I like to think that the new Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale album, Buddy and Jim, is entirely my fault.  In June of 2011, my father and I visited Nashville for the first time and had the chance to see Jim perform on the Grand Ole Opry.  At the time, Jim was celebrating the release of his bluegrass album Reason and Rhyme and did a meet-and-greet before the show to promote the album.  Jim, in his traditional pink nudie suit, made quite an impression on me, and was kind…

I think the first time I listened to Randy Newman I was in my early teens.  After listening to a track or two, my Dad sat me down and had what I like to call the "satire talk."  "The things that this man says in his songs, he doesn't necessarily mean," my Dad explained.  "Most of the time, he means the opposite."  

To me, this conversation was simply pointing out the obvious.  Who would actually believe that we should simply bomb all other nations in the world, as Newman suggests in…

Twenty years ago today, Mark Heard passed away after suffering a major heart attack a month earlier.  Heard was arguably just on the verge of finally getting the wider audience he had long strived for, with several distribution deals in the works at the time of his death.  Though several tribute albums have been released through the years, and artists continue to occasionally cover his material, Heard remains largely unknown.  The maturity of his lyrics in his final albums ranks among some…

I have been wanting to start blogging on here for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it, so I've finally decided it's time to start.  I thought I would start by giving my perspective as a young person on the modern Americana movement.  

It occurred to me recently that I have essentially grown up at the same time that the modern Americana movement has; Uncle Tupelo, arguably the cornerstone of the genre, released their final album the same year that I was born.  I was raised on…