Country, Country Rock and Bluegrass
Floyd Cramer, Chet Atkins: Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins: The Quiet Men from Nashville, Tennessee
Profile and Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, September 1962
THE TWO most dominant figures in the Nashville, Tennessee, music scene – a scene noted for loud noises – are QUIET men. Chet Atkins, we ...
Roger Miller: In The Red For Eight Of His Ten Singing Years
Interview by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, December 1967
ROGER MILLER – both on and off record – has a quiet, relaxed, uncomplicated approach to his music and to life. Yet he's had 10 ...
Bobbie Gentry: 'I'll Never Tire Of Billy Joe'
Profile and Interview by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, June 1968
STANDING around, waiting to meet Bobbie Gentry, I glanced through the two press handouts about her. ...
Merle Haggard: Home-fried Humor and Cowboy Soul
Profile and Interview by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, August 1968
COUNTRY MUSIC is blowing in like a fresh wind from the West. America can't be defined by its pay-toilets and its smog. Merle Haggard never ...
Poco: The Pavilion, Flushing Meadow Park, Queens, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, August 1969
West Coast Band Pavilion Winner: Poco Plays Country Music in Flushing Meadow Park ...
Johnny Cash: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, December 1969
20,000 AT GARDEN HEAR JOHNNY CASH ...
Charlie Rich: Life's Little Ups And Downs
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, December 1969
BOB DYLAN HAS SAID more than once that Charlie Rich is one of his favorite musicians – as a songwriter and as a singer. Nik ...
Area Code 615: Area Code 615 (Polydor)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, January 1970
AREA CODE 615. 'Southern Comfort'; 'I've Been Loving You Too Long'; 'Hey Jude'; 'Nashville 9-N.Y.1'; 'Lady Madonna'; 'Ruby'; 'Crazy Arms'/'Get Back'; 'Why Ask Why'; 'Li'l ...
Profile by Danny Goldberg, Circus, March 1970
JOHNNY CASH the Misfit: Drug induced and being busted for possession of benzedrine at the Mexican border happened long after he had made a name ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: The Flying Burrito Brothers
Profile and Interview by uncredited writer, Circus, March 1970
WHAT IS the world coming to when the Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Grateful Dead get cut to pieces by a ...
Kenny Rogers and the First Edition: Visual Scene Important For Kenny Rogers: The First Edition
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, March 1970
‘THEY'RE a bunch of real nice guys,’ said the publicity man, talking about Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. Which is a very standard line ...
Don Gibson: Lonesome Number One: Profile of Don Gibson
Profile by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, March 1970
DON GIBSON is the most original country and western singer of the past 15 years, and that's been his problem. While everybody else has been ...
Review by Richard Williams, Times, The, June 1970
THAT DELANEY AND BONNIE have been instrumental in reshaping a considerable part of the ethos of modem pop music is indisputable. Eric Clapton, the charismatic ...
John Phillips: John The Wolfking of L.A. (Stateside)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, June 1970
INSIDE THE Mama's and the Papa's, something better was waiting to get out – and this is it. ...
Review by Richard Williams, Times, The, December 1970
BESIDES BEING ONE of the seminal rock and roll bands, the Byrds also possess perhaps the music's oldest case-history. Of the group which came out ...
Johnny Cash: Jailhouse, Jesus and H.G. Wells
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1971
THE HEAVY carved front door into House of Cash, Johnny Cash's state mansion, in Madison, Tennessee, swung inward to reveal blinding sunshine and the awe-struck ...
Paul Siebel: Woodsmoke and Oranges/Jackknife Gypsy
Review by Ellen Sander, Saturday Review, January 1971
PAUL SIEBEL albums, I have found, are a good prescription for tired ears, sort of country Geritol boosting the funk and grit in the bloodstream ...
Ray Stevens: 'Bridget The Midget' Man Says Religious Lyrics Will Be Next Big Thing
Interview by James Johnson, NME, March 1971
People are getting sick to death of the 'put-the-world-to-rights songs' ...
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, May 1971
IF CLOVER'S first album on Liberty was good, then this follow up is fantastic. The material is a rich variety of country music which brings ...
Kentucky Colonels, The, Byrds, The: The Byrds: Clarence The Kentucky Colonel
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, May 1971
THE COUNTRY consonants of Clarence White's guitar have fooled a lot of people – me included – into thinking that the man must have come ...
Linda Ronstadt: Fillmore East, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, May 1971
Bright Song Style Of Linda Ronstadt Lights Up Fillmore ...
Conway Twitty: The Lonely Country Blues Boy
Overview by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, August 1971
WHEN discussing the history of rock 'n' roll, a number of writers have recently implied that the attention paid to black influences has long obscured ...
Chet Atkins, Ernest Tubb: The Cold, Cold Heart of Country Music
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
FOR ALL that Country and Western hopes nothing will change, its heroes die horribly fast. ...
Tom T. Hall: In Search of a Song
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, January 1972
FACT IS, In Search of a Song doesn't quite match the quality of any of Hall's three previous Mercury albums. Meaning only that a couple ...
Rick Nelson: How Ricky Became Rick
Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc and Music Echo, March 1972
A YEAR and a half ago and full of enthusiasm for his new band, Rick Nelson set off for Europe and a tour of American ...
Review by Tony Russell, Cream, June 1972
THESE THREE double albums (with a fourth by Eddy Arnold) open a reissue series presumably intended to uncover the roots of today’s country music. Each ...
Discography by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, August 1972
"ULTIMATELY there was Charlie Rich. Rich was a Georgia cotton farmer and he was into his thirties, he had grey hair and a paunch. Still ...
Johnny Cash: Hard Cash To Cleanse Your Soul
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, NME, October 1972
IT'S 7.30 P.M. at the backstage entrance of the Albert Hall and strange things are happening. It's Wednesday, the second of Johnny Cash's performances at ...
