Coastal Review Archives
Review of The Coffee Shop Chronicles : Part 2
Review of: David Lummis
The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans, Part 2: The Last Beaucoeur by David Lummis takes place on a single day, Friday August 26, read more...
Where It Hits You
Review of: Jim White
(Yep Roc) Jim White is an interesting character. Born in Pensacola, Florida, as Michael Davis Pratt during 1957, he grew up listening to gospel music. White's debut album Wrong-Eyed Jesus! came out in 1997. He's collaborated with Victoria Williams, Aimee read more...
Nashville 48
Review of: Honey Blue
(Paper Boat Records) Honey Blue's latest EP, Nashville 48, was recorded in Nashville during April 2011. This collection serves as a natural progression to the group's debut release Broken read more...
The Last of the Pascagoula: A Review
Review of: Rebecca Meredith
Rebecca Meredith's first published novel The Last of the Pascagoula read more...
Vertically Coastal by Jerri Chaplin---A Review
Review of: Jerri Chaplin
I met Jerri Chaplin fifteen years ago at a conference for the National Association of Poetry Therapy. I was struck at that time by her warmth and genuineness and read more...
Palmer's Village Cafe
Review of: Palmer's Village Cafe
Palmer's Village Cafe 223 Mallery Street Saint Simons Island, GA 31522 912-634-5515 James Calemine’s “Never Ending Soul Food Tour” includes documented visits to barbecue joints, catfish dens, chicken shacks and any establishment read more...
Gentle Spirit
Review of: Jonathan Wilson
(Bella Union) Born in North Carolina, Jonathan Wilson moved to California years ago. Wilson's undeniable musical talents have allowed him to work and collaborate with musicians such read more...
Drifting Into Darien
Review of: Janisse Ray
(The University of Georgia Press) "I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,--a sanctum sanctorium. There is the strength, the marrow, of nature."
The Night Train
Review of: Clyde Edgerton
(Little, Brown) Clyde Edgerton remains one of North Carolina's most vibrant literary voices. He was born and raised in the Durham area and attended UNC-Chapel Hill. Today, he lives in Wilmington and teaches at UNC Wilmington. Small town North Carolina often read more...
Devil Got His Way
Review of: Damon Fowler
(Blind Pig) Like Derek Trucks, JJ Grey, and Thomas Wynn, Damon Fowler read more...
Introducing Hope Waits
Review of: Hope Waits
(Spann Records) Born in Mornroe, Louisiana, Hope Waits endured a childhood of poverty, alcholisom and neglect. She left home at 15, moved to South Carolina and began singing in church choirs. Early on, Hope developed a love for Billie Holiday. Her mother was brutally read more...
Pint Of Blood
Review of: Jolie Holland & The Grand Chandeliers
(ANTI) Houston's Jolie Holland began her career with a graceful ease. She made her first album at home just to hand out to friends. Soon, word got out about it and demand grew for more people to hear it which led to Anti Records releasing it. This read more...
A Painter's Psalm
Review of: Redding S. Sugg, Jr.
(University Press of Mississippi) When he was alive, Mississippi painter Walter Anderson lived as a recluse in his Ocean Springs home. Nature served as the fulcrum of every Anderson painting. Redding S. Sugg, Jr., edited The Horn Island Logs of Walter Inglis read more...
Loud Planes Fly Low
Review of: The Rosebuds
(Merge Records) The Rosebuds began in the most romantic of ways. Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp formed the band the same week they got married. They met in college in Wilmington, NC and then settled in Raleigh becoming mainstays in that music scene. Their read more...
Bride Of The Noisemakers
Review of: Bruce Hornsby
(429 Records) With the release of his new live album, Bride of the Noisemakers, Virginian Bruce Hornsby celebrates his 25th anniversary of his recording breakthrough. It is hard to believe that it was 1986 when his song "The Way It Is" dominated the read more...
Never Ending Soul Food Tour: Monroe's Smokehouse
Review of: Monroe's Smokehouse BBQ
Monroe's Smokehouse BBQ 4838 Highway Avenue Jacksonville, FL 32254 904-389-5551 James Calemine’s “Never Ending Soul Food Tour” includes documented visits read more...
Medicine
Review of: Tab Benoit
(Telarc) Tab Benoit's career is like a racehorse that sneaks up on the pack from the outside. He's been quietly building an impressive catalog of music for the last two decades, and Medicine might be his best yet. Benoit came along in the early 90s at read more...
