James Hand - A long time coming
This is the stuff honky-tonk legends are made of.
For 25 years, James Hand, 45, has been playing at the Tokio Store, the honky-tonk owned by his brother Bimbo in their hometown of Tokio, Texas, a remote rural burg just north of Waco. Since the early '70s he has
Patty Griffin - Flaming Red
On her first album, 1996's Living With Ghosts, singer-songwriter Patty Griffin trod the trad-folk route, stripping her songs to the bone with only voice and acoustic guitar. It proved as satisfying a strategy as it was gutsy, setting in bold relief Griffin's intimate vignettes of love
Mark O'Connor - Midnight On The Water
Prodigies rarely prove out, mostly burn out, the bright, fast flame of youth replaced by smoldering charcoal and endless dates before the Paducah Ladies' Performance Society. Mark O'Connor started winning fiddle contests before he could drive, toured and recorded with the best Nashville has to offer, and
Chris Hillman - Like A Hurricane
Discussing the term "country rock" in the liner notes to his new album, Chris Hillman says that "The Byrds pioneered this style, Gram Parsons and I defined it and the Eagles took it to the bank." This assessment is probably true, and few are as qualified
Jack Logan/Bob Kimbell - Little Private Angel
Fans of Athens, Georgia, mechanic-turned-songwriter Jack Logan generally fall into two camps. On the one hand, there are those who gravitate toward Logan the do-it-yourself storyteller, whose shadow-filled sketches of prairie desolation and gothic paranoia are created with subtle, painterly strokes. Then again, other folks prefer Logan the ringleader, who
Grant Lee Buffalo - Jubilee
The first three Grant Lee Buffalo albums were insular affairs. Together, singer/guitarist Grant Lee Phillips, drummer/percussionist Joey Peters and bassist/keyboardist/producer Paul Kimble fashioned a self-sufficient musical workshop as impervious to pop fashion as a sharecropper is to the vicissitudes of life in the big city.
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