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen: Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Truckers Favorites (Paramount)
Review by Loraine Alterman, New York Times, October 1972
Truckin' the Blues Away ...
Rick Nelson: You're Not A Kid Anymore!
Retrospective and Interview by Todd Everett, Phonograph Record, December 1972
ROCK AND ROLL was here to stay. We knew it in 1957, and Danny and the Juniors put it into song in 1958. But what ...
Report and Interview by Jim Esposito, Rock Magazine, December 1972
IT'S VIRTUALLY impossible to do anything even resembling country rock nowadays without being compared to Poco in some aspect or another, because if Poco didn't ...
Poco: A Good Feelin' To Know (Epic).
Review by Nick Kent, NME, January 1973
I KNOW a lot of city-boy cynic rock writers like to put down this band, pointing out how lightweight they are and how they come ...
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: The Funny Side of Dr Hook
Profile and Interview by Danny Holloway, NME, March 1973
DR. HOOK were unexpectedly thrust to popularity via their international hit 'Sylvia's Mother' last summer. The strange thing is, people were buying the song and ...
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen: Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Truckers Favorites (Paramount)
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1973
IT WAS like driving through an infinite oven, the sun dancing in cool water-mirages across the four-lane asphalt. Wayne wiped the sweat from his brow. ...
Guide by John Morthland, Creem, April 1973
WHERE TO begin an article about Hank Williams! How about with the kind of gross overstatement that it's impossible to disprove (or prove)? To wit: ...
Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris: Gram Parsons: Parsons Knows...
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Melody Maker, April 1973
Gram Parsons, former member of the Byrds and Burritos and now the proud owner of a solo album, talks to Loraine Alterman in New York ...
Toni and Terry, Tammy Wynette: Tammy Wynette/Toni & Terry albums
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, April 1973
Toni and Terry: Cross CountryTammy Wynette: My Man ...
Townes Van Zandt: The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (Poppy)
Review by Jeff Walker, Phonograph Record, May 1973
TOWNES VAN ZANDT is so much more than just another singer/songwriter. He's a storyteller; a mood-maker. ...
Commander Cody: Country Casanova
Review by Nick Kent, NME, August 1973
I'VE GOT to admit I was thrown when I first saw the cover of this album. The dude in the cowboy shirt leaning next to ...
Commander Cody: Commander of the Ozone
Profile by Chris Rowley, International Times, August 1973
OZONE: Form of Oxygen having three atoms per molecule, pungent, refreshing odour and exhilarating influence. ...
Report by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, September 1973
THIS AUTUMN, England is due for an invasion by some of America's top contemporary country groups. The new wave will be well represented by Commander ...
Guide by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, October 1973
If you think you know what frustration is like, try this on for size: imagine you were a singer who had come up with Sun ...
Gram Parsons: The Superstar Who Didn't Quite Make It
Obituary by Nick Kent, NME, October 1973
GRAM PARSONS somehow never quite got to be the nationally-touted superstar he deserved to be, which is possibly as much his own fault as anyone ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, November 1973
THE SEARCH for the most commercial mating of country and rock continues unabated, and it's working both ways. In the wake of Kristofferson, the Young ...
Warren Smith: A Great Rockabilly
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, December 1973
THE SMALL record company has always had a significant place in the Country Music recording industry for it is these which provide the raw material ...
Report by Jacoba Atlas, Circus, December 1973
Gram Parsons: His body disappeared and the story behind it is cloaked in a veil of mystery. Why was it stolen and why was it ...
Country Music: There's Glitter in Them Thar Hills
Comment by Nick Tosches, Zoo World, January 1974
THE CONCERT hall darkens. The band's rhinestone-studded, sequined. custom-tailored Harvey Krantz suits glimmer in the dim like so many jars of snared fireflies. Morphemes of ...
Linda Ronstadt: Ronstadt Country
Interview by Barbara Charone, NME, February 1974
TIME WAS when being a country music fan was difficult going. You could secretly dig people like Dolly Parton or Charlie Rich but it wasn't ...
Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris: Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris: Grievous Angel
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1974
MICK JAGGER wrote 'Wild Horses' for and about the late Gram Parsons and its chorus describes the paradox that fueled Parsons’ life and vision. '...Wild ...
Tom T. Hall: For The People In The Last Hard Town (Mercury)
Review by John Swenson, Zoo World, April 1974
TOM T. HALL is unquestionably one of the finest country music songwriters ever to pick up a pen or belt down a double shot of ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, April 1974
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Friends: Will The Circle Be Unbroken (United Artists)Dillards: Tribute To The American Duck (United Artists)Country Gazette: Don't Give Up Your ...
New Riders of the Purple Sage: Home Home On The Road
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, May 1974
IT WAS Greil Marcus who founded what has since become known as the "What-is-this shit?" school of rock criticism. ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, June 1974
"DID YOU think I went over all right?" asked Narvel Felts. "Perhaps I was a bit too modern-sounding". We were standing backstage during the climax ...
Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys: Western Swingtime Music: A Cool Breeze in the American Desert
Overview by Jerry Zolten, Sing Out!, June 1974
IN THE GOLDEN days of big band swing, while Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington were sizzling in the cities, a back-country form of big band ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, July 1974
I'VE ALWAYS HAD me suspicions about Johnny Cash. ...
Waylon Jennings: Maybe They Don't Even Know I'm There
Interview by Nick Tosches, Zoo World, August 1974
LOOKING MORE like an Exxon station grease monkey on his lunch break than the Pontifex Maximus of Nashville's Telecaster outlaws, Waylon Jennings sits there washing ...
