Pierce Brothers

Nothing like travelling the world making music with your best friend, who just happens to be your twin. Jack and Patrick Pierce are natural performers, their talents honed by busking the streets of Melbourne. This EP shows the duo’s keen songcraft and nimble melodies with a touch of ragged glory. You can take the buskers out of the street, but you can’t take the street out of the buskers.

Melbourne folk-pop duo Pierce Brothers have released their latest single "Back End Roads," the first taste of new music that will be featured on their upcoming full-length debut album, 'Atlas Shoulders!' Featuring drums reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams and a chorus embedded in the Australian folk realm, Back End Roads is destined to be an instant fan favourite. Talking about the single the brothers reminisced, "We wrote it about our favorite place on earth, Wilson's Prom, and how it was when we grew up there. It's a summer vibe tune plain and simple. About getting away from the grind and a throwback to the more mellow summer anthems that dominated our youth."

She gave her daughter everything, but everything was not enough. Mildred Pierce brings to life the memorable characters introduced in James M. Cain’s classic 1941 novel of pride and privilege in the middle class. Starring Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet, and co-written and directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Todd Haynes, this five-part drama is an intimate portrait of a uniquely independent woman who finds herself newly divorced during the Depression years, as she struggles to carve out a new life for herself and her family. The story explores Mildred’s unreasonable devotion to her insatiable daughter Veda, as well as the complex relationship she shares with the indolent men in her life, including her polo-playing lover Monty Beragon and ex-husband Bert Pierce.

Lester Young's influence on younger tenor players was at its height in the early-to-mid-'50s. This enjoyable session matches together the three tenors of Al Cohn, Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca but good luck telling them apart! Backed by pianist Hank Jones, either Barry Galbraith or Jimmy Raney (who used the pseudonym on this date of Sam Beethoven) on guitar, bassist John Beal and drummer Chuck Flores, the tenors play concise versions of originals by Cohn, Perkins, Nat Pierce, Bill Potts and Bob Brookmeyer in addition to the lone standard "Blue Skies." The music is fun and swinging if not all that original or distinctive. [The disc was issued by Mosaic in 2006 with the addition of four bonus tracks.] ~ AllMusic Review by Scott Yanow