Holly Gleason
Holly Gleason is a Nashville-based writer who has written for Rolling Stone, Spin, Musician, Tower Pulse, Request, Rockbill, Bam, The Illinois Entertainer, Interview, Rock & Soul and Graffiti (Canada). She specializes in songwriters, roots music, country, some r&b and very early rap.
53 articles
List of articles in the library by artist
Aerosmith: Starwood Amphitheatre, Tennessee
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, October 2002
"EVERY DAY, I LOOK in the mirror/ All these lines in my face gettin' clearer/ The past is gone..." It is a benediction, an acceptance, ...
The Amazing Rhythm Aces: Russell Smith: An Ace, An Old Friend + An Echo of a Moment
Essay by Holly Gleason, hollygleason.com, 15 July 2019
THIRTY THOUSAND OR so feet above everything, late and tired. With the ear buds in, the demos – all top shelf kind of awesome – ...
The Bangles: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 15 June 1989
Heroines Take a Fall ...
Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 13 May 2011
I SHOULDN'T be writing this. It's not right. ...
Clint Black: Killin' Time (MCA) ***½
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 24 August 1989
IN TODAY'S brave new Nashville, artists fall into neat categories: the docile crooners, like Randy Travis and George Strait, who sing pretty and pretty much ...
Jackson Browne: Cain Park, Cleveland
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 20 August 2012
FOR JACKSON BROWNE, like James Taylor, a summer stop in Cleveland, Ohio is like the swallows returning to Capistrano. Throughout the '70s, the socially conscious ...
Ben Bullington, Rodney Crowell: Rodney Crowell, Ben Bullington and More: Station Inn, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 7 December 2012
BEN BULLINGTON had never played Nashville. The Montana doctor who'd lovingly crafted three albums thick with simple details and a voice that has a warm ...
Memoir by Holly Gleason, hollygleason.com, September 2019
IT WAS COLD, steely but not metal. It swirled and encircled you like a cartoon vine, only it was staccato – and the beat was so evident. ...
Rosanne Cash: The River & The Thread
Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 21 January 2014
LIKE A GOOD claret or damp moss, Rosanne Cash's singing is something to sink into. Surrender to the tones – mostly dark, but marked by ...
Guy Clark: Old Friends (Sugar Hill) ***½
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1989
THIS IS THE first album in five years by Guy dark, one of the deans of Texas songwriting. Like his previous work, Old Friends evokes ...
Guy Clark: Randall Knives, Desperados & Homegrown Tomatoes
Memoir by Holly Gleason, The Bitter Southerner, 2016
IT'S 6:42 in the morning, and traffic ain't moving. There's no notion of how far this snake of pick-ups, sedans, mini vans twists and lays ...
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 30 April 2007
YOU HAVE TO start at the end – where they paid respects to Townes Van Zandt, the songwriter/compadre who captured the essence of life after ...
Cowboy Junkies Shoot For Success
Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1989
NASHVILLE'S BLUEBIRD CAFE is packed for the local debut of the Cowboy Junkies. The Canadian bands lethargic cover of 'Sweet Jane' has been talked up ...
Retrospective and Interview by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 23 May 2017
IT WAS EARLY 2003. The Dixie Chicks were easily the biggest girl group in history — and also the biggest act in country music post–Garth ...
Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 4 April 2012
TO LIVE AND BREATHE in the sketchiest part of the Quarter...to hustle and flow, to let go... to get saved and find a funky kind ...
Steve Earle: A Bad Boy Settles Down
Report and Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 26 January 1989
STEVE EARLE recently released his third album, Copperhead Road, and married his fifth wife, Teresa. Considering that last New Year's Day found him in a ...
Report and Interview by Holly Gleason, Billboard, 16 July 1988
LOS ANGELES — With the success of Dwight Yoakam's gold albums (Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. and Hillbilly Deluxe), producer Pete Anderson has found a beachhead ...
Steve Forbert: Strange Names & New Sensations
Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 31 May 2007
WHEN 'ROMEO'S TUNE' bubbled out of late '70s car radios, it was a wide-eyed kid from the small-town south trying to get the girl with ...
