Music Features

Members of three established Peoria-based bands have come together as the Americana trio Hoosier Daddy.

CJ Chenier is known as “The Crown Prince of Zydeco.” But the son of the man known as “The King of Zydeco” said the music he plays isn’t technically zydeco.

Dave Simonett of Duluth, Minnesota-based Trampled By Turtles is a talented musician, vocalist, and songwriter. He’s also got some game as a collector of vinyl.

The implications of being gifted the raw recording of their live August show on WTVP-TV in Peoria didn’t dawn on Sarah & the Underground members Sarah Marie Dillard and Brandon Mooberry. At least not right away.

Heartland Trio founder and bassist Hannah Marks’ introduction to music performance had spiritual beginnings, if by accident.

Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Matthew Curry is tweaking his sound as he opens up to new styles on his listening reportoire.

The new album from roots-rockers The Bottle Rockets explores technology and other changes that have occurred since the band formed in 1992.

Leah Marlene said her debut EP “Arrows” is intended as her opening statement to the world as to who she is. At least right now.

Jared Rabin's family has deep roots in music. Both his parents and grandmother were musicians, and his violinist grandfather Samuel Magad recently retired as first chair of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Two Bloomington-Normal bands are again adopting English personas for the annual Toys For Tots Silver Ball Fundraiser at the Castle Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 24. This year’s title: Bowiemian Wrapsody.

A hip-hop artist with roots in Bloomington said he wanted to dig into an emotion on his latest EP not often expressed in rap music. Nor by men … at least in public.

Groovement describes its sound as “what you’d hear if Led Zeppelin caught a Soul Train with Grouplove and they threw a party while headin’ down the tracks to Motown.” The six-man funk-rock outfit based in Fayetteville, Ark., makes a stop at Jazz UpFront in Bloomington on Saturday, Nov. 17.

The Chicago-based progressive, atmospheric prog-rock band Moon has reference points that include Superchunk, Radiohead, Rush, and even the now Bloomington-based punkers Poster Children.

Lee Ann Womack’s 2017 album “The Lonely, The Lonesome, And Gone” turns to darker themes than her critically acclaimed 2014 release “The Way I’m Livin’.”  And those darker lyrics are often accompanied by a swampy blues not heard on a lot of country music today.

Two instrumental, improvisational bands have become two of the bigger musical draws in the Twin Cities over the past couple years.

Bloomington-Normal musicians continue to create new ways to promote their events and are even creating new venues for performances.

Peoria's The Smokers Blues Band hopes its blues-rock music can be part of a broader scene helping unite deep political divisions among Central Illinois music fans.

It’s not that Brett Conlin secretly eavesdrops on conversations in his downtown barbershop to mine material for new songs.

The folk/bluegrass quartet The Dead South has been described as "the evil twin" of Mumford & Sons for their twisted lyrics that often depict violence and gruesome deaths.

Bloomington musician Edward David Anderson recorded his new album "Chasing Butterflies" in the musically fertile Muscle Shoals, Alabama, area. He said he wanted to use musicians in that region to organically build and arrange his newly written songs.

When the Memphis-based alt-country rockers Lucero plays the Monarch Music Hall in Peoria this Sunday, Sept. 30, they'll be performing songs from "Among The Ghosts," their latest album getting plenty of play inside Waiting Room Records in uptown Normal.

The Bloomington-Normal psychedelic rock band Flaccid is calling it quits after six years. But founding member Nolan Kelly said members are not splitting without releasing a final album, and performing a final show at the Castle Theatre on Saturday, Sept. 22.

Bloomington native Jenny Bratcher-Crafton, a.k.a. "Jeni-B.," has an opera and musical theater background. But debilitating health issues sidelined the music career of this talented vocalist and songwriter just over a decade ago.

Matt Garrison says bandmates in Bloomington-Normal cajoled him out of a seven-year music hiatus that began with the birth of his son nine years ago.

Music industry experts have predicted the demise of the traditional recording studio for nearly two decades.

Defining a griot’s role in West African society can be a challenge, as the title doesn’t translate easily to European-based culture.

Billy Branch is a Chicago bluesman through and through. But he says many bands we now call classic rock had as much an influence on his sound as did the blues legends that became his mentors.