Dolly Parton - Little Sparrow
Dolly Parton could have taken her plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame and gone home to count her money, accepting the judgment of the marketplace that her career was no longer of interest. She could have (perhaps then her private life would cease to be of interest to
Various Artists - Come On Beautiful: The Songs Of American Music Club
On the songwriting landscape, Mark Eitzel has been consigned to a dark, shady corner, the result of about a dozen American Music Club records filled with tunes that painstakingly detailed the emotional life of the urban romantic. The artists contributing to Come On Beautiful pledge allegiance to AMC, offering passionate
Hank Williams - Alone With His Guitar
Race on down to your local dry goods store, or haven't you heard? -- Hank Williams has a new record out! The pace has picked up again in the last decade (after an uncommonly dry spell in the 1980s), but thanks to the prescient ingenuity of the folks
Arlo Guthrie - Outlasting The Blues / Power Of Love
Outlasting the Blues (1979) features Arlo Guthrie on the cover with a saxophone, a bad but unrepresentative sign. Inside he offers some of the most searching -- of self, society and spirit -- lyrics he ever wrote. "In the event of my demise," he starts, "Be sure
Merle Haggard - Stay a Little Longer
In a 1996 feature in The Austin Chronicle, Merle Haggard told interviewer Tim Stegall, "I'll play the game now. I'll do everything I'm supposed to do, and see if that's what it is." He was speaking of Nashville, and his
Fair River Station - Back to Bluegrass
"Hard times are hanging 'round my door," Wayne Turnage sings on the opening of Fair River Station's 16 Cuts, the band's debut disc on Black Dog Records. Listening to his husky, time-worn voice, it's not hard to believe. He's