Holy Modal Rounders - The Holy Modal Rounders 1 & 2
The guitarist strums a simple instrumental figure; he's soon joined by the fiddler sawing an age-old melody. The duo then assay an uneasy vocal harmony, one voice pinched and reedy, the other (rendered "normal" only by comparison) lower, more controlled, but marked by distinctive rough
Ernest Tubb & The Texas Troubadours - Another Story / Live New Year's Eve 1979
The last of a five-box Ernest Tubb series from the wonderfully completist folks at Germany's Bear Family Records, Another Story encompasses the stretch from an April 4, 1966, session for one of the Tubb-less Texas Troubadours albums to the final Decca/MCA session on June 18,
Various Artists - From Spirituals To Swing: The Legendary 1938 & 1939 Carnegie Hall Concerts
The late John Hammond is credited with discovering and/or signing artists including Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Among others. For 60 years or more, this Vanderbilt heir set about making and changing musical history.
Amid all that, little was as striking in
John Prine - In Spite Of Ourselves
The first song on John Prine's latest album is a cover of "(We're Not) The Jet Set". The original version, a 1974 hit for George Jones & Tammy Wynette, was bursting with jokes both lyrical (corny rhymes like "We're the old
Various Artists - Poor Little Knitter On The Road: A Tribute To The Knitters
The Knitters were little more than a pimple on a pimple on the face of rock 'n' roll history. Rising from the fertile club scene of mid-'80s Hollywood, the loose-knit crew seemed like a lost weekend among L.A. punks (X's John Doe,
Various Artists - Violin, Sing The Blues For Me: African-American Fiddlers, 1926-1949
The title of this collection of black string- and jug-band recordings isn't just a figure of speech. Every fiddle here talks, and not just as another voice within the instrumental ensemble, but as a voice that utters the words of the song -- the lyrics. Much as the