Jimmy Buffett: Living And Dying In 3/4 Time
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, August 1974
JIMMY BUFFETT will never be a rock'n'roll star. ...
Scott Walker: Walker Scott We Had It All
Review by Fred Dellar, NME, September 1974
WE HAD IT ALL is the country album Walker's been planning for sometime. And it's country the Walker way, sophisticated and on velvet. Del Newman ...
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, November 1974
IT WAS 1 a.m. on a Sunday morning in Nashville. We were driving slightly unsteadily on Broad Street – a strangely empty scene since the ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, November 1974
IN WHICH two culture heroes find themselves well and truly on the artistic skids. ...
Nashville: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (MCA)
Review by John Morthland, Creem, 1975
EVEN MORE THAN most soundtracks, this one is totally inseparable from its film. Taken alone, it’s damn near unlistenable. ...
Byrds, The, Roger McGuinn: Roger McGuinn and Country Rock: Older Than Yesterday
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Gray, Let It Rock, January 1975
IT'S FRIDAY 30TH AUGUST, in Birmingham England, and it's afternoon. Roger McGuinn is listening to a track off his second solo album, Peace On You. ...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The: The Wit And Wisdom Of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, January 1975
JUST WHAT THE hell is "good time music" supposed to mean? Is it John Sebastian lilting those fruity dry-hump ditties like 'You Didn't Have To ...
Kinky Friedman: Kinky Friedman
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, January 1975
ONE LEARNS FROM the customary reliable sources-from-which-one-learns things that Kinky Friedman's original ideas for the title of this album included "Come Back Little Kinky" and ...
Linda Ronstadt: Heart Like A Wheel (Capitol)
Review by Tony Stewart, NME, January 1975
LINDA RONSTADT is a remarkable Country Rock singer who sells plenty of records, with Capitol reportedly shifting 150,000 copies of this new one in the ...
Charlie Rich: The Depression, Country Music and Me
Essay by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, February 1975
This sorrowful piece was sent to us, by third-class mail, by Al Aronowitz, pop columnist for the New York Post until the paper dropped him ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: Sneaky Pete Kleinow
Interview by Mick Houghton, ZigZag, March 1975
ZZ: HOW DID you come to be part of the whole related family of Los Angeles musicians? You actually come from Michigan? ...
Charlie Rich: The Man And His Career
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, May 1975
CHARLIE RICH was twenty-three when he travelled to West Memphis to try his luck as a professional musician. Subsequently he moved his base of operations ...
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Review by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, May 1975
When you step up to a Juke box and you slip a nickel in,You can bet your bottom dollar when the record starts to spin,You'll ...
Mac Davis: All the Love in the World
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1975
HEREWITH, THE Legend of the Songpainter. ...
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, May 1975
IN 1971, COMMANDER Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, already a legend in such disparate climes as San Francisco and Detroit, finally reached a recording ...
Bill Monroe: Greyfriars Monastery, Glasgow
Live Review by Dave Laing, Sounds, May 1975
Kentucky Friar Bluegrass: At 63, Bill Monroe's Fingers Are Still as Nimble As Ever. Dave Laing reports from Greyfriars Monastery, near Glasgow. ...
Bill Monroe: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, NME, May 1975
BILL MONROE IS the main-man of bluegrass music, a veteran innovator whose recording career spans 40 years. ...
Eagles, The: The Eagles: California Dreamin’
Interview by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, June 1975
"I WANT TO SLEEP with you in some chocolate tonight," Glenn Frey sings in impromptu addition to the lyric of ‘Peaceful Easy Feelin’, and the ...
Tammy Wynette: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, June 1975
THREE MONTHS ago Tammy Wynette was little more than cowboy fodder in Britain, appealing only to a small body of country freaks. But, one smasheroo ...
Tammy Wynette: Going UP Country
Report by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, June 1975
How come a seven-year-old single, re-issued for the fifth time, made it to number one? Robert Partridge gets the full story behind Tammy Wynette's 'Stand ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, June 1975
IN WHICH JOHNNY Cash meets up, quite casual-like, with the '70s and discovers that even though they don't really have a whole lot in common, ...
Emmylou Harris: Pieces Of The Sky
Review by Mick Houghton, ZigZag, August 1975
BUD SCOPPA once described Gram Parsons as the most convincing singer of sad songs he'd heard. Nothing he recorded was more heartrending than 'Love Hurts' ...
Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash: Riding the Rails and Marty Robbins: Gunfighter Ballads
Review by Mick Farren, NME, August 1975
OKAY, SO HERE are two special double album packages from CBS that feature two of the world's greatest exponents of country and western melodrama. ...
Gary Stewart: You're Not the Woman You Used to Be
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1975
THIS COLLECTION OF old singles was released to scoop up some of the financial overflow from country music's current hottest new item. ...
Starry-Eyed And Laughing: Starry-Eyed and Laughing - Thought Talk
Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, September 1975
WHILE AMERICAN COUNTRY Rock bands seem to spring up from everywhere, there has yet to be one from these shores who really convince. ...
George Jones, Wanda Jackson: George Jones and Wanda Jackson at Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, September 1975
THE FOYER OF the Hammersmith Odeon was like Middle America gone London town, except the folks were mostly British and there wasn't a stetson to ...
Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger
Review by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, October 1975
WILLIE NELSON has never written easy songs or recorded easy albums. He has penned his share of country standards over the past fifteen years, all ...
Johnny Cash: The Gospel According to J.C.
Report and Interview by Mick Farren, NME, October 1975
IF I'D never heard of Johnny Cash and someone came up and described him to me, I can't think of any other entertainer, short of ...
Emmylou Harris Still Loves Her Dolly
Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, October 1975
"TACKY ISN'T IT?" Emmylou Harris grinned, pointing to a rainbow coloured T-shirt, the words Palamino Club emblazoned across the chest while a genuine chestnut mare ...
Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, October 1975
THE SUDDEN relaunch of Poco has kicked up some pretty weird conversations and ironies. For few former Poco buffs are willing to believe that Head ...
Johnny Cash: Look At Them Beans
Review by Mick Farren, NME, November 1975
I FEAR JOHNNY Cash has turned his back on progress once again. ...
Emmylou Harris: New Victoria, London
Live Review by Penny Valentine, Street Life, December 1975
THE LIGHTS had just gone down, the musicians were just striking up when these two guys fell up the stairs singing loudly, "New York, New ...
Emmylou Harris: Emmylou's Four Star Hotel
Review by Barbara Charone, NME, January 1976
THE ELITE HOTEL is a swell place. It's best to travel there by car on a hot, sunny day with the windows rolled down, a ...
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, January 1976
In which BOBBY BARE, country singer of the '60's re-emerges with a bunch of Shel Silverstein songs and a socialism as potent as Keir Hardie's; ...
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, January 1976
"I WAS NERVOUS but I looked forward to playing overseas because I had this feeling there was an audience for my kind of music, especially ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, February 1976
RONEE BLAKLEY was the star of Robert Altman's Nashville, if you remember, the film that was universally condemned by the inhabitants of Music City U.S.A. ...
Emmylou Harris: Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, February 1976
EXACTLY EIGHT years ago a very uncertain singer stood in the centre of a New York recording studio singing demos to an audience of muzak ...
Emmylou Harris: The Dome, Brighton
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, February 1976
"FLOWERS?" Emmylou Harris grinned, staring down at a lovely bouquet hurled onstage as an appreciative thank-you from an ecstatic Brighton crowd. "Hey boys they're not ...
Buck Owens: You Don’t Buck The Rules On The Bus: Buck Owens
Report and Interview by Mick Brown, Street Life, February 1976
IT’S LIKE Tom Wolfe said: you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus. No three ways about it. ...
C.W. McCall: McCall Keeps On Trucking
Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, February 1976
JUST IMAGINE the scenario: a thousand massive trucks, a petroleum-driven army, hurtling down the highway in a strict convoy formation, all the drivers linked together ...
Dolly Parton: Dolly, Tammy and Carl: In The Wembley Wild West
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, April 1976
THE GUNFIGHTER walks alone, staying close to the side of the street. His clothes are black and faintly luminous. His hat is tied insolently under ...
Hank Williams Jr.: Hank William Jr. and Friends
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1976
LAST AUGUST, on a hunting trip near the Great Divide at Missoula, Montana, the recently divorced Hank Williams Jr. fell 500 feet down a mountainside, ...
Tammy Wynette: Boots, Brandy, Boots, Bouffants + Buffy
Report and Interview by Mick Farren, NME, April 1976
THERE WERE more Stetson hats than you could shake a stick at in Wembley last weekend. ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, May 1976
WHAT MOST attracted rock fans to Gary Stewart's first album was his raw, exuberant singing, and the subsequent suspicion that he was really a closet ...
Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, May 1976
THIS RECORD is a positive gem. However, unless some large quantity of record buyers pick up on it, it is destined to languish in the ...
Gram Parsons: GP (Reprise)*****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, May 1976
IF YOU woundered why, or where, Rick Grech gets off with performing Gram Parsons type country music, it stems from co-producing this bona fide classic. ...
Emmylou Harris: Bluegrass and Fiddle Festival, Long Beach, California
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, May 1976
EMMYLOU HARRIS and her excellent Hot Band just keep getting better. Their headline performance at the fourth annual Bluegrass and Fiddle Festival in Long Beach, ...
Bellamy Brothers, The: The Bellamy Brothers: Let Your Love Flow
Review by John Tobler, NME, May 1976
YOU MUST have heard the single which gives this its title, and there's little doubt that the Bellamy Brothers are a distinctly classy addition to ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Hawkins, Country Music Review, August 1976
SHELBY SINGLETON is well known in the country music business and really should not need introducing to CMR readers. But magazines in the main rightly ...
Emmylou Harris: Honky Tonk Woman
Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, August 1976
Emmylou Harris pleads guilty to not being a genius, but she sure can sing country. BARBARA CHARONE reports. ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe MacDonald: The Essential Country Joe McDonald
Review by John Tobler, NME, August 1976
ALTHOUGH THERE have been three compilations of his work with the Fish, this is the first collection covering Country Joe's seven solo albums. ...
Bobby Womack: B.W. Goes C&W (United Artists)
Review by Cliff White, NME, September 1976
RECORDED BEFORE Safety Zone last year, this is the set that Bobby had intended to call Black In The Saddle. UA wouldn't release it at ...
Emmylou Harris Makes Up Leeway
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, September 1976
IT CAME as something of a surprise to learn that Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band were in town last week. To be precise, they ...
Emmylou Harris: My Father's Place, Long Island
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, October 1976
NEW ARTISTS consistently better their own past performances. Onstage progression and maturity all too often comes a back seat to the big buck commercialism of ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: Southern Californians Bring Me Down
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, October 1976
The Flying Burrito Brothers: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...
Waylon Jennings: Are You Ready For The Country
Review by Mick Farren, NME, October 1976
Waylon breaks thru' Nashville's blanket defense ...
Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson Live (RCA)**
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, October 1976
WILLIE NELSON has been in country music for the better part of twenty years as a songwriter and performer, while, arm in arm with Waylon ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: Sneeky Pete And The Return Of The Flying Journeymen
Interview by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, October 1976
"ASK THEM abouta da name. They gotta no right to use it!"Don't worry, friends, my esteemed Italian colleague doesn't really speak like that, and his ...
