Kandia Crazy Horse
2009 video interview with Kandia
RockCritics.com interview with Kandia
57 articles
List of articles in the library
The Black Crowes, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic: Freebirds All: Southern Rock's Undying Appeal
Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 December 1998
SOUTHERN ROCK'S masterworks show this century a viable southern heroism: the quest to overcome the dread of Jim Crow and the pall of ruined empire. ...
The Black Crowes: Black Magic From The Amen Corner: The Black Crowes’ voodoo resurrection
Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, Creative Loafing, 9 January 1999
Jesus of Nazareth Chris Robinson ain't. Some detractors drew a purely visual comparison along these lines in recent years, when the Black Crowes' singer/songwriter wore ...
Donny Hathaway: Half-life in the Bush of Ghosts: Come back, Donny
Retrospective by Kandia Crazy Horse, Creative Loafing, 17 April 1999
MY RECENT THEORY is that if the late soulman/scribe Donny Hathaway had been white he would be as (cult) famous as Cosmic American Gram Parsons; ...
Drive-By Truckers: They Caught Me Smilin' Agin: Drive By Truckers at Brownie's, NYC
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 15 December 2001
FORGED IN THE fabled hamlet of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the Drive-By Truckers are magnificent in concert. ...
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, January 2002
"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." - Charles Bukowski ...
The Last of the Voodoos: A Rock & Roll Retrospective
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, January 2002
This essay was originally published in NYU Africanist Manthia Diawara’s Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire [Vol.3, No.2, Spring 2001]. Since the very weird period when I wrote ...
Rufus Wainwright: Acting Casanova: Rufus Wainwright at the Town Hall, New York City
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, 23 February 2002
LIKE MEMPHIS crooner Al Green before him, Rufus Wainwright is L.O.V.E. To see him in concert, as we did last week in Manhattan, is to ...
North Mississippi Allstars: The North Mississippi Allstars: Irving Plaza, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 22 March 2002
AT THIS POINT, going to witness the North Mississippi Allstars live in performance is somewhat akin to seeing god. Now a four-piece including guitarist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist DuWayne ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 1 May 2002
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This tour journal is the last testament of the lost expedition of Mayfair. Last reported near the Grand Canyon, the members of the ...
Joi, Kelis, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Joi/Ndégeocello/Kelis: Walk on Gilded Splinters
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 1 May 2002
Joi: Star Kitty's Revenge; Me'Shell Ndégeocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape; Kelis: Wanderland ...
Allman Brothers Band: Song O' The South: How the Allman Brothers made a Redneck Negress out of me
Special Feature by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, June 2002
AN UNORTHODOX daughter of Dixie, born in the year of their classic Fillmore East live album, my life truly began when I heard the exotic, ...
Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Irving Plaza, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 12 June 2002
Two Tribes (Go to War) ...
Dickey Betts & Great Southern: BB King's Blues Club, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 27 June 2002
THE ALLMAN Brothers Band has been the central musical group of my life, their œuvre most vital to my worldview. ...
Marah: Mercury Lounge, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 17 July 2002
Independence Day ...
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 24 July 2002
Flight to Amazonia (Slight Return) ...
Richie Havens: Bottom Line, NYC
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 7 August 2002
MOST OF MY generation ("X") peers - especially indie rock & dance music critics - and a wide swathe of bitter boomers relentlessly disparage veteran ...
Earth, Wind & Fire: Earth Wind And Fire: Beacon Theater, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 15 2003
MY TRAGEDY AS a music fanatic has always been one of being a spirit out of time. I have spent a goodly portion of my ...
Nightbirds: Blueprint for a Mixtape
Guide by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 5 February 2003
'IN MEMORY OF ELIZABETH REED'/THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND ...
Calexico: Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
IN MY OLD AGE, I am trying to get hip. So I have temporarily relinquished my inner redneck. Left that twang-and-trash loving gal on the ...
