COUNTRY CLASSICS•Drive-By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera
There is never a moment throughout this saga when the playing, singing and vocals feel anything less than earthy, honest and pure. That’s quite an accomplishment for this expansive hour and a half listen, particularly one where lyrics are so crucial to its enjoyment.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colors
It's on 1971’s Coat Of Many Colors that Dolly Parton's Hall of Fame level talent as a creator and wordsmith emerged. As for the rest of the album, it’s a fascinating journey into how the foundations of her professional streak took shape.
ALBUM REVIEW•Billy Strings - Renewal
Renewal is Billy Strings’ Sistine Chapel; his grandest work to date that’s sure to cast a wide net of influence over bluegrass music for years to come.
ALBUM REVIEW•Mickey Guyton - Remember Her Name
Not your run-of-the-mill country album by any measure, Mickey Guyton has stepped up and grabbed her moment in the spotlight here. Exploring everything from romance and abandonment to self-esteem and social justice, Remember Her Name is a milestone record.
ALBUM REVIEW•Taylor McCall - Black Powder Soul
Listeners who gravitate to the darker fringe of the genre will find plenty to chew on in this stunningly intense album that takes no prisoners, often detonating as if ignited by the explosive titular element.
LIVE REVIEW•Review: Merlefest 2021
The beloved festival — which boasts attendees who show up not just year after year, but decade after decade - underlines what it has grown to encompass since its earlier bluegrass days; you might even venture to call it “traditional plus plus”.
ALBUM REVIEW•Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic
Victoria has crafted a serious, often unrelenting and potent collection in A Southern Gothic - a powerful, searing work that pulses with the heartbeat of the American South.
ALBUM REVIEW•The Felice Brothers – From Dreams To Dust
“Music is a medicine. It can make our time on the planet a little more enjoyable”, Ian Felice of the Felice Brothers said. Their new record, From Dreams To Dust, succeeds in doing precisely that.
ALBUM REVIEW•Carly Pearce - 29: Written In Stone
As crushing and humiliating as heartbreak can be, it always allows for a rebirth of sorts. For Carly Pearce, it's resulted in 29: Written In Stone - a modern country music masterpiece.
STAFF PICKS•Charley Crockett - Music City USA
It’s tricky to pick one singular track to return to after the 50-minute album is complete. It’s once again an all-killer-no-filler album, Crockett keeping up his extraordinary run of matching quantity with quality, all garnished with an endearing, “aw-shucks” vibe.
ALBUM REVIEW•Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
On star-crossed, Musgraves' vulnerability doesn’t fully disappear, but neither does she trust it so completely anymore. What emerges are astute observations told plainly. Wrapping them in witticisms or metaphors would lose the truth they need to convey — to herself as much as to anyone else.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Deana Carter - Did I Shave My Legs For This?
Did I Shave My Legs For This? caught the fever that was tearing through country music in the 90s, as a new army of women spiced up tradition with a reinvigorated tone of feisty independence.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Garth Brooks - Ropin' the Wind
It’s been exactly 30 years since Brooks released his pivotal third album and changed the way people heard country music. We take a look back on its legacy.
ALBUM REVIEW•Home in This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads
These interpretations replicate the timeless qualities all great work exudes. The artists breathe new life and fresh inspiration into material whose words and melodies haven’t lost an ounce of their powerful intensity, regardless of the style they are replicated in.
STAFF PICKS•Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers - Ramble in Music City: The Lost Concert
A stunning live recording that helps solidify the importance of the three-year stint of the Nash Ramblers, adding another notch to Harris’ impressive belt that every Emmylou enthusiast - and even those that aren’t - will treasure.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Pistol Annies - Hell on Heels
The Pistol Annies shook things up when they burst onto the scene with their debut album Hell On Heels in 2011. To celebrate its 10-year "annieversary", we look back on the formation of the no-shit-taking trio, and the record's lasting effect on country music.
LIVE REVIEW•Review: Railbird Festival
Railbird’s merging of top shelf music, bourbon and horse racing culture helped to create an event that was uniquely Kentucky in every way imaginable.
ALBUM REVIEW•Niko Moon - GOOD TIME
The 14 tracks that make up his delightful debut album, Good Time, are full of barefoot, homespun wisdom. Niko Moon sits back, forgets all about it and just lets the world go by.
ALBUM REVIEW•Sturgill Simpson - The Ballad of Dood and Juanita
In The Ballad of Dood and Juanita, Sturgill Simpson has created something extraordinary.
ALBUM REVIEW•Connie Smith - The Cry of the Heart
Marty Stuart should be praised for his production of the project, but on the enthralling The Cry of the Heart, Connie Smith shows that she remains a vibrant and convincing presence. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another decade for number 55.
ALBUM REVIEW•Wanda Jackson - Encore
Wanda Jackson, the Queen of Rockabilly, is back for her Encore - solidifying the notion that the sound she pioneered lives on in the music her younger counterparts are creating today.
COUNTRY CLASSICS•Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of this debut. Not only did it introduce Yoakam as a fledgling yet seasoned talent with a voice that comes along once in a generation, but it presented pure country, amplified and energized, to a new, younger audience.
ALBUM REVIEW•Sierra Ferrell - Long Time Coming
It’s obvious that Sierra Ferrell is a refreshingly original talent on the roots music landscape; one who’s revealed just a sampling of her gifts on this confident and uncompromising initial studio set.
ALBUM REVIEW•Sam Williams - Glasshouse Children
This almost faultless debut from 22-year-old Sam Williams has so many fine collaborations and great songs that it's certainly been worth the wait.
STAFF PICKS•James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds
James McMurtry has always been one of Americana’s finest artists, but with The Horses and the Hounds, he even bests his previous work for an album undoubtedly on the shortlist as one of 2021’s finest.
ALBUM REVIEW•Brooks & Dunn - Brand New Man
30 years on and Brand New Man still sounds as sparkling and fresh as it did when it first came out, its influence echoing back out from contemporary artists Midland to Jon Pardi.
STAFF PICKS•Leah Blevins - First Time Feeling
It won’t take long to realize that with First Time Feeling, singer/songwriter Leah Blevins has released one of the most impressive debuts in recent memory.
ALBUM REVIEW•Jade Bird - Different Kinds of Light
Jade Bird is just 23 and has two impressive records to her name. From the direction of Different Kinds of Light, her future could be about to take flight.
ALBUM REVIEW•Chris Young - Famous Friends
Chris Young says he just can’t wait to start playing this new music on the road, and you simply can’t help but sense that excitement coursing through the songs on Famous Friends.
ALBUM REVIEW•Billy Currington - Intuition
If you like your country to bend towards lighter emotions for top-down, shades-on, guns-out summer fare, then this will definitely tickle your fancy.