American Nomad
Review of: The Apache Relay
(Nomadic/Thirty Tigers) As the Apache Relay's follow up to their critically lauded debut, American Nomad has been widely anticipated by many people who identified this band as one to watch. The previous album by this Nashville-based ensemble was produced by read more...
Fay
Review of: Larry Brown
(Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill) Trouble finds Fay Jones wherever she goes. Fay leaves her north Mississippi home on foot with two dollars, rotting tennis shoes, a half-pack of cigarettes and a serious survival instinct. Fay meets various men throughout the book who all pay read more...
Ugly Ways
Review of: Tina McElroy Ansa
(Harcourt Brace & Company) Macon, Georgia, native Tina McElroy Ansa published her second novel, Ugly Ways, in 1993. Ansa ranks as an influential novelist, teacher, filmmaker and journalist who lives on the Georgia coast. Ugly Ways tells the story of read more...
Tell My Horse
Review of: Zora Neale Hurston
(Harper & Row) Alabama born author Zora Neale Hurston wrote Tell My Horse: Voodoo And Life In Haiti And Jamaica in 1938. The vivid stories reveal how voodoo is interwoven within the cultures. Tell My Horse exists as a first hand read more...
Discovering Life's Trails: Adventures in Living
Review of: Tom Dennard
(Rainbow Books, Inc.) Published in 1993, Discovering Life’s Trails: Adventures in Living remains a seminal account from one of the south’s greatest travelers. This counts as Tom Dennard’s first of four books. Born in Pineview, Georgia, a read more...
Broken Places
Review of: Honey Blue
(Paper Boat Music) Broken Places counts as Honey Blue’s debut release. This young group from Saint Simons Island promises vast musical horizons on these seven songs recorded in the fall of 2010 at Rockstudio in Brunswick, Georgia. Honey Blue includes read more...
Low Country Blues
Review of: Gregg Allman
(Rounder) Sometimes it is hard to believe that it takes an average of a decade or so for Gregg Allman to release a solo record. It was about 9 years between Playin' Up A Storm and I'm No Angel and then another 9 years between Just Before The Bullets read more...
In The Outside
Review of: Eric Culberson Band
(ericculberson.com) Eric Culberson ranks as a journeyman musician. The Savannah, Georgia, native has logged over a million miles on the road traveling from gig to gig. Over the last 20 years he’s opened for Johnny Winter, J. Geils, Buddy Guy, John Mayall,
Crossing the Creek
Review of: Anna Lillios
Crossing the Creek: The Literary Friendship of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings University Press of Florida, Gainesville, FL , 2010 Literary friendships are relatively commonplace, but a friendship which reaches read more...
Water Bound
Review of: Shannon Whitworth
(Thirty Tigers) Water Bound counts as Shannon Whitworth's second release. Whitworth served as a member of The Biscut Burners. She released her first album--No Expectations--in 2008 and hit the road. Born in Virginia, Whitworth grew up in South Carolina and read more...
RIYEL----Eclectic and Kreyol Jazz
Review of: RIYEL (Ken Watters, Andre Atkins, Yves Abel)
Summit Records, April 2010 Released internationally on April 13, 2010, Riyel’s first album is an overview of read more...
The Coffee Shop Chronicles of New Orleans
Review of: David Lummis
SIster Schubert: Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters
Review of: SIster Schubert
Reviewed by Penne J. Laubenthal Sister Shubert's recent cookbook,
The Live Anthology
Review of: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
(Reprise Records) These four CDs--48 songs--comprise Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' hand-chosen most emotive live recordings in their 30 year career. The Anthology’s track read more...
Pat Conroy's "South of Broad": A Review
Review of: Pat Conroy
Published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday Company, August 2009 Reviewed by Penne J. Laubenthal When I read my first Pat Conroy book in the early 70s, it was love at first paragraph. When I finished reading the read more...
Around The Well
Review of: Iron And Wine
In less than five years, Iron and Wine rose from a batch of unadulterated home recordings to become one of the indie scene's most influential and successful artists. For those late to the party, Iron and Wine has but one member, Sam Beam who was born and raised in South read more...
