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Grant Alden

Lucinda Williams - Self-Titled

One can only spend so many minutes kneeling on the floor, slipping CDs in and out of the player, before the subtle nuances fade into irrelevance. Lucinda Williams' third album has been remastered for reintroduction into the digital world, and is doubtless the better for that attention; certainly the

Whiskeytown - Faithless Street

What a difference a few thousand dollars can make. Originally recorded three short years ago by an unknown North Carolina band as the debut offering from an unknown North Carolina label (Mood Food), Faithless Street had about it the raw, scared urgency of a band that wanted desperately to get

Mark Lanegan: You Might As Well Live

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume" The fingernails by which Mark Lanegan has been hanging these last few years -- maybe his

Mark O'Connor - Midnight On The Water

Prodigies rarely prove out, mostly burn out, the bright, fast flame of youth replaced by smoldering charcoal and endless dates before the Paducah Ladies' Performance Society. Mark O'Connor started winning fiddle contests before he could drive, toured and recorded with the best Nashville has to offer, and

Stoney Edwards - The Best of Stoney Edwards: Poor Folks Stick Together

With the success of Charley Pride, major labels were, however briefly, emboldened to look for black country talent. Stoney Edwards was all three, a multi-ethnic artist whose resume included bootlegging, major health problems, and a lifetime of hard, honest work. Born in Seminole, Oklahoma (but discovered at a Bay Area

Chip Taylor - Chip Taylor's Last Chance

Correctly believing 1973's Last Chance to be the best of his pre-comeback outings, Chip Taylor has taken the matter of reissuing into his own hands. It's not exactly a lost classic, but it is a simple, charming, and perhaps unintentionally revealing portrait both of the artist

Sara Evans - Three Chords and the Truth

If Music Row is regularly to be chastised for abandoning country music's past -- and they should -- well, they should also be congratulated for occasionally getting it right. Sara Evans' debut isn't a big and important record, it's just a first-class example