Jerry Jeff, Steve Earle’s new tribute to the late Jerry Jeff Walker, seems designed with the hopes that the cosmic cowboy lives on for eons. Other than “Mr. Bojangles,” an early song he penned that was popularized by others, Walker […]
Jerry Jeff, Steve Earle’s new tribute to the late Jerry Jeff Walker, seems designed with the hopes that the cosmic cowboy lives on for eons. Other than “Mr. Bojangles,” an early song he penned that was popularized by others, Walker […]
Over the course of more than 20 years, My Morning Jacket has gradually mutated from a Southern indie rock curiosity to, perhaps predictably, stalwarts of the jamband scene. Phish is on pause? No worries. My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James […]
For his latest release, Nashville-based musician JP Harris eschews the honky-tonk stylings found on his work with the Tough Choices, like 2014’s Home is Where the Hurt Is and 2018’s Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing. On Don’t You Marry No […]
The Hold Steady’s latest album, Open Door Policy, is another exhilarating blast of crimes, capers, and melancholic mayhem. That the LP comes some 17 years into the indie institution’s recording career is both a surprise and a delight. From a […]
A young woman escapes town in the dark, darting across the railroad tracks and into the woods. Why she left is unclear, but those were hard times of some sort. “Hey little girl you’ve got a long way to go / […]
“Pretty Polly” with a chugging rhythm that hints at krautrock? Roots music never fails to surprise. Vermont native Sam Amidon continues an experimental approach to his craft on his latest, a self-titled LP for Nonesuch. Over nine takes on traditional […]
In America and the world over right now, there’s pent-up desire to celebrate something. But a heaviness looms over the whole human experience. From a pandemic to systemic racism to eroding or nonexistent human rights at home and abroad, there’s […]
In terms of musicality, lyrical depth and pure swagger, there are few country music legends who compare to the late, great Merle Haggard. With a 50-year career that included the expected ebbs and flows, there’s much art to explore, consider, […]
A careening sense of abandon courses through the self-titled debut of the scrappy Nashville threesome Country Westerns. A powerful and compelling 33-minute rock album via the Oxford, Mississippi, label Fat Possum, County Westerns recalls pre-pandemic glory, seemingly ready made for […]
Darrell Scott struggles to pick just one favorite song from Hank Williams, an artist who left an indelible mark on his childhood. There’s “Alone and Forsaken.” Or maybe “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Broadly, it’s “the sadder the better,” […]