Peter Case - A guitar makes a band
Oh, the excitement Peter Case must have been feeling, staring into a pop star future so bright, he had to wear industrial-strength Hollywood Ray-Bans. It was 1979. His Los Angeles band, the Plimsouls, had been signed to a big-time record deal. His days of scuffling were over. Scuffling? When singing
Lori McKenna - Dreams of an Everyday Housewife
Lori McKenna has always loved the same boy. She first laid eyes on him in third grade. They started dating in their junior year, married when she was 19. To some people, that might seem crazy, penned in, missing the vast adventure that is life in the world as we
Arlo Guthrie - In Times Like These
It's not the first time Arlo Guthrie has played with a symphony, but previous attempts at recording the shows haven't proven suitable. In March 2006, Guthrie's patience paid off: With John Nardolillo's University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and a live audience, Guthrie
Billy Joe Shaver - Everybody's Brother
Billy Joe Shaver's tenacity is legendary; from parental abandonment, hard farm labor, two severed fingers and an eighth-grade education, he became an outsider songwriter in Nashville and graduated with Waylon Jennings' Honky Tonk Heroes. His perseverance as a performer grew from critically lauded, commercially disappointing solo albums
Emmylou Harris - Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems
The apparent effortlessness with which Emmylou Harris performs songs can belie her tenacity in finding and internalizing them in the first place. One anecdote in Peter Cooper's track-by-track notes on Songbird has Harris stalking a mystery song she heard on "A Prairie Home Companion", long before
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