Willie Nelson: The Troublemaker (CBS)****
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, October 1976
HOW ARE we supposed to take this album, eh? ...
John Hartford: Mark Twang (Flying Fish)
Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, November 1976
MULTIPLE CAUSE for celebration – the return of the amazing John Hartford, and the start of the long overdue British outlet for Flying Fish. Both ...
Ronnie Prophet, Lynn Anderson, Steve Young: Nashville
Report by Mick Farren, NME, November 1976
An Englishman's adventures in the city of the rhinestone kings. Mick Farren was that Englishman. ...
Report by Mick Farren, NME, November 1976
In which Mick Farren doesn't talk to Chet Atkins, visits Opryland, views the tourist spots from the OAP's bus and, (quiver, quiver....), converses with Dolly ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Childs, ZigZag, December 1976
IF, IN A FLIGHT of fancy, you've ever ventured over to this particular neck of the woods you won't be at all surprised to learn ...
Emmylou Harris: Luxury Liner (Warner Bros.)**
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, January 1977
I'M SORRY, but I don't like Emmylou Harris very much. Doubtless you'll recommend me to the Inquisition for a Heresy like that. But I've been ...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Dirt Silver & Gold
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, February 1977
THE SEPTEMBER 13th 1975 edition of Billboard Magazine, the American music industry's Bible, carried an interesting and revealing supplement on Colorado – "a growing music ...
Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1977
A CLASSICALLY CONCEIVED album for one such as myself – two songs by Parsons, one by the Louvin Brothers, a Rodney Crowell, a Mr. Guy ...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Dirt, Silver and Gold (United Artists)****
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, February 1977
PLEASE TELL me, who is going to buy this peach of an album? It's a three record set, a compilation of the Los Angeles' band's ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, April 1977
It wasn't until late 1974 that the Waylon Jennings mystique took hold for me. This is partly because to my mind that's when his sound ...
Report and Interview by Mick Farren, NME, April 1977
CAN AN ELEVEN-PIECE WESTERN SWING BAND EVER FIND WEALTH AND PROSPERITY IN THE WORLD OF ROCK'N'ROLL? ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, April 1977
I FIRST got into Poco back when Buffalo Springfielders Richie Furay and Jim Messina were still in the band. They cut a live album, called ...
Asleep at the Wheel: Asleep At The Wheel: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, April 1977
I DON'T think I've ever seen so many ten gallon hats on one stage. Not outside Texas, anyhow. And so many straight-legged jeans and cowboy ...
Asleep at the Wheel: The Wheel
Review by Andy Childs, ZigZag, May 1977
THIS ISN'T going to be a very long review, because I want to play the record again before the pubs open. ...
Asleep at the Wheel: Asleep At The Wheel: The Wheel
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, May 1977
THIS IS Asleep At the Wheel's fifth album in seven odd years. It's the one, so they hope, to transform them from a cult country ...
Asleep at the Wheel: Asleep At the Wheel: The Wheel (Capitol)
Review by Max Bell, NME, May 1977
I'D BEEN beginning to think there wasn't that much happening on the live front until I saw Asleep At The Wheel at Hammersmith last week. ...
Linda Hargrove: The Unfulfilled Career of Linda Hargrove…
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Country Music Review, June 1977
EVER SINCE I last invested my year's savings in a visit to Music City and other musical areas of America, I have been meaning to ...
Red Clay Ramblers: The Red Clay Ramblers: Half Moon, Putney
Live Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, July 1977
IN THESE DAYS of unbridled electrical energy, it never ceases to surprise me the drive and excitement that can be generated by a highly ordered ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, July 1977
Huckleberry Finn will love this one. Five English guys capture the downhome spirit of America. ...
Live Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, August 1977
"THIS ONE goes back to 1936," Leon McAuliffe grinned. "Bob told me, 'Leon, just hit a chord and then I'll say something,' and so I ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, September 1977
HAVE YOU heard of Joe Ely before? Thought not. I certainly haven't. His past history is a total blank as far as I'm concerned. And ...
Augie Meyers and the Texas Re-Cord Company: Music To Make Your Feet Grin
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Country Music Review, October 1977
THIS IS A story about the small independent Texas Re-Cord Company of Bulverde, Texas. ...
Michael Chapman: The Man Who Hated Mornings
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, November 1977
MICHAEL CHAPMAN is a ruminative sort of talent. ...
Ozark Mountain Daredevils: Don't Look Down
Review by Max Bell, NME, January 1978
Second Cut is the Lowest ...
Emmylou Harris: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, February 1978
CONSIDERING the tensions surrounding the start of Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band's current British tour, their SRO concert at the Royal Albert Hall was ...
Elvis Presley, Hank Williams: Death in Hi-Fi or First Tastes of Tombstone
Overview by Nick Tosches, Waxpaper, March 1978
Music deaths are big news nowadays. It seems hardly an ish of Rolling Stone goes by when we aren't treated to a eulogy for a ...
Joe Ely: Honky Tonk Masquerade
Review by Fred Dellar, NME, March 1978
'T FOR Texas, T for Tennessee' sang Jimmie Rodgers back in '28, cementing the blues alongside country music, thus helping himself to a million-seller. ...
Asleep at the Wheel: Collision Course (Capital)
Review by Max Bell, NME, August 1978
STRANGE TO relate but not everything that emerges in the new release racks this week will bear the mark of androids in overalls. And disco ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, August 1978
BUFFY SAINTE MARIE used to have this song called 'I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again', but you won't find Elizabeth Barraclough or Carlene Carter ...
Emmylou Harris: Profile…Best Of Emmylou Harris
Review by Penny Valentine, Melody Maker, September 1978
UNDOUBTEDLY, Emmylou's success has been to make traditional country music acceptable to a rock audience. She has a lot to answer for, and in a ...
