Sign in Become a member

Archive

Nashville's Unwritten Rules / Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity

If a good ol' boy such as Garth Brooks can fill Central Park, clearly the world needs a book (or two) that dismantles the machinery of Nashville, pokes around and finds out exactly how it operates. With his Unwritten Rules, Billboard scribe Dan Daley ponders the schizophrenia of Music

Merle Haggard - The Land Of Many Churches

Merle Haggard's tributes to Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills are well-known to contemporary fans, but few know that in 1971 Haggard recorded another one, an album he called "a sort of tribute to an old friend of mine, who is truly #1. Of course," he went

Ray Charles - Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection

When Willie Nelson celebrated his 60th birthday with a televised bash in Austin a few years ago, his musical guests ranged from B.B. King to Bob Dylan to Lyle Lovett. All had come to pay homage to Nelson, but there was one other artist to whom both host and

Karen Dalton - It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best

"Karen always seemed like a Gothic cathedral in ruins, and I always felt that I needed to restore her." -- Peter Stampfel, from the liner notes Karen Dalton's voice bends and breaks, trembles with tension and curls itself round her banjo and guitar much like a

X - Beyond & Back: The X Anthology / The Blasters - American Music

If you were to hear the Blasters' "Marie Marie" and X's "Hungry Wolf" back-to-back, you might not think much connected them. One sounds as if it's coming from the neighborhood bar, the other from the garage of a broken home. But

Oblivians - ...Play 9 Songs With Mr. Quintron

Ive never been much of a churchgoer. I grew up with a dearth of Christian spirituals in my household, having been raised in an ultra-reform Jewish family. Except for the annual family reunion in a teeny town outside of Montgomery, where my uncle owned the local Piggly Wiggly, I never

Barbara Manning - 1212

Barbara Manning's music is difficult to pigeonhole; it's more indie-pop than folk, but her breezy, matter-of-fact phrasings send you searching outside the rock canon for comparison. Over a 13-year career, solo and with bands such as World Of Pooh and SF Seals, she has developed a