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Grant Alden

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

Even understanding and accepting that such books exist largely to frustrate the critics whose opinions werent polled, um, no. You dont have to hear all these. 1001 Albums segregates its choices by decade, accompanying most with album artwork and an essay of varying length, though never very long. Apparently the

Marty Stuart - Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota

Almost certainly Marty Stuart could party like it was 1999 forever and make enough money to support his photography habit. That the once-mainstream country star is choosing instead to explore a wide variety of musical ambitions -- gospel, bluegrass, and now something close to political folk music -- reveals a

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown: 1924 to 2005

This magazine exists largely to draw attention to undervalued artists, and yet in ten years we have managed to devote only one feature and a few small reviews to Gatemouth Brown, who died September 10 at age 81. He should have been on our cover at some point, and I

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Jacksonville City Nights

Reviewing Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac for a larger magazine many years ago, I argued that if alternative country music were to produce a Kurt Cobain, Ryan Adams would be it. I was mostly wrong, so far. There was a dark clarity to Cobain's work and a crispness,

Mary Gauthier - Late train to mercy

Sometimes, for an instant or longer, when the music was just exactly right, it was possible to lose one's self in the press of great punk rock. Whole seconds might pass in the pulsing crowd, strangers coiled and bruising on all sides, dank smells and powerful sounds overwhelming

Jean Ritchie - Mountain Hearth & Home

It seems likely that Jean Ritchie was the first woman other than my mother with whom I fell in love. I would have been about five years old and have no memory of what she looked like; worse, I fear she was replaced in my affections by the Peruvian-born wife

Eddie Spaghetti - The Sauce

As it turns out, a lot of the Seattle class of 1992 (or whatever) is still finding ways to make music -- whether their mostly accidental swing at the big time hit or missed. As one of their ex-girlfriends said, the Supersuckers moved to Seattle from Tucson because they could