Joy Lynn White - Tougher than the rest
Today's breakthrough female singer in country music, Gretchen Wilson, is celebrated and promoted for her up-from-down-home midwest background, for her blunt and direct way of holding herself and singing, and for R&B-influenced rock elements in her music that give way to moving,
Bobby Bare - Daddy, what if...
History has not been particularly kind to Bobby Bare, at least so far, and in some ways this is hard to figure. After all, he stayed on the country charts from the early 1960s to the mid-'80s, a great run by anyone's standards; from '50s
Buddy Guy - Bring 'Em In
Once again the veteran Chicago blues guitarist has "brought 'em in" by the boatload: this disc features cameos by Keith Richards, Carlos Santana and Robert Randolph, among others. But this time, Buddy Guy seems to have taken some extra care in choosing both his material and his
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 depth
Ray Charles - Pure Genius: The Complete Atlantic Recordings, 1952-1959, 8-CD box
Like the title says, here's everything Ray Charles recorded for Atlantic -- six CDs containing 119 tracks (including one LP he produced for his tenor star David "Fathead" Newman and two collaborations with Modern Jazz Quartet vibraphonist Milt Jackson), one disc of previously unreleased material (mostly a
Various Artists - The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 3: 1963
By the end of 1963, Billboard had temporarily ceased publishing an R&B chart because, as Craig Werner explains in the liner notes to Volume 3 of The Complete Motown Singles, "it was pointless to print the pop list twice." Motown played a key role in this