Commercial country music has become so commoditized by its formulas that it’s often difficult to recognize who you’re listening to. Not so with Dwight Yoakam. Not ever with Dwight Yoakam. Not only is his voice a singular instrument, but so […]
There’s something slightly unnerving about Sarah Jarosz, something a little spooky. I think I thought that her last album, Build Me Up From Bones, suffered from it; not because I object to spooky, but because I felt that ultimately the songs […]
Some albums never get old. This album is as fresh today as it was in 2009. I realize that the United States is intent upon sending everything of value overseas, what with taxes and all, but I had no idea […]
Who would’ve thought that Tom Petty’s halfway-sinister-sounding rock ‘n’ roll seduction “Cabin Down Below” would make a good bluegrass song? In the Gibson Brothers’ hands, it does. They moved it to a higher key, nudged the tempo a bit, and […]
Young Lafayette Cajun bands are in the midst of the Great March Backward, looking to their roots for inspiration. When the Red Stick Ramblers were on Memphis International Records, they seemed to suppress those roots, focusing more on western swing, […]
Toward the end of the Passover Seder, grateful Jews sing “Dayenu”, meaning, “It would have been enough.” If God had just brought them out of Egypt, it would have been enough. But he kept adding miracles onto miracles. Listening to […]
Probably too smart by half for his own damn good, William & Mary alum Scott Miller has straddled the cerebral and the visceral since at least his days with the Knoxville-based V-Roys. But while there doubtless are some “early-stuff-is-best” doorknobs […]
We’re told that this is the first solo album by Tennessee singer and songwriter Martha Scanlan, but such is the cool assurance and earthy authority of these performances, it could well be her sixth or tenth collection. Projecting a sense […]
Show me a spunky small-to-midsize record label, and the odds are heavy that sooner or later it will succumb to the urge for reminiscing and self-memorializing in an era-encapsulating retrospective. These three American roots music standard-bearers have just gotten around […]
Last year, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile suddenly began delivering stronger songs on the theme of messing up in love, for his band’s latest CD Why Should Fire Die? He apparently had life motivation. The songs had that inevitably short-lived, if […]
