimed Civil War novel...  read more

Ethan Johns: The Analog and the Ecstasy

Tucked into the intimate confines of Studio 3 inside Hollywood’s hallowed Sunset Sound, Ethan Johns sits at a drum kit facing Ray LaMontagne, a newcomer whose publishing company, Chrysalis Music, is footing the bill for an album it hopes to eventually place with a label...  read more