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Grant Alden

My back-roads affair with the Frizzell brothers

The truth of my headline is this: Neither my wife, nor my daughter, can stand the sound of twang. Not a bit, except Maggie can maybe tolerate Johnny Cash every once in a while and Susan can listen to the Dixie Chicks when not provoked. And since I no longer

The wayward taleof Will T. Massey

The Seattle to which San Angelo, Texas, native Will T. Massey moved circa 1990 he was, what? 20 years old? was a location sought by way of retreat, an end-of-the-road place that had not yet become the center of genetic engineering, gaming, Microsoft, and grunge. It was still a cheap

A disquisition on the centrality of love and faith in the music of Buddy Miller

Where to begin, this ending? With the thing that has always mattered most: The music. In the spring of 1998, the fourteenth edition of this magazine proclaimed Alejandro Escovedo to be Artist Of The Decade. It was a puckish thing to have done, set off by the live More Miles

Lyle Lovett & His Large Band - It's Not Big It's Large

He has a nice voice, Lyle Lovett does. This is both obvious and taken for granted: His is a friendly, intimate, familiar instrument, a firm, dry handshake that chooses rarely to reveal its full strength. Well, of course. He's traipsed on the edge of various kinds of stardom

Chris Knight - The Trailer Tapes

Somehow along about 1992, Chris Knight decided that the thing to do with the songs he'd been writing was to drive down to Nashville from Slaughters, Kentucky, where he worked as a strip mine reclamation inspector, and play them at the Bluebird Cafe. It worked, more or less.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Down South In The Bayou Country

The 1960s were unkind to Gatemouth Brown. The blues being revived weren't his kind of big-band postwar boogie, and a brief stay in Nashville confirmed only that the door had been closed right behind Charley Pride. So he settled first in Bogota, Colombia; then Denver, Colorado; and then,

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