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Frank Black - Eugene skyline

At this late date in pop music history, it's probably unrealistic to expect that a respected, prolific indie-rocker would travel to Nashville and enter into the world of the southern baroque. Sure, Bob Dylan did it with Blonde On Blonde 40 years ago, and made something new out

Tim O'Reagan - Flying solo

Friday night during South By Southwest was what you'd expect from a music industry showdown slammed alongside St. Patrick's Day weekend and college spring break: bands slugging it out in clubs, tourists trailing into the streets, boozehound frat types prowling for a party. Above it all

Bonnie Owens: 1929 to 2006

On the live performance that makes Merle Haggard's 1970 Fightin' Side Of Me album, he introduces then-wife and harmony singer Bonnie Owens. She momentarily fumbles the lyrics of Woody Guthrie's "Philadelphia Lawyer", but recovers beautifully at the end. Haggard, seeing she's

Eddie Tickner

Manager EDDIE TICKNER succumbed to leukemia May 2 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 78. Over his long career he had worked with the Byrds, Emmylou Harris, Odetta, Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, and, most recently, the Hacienda Brothers.

K.D. Lang - Reintarnation

When K.D. Lang's country-punk act landed her a major-label contract in the late 1980s, it's safe to say the country music establishment never quite got the joke. "Our music was not well received in Nashville," Lang says in the Reintarnation liner notes with

Various Artists - Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label

Though the music on Chicago label Numero Group's latest excavation of neglected soul music is of generally high quality, there are moments when the conception is a bit thin. What makes the collection fascinating is the chance it affords listeners to hear the earliest efforts of performers such

Various Artists - Sail Away: The Songs Of Randy Newman

Remaking a Randy Newman song is as hopeless a concept as remaking a Woody Allen movie. You can get the punchlines right, and maybe strike the right emotional notes, but without the auteur's neurotic, forlorn imprint, what are you left with? A serviceable vehicle at best, a painfully