top of page

Bentley's Bandstand / Haiku Reviews / Best of 2018 (Second Half)

This year once again showed the ultimate test of longevity: great music never stops. It keeps coming like the wind and the waves. So here is this year's list of favorite albums, starting with the first half of 2018 posted in July's Bentley's Bandstand: Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock; Niki Bluhm, To Rise You Gotta Fall; David Byrne, American Utopia; Joachim Cooder, Fuchsia Machu Picchu; Ry Cooder, The Prodigal Son; Lamont Dozier, Reimagination; Beth McKee, dreamwood acres; John Prine, The Tree of Forgiveness; Sons of Kemet, Your Queen is a Reptile; Walter Wolfman Washington, My Future is My Past. Reissue: Ella Fitzgerald, Ella at Zardi's. Now on to the second half of this very fine, fine year for music.

Brandi Carlile, By the Way I Forgive You

From out of Nashville

2018's masterpiece

"Whatever You Do"

Erin Costelo, Sweet Marie

Blue-eyed soul chanteuse

From up north Nova Scotia

Down to Memphis grooves

Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Look Now

Forty years and still

Covering the waterfront

Always finding more

Alejandro Escovedo with Don Antonio, The Crossing

Wandering wonder

And Italian rock & roll

Alejandro nights

Dawn Landes, Meet Me at the River

Kentucky-Brooklyn

A hybrid waiting to be

A new star arrives

Jose James, Lean on Me

Bill Withers lives on

Inside Jose James smooth groove

Proving great stays great

Greg Laswell, Next Time

Iconoclastic

And ready for take-off now

From out of left field

Graham Parker, Cloud Symbols

Soul shoes on his feet

A terror from London's streets

Lives to tell the tale

Boz Scaggs, Out of the Blues

A voice on its own

A spirit to spark the world

True forever blue

Jeff Tweedy, Warm

Uncle Wilco's man

Opens the door to his heart

And stands for glory

Box Set of the Year

Various Artists, Stax '68: A Memphis Story

Memphis soul central

926 East McLemore

Burning down the house

Reissue of the Year

Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun

Lysergiced neurons

Snapping to new world order

Where Furthur awaits

Song of the Year

Arthur Buck, “Are You Electrified?”

Joseph and Peter

Send a message of new hope

To wake us all up

_______________________________

Bill Bentley © 2019

Bill Bentley was the music writer and typesetter for the original Austin Sun. His book SMITHSONIAN ROCK & ROLL: LIVE AND UNSEEN was published by Smithsonian Books, October 2017.

x

bottom of page