Jesse Malin: Troubadour, Los Angeles, March 6th
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
GOTHAM HAS BEEN re-christened New Rock City due to its current vogue of garage rock acts and assorted weirdo ensembles straight outta Brooklyn, to incongruously ...
Sigur Rós: Radio City Music Hall, New York City
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 26 March 2003
THERE IS A BEE GEES song that goes, "I started a joke which started the whole world crying." This lyric highlights one of two overriding ...
Maplewood: Lads of the Canyon: Maplewood at the Knitting Factory, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 8 April 2003
ONCE UPON a time not so long ago the musical sub-genre variously known as alt-country / y'allternative / No Depression / cosmic country / cosmic ...
Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (New West)
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 13 June 2003
COME HEAR ME real well, boogie chillun, for I'ze 'bout to spin this chronicle of a death foretold. The death of truth, justice, and the ...
Donnie: Bowery Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 22 July 2003
The Love Manifesto ...
Arthur Lee, Love: Love with Arthur Lee: House of Blues, Los Angeles
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 19 August 2003
SOMETHING STARDUST and sunshine had characterized those days of flowers and civil unrest in the western canyons of America's other neverland of dreams, Los Angeles. ...
Rufus Wainwright: Chelsea Mourning: Wanting Rufus Wainwright
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, September 2003
YOU’RE WALKING, you’re virtually running, exhilarated, exultant, across West 23rd Street, away from Chelsea where you’ve tripped the Apocalypse of Rufus Wainwright and at once ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 10 September 2003
SO THE GRAPEVINE has Hollyweird pondering a film based on late-1970s TV Dixiana The Dukes of Hazzard. The Grandfather Clause prevents me from voting for ...
Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Neil Young: Farm Aid: Germain Amphitheater, Columbus, Ohio
Report by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 23 September 2003
I WAS EATING Neil Young when the highest points of my sojourn to this year's Farm Aid benefit concert occurred: veteran Crazy Horse bassist Billy ...
Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse (Slight Return), Part One
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, November 2003
Welcome to Rock City, where voodoo economics and soul providers shadowbox at the Crossroads. Kandia Crazy Horse on The Band, Big Star and white boys ...
Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse Pt 2
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, November 2003
KANDIA CRAZY HORSE continues her scintillating sermon on the curious relationship between White Boys and Black Soul. This week: from Traffic thru’ Eddie Hinton on ...
Outkast: It's a Double Standard, Kemosabe
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, africana.com, 25 February 2004
Whatever led André to think that even an inkling of "redface" would be any more acceptable than blackface minstrelsy has been to Americans of African ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 27 April 2004
PREENING, CONFESSING, aloof Atlanta R&B phenom falls short ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 8 June 2004
HAVING PASSED out during Hanson's historical 1999 Bob Weir summit at the late Wetlands, this critic can attest to the inexorable power of the towhead ...
Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Crunk Juice
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 30 November 2004
"EYE-UNH!," "Hunh!," and "Hiuiiii!" were universally accepted as James Brown lyrics before crunk king Jonathan "Lil Jon" Smith was conceived. Dave Chappelle may have elevated ...
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Perfect Sound Forever, April 2005
Feels so good inside myself Don't wanna move Feels so good inside myself Don't need to move –'Luv 'N Haight', Sly & the Family Stone ...
Mofro: The Pageant, St. Louis, Mo.
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Paste, 18 June 2005
PERHAPS THE RED, white and blue spotlights at St. Louis's Pageant should've served as trickster clues. Or the snide remark of a toasted, aging frat ...
Gnarls Barkley, Jonny Lang, John Legend, Robin Thicke: The Nu Sincerity
Guide by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 12 December 2006
JAMES TAYLOR'S early-'70s status as the king of sensitive male vocalists is mere VH1 countdown fodder now. Yet in 2006, more than a few male ...
Earl Greyhound: The Afrofuture of Rock
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 26 February 2007
I MOVED TO Manhattan in 1989 to see Earl Greyhound—but they didn't exist yet. At the turn of the '90s, in that aggressive-white- male space ...
Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse: Digital Venuses: Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 8 May 2007
CALL THEM the new British bitch pack: barefoot soul shouter Joss Stone and her ascendant sistren, skankin' Lily Allen and torchy Amy Winehouse (Corinne Bailey ...
Rufus Wainwright: Central Park Summerstage, New York, NY
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Harp, July 2007
FOR SOME of us, storming and misinformation almost derailed Rufus Wainwright's first Gotham appearance since his spring residency at the Gramercy Theatre. Yet it's a ...
Rufus Wainwright: Release the Stars
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 31 July 2007
FULL CIRCLE ...
Bettye LaVette: Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Harp, 24 September 2007
WAKING UP every morning now with the Blues, so catching the divine Lady Bettye LaVette's recent Manhattan show at the Highline was a foregone conclusion. ...
Emmylou Harris: Songbird – Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems (Rhino)
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 3 October 2007
EMMYLOU HARRIS tends to overwhelm with her beauty in flesh and in voice, so it's instructive to look to her new rarities collection, Songbird: Rare ...
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 October 2007
The Detroit Cowboy tells his congregation about the world, flesh, and the Devil. ...
Tinariwen: A shot from the Sahel
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 30 October 2007
MANY MOONS AGO, when I moved as a child to Africa, my mother, my sister, and I resided in the Sahel. ...
Carolina Chocolate Drops: Digging the new-old roots
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 30 January 2008
YODELING IS AFRICAN? Well, one could certainly trace the practice from the Ituri of the Congolese rainforest, described as the first people by ancient Egyptian ...
Arthur Lee, Lightspeed Champion: Alone again, or
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 19 March 2008
In memoriam: Ike Turner, Buddy Miles, Teo Macero, and Arthur Lee ...
Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 7 May 2008
AFROFUTURISM BEGAN in earnest with those "20 odd Negroes" brought to Jamestown. Truly, long-ago Africans brought to New World shores invented modernity on the fly, ...
Kathleen Edwards: Asking for Flowers (Zoe/Rounder)
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 14 May 2008
BEING OF so-called American Indian and African descent, I have never believed in borders. These imperial lines have only wreaked havoc and sealed our fate. ...
Vampire Weekend et al: Scramble for Africa 3.0
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11 June 2008
AFRICA IS NOT a monolith. Africa is not even Africa: the outsider bastardization kicked off in earnest when the Roman misnomer of a finite North ...
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 29 October 2008
A FEW weekends back, I rose at the crack of dawn to see Allen Toussaint perform at Joe's Pub in Manhattan for the venue's 10th ...
The Rolling Stones: Electric gypsies : Tommy Weber and friends
Book Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 6 May 2009
TOMMY WEBER (né Thomas Ejnar Arkner, 1938 — 2006) was a trickster, so I cannot help but love him. ...
Michael Jackson: The Thriller Is Gone: Michael Jackson
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, 26 June 2009
I LACK ANYTHING profound to say about the passing of Michael Jackson. ...
Neil Young: Out of the blue: Neil Young's archives
Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 7 July 2009
THIS IS THE briar patch, the place from which all funky thangs flow. On the anniversary of the death of my Afro-Algonquin Southern (re)belle mother, ...
Jonathan Wilson: Son of the Source
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 28 October 2009
CALIFORNIA MY WAY: Pacifica in all her roaring glory; 'Bluebird'; Gene Clark suffering for his art at the Troubadour; Arthur Lee perched atop Laurel Canyon ...
Valerie June, Whispering Pines: In the Whispering Pines
Report by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 25 February 2010
THIS IS THE YEAR when your scribing cowgirl returns wholly to the barn — or at least the fabled Cabin-in-the-Pines where folks used to pick, ...
Josh T. Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen (Mute)
Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 15 March 2011
SOME COWBOY angels have been crying into their beer for salvation; meantime, some of us singing cowgirls who are also in struggle push onward to ...
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