Christmas carols originated in Italy, where history tells us that the earliest Christmas hymns took place in Rome in the 4th century. Later, St. Francis of Assisi helped popularize Christmas carols in the 12th century, as well as creating the first symbol devoted exclusively to Christmas with the advent of the Nativity Scene, complete with living figures.

Primer has been amazingly productive over the years; he's recorded and toured with everyone from Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon to Junior Wells and James Cotton. I lost track of the number of albums he's listed on at around 87 or 88. John just smiles at me "probably more than that." From a sharecropping family to a legendary blues man, John Primer is the real deal so we started our conversation with his first instrument.

Nathan James is a work-aholic! Yeah for us! His latest release is entitled ‘I May Crawl’ and it is everything you’d expect from the San Diego musician. Eleven original songs; some reflective, all meaningful, but always looking at life through an open and more positive lens. His style of play is so eclectic, incorporating blues with a cadenced funk, an acoustic flair or a dreamy slide. James plays all the instrumentation, guitars, percussive footboards, washboard, kazoo, harmonicas and he does it ‘all at once!’

T-Boy’s Critics: Michael Rand, Jim Gordon, Brent Campbell, Raoul Pascual & Ed Boitano rate their favorite Horror films of all time.

"With guys like Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich … and you know, we didn't really know what we were doing. But we knew there was something in the music … that the kids were getting up and knocking dust out of them old gymnasium floors." ----Carl Perkins

They say one of the only activities that can activate and stimulate the use of the entire brain…is music. If that is indeed true; my nomination for their blues poster child is Laurie Morvan. I have my reasons. Whether you're a left-brain analytical and methodical person or a right-brain creative and artistic individual; everyone has their comfort zones. Not Laurie Morvan, she taps the intellect of both sides and she does it all the time.

Picasso even famously sketched and painted Angela Rosengart herself. Another floor features David Douglas Duncan’s photographs of Picasso at work in his studio, including a few shots from October, 1963, with Angela sitting in a chair, as Picasso draws her. “I had to sit there and endure the looks from his eyes,” Angela tells me. “The looks were like arrows.”

The show is presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), the folks who brought us the amazing and highly acclaimed Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. For the record, the Folksbiene is now in its 107th season, making it the longest consecutively-producing theater in the States, and not insignificantly, the world's oldest continuously-operating Yiddish theater company.  Harmony is being presented in the same location as Fiddler, in downtown Manhattan's Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, staged in the intimate Edmond J. Safra Hall. So, if you are going to be in Manhattan any time in the next month or so, snag a pair of tickets, as the show is selling out quickly.

Albert Cummings is full of surprises. He’s been playing now for about a quarter of a century and his brand new album is scheduled for release in April. His credentials as a journeyman are legitimate and his followers will tell you, he’s known for his ‘live’ shows. Cummings has been described by journalists and fans alike, as a guitarist of ‘unbridled ferocity’ who also possesses ‘deep soulfulness.’ Albert just grins. “Mood Swings!” (laughing) “Ask my wife!” (laughing)

See T-Boy’s selections of 2021's most memorable movie moments: The Power of the Dog’s Benedict Cumberbatch setting a flame of unbridled tension; Jessica Chastain becoming Tammy Faye Bakker; Nicholas Cage listening to Bruce Springsteen in Pig; exchanged gunshots in Plaza Catedral; Penelope Cruz’s realizing her baby is not her child in Parallel Mothers; an invasion of Olivia Colman’s piece of beach in The Lost Daughter; Bradley Cooper’s carny conman, conned by Cate Blanchett in Nightmare Alley; and more…