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There's this country ditty near the end of Times Like This called "Nowheres Near". It tells the story of a band that hasn't been noticed after "20 fucking years." The band is having tryouts to replace the bassist, axed for being too

The father of bluegrass may have recently passed away, but the high-lonesome bluesiness of Bill Monroe can still be found in the music of the Del McCoury Band. Their recent string of albums for Rounder are perhaps the finest examples of traditional bluegrass in the '90s, and their latest

Keats once said of Shakespeare, "He lived a life of allegory." So it is with Ian Tyson. As a young songwriter, he left his native Canada to follow Dylan's lead during the folk revival but returned to build a fascinating mythology of the West. His chronicles,

Anyone accustomed to the raunch 'n' growl of Ronnie Dawson's more recent recordings is in for a bit of a shock upon first perusal of this two-CD portrait of the artist as a young man. Kicking off with a handful of demos from 1957, Rockin'

I first became familiar with Rosie Flores because of the fine company she keeps -- dueting with Dave Alvin, singing along with Bob Neuwirth, appearing on A Town Sound of Bakerfield, backing Chris Gaffney, touring with Wanda Jackson, contributing a track to the Tulare Dust Haggard tribute. These are some

Godmother of Americana? Perhaps the music of Tracy Nelson fits no more comfortably within the categorical confines of such terms than it did when she began recording it more than a quarter-century ago. Even so, these reissues suggest that this undersung heroine was way ahead of her time, both in