Steve Forbert - Young, Guitar Days
From the first note of Young, Guitar Days, you're re-immersed in that Alive On Arrival sound -- a loose, earthy mix of acoustic guitar, piano, pedal steel, and Steve Forbert's wispy, whispery, distinctly Southern voice, an awkward instrument that, through absolute precision, intimacy, and unorthodox phrasing,
Ted Hawkins - The Unstoppable Ted Hawkins
Without peer -- absolutely without peer -- as an interpreter of the far-flung American songbook, Ted Hawkins was also a fine songwriter, an indifferent guitarist, and a complicated man. The Unstoppable began life as a board tape from a December 18, 1988, show in London, England, and suffers not in
Jerry Lee Lewis - Mercury Smashes...And Rockin' Sessions
Anyone foolish (or impatient) enough to dismiss Jerry Lee Lewis after his 1956-1963 Sun Records tenure is not only selling the man woefully short, they are also denying themselves some of the most satisfying music of his 40-plus-year career.
After leaving the famed Memphis label, Lewis continued down the same
Whiskeytown - Pneumonia
When it comes to Ryan Adams, contradictions appear to be the rule, not the exception. On the one hand, Pneumonia is the presumed final album from Whiskeytown, the band Adams has fronted since he was 20. On the other hand, Whiskeytown wasn't much of a band at the
Gram Parsons - Sacred Hearts And Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology
Except for a brief period in the early '80s, when I now believe I was trying so hard I put a clothespin over my crap detector, I never really "got" Gram Parsons as a country artist. And as a country-rock harbinger, he definitely institutionalized some of the
West Texas rivers and wind-blown campfire tunes
Driving west on I-10 from Austin, the desert creeps up on you, gradually revealing itself mile after mile after mile until the entire landscape has changed. The winding rivers, lazy lakes, scrubby trees and colorful flowers of the Texas Hill Country finally give way to barren creekbeds, rocky outcroppings, desolate