Interview by Holly Gleason, Spin, August 1988
IT'S A SLOW night at the Redwood Room, a shot-and-beer North Hollywood hole in the wall where blue collar types, in heavy work boots and ...
Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the Wronglers: Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland
Live Review by Holly Gleason, nodepression.com, 21 June 2011
THEY CALL IT Heirloom Music, going so far as to make it the title of their first collaborative recording; but for Jimmie Dale Gilmore and ...
Merle Haggard: Long Gone Train
Interview by Holly Gleason, Spin, September 1988
Merle Haggard's gone from hopping freights and serving time to being country music's strongest and truest voice. He's never looked back. But he's never forgotten ...
Alan Jackson: 30 Miles West, and Movin'
Profile and Interview by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 30 May 2012
"So here I am on my stool tonight Yeah, I'm practicing for the afterlife, Cause when I'm nothing but a pile of bones I'm gonna ...
Bobby Keys: The Bobby Keys Band: Mercy Lounge, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 3 May 2011
THERE ARE FEW musicians synonymous with an oeuvre or a sound, yet Bobby Keys pretty much defines rock & roll saxophone, especially of the Rolling ...
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 3 June 2013
AMERICANA – as the big tent pitched by the Americana Music Association – is its own conundrum. Drawing an audience that's decidedly 30+, it embraces ...
Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, 16 September 2002
THERE IT WAS ONE DAY – propped against my doorway in West Hollywood – a plain brown cardboard box like so many others. Anonymous. Almost ...
k.d. lang: Shadowland: The Owen Bradley Sessions (Sire)
Review by Holly Gleason, Musician, July 1988
LISTENING TO Shadowland, k.d. lang's second album, you can't help thinking you've fallen into a time warp, back to when Patsy Cline ruled the radio. ...
k.d. lang: k.d.lang: Absolute Torch and Twang
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 13 July 1989
Absolute Torch and Twang – the third major-label LP by Canadian chanteuse K.D. Lang and the second with her band the Reclines – splits the ...
k.d. lang: kd lang: Kravis Center, West Palm Beach, FL
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Harp, March 2008
KD LANG WALKED onstage, guitar on her back and glided effortlessly into 'Upstream', a song about the nature of life, the struggle of human nature ...
Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Miller: Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale: Mercy Lounge, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 7 March 2013
BUDDY MILLER and Jim Lauderdale have been friends so long, making a record seemed almost beside the point. They've played in each other's band, recorded ...
Lyle Lovett: Lyle Lovett and His Large Band (MCA/Curb) ****
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 9 February 1989
LYLE LOVETT has always been a little bit schizophrenic. A Nashville musician with big-band leanings, Lovett has somehow managed to gracefully walk the line between ...
Review by Holly Gleason, Musician, April 1988
LYLE LOVETT represents a new voice in Nashville: the quirky country songwriter who believes that even cowboys get the blues. Consequently, this Texan's viewpoint can ...
Kathy Mattea: Station Inn, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Harp, March 2008
IT'S AMAZING how expansive Kathy Mattea's old leaves and fall rainwater alto can be. With just a few acoustic guitar notes cascading around her on ...
Reba McEntire: Read My Mind (MCA 10994; CD and cassette)
Review by Holly Gleason, The New York Times, 12 June 1994
NOBODY TRICK ropes vocally like Reba McEntire. With stunning control, she can twirl, curl and throw a loop around a melody better than anyone. ...
Lori McKenna: Dreams of an Everyday Housewife
Profile and Interview by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 31 August 2007
LORI MCKENNA has always loved the same boy. She first laid eyes on him in third grade. They started dating in their junior year, married ...
Buddy and Julie Miller: Buddy & Julie Miller: Buddy & Julie Miller
Review by Holly Gleason, Cleveland Free Times, 2001
WHAT IS THE sound of marriage hardfought, hardscrabble, hardwon? Is it Yoko Ono's dissonant shrieking? Trent Reznor's most post-ndustrial cacophony? Or the ruminations on various ...