Tammy Wynette: Stand By Your Record Producer
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, September 1978
Tammy Wynette, over here for a short tour, lectures COLIN IRWIN on how to be an Average Superstar... ...
Joe Ely: Texas Country Rock: Texas Twisters
Overview by Martin Hawkins, Melody Maker, November 1978
THE ECHOES of rock get older; and likewise those consumers who, like me, retain an interest in them – rather than giving in to the ...
McGuinn, Clark & Hillman: McGuinn, Clark and Hillman: McGuinn, Clark & Hillman
Review by Nick Kent, NME, February 1979
IF WATCHING someone you once admired attempting to be inspired is the most pathetic sight imaginable, as some bloke maintained in last week's ish, then ...
McGuinn, Clark & Hillman: McGuinn Clark and Hillman: Flight From The Past
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1979
LOS ANGELES — To examine the fates of original Byrds members Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman as they form a new act for ...
Joe Ely: Down On The Drag (MCA)
Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, April 1979
THIS TIME last year Joe Ely played the Wembley Country Festival and toured Britain as Merle Haggard's bemused support. I saw him in the Brighton ...
Interview by Richard Wootton, Omaha Rainbow, Spring 1979
I WAS born in this tiny West Texas town called Honihans in 1940. Honihans was named after some Irishman who found the well there - ...
Jack Clement: 'Everybody Loves A Nut'
Profile and Interview by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, January 1980
JACK CLEMENT could have written that song about himself. MARTIN HAWKINS investigates some of the reasons why. ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: More Hot Burritos: the Flying Burrito Brothers
Report and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1980
LOS ANGELES — If tradition in music is meaningful in any way, it is because performers can emerge and fade, groups can split up and ...
Live Review by Fred Dellar, NME, March 1980
THEY BOP, they hop, they bounce like rampaging 'roos. They sing songs bearing titles as profound as 'She's My Baby, She's My Girl' and 'Do ...
Report and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1980
SITTING on a curb with a fuming Joe Ely... ...
Flatlanders, The, Joe Ely: Joe Ely: Past And Present
Retrospective by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, May 1980
Texan star JOE ELY is not quite the newcomer to recording that we think. MARTIN HAWKINS reveals the tale of the FLATLANDERS' sessions of 1972 ...
Overview by Martin Hawkins, History of Rock, The, 1981
The producers and musicians who made country music a multi-million-dollar industry ...
Rosanne Cash Comes Into Her Own
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, April 1981
COTATI – LONESOME steel guitar moans waver and echo throughout the Inn of the Beginning – a classic Old West watering hole 50 miles due ...
Rodney Crowell: Crowell's Got Cash But He Has His Own Career
Interview by Steven X Rea, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 1981
A favorite of Willie and Emmylou, he's a family man with wife Rosanne ...
Country Boogie: Honky Tonks, Hoedowns And The Roots Of Rock
Overview by Martin Hawkins, History of Rock, The, October 1981
IF RHYTHM AND BLUES was a major constituent of rock'n'roll, so too was the influence of country music in the form of country-boogie. Country-boogie was ...
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, New York Rocker, January 1982
"THIS NEXT one is called 'Arise'. It's a Western song; not a country song, a Western song. Okay, hit it, boys," commands Norman Odam, a/k/a ...
Willie Nelson: Always On My Mind (Columbia)
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, July 1982
JUST WHEN you thought you couldn't bear one more version of Paul Simon's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', Willie Nelson comes by and makes the song ...
Dolly Parton: In Gloss We Trust: Dolly Parton at the Dominion, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, NME, April 1983
HOWEVER MUCH YOU take righteous liberal umbrage at the mass of contradictions Dolly Parton presents, you lose. As surely as the lonely waifs and ...
Linda Ronstadt: Performing Is Not My Gift
Report and Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, TV Guide, May 1984
SHE LOOKS SO darling, standing there on a Santa Barbara, Cal., stage in front of Nelson Riddle and his 43-piece orchestra, ready for the first ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1984
JOE ELY'S Hi-Res has a feverish, jittery seediness, a buzz you can't shake off. Remember the first episode of Cheers, where the guys argued about ...
Report by Cynthia Rose, NME, August 1984
This summer an 82 year-old former boxer, shoeshine boy and burlesque costumier from Brooklyn died in Los Angeles. His name was Nudie Cohen and he ...
Gram Parsons: We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning
Retrospective by Don Watson, NME, April 1985
"Death is a warm cloak. An old friend. I regard death as something that comes up on a roulette wheel every once in a while."Gram ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1985
"I never did feel like a soul singer": from his youth in Texas to Nashville success, Dobie Gray talks about his crossover from R&B to country.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 43.9mb, total interview length: 47' 54" sound quality: ****
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, April 1986
It's payola time for country's latest lone star Rosanne Cash. Richard Cook tries to separate the hit from the myth. ...
Rosanne Cash: Blues From The Pink Bedroom
Interview by Gavin Martin, NME, April 1986
ROSANNE CASH'S latest LP Rhythm And Romance lays bare both her turbulent marriage and a lengthy struggle with drug abuse. GAVIN MARTIN meets the woman ...
Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.
Review by Gavin Martin, NME, April 1986
IF IT'S careening kick-start country, a whisky wise distillation of old forms you need, come round here. Boisterous fiddle, the pound and pounce of six-string ...
Dwight Yoakam: Mean Fiddler, London
Live Review by Gavin Martin, NME, September 1986
AN IMPARTIAL lady friend had been clean bowled over the previous night at Dingwalls. This tall, lean Kentucky hunk may be coot-like beneath his hat ...
