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Merle Haggard - The Studio Recordings 1969-1976 /Bonnie Owens - Queen Of The Coast

By 1969, as this second completist six-disc box of his Capitol recordings begins, Merle Haggard was well-established as a smooth purveyor of working man's blues, from "Mama Tried" to "Sing Me Back Home". During the span of this extraordinary collection, Merle steps into history,

Mickey Raphael - Sacred harp

Willie Nelson is known for his distinctive voice, the tone of his rugged Martin guitar named Trigger, and for the harmonica played by that tall lanky guy who imbues his sound with a timeless, rootsy quality. The man playing that harmonica is Mickey Raphael, the Family Band stalwart who has

Amanda Shaw - Another Way to Be a Teen Sensation

Of all the homemade Britney Spears videos on YouTube, one of the harshest isn't a Britney video at all. Images of the pop-diva-in-disgrace then and now accompany "Pretty Runs Out", the title song from Amanda Shaw's debut album for Rounder Records. "I'

Blue Rodeo - Small Miracles

Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, the Lennon & McCartney of Canadian roots-rock, have been writing and performing together for 25 years. While there's nothing to indicate that Small Miracles represents the end of the road, it does feel like it was written from a vantage point where that

Marah - Angels Of Destruction

Having endured enough Bruce Springsteen comparisons to make the Hold Steady feel sorry for them, Marah makes a balls-out effort to shake things up on their sixth full-length release. The good news for those who dream of being buried in Asbury Park is that these Brooklyn-via-Philadelphia dudes haven't

Robyn Hitchcock - I Wanna Go Backwards

If Robyn Hitchcock had flipped out like Syd Barrett, dropped out like Captain Beefheart or broken down like Nick Drake, he would be immortalized as a visionary genius. Instead, Hitchcock has proven maddeningly sane and durably prolific, so the boxed reissue of these early solo albums by the former Soft

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

I have never quite loved the Drive-By Truckers. For one thing, I have always been a little put off by the awkward self-awareness of Patterson Hood's ambitions. God knows the moral and cultural geography of the modern south cries out for cartographers, but it's one thing