Eddie Money: Take Me Home Tonight: Eddie Money Passes, Regular Guy Rock Hits Heaven Between The Eyes
Memoir by Holly Gleason, hollygleason.com, 23 September 2019
"UHN... hold on... UHN, hold on ta me tighter Never gonna leave you Now (gasping for air) Can't you please believe me now..." ...
Randy Newman: Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 18 May 1989
Old Four Eyes Is Back ...
John Prine: Songs from the Gut: A Conversation with John Prine
Interview by Holly Gleason, No Depression, Fall 2016
JOHN PRINE, the original "new Dylan", has always written songs with a deep heart and a strong empathy for the people who go unseen. ...
Interview by Holly Gleason, American Songwriter, 2 January 2009
HE IS sitting right there on the sidewalk, eating red snapper, heavy-lidded eyes taking in the world around him and engaging with the various people ...
Linda Ronstadt: Feels Like Home (Elektra; CD and cassette)
Review by Holly Gleason, The New York Times, 9 April 1995
Linda Ronstadt Comes Full Circle ...
Linda Ronstadt: Ronstadt's Rainstorm Of Emotion
Interview by Holly Gleason, CD Review, March 1990
LINDA RONSTADT enters the press room at a trade magazine's office in Los Angeles with her five-person entourage, and immediately manages to find familiar territory ...
Earl Scruggs Passes On: Three Fingers, Hippie Kids + A Grace That's Felt 'Round The World
Memoir by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 28 March 2012
I'LL NEVER LOOK at the Waffle House the same way. The one out by the Assault & Battery Lane exit, 65 South out of Nashville, ...
Michelle Shocked: Short, Sharp, Talented
Profile and Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 3 November 1988
Is country-folk singer Michelle Shocked ready for stardom? ...
Connie Smith: Honoring Connie Smith: 45 RPM at Douglas Corner, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 7 November 2012
FOR THOSE WHO believe real country music has fled Nashville, the recent CMA Awards would do little to ease your notion. Bombast, smoke, lasers and ...
Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, December 2002
PHAST PHREDDIE PATTERSON and HOLLY GLEASON pay tribute ...
Donna Summer: Last Dance... and Gone
Memoir by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, 17 May 2012
IN THAT FLOOD of ebony hair, there was always that one gardenia. Floating on top of the satiny waves of almost-porn star mane, it spoke ...
Interview by Holly Gleason, Hits, 9 July 1990
AN EXCLUSIVE HITS INTERVIEW WITH TRAVIS TRITT BY HOLLY GLEASON ...
Jimmy Webb, Paul Williams: Jimmy Webb/Paul Williams: Feinstein's at the Regency, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Joe's Garage, 17 November 2001
WHEN YOU PUT Paul Williams and Jimmy Webb in a room, you basically have the collective soundtrack of the late '60s and '70s in pop ...
Dwight Yoakam: Buenos Noches From A Lonely Room
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, 20 October 1988
SINCE FOCUSING the public eye on his archival brand of country music with Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. two years ago, Dwight Yoakam has been good ...
Warren Zevon: The French Inhaler Hastens Down The Wind: Warren Zevon Learns To Let Go
Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, October 2002
THERE'S THAT THING called friend-of-a-friend, where you're "in" even before you know about the other person. And so it was with Warren Zevon, produced by ...
List of genre pieces
Nashville Cats: David Briggs Reflects at the Country Music Hall of Fame
Report by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 26 March 2011
Nashville Cats: David Briggs at Ford Theatre, Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, TN ...
The World's Oldest Teenager: Remembering Jane Scott
Obituary by Holly Gleason, Los Angeles Times blogs, 4 July 2011
SHE WAS LIKE Andy Warhol: iconic blond hair set in a most determined pageboy that never moved. That, and red oversized glasses. You couldn't miss ...
Ooooh Las Vegas! 37 Stories, and It's All Out There…
Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, 24 November 2001
Country music publicist Holly Gleason spends a night in Sin City – and comes to terms with the celebrity frenzy that is pop's new American ...
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