Deep Roots Magazine

Deep Roots Magazine

Roots Music and Meaningful Matters

 
 

 
christian robinson

A Late-Night Breakfast with Christian Robinson

Get out the veggies, eggs, and coffee mugs. Illustrator Christian Robinson is visiting for a late-night breakfast. (Why not? Breakfast for dinner! I say.) Given that he’s a vegetarian-though he admits he kinda misses his ...
by David McGee
 

 
 
albert king1

For That Man In the Booth, the One With a Woman on Each Arm…

Apart from interviewing Albert King in 1978 upon the release of his New Orleans Heat album on the Tomato label, where he was continuing the roll he had enjoyed during the previous five years on Stax, my enduring memories of thi...
by David McGee
 

 

 
bj thomas1

Summit Sessions: B.J. Thomas on Scepter

For those of a certain generation, the radio of their youth never seemed to be long without a new, great B.J. Thomas single. Indeed, between 1966 and 1972 he had 19 charting singles, some way bigger than others, some more regio...
by David McGee
 

 
 
cecilia bartoli mission 880x3851

‘Mission’ Accomplished

On her vaunted new album, Mission, CECILIA BARTOLI (this is her--really, it is) fashions the music of Agostino Steffani into a conceptual work brimming with passion, politics and intrigue. It is the opera great’s finest hour.
by David McGee
 

 

 
gerald scott incredible

Gerald Scott’s ‘Edgy Sunday Morning’ Testimony in Song

A month before his senior class graduated from high school, Gerald Scott penned a song for the choir to sing at the commencement ceremony. “It was 2003, I was eighteen years old, and I wrote a song called ‘Destiny’ for th...
by David McGee
 

 
 
04

On Saving Mortal Souls

“Having not played in this style in the past is a huge disadvantage, but I am willing to stretch and fight to get it under control. Those pesky chords! Those finger positions, those slides, those finger-thumb rolls, those cou...
by David McGee
 

 

 
roys new day

Here Comes the Sun

“As fast as we roll, we’re always catching up/as much as we have, it’ll never be enough/as hard/as hard as we work, we just work our fingers to the bone/what do we have to show?” Listening to this catchy chorus of the f...
by David McGee
 

 
 
vashawn mitchell1

VaShawn Mitchell Knows What He Was ‘Created 4’

One of gospel’s “triple threats,” VaShawn Mitchell could barely contain his excitement during a phone interview about his new album, Created 4 This, his fourth long player. Mitchell developed Created 4 This as...
by David McGee