One could spend all day on discogs.com rooting out the forgotten one-album wonders of ‘60s and ‘70s funk and soul. The vast majority of these artists like Syreeta, General Crook, Side Effect or the Eight Minutes exist today only on vinyl and out of press, and if they’re still alive have little incentive to go back to the stage.

If Damian Marley has to put his dreadlocks into a backpack when he plays soccer, does that mean that Shadows Fall singer Brian Fair stiffens his floor-length dreads upwards when he plays basketball? A rhetorical question, of course he does. You can’t teach that kind of shot-blocking ability.

I’ve never met Lee Wallace. Well, at least I don’t think I have. He’s one of those fellows who seems to have graced the presence of every soul who’s ever stepped foot in every live music venue in town, and the chance that our paths have crossed over the last four years is simply too great.

MerleFest hits a milestone this weekend, but don’t go making a big fuss about it or anything, and certainly don’t bring a gift.

In the canon of awful albums by great artists, Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flack Sings the Beatles is among some distinguished company. Velvet Underground’s Squeeze was so bad that it was left out of their boxed set Peel Slowly and See, which pretty much gave every other questionable album they made a pass.

Everyone loves a nice, dirty double-entendre. The bluer and more oblique, the better. Hardly anyone writes a better one these days than Rockingham-born R&B maven and hit maker Terius Nash, otherwise known at the-Dream. Nash, however, excels at writing them from the female perspective.

It’s an odd set of circumstances when one has to ask what to expect of a hip-hop group following a drastic lineup overhaul. It’s a trope normally accredited to turnstile rock bands like the Beach Boys, Badfinger, the Revolting Cocks, Thin Lizzy, et al.

Daniel (Linton) Le Disko has put out little in the way of official music under his better know performance handle LA Riots — a remix here, a video game score there and one EP back in 2010 — but when he does, it’s a seismic dance floor event.

Given Colin Stetson’s inspiration to take up sax was Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?� it makes his ascension to the top of the avant garde jazz world seem all that much more unlikely. The Arcade Fire and Bon Iver sideman has nonetheless earned his place in the world of other-than-ordinary.

Erika M. Andersen’s colossal stage presence isn’t predicated so much on her six-foot frame and stark blonde hair so much as it is the way she wields emotional tension the way her infamous Viking ancestor Eric Bloodaxe swung his namesake arms. On her solo debut album Past Life Martyred Saints, she spares no quarter.

There’s not been a set list released for the 2012 Experience Hendrix tour, but given how little the personnel has changed from the 2010 installment, there’s a great likelihood that returnees will be trying their fingers at new material.

Tammie Davis will be the first to tell you that she’s tough on the outside, but soft as butter on the inside. That fact quickly becomes apparent the moment she summons the honeyed tone that earned her the award for Female Country Artist of the Year at the 2011 Carolina Music Awards.

Old-time great Benton Flippen was one of the performers on hand this time last year to honor the legendary picker Tommy Jarrell in the 10th year of the Tommy Jarrell Festival at the Earle Theatre in Surry County. This year, it’s he who is being honored.

I had a great interview with New Edition lead vocalist Ralph Tresvant that was all set to run this week, that is until the unfortunate death of Whitney Houston dumped a bucket of ice water on its cheery subtext. It’s kind of hard to care about the mood of the band just before the first performance of their 30th anniversary tour in Louisville, Ky.

In a way, the rapid ascension of A$AP Rocky up the rungs of hip-hop stardom has been predestined. As a baby, he had his diaper signed by none other than Rakim, who had put out two of hip hop’s all-time great albums in the previous years and is looked back upon as one of the greatest lyricists ever.

Buried amidst Sebastian Bach’s discography of mostly aboveaverage radio metal and aborted prog, there’s one album that very nearly never saw the light of day, but nonetheless stands apart in its own weird way.

If you want a job in the field you love in this economy, sometimes you just have to make it happen yourself.

Having already discussed Cass McCombs’ excellent contributions to the musical landscape in 2011 back in the first week of January (“Not So Fast: Overlooked Releases of 2011”), the elusive songwriter’s Friday performance at the Haw River Ballroom presents the perfect opportunity to discuss his opening support.

There’s another Triad Music Fest in town, but this one is in no way related to the Lupe “Fiasco” that went down last September at the NewBridge Bank Park in Greensboro.

It was only a few years ago that Jason Ringenberg was calling himself “Farmer Jason” while entertaining the wee ones with cutesy sing-alongs about animals and tractors.