Jesse Dayton and Brennen Leigh apparently bonded over a shared love of George Jones & Tammy Wynette duets while waylaid from their flights to a European music festival, and parlayed that into a twelve-song album, which includes their take on […]
It’s worth asking whether an artist putting out stripped-down versions of previously released songs really adds anything worthwhile. But taking away the energy and elaborateness of band backing can be a good test of a song’s quality. As the title […]
Mountain Heart has long had a perfectly good thing going: a crisp, smooth sound, nimble musicianship (notably fiddler Jim Van Cleve, banjoist Barry Abernathy and mandolinist Adam Steffey), and a repertoire heavily weighted toward gospel. Sometime between 2006’s Wide Open […]
For Will Hoge, it’s never been about the lyrics. And, no surprise here, it still isn’t. Draw The Curtains, the follow-up to last year’s self-released The Man Who Killed Love, finds him tossing around comfortably familiar heartland rock phraseology. But […]
The Pigeons Couldn’t Sleep is a lot more pensive than the first album Peter Himmelman released this year, My Green Kite. He’s twice gotten away with issuing two disparate full-lengths in a twelve-month period, and for good reason. He serves […]
It’s not the political wishful thinking of this disc’s final track — a two-beat pedal steel novelty ballad titled “If A Song Could Be President” — that’s most significant. It’s the song’s unabashed praise for the giants of songwriting, a […]
There is little subtlety to the way Adrienne Young redirects the conversation a half-hour into our interview. All discussion of the day she stood on the steps of the Capitol Building and sang “America The Beautiful” for wildlife conservationists, or […]
The Innocence Mission is one of the world’s most aptly named bands. The gossamered folk-pop of their latest album, the ninth in a nearly two-decade career, evokes the commingling of childhood and adulthood. Karen Peris’ lyrics are disarmingly simple; on […]
Ruthie Foster tends to have genuinely kind words for almost any conversation topic. Mention a name, and praise rolls easily off her tongue. Eric Bibb? “He’s a spirit brother to me.” Lucinda Williams? “I’ll stand right up front and just […]
Had Laura Ingalls Wilder been born a bit later and not devoted all her time to writing children’s books and running a farm, she might have made a decent record producer. Throughout her Little House series, Wilder singled out over […]
