Acoustic

Best remembered for soft-rock perennials like "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" and "I'd Love You to Want Me," Lobo was the alias of singer/songwriter Roland Kent LaVoie, born July 31, 1943 in Tallahassee, FL. At 17 he joined the Rumors, whose ranks also included future luminaries like country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons, country-pop cut-up Jim Stafford, and noted drummer Jon Corneal. From there LaVoie attended the University of South Florida, joining the Sugar Beats and making his recorded debut on their 1964 single "What Am I Doing Here?" Although the group proved short-lived, it inaugurated a lengthy collaboration between LaVoie and bandmate Phil Gernhard, who would later produce all of Lobo's hits; together they also helmed the Jim Stafford favorites "Spiders & Snakes" and "Wildwood Weed." Stints in the Little-Known Uglies and Me & the Other Guys followed before LaVoie issued his debut solo single, "Happy Days in New York City," in 1969.

The great voice of African reggae offers us his first acoustic album. He reinvents his greatest hits (Tonton d"America, Africain à Paris, Plus rien ne m"étonne, Ça va faire mal…), and invites a host of French and international artists to join him (Bernard Lavilliers, Chico César, Naâman, Horace Andy, -M-, Tiggs Da Author…). A must-have in his discography!

Native Harrow's new album, "Like Never Before: Duo Acoustic Volume One, is set to be released on May 30th, 2025. The album features acoustic versions of songs like "Something You Have" and "If I Could", according to Instagram. To celebrate the release, Native Harrow will be performing an intimate duo acoustic set at 48 Record Bar in Philadelphia on May 29th.

Acoustic Unity, driven by the stick work of prolific Norwegian drummer Gard Nilssen along with his longtime compositional collaborator and saxophonist André Roligheten and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh, plays explorative post-bop originals that can lean into free jazz or up the tempos and grow agitated, before sliding into a wonderfully melodic slow mode. While the title of the trio's last album, To Whom Who Buys a Record, was a direct nod to Ornette Coleman and his To Who Whom Keeps a Record album, Roligheten, who can at times sound like John Coltrane, here more resembles a friskier, young Sonny Rollins: short honks, streaking statements and fleet galloping.

Think you know Christina Novelli? Well, you do. but not nearly as well as you're about to! The penultimate month of 2019 sees the release of a longplayer that dispenses with the 'featurings', '&s' and 'withs' and places her work centrestage under a single-beam-spotlight. By-lined 'The Acoustic Sessions', 'Through My Eyes' tells you all you need to know about its focus. This is an album that illuminatingly dials Christina's songs - both recent and classic - right back to their origin points. ??Be it the best known/received club-flamers from the last eighteen months, her own most recent solo singles or outright time-honoured classics, each has been stripped down to their bare acoustic bones.

Comprised of brothers Steven and Andrew McKeller (lead vocals/bass/piano and guitar, respectively), Richard Wouters (drums) and Kevin Dalley (keys/guitar), Civil Twilight have already established themselves as a dynamic and introspective alt-rock outfit; seeing and hearing them in such a stripped-down setting only highlights their immense talents even more. “‘Story of an Immigrant’ was one of the first songs written for this new record and the song that got the writing process going,” Wouters tells us. “This performance is a broken-down version of the song, much like the way it was originally written and conceived.”