Anyone who’s ever tried to write a country lyric has, knowingly or not, stared down the precipice separating elegant simplicity and trite banality. The former characterizes the genre’s greatest and most enduring songs; the latter, unfortunately, constitutes 99 percent of […]
The second album from Minibar, Fly Below The Radar, includes a song titled “Unstoppable”. Featuring Simon Petty’s earnest vocals backed by sweeping guitars and a waltz-like beat, it wasn’t written about the band’s battles in the music business, but it […]
In the wake of his mid-late ’90s tenure with the tuneful, playful roots-pop band the V-Roys, Scott Miller has been writing narrative ballads and hook-based roots-rock songs, pleasing audiences across the country with well-paced shows and clever banter — whether […]
Forty Words For Fear, the new album from Madison Smartt Bell and Wyn Cooper, doesn’t sound anything like Nirvana. The music is dark, twisted acoustic-based blues along the lines of Los Lobos or Latin Playboys, and it comes by its […]
Steve Wynn could have disappeared from the face of the Earth upon the release of The Days Of Wine And Roses, the 1982 debut album by his former band the Dream Syndicate, and his small piece of rock lore would […]
Todd Steed can remember the first song he ever wrote about Knoxville. He was in a punk band in the early 1980s called the Real Hostages: “We would write about the local radio station, and how we hated it,” he […]
The Drive-By Truckers don’t much care to have their picture made. It’s not the camera they object to, for few musicians are immune to the imagined comforts of fame. It’s just that they don’t like to be told where to […]
Many contemporary songs have a shelf life that can be measured in weeks or months, but “Amazing Grace” has demonstrated a staying power that can be measured in centuries, offering reassurance and solace to listeners. It has transcended musical genres, […]
Country music, like any good indigenous music, takes from everywhere. Say a popular bandleader hears something in jazz music he likes, perhaps a guitar tone or soloing technique. The bandleader adds that element to his own music, as it feels […]
Last summer, in advance of his keynote appearance at the annual “Elvis Seminar,” critic Greil Marcus told a Memphis newspaper that the town is “remarkably ugly-looking.” This was a compliment. While Nashville, in his estimation, is “a very stolid” city, […]
