Kris Kristofferson - Partly truth and partly fiction
[Editor's note: Writer and musician Roxy Gordon published a monthly newspaper called Picking Up The Tempo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the 1970s that covered outlaw-country music. Nowadays he lives in the small West Texas town of Talpa and writes a weekly column for the Coleman County newspaper.
Dolly Parton - The smartest working woman in show business
In this era of celebrity, Dolly Parton could be one if she never sang a note. A sign in her Dollywood museum exhorts, "You're only as big as your biggest dream," and Parton has always dreamed of being somewhat larger than life.
Yet the heart of
East River Pipe - The Gasoline Age
It's unfortunate that one of rock's most threadbare myths -- "great art is produced through great personal pain" -- is supported by so damn much compelling work. You don't have to scratch far beyond the surface of this cliche to turn up
Cindy Bullens - Somewhere Between Heaven And Earth
Cindy Bullens emerged in 1978 as something of a distaff Springsteen, fronting a rock band specializing in a dramatic, urban street mythos. Her muscular debut Desire Wire was a knockout, but its 1979 follow-up Steal The Night flagged noticeably, and Bullens pulled back to focus on songwriting and session work.
Tony Rice - Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pedersen
West Coast roots-music pioneers Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen join forces once again with bluegrass/new acoustic titans Tony Rice and Larry Rice for a follow-up to their 1996 debut Out Of The Woodwork. Perhaps as the result of some touring, the foursome emerges as a more cohesive band, in
Innocence Mission - Birds Of My Neighborhood
When I was a kid, growing up in deepest South Texas, our family used to make an annual wintertime pilgrimage to Colorado to go skiing. My mental kinescope reel of those trips always renders them in stark black-and-white, a series of sensations as well as images -- landscapes covered in