Dwight Yoakam: Hillbilly Hipster
Interview by Cynthia Rose, Mail On Sunday, April 1987
DWIGHT YOAKAM was eight years old when he wrote his first song: an American lament patterned after those of 1940s blue mountain balladeers the Stanley ...
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, i-D, June 1987
Simon Witter travelled to Nashville to find out if there's any substance to the media'slatest rediscovery. ...
Steve Earle: Highway Patrolman
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, June 1987
STEVE EARLE is the outlaw who's going to give Bruce Springsteen a run for his money. On the eve of his UK tour and the ...
Joe Ely: Career Heats Up For Joe Ely
Interview by Charles Bermant, Globe and Mail, The, September 1987
WITH ITS OWN hot brand of Texas rock and roll, the Joe Ely Band has transformed the tiny stage of this rural club into a ...
k.d. lang: Shadowland: The Owen Bradley Sessions (Sire)
Review by Holly Gleason, Musician, July 1988
LISTENING TO Shadowland, k.d. lang's second album, you can't help thinking you've fallen into a time warp, back to when Patsy Cline ruled the radio. ...
Steve Earle: The Country Outlaw Turns Rock Renegade
Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, October 1988
Not only has Steve Earle recently been on the wrong side of the law, but now he's risking his neck further by turning his back ...
Steve Earle: Lonesome Dove: Steve Earle Puts the Celtic into Country
Interview by Chris Bourke, Rip It Up (New Zealand), December 1988
"Ring Steve Earle," said the message. "Area code 615 ..." ...
Desert Rose Band, The, Chris Hillman: The Desert Rose Band: Chris Hillman's Hot Burrito #3
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, December 1988
ROCK IS no longer the dirty word it once was in Nashville. But after LA's Desert Rose Band placed four singles on the country charts ...
Steve Earle: A Bad Boy Settles Down
Report and Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, January 1989
STEVE EARLE recently released his third album, Copperhead Road, and married his fifth wife, Teresa. Considering that last New Year's Day found him in a ...
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, June 1989
WELCOME TO the Griffith Park Pony Rides. Assorted toddlers, most of them 2- or 3-something, are circling a dusty track, strapped onto tired ponies. Not ...
Lucinda Williams: Happy Woman Blues
Sleevenotes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1990
THE DAUGHTER of an English lit professor, Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and spent most of her youth moving from college town ...
Profile by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, May 1990
Parsons's Grievous Angel returns ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, June 1990
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON occupies an unusual place among American songwriters. His songs have been covered by such legends as his inspiration Bob Dylan ('They Killed Him'), ...
Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Hank Williams: Redneck Soul: George Jones and the White Man's Blues
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'From a Whisper to a Scream' (Fontana), 1991
NO ONE IS FONDER of saying that country music is "the white man's blues" than black artists like B.B. King, Etta James and Bobby Womack. ...
Sleevenotes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1991
WHEN IT WAS first released in 1979, Ramblin' could not have been more out of step. Lucinda Williams, who did indeed have ramblin' on her ...
Tennessee Ernie Ford: Guilty Pleasures
Retrospective by Tom Graves, Rock and Roll Disc, March 1991
MY MOTHER TELLS the story of a Bob Hope television special that aired in the 1950s. The comedian had just made a crack about ...
Johnny Cash: Old, Gifted And Black
Report and Interview by Steven Wells, NME, April 1991
A C&W star for longer than most people have been alive, you'd expect JOHNNY CASH to be a down home, redneck good ol'boy. Hell no! ...
Johnny Cash: Pills'n'Thrills And Bellyaches
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, May 1991
HITCHING UP HIS blue jeans to give his hands something to do, country music's Greatest Living Legend smothers a cough before the familiar voice offers ...
Garth Brooks: A Life In The Day Of Garth Brooks
Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, 1992
Original version of piece for The Sunday Times Magazine ...
Garth Brooks: Meet Nashville's New Breed Of Generously Stetsoned Crooner
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, March 1992
BANDY-LEGGED and pigeon-toed, Garth Brooks has finally taken off his stetson and is staggering around the stage of Atlanta's Omni like a man who's just ...
Willis Alan Ramsey: A Perfect Ending to a 20-year Vacation
Profile and Interview by Tom Graves, Musician, March 1992
AT THE END of Willis Alan Ramsey's only album, a self-titled 1972 Shelter release, the song 'Northeast Texas Woman' fades to studio chatter, and the ...
Lyle Lovett: The Singer Who Argues With God
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Daily Telegraph, March 1992
Lyle Lovett's latest album gives a contemporary twist to the Old Testament, says Mark Cooper ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, May 1992
Confusion and uncertainty are Lyle Lovett's middle names. Is he country? Or is he blues, or gospel, or swing? What the hell, he decides, "They're ...
Johnny Cash: The Man in Blackpool
Report by Mick Houghton, Q, April 1993
JOHN R. CASH is somewhat bemused by questions about Butlin's – or Bognor come to that. He's between sets at Southcoast World (Butlin's, Bognor to ...
Review by Jason Cohen, Creem, June 1993
THOSE WHO found Nanci Griffith's last two efforts for MCA to be awash in pop-lite production and overblown instrumentation should take Other Voices, Other Rooms ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, November 1993
A RIOT OF SEQUINS and studded belts, of thick foundation and fringed pastel jackets, of monstrous boots and massive hair, Nashville's old – and new ...
Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, January 1994
"SHHH." THE admonition echoes around the room, stalling conversation in mid-drawl, beer in mid-swallow. The ensuing hush is equal parts reverence and show-me. ...
AUDIO: Willie Nelson in Stockholm (1994)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1994
Willie Nelson – on tour in Sweden – on leaving Columbia for Liberty, his tussle with the IRS, Cowboy movies, songwriting and more...
