Classic Rewind: Ricky Skaggs – ‘Thanks Again’

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Album Review: Patty Loveless – ‘Mountain Soul’

After 2000’s lackluster Strong Heart failed to chart any significant or memorable hits for Patty Loveless, she took a different approach with the material for her next record.  But these songs were really nothing new to Loveless, who had been including one or two of these sort of rootsy chestnuts on each of her mainstream [...]

Album Review: George Strait – ‘Strait From The Heart’

George Strait’s sophomore effort finds him repeating the same winning formula of his debut, from teaming up once again with producer Blake Mevis, to working a pun based on his last name into the album title. Released in June 1982, Strait From The Heart attempts to strike a balance between Strait’s traditional country [...]

Classic Rewind: Ricky Skaggs & Bill Monroe – ‘Uncle Pen’

Week ending 7/11/09: #1 this week in country music history

1949: One Kiss Too Many — Eddy Arnold (RCA)
1959: The Battle of New Orleans — Johnny Horton (Columbia)
1969: Statue of a Fool — Jack Greene (Decca)
1979: Amanda – Waylon Jennings (RCA)
1989: Lovin’ Only Me — Ricky Skaggs (Epic)
1999: Write This Down — George Strait (MCA)
2009: Sideways – Dierks Bentley (Capitol)

Classic Rewind: Patty Loveless with Ricky Skaggs – ‘Daniel Prayed’

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Sad Songs and Waltzes’

There are very few that can sing a sad one like Keith Whitley. At least that’s what I’ve discovered in our recent Spotlight Artist feature on Keith in May. So it’s appropriate that one of the posthumous releases featuring Keith’s vocals is titled Sad Songs and Waltzes. As a relatively new fan of country music, I fell [...]

Album Review: John Anderson – ‘John Anderson 2′

As the title suggests, John Anderson 2, was the singer’s second studio album for Warner Brothers, released in 1981. Produced by Norro Wilson, it picked up where the previous year’s debut album left off, calling on some of Nashville’s premier songwriters and musicians, and stood in stark contrast to the typical Urban Cowboy fare of [...]

Album Review – Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album

One of the problems with making a tribute album is how far the participants are prepared to bring something of themselves to the interpretation, and how far they are so concerned to pay their respects the artist being honored, that the end result is little more than very tasteful, high-class karaoke.
The tribute album produced by [...]

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Kentucky Bluebird’

RCA had a lot of unreleased Keith Whitley recordings in the vaults, and in 1991 the label got his last producer, Garth Fundis, to work on a number of these, leading to the release of Kentucky Bluebird. The album is a bit of a hodgepodge, comprising a mixture of these re-produced tracks, snippets from radio [...]

Album Review: Tommy Webb – ‘Heartland’

Tommy Webb is a bluegrass singer who has just released his third album, and his first on the larger independent label Rural Rhythm, which should lead to a higher profile for him.
I think it shows a definite advance over both his 2007 debut album, Eastern Kentucky, and last year’s follow-up, Now That You Are Gone, [...]

Spotlight Artist: Keith Whitley (July 1, 1955 – May 9, 1989)

Last month we spotlighted the Class of ‘89, noting the many creative and commercial triumphs that occurred during that landmark year for country music. The same year brought one of country music’s great tragedies — the untimely death of Keith Whitley from alcohol poisoning. May 9th marks the 20th anniversary of that sad day. This [...]

1989 Album Review: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken Volume Two’

Alongside our reviews of albums produced by the ‘Class of ‘89′, we’ve been taking the opportunity to look in depth at some of the other great albums released that year. Perhaps the most ambitious of those was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s second Will The Circle Be Unbroken project, which harks back to the early [...]

Album Review: Dolly Parton – ‘White Limozeen’

By the late 1980s, Dolly Parton’s career was at a crossroads. She had ended a nearly 20 year association with RCA Records because she felt that she was no longer a priority at the label. Her first release for Columbia Records, a pop album entitled Rainbow was a critical and commercial failure. [...]

Album Review: Pam Gadd – ‘Benefit Of Doubt’

I like a little bluegrass mixed in with the straight country in my musical diet, and I was pleased to hear that Pam Gadd was releasing another album.  I first came across Pam back in 1990, when she was the more prominent of the two lead singers of Wild Rose, a bluegrass-infused all-female country band who released three [...]

Retro Album Review: Ricky Skaggs – ‘Highways & Heartaches’

Skaggs Family Records recently reissued Ricky Skaggs’ classic Highways & Heartaches album, with plans to reissue three more of his early ‘80s releases. As such, this seems like a good opportunity to revisit Highways & Heartaches:
Released in 1982, Highways & Heartaches was Ricky Skaggs’ second album for Epic Records. The previous year, [...]

Song titles that really aren’t

I was listening to Dwight Yoakam’s ‘It Only Hurt When I Cry’ earlier today when I caught the video on the CMT Pure Vintage show. I noticed that not once does Dwight actually sing the title of the song, but rather he sings it as ‘it only hurt me when I cry’.  Every time he [...]

Country Music Isn’t Dead: An Interview With Miss Leslie

Leslie Sloan aka Miss Leslie has been playing country music for over 20 years. Last year, she released her first album of all original material – and all of it self-written. When I interviewed her, I found a woman who truly loves traditional country and has made it her goal to get that music out [...]