Recommendation: Kurt Nilsen & Willie Nelson – ‘Lost Highway’

One of the featured tracks from the T for Texas, T From Tennessee — The Lost Highway Sampler, which is available as a free digital EP from Amazon. It’s well worth checking out.

The year of the tribute

Several of my favorite artists have chosen 2009 as the year to pay tribute to the songs and artists that built country music as a commercial genre, and made it the American art form it is today.  Collections from Wynonna and Tanya Tucker released earlier this year have both contained songs from the Great American [...]

2009 album recommendations, album previews

2009 has been interesting, a crappy year for mainstream country music overall, but I would say a good year for other genres. Since the year is 75% over, I just wanted to share some of my picks from the year so far (inside country music and out) and a look at a few upcoming albums. [...]

Some more ‘Mountain Soul II’ previews

Saguaro Road Records has released the following video clips featuring songs from the upcoming Patty Loveless album Mountain Soul II. Hope you enjoy them, and don’t forget to enter our Mountain Soul II CD giveaway contest.

Steel Guitar Rag

One of the many regrettable consequences of country music’s devolution towards mainstream pop is the relegation of the once prominent steel guitar to the background.   Here are some of my favorite songs where the steel guitar is front and center, where it belongs:

Recommendation: Reba – ‘Maggie Creek Road’

There was one track on Reba’s new Keep On Loving You album that jumped out at me from the first listen, and that was ‘Maggie Creek Road’.  The ominous opening catches your attention right away and as the story unfolds, like a good book that’s a page-turner, you can’t wait to hear what happens next.  Clearly, [...]

Thank God For Believers

Sometimes world events or personal events pile up and the needle on my emotional dashboard veers into the red “overwhelm” zone.  Depending on the day and the circumstance, I might dial up my favorite “drown your sorrows” country songs in order to know I’m not alone in the “overwhelm” zone.
However, there are other days when [...]

The ones that got away

Have you ever thought an artist was just so good they were destined for stardom, especiallly when they seemed to have a major label behind them, but then watched as … nothing actually happened? They had the voice, sometimes their own songwriting ability or musicianship, great material, a label which seemed supportive, and yet [...]

Recommendation: Live songs & albums

So being the Sugarland freak I am, I went to Wal-Mart to get Live On The Inside the morning it came out- before they had even put it on the shelves. I had to find a worker to get the box of new CDs open to get me one so I could have it. Not [...]

Recommendation: Should have been a hit

I’ve heard several people say that Gary Allan’s ‘Half of My Mistakes’ should have been released to radio. I’m inclined to agree with them.  It was my favorite track on his Living Hard album from the first listen, and has held that spot ever since.  While the album housed 3 successful singles, with each declining [...]

Sampling a little Mountain Soul

Amazon has some preview clips from Patty Loveless’ upcoming Mountain Soul II album, which will be released on September 29th on Saguaro Road Records. She’s re-recorded quite a few songs that appeared on previous albums, such as “Handful of Dust”, “Half Over You”, “Big Chance”, “Blue Memories” and “Feelings of Love”, in addition to [...]

Rediscovering Tracy Lawrence

There are so many artists and songs I’ve been a fan of over the years, that it’s inevitable I forget about a song or album that at one time I absolutely loved. Especially when you’re constantly adding to your music collection. So, I always like reading the What’cha listening to? thread on The [...]

Recommendation: Songs of marital discord

Yesterday while driving around from one place to another, I decided I needed some real country music, so I popped in Lee Ann Womack’s There’s More Where That Came From in my car’s CD player. I only got this CD last August, but it became an instant favorite the first time I heard it, just [...]

The bottle that pours the wine: Songs about songwriting

It’s always about the song in country music. Whether the writer sings the song or not, a topic Razor X raised last week, the song itself is what everything else ultimately depends on. One of the things I love about country music is the range of subjects it tackles, but the thing most songwriters [...]

Recommendation: Songs about being lonely

As we all know, most of the best country music is culled from experiences of heartache and loneliness. A lot of my friends thought Taylor Swift’s “White Horse” was too sad of a song — they ain’t seen nothing yet! I love a good sad song.  It’s some cheap therapy for my own bad times, [...]

Happy Independence Day

Here’s a selection of some of my favorite songs about America.  They’re not ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’, but they all make a statement about the state of our nation.  And though most of these tracks are 20 years old or more now, their message still rings true.   So Happy Independence Day and enjoy some [...]

Recommendation: “Fox Confessor Brings The Flood”

This week’s recommendation is a little left-of-center, from Neko Case, an artist who’s become less country and more unique with every album. The song is “Fox Confessor Brings The Flood”, the title track from Neko’s stellar 2006 album. As usual with Neko’s songs, the meaning is not apparent right away.
The story of this song is [...]

Download ‘Love’s Gonna Live Here’ for free

Amazon MP3 is offering Tanya Tucker’s latest single “Love’s Gonna Live Here” as a free digital download.
The song is the first single from Tanya’s upcoming My Turn CD and features Jim Lauderdale as a guest vocalist on this remake of the Buck Owens classic.  Read our review of the song.

Recommendation: Songs about saying goodbye

Today an album that I’ve been anticipating for a while came out, namely Far by Regina Spektor- a very unique artist indeed. Listening to the album’s lead-off single, “Laughing With” (See the music video here), a line hit me kind of hard:
No one laughs at God on the day they realize
that the last sight they’ll [...]

Classic Rewind: Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton – ‘We’ve Got Tonight’

Kenny Rogers originally recorded this song with pop star Sheena Easton.  The pair took it to the top of the country charts and to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 (as well as several other charts) in 1983.  However, I always preferred this live version with Dolly to the original.  The ending is [...]