Love Filling Station
Review of: Jesse Winchester
Jesse Winchester's songs have been recorded by songwriting legends like Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Buffett, Ralph Stanley, Delbert McClinton, and the Everly Brothers too name a few.
Delta Blues
Review of: Ted Gioia
Delta Blues:The Life and Times of Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music by Ted Gioia W. W. Norton, 2008 Reviewed by bluesman Billy C. Farlow Delta Blues read more...
I'm That Way
Review of: Beth McKee
Is it something in the water? Something in the land? People can analyze all they want, but Southerners have a different relationship to music than others. Beth McKee is prime example number one. This Jackson, MS girl has toughed it out as a musician with a career read more...
Milking the Moon
Review of: Eugene Walter
Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on this Planet Eugene Walter (as told to Katherine Clark) Crown Publishers Reviewed by Penne J. Laubenthal Hold on to your hat and get ready for a wild ride.
Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi
Review of: Nanci Kincaid
Nanci Kincaid’s most recent novel hit the bookstores just two weeks before President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address, read more...
The Truth
Review of: Superswamp Heroes
Pawley’s Island, SC brings us a fresh, new Southern Rock band with a fistful of excellent songs and a whole lot of musical passion. On this, their debut album, the quartet steps up to the plate ready to smack one out of the park. “Living Proof” gets read more...
Orange Blossoms
Review of: JJ Grey & Mofro
Orange Blossoms J.J. Grey & Mofro Alligator Records By James Calemine Orange Blossoms counts as Mofro’s fourth disc. The album title read more...
From The Reach
Review of: Sonny Landreth
Sonny Landreth From The Reach Landfall Records Sonny Landreth returns with his first record in 5 years. With his deep catalog of work both as a solo artist and a collaborator/contributor to others (
The Prince of Frogtown
Review of: Rick Bragg
“My father was the prince of Frogtown” writes Alabama author and Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg in his latest book entitled
Gileah & the Ghost Train
Review of: Gileah & the Ghost Train
GILEAH & THE GHOST TRAIN Gileah & the Ghost Train The Love Library TLL-100 Gileah is a talent of many faces (and phases) . A music-driven Gileah Taylor first forayed into songwriting and recording with a collection of children's songs, read more...
Darius Goes West
Review of: Logan Smalley
“Something’s gonna happen like…Just spark the whole world,” exclaims Darius, the star of the award-winning independent documentary feature film Darius Goes West (DGW), 2007. read more...
Never Ending Soul Food Tour
Review of: Southern Soul Barbecue
James Calemine's "Never Ending Soul Food Tour" includes documented visits to barbecue joints, catfish dens, chicken shacks and any establishment serving memorable vittles. All Photos by James Calemine Southern Soul Barbecue (Part Two) 2020 Demere read more...
Meat Market
Review of: Bruce Feldman
Meat Market by Bruce Feldman ESPN Books Bruce Feldman wrote Meat Market to read more...
Song of America
Review of: Various Artists
Song of America Various Artists 31 Tigers Records By James Calemine This 50-song, 3 CD collection tells the story of America through songs from the year 1492 through modern times. Song of America contains a diverse line-up of artists read more...
Hurricane Season
Review of: Neal Thompson
Hurricane Season by Neal Thompson Free Press Author Neal Thompson has tapped read more...
KELBRN
Review of: Carter Martin
KELBRN by Carter Martin Xlibris Press, 2007
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology
Review of: Various Authors
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology of Alabama Poetry edited by Sue Brannan Walker and J. William Chambers Negative Capability Press, Mobile, Alabama Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology of Alabama Poetry, edited by Sue read more...
Southern Soul Barbecue
Review of:
Southern Soul Barbecue 318 Mallory Street Saint Simons Island, Georgia 31522 912-634-7516 www.southernsoulbbq.com By James Calemine James Calemine’s read more...
Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room-Savannah, Georgia
Review of:
Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room 107 West Jones Street Savannah, Georgia 31401 912-232-5997 James Calemine’s “Never Ending Soul Food Tour” includes documented visits to barbecue joints, catfish dens, chicken shacks and any read more...
Loose Strings
Review of: Carlo Nuccio
Carlo Nuccio Loose Strings Monkey Hill Records Carlo Nuccio has been kicking around New Orleans for over a decade serving as the drummer in residence for the roots rock scene in the Crescent City. Some might recall him from the Continental Drifter's read more...