Waco Brothers - Do You Think About Me / Jon Langford - Skull Orchard
The Waco Brothers put out the gnarliest of a more sentimental crop of roots rockers last year -- twice, for good measure. Mostly a collection of outtakes, the ten-song CD Do You Think About Me was intended to be the kicker that last January's Cowboy In Flames needed
Bobby Hicks - Fiddle Patch
Even in bluegrass, where instrumental ability is an across-the-board prerequisite, sidemen are often overlooked, and for a long time there's been no more egregious a case of insufficient acclaim than that of Bobby Hicks, former Blue Grass Boy, member of the Bluegrass Album Band studio supergroup,
Sid Griffin - Little Victories
Beginning with his early '80s work as frontman for the Long Ryders and through his more recent output via the London-based Coal Porters (plus a writing credit for his bio of Gram Parsons), Sid Griffin has been channeling the roots of American music for quite some time now.
Various Artists - Coal Mining Women
I have an old copy of a book called Hard Hitting Songs For Hard Hit People (now criminally out-of-print) that collects and comments on protest and blues songs of the 1930s. In it, Woody Guthrie quotes organizer and songwriter Aunt Molly Jackson: "I composed this song one
Various Artists - American Primitive Vol. 1: Raw Pre-war Gospel (1926-36)
A bit of a misnomer, this. It's my understanding that sacred recordings of this era and nature usually fall under the heading of sanctified blues. But music this transcendent would put the fear of God in me no matter what you called it. Besides, that's not
Michael Hurley - Snockgrass
It's hard to put a finger on Michael Hurley. Emerging in the early '70s with a couple of homemade albums, Armchair Boogie and Hi Fi Snock Uptown (both on the Raccoon label), he appeared in the guise of a crazy backwoods Vermont folkie, singing about werewolves and