If there is a common public perception of Woody Guthrie, it is either the dusty old folkie who wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' or the guy staring steely-eyed into the camera, an acoustic guitar with the words "This Machine Kills Fascists" slung low on his hips. To Woody's daughter, Nora, he was all that and more. "He would say something very ...

Jack Penate says his new, more dance-oriented album, 'Everything Is New,' was a departure for him. In a bid to alter his sound, he changed the way he wrote the songs, starting with the music fist and adding lyrics later. "I did everything in reverse," he tells Spinner, "which just made me react differently to the music, which was great." So what ...

If you want to leave your house to see singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, you usually have to go to a club or theater or some similar venue. Thanks to the Web, you can see her perform in a very unique place -- an actual river. McKeown will be performing in the environment she is most at home -- literally, in and around her home in Western ...

You wouldn't think Club Passim, the smallish folk venue in Cambridge, Mass., that housed Joan Baez and Bob Dylan's start decades ago, would be buzzing with requests to play Michael Jackson songs the day after the King of Pop's death. It would especially seem out of place if the man onstage is known as a country and roots rock stalwart. It makes ...

Considering Jack Penate's debut album, 'Matinee,' generated enough buzz to land him on the cover of NME and at No. 7 on the charts, pressured to repeat his success might be a given. But that particular success would mean more guitar-oriented pop tracks. Don't look for Penate to repeat himself on 'Everything Is New,' due out in the U.S. later this ...

Less than three years ago, it would have been hard for Tom Chaplin to imagine his band, Keane, would be together for another album and tour. Now the band is through a few legs of their trek in support of its third album, 'Perfect Symmetry,' and they're having the time of their lives. Chaplin said he had a meltdown in 2006, which landed him in ...

When engineer Geoff Emerick first entered a studio with Nellie McKay, he was recording her debut album, 'Get Away From Me,' in 2004. This month, the two enter the studio again for a very different project -- a tribute to the Beatles' 'Revolver.' It's an album with which Emerick has close ties -- he started work on it his first day as head engineer ...