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Richard Thompson - RT: The Life and Music of Richard Thompson (5-disc set)

Card-carrying members only, please -- that's the sticker missing from this audacious and daunting box set comprised entirely of unreleased recordings. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but RT: The Life And Music Of Richard Thompson is not for the faint of heart, even if

Various Artists - A Case For Case: A Tribute To The Songs Of Peter Case

It's not enough that they get to sing the songs; they also get to write all the good lines in the CD booklet. According to Maura O'Connell, Peter Case writes "about us, for us and to us." Will Kimbrough goes the anatomical route to

Gourds - Heavy Ornamentals

Over the course of fourteen years and eight studio records, the Gourds have scuttled across Americana/roots-rock like one of them newfangled 'Roomba' robot vacuum cleaners -- patrolling the turf, drawing up bits and pieces, hitting a wall, spinning about, skittering off at a new tangent, bumping a

John B. "Fritz" Richmond: 1939 to 2005

The undisputed all-time king and world champion of the jug and the washtub bass, Fritz Richmond lost a yearlong battle with lung cancer on November 20. His signature instruments now rest within the Smithsonian Institute's permanent collection. He really was that good. Born John B. Richmond Jr. in

Tough company

There’s a lot of blowhard swaggering of my own in here,” Tom Russell writes in the afterword to Tough Company. The veteran singer-songwriter is being a little hard on himself. Tough Company is a literary grab-bag with more hits than misses, made up of Charles Bukowski’s letters to

Dan Penn And Spooner Oldham - Old souls

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham begin Moments From This Theatre, their in-concert collection of chamber soul, with "I'm Your Puppet". The tempo is unhurried but insistent, with Penn's voice sweet and soulful, his gently picked acoustic guitar brushing up against Oldham's Wurlitzer

Norman & Nancy Blake - The old-fashioned way

Outside the Sheldon Concert Hall in downtown St. Louis, someone steals a van parked next to Norman and Nancy Blake's camper. Inside the hall, the couple have finished a two-hour concert and are packing up to head to Lexington, Kentucky, before returning to their home in Rising Fawn,