File format: mp3 File size: 30mb Interview length: 32 minutes 43 seconds Sound quality: ****
Willie Nelson: Funny How Time Slips Away
Retrospective and Interview by Bill DeYoung, Goldmine, January 1995
WITH HIS beatific smile and twinkling bright eyes, Willie Nelson looks like the most serene and centered man on the planet. When he's wearing a ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1995
The First Lady of Counry Rock on a life in music: from Tuscon to LA; the Troubadour scene; hanging out with Jim Morrison and Gram Parsons; exploring standards and Mexican music; singing, production and producers.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 145mb, total interview length: 2h 28' 24" sound quality: **
Simon Bonney Proves He Belongs in Country: Songs Reflective, Stark and Sincere
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, May 1995
COUNTRY-AND-WESTERN music and European art songs aren't as strange a combination as you might think. ...
George Jones, Tammy Wynette: Stand By Your Ex: George Jones and Tammy Wynette
Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, October 1995
Wait till I get you home...to Splitsville, Tennessee, where George Jones and Tommy Wynette have resided since the classic song D.I.V.O.R.C.E. came true following perhaps ...
George Jones, Tammy Wynette: George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1995
LONG AGO, in the days before hats and hi-tech rednecks, country music was a soap opera and George Jones and Tammy Wynette were its Dirty ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richard Gehr, unpublished, 1996
In 1996, Richard Gehr went down to Texas to explore the history and mythology of Buddy Holly’s home town. This was his unpublished report for ...
Steve Earle: Birth, School, Work, Heroin, Coke, Marriage, Heroin, Marriage, Crack, Prison...
Interview by Bill Prince, Q, May 1996
There are eight million stories... and they all happened to Steve Earle. Six weddings, 27 years of drug addiction, 30 days in chokey, one hit ...
George Jones with Tom Carter: I Lived To Tell It All
Book Review by Tom Graves, Washington Post, The, June 1996
I LIVED TO TELL IT ALL, the long-awaited autobiography of country music legend George Jones, has to be one of the bleakest, most disconsolate music ...
Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt: Linda Ronstadt on Emmylou: And Then There Were Two…
Interview by Bill DeYoung, Goldmine, August 1996
CHRIS HILLMAN, who'd introduced Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, played matchmaker another time: Backstage at a concert in Texas, he put the newcomer together with ...
Emmylou Harris: The Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Retrospective and Interview by Bill DeYoung, Goldmine, August 1996
SERENDIPITY, WHAT Webster loosely defines as "dumb luck," is an important concept for Emmylou Harris. ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1996
Johnny Cash talks to Barney Hoskyns about his health, his religion, his revival with Rick Rubin, and the myth of the Million Dollar Quartet
File format: MP3 File size: 31mb<br> Interview length: 45 minutes 14 seconds Sound quality: ***
Live Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, November 1996
"I WANNA TELL Y’ALL SOMETHING," Carlene Carter notifies the young country audience that’s braved an outdoor venue on an unseasonably cold and wet September evening. ...
AUDIO: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (1996)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1996
The Queen of nouveau bluegrass, Gillian Welch, and her guitar pickin' sidekick David Rawlings, talk about meeting at Berklee, making the fabulous Revival album, living in Nashville and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 33.2meg; Interview length: 38' 18"; sound quality: ***
Whose Alt.Country Is It Anyway?
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1997
THEY CALL it Alternative Country, a generous umbrella of a category that makes room for acts as different as Steve Earle, Son Volt and Slobberbone; ...
Glen Campbell: The Glen Campbell Collection (1962-1989)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Razor & Tie Records, 1997
ALTHOUGH GLEN CAMPBELL has always insisted that he's a country boy who sings--not a country singer, he arrived at a time when country music was ...
Townes Van Zandt: Keeping Quiet For The Sake Of A Song: Townes Van Zandt 1944-1997
Obituary by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, January 1997
OTHER MUSICIANS revered Texan song writer Townes Van Zandt who has died of a heart attack aged 52, but he made real efforts, helped by ...
Gillian Welch: As Real And As Raw As It Gets
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Independent, The, June 1997
Mark Cooper samples Gillian Welch's alternative bluegrass ...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1997
AFTER A bunch of friends, including a young Jackson Browne, figured that singing Bill Monroe and Mississippi John Hurt songs in the back of McCabe's ...
Chris Hillman: This Byrd Has Flown: Chris Hillman comes to the Coach House
Report and Interview by Bill Wasserzieher, OC Weekly, August 1997
ROCK & ROLL HALL of Famer Chris Hillman has played in bands with religious proselytizers, trust-fund dopers and even a matricidal drummer who heard voices ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, December 1997
THE FIRST thing you notice about Shania Twain's Come On Over, once you get past her pretty pictures on the cover, is how the titles ...
Steve Earle's Politics and Prose
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Washington Post, The, February 1998
IT WAS the kind of night that could only take place in Nashville, a town with as many songwriters as Washington has bureaucrats. ...
Gram Parsons: The Good Ol’ Boy
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1998
ON A WARM fall night in the tie-dyed rock’n’roll town of Woodstock, with the maple leaves turning to gold and purple on the mountains that ...
Linda Ronstadt: Everlasting Linda
Profile and Interview by Debbie Kruger, Weekend Australian, July 1998
IT'S SUMMER IN TUCSON, around 38° C, and Linda Ronstadt is sanguine about the waterlilies sprouting in her pond. The rest of the grounds are ...
Willie Nelson: The Barbican, London
Live Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, August 1998
THE GREAT FEAR of seeing a hero in their twilight years is that their powers will have deserted them and they'll be unable to reach, ...
Waylon Jennings: Honky Tonk Heroes
Retrospective by Gavin Martin, Uncut, September 1998
FOR WAYLON Jennings – born into a dirt poor cotton-picking West Texas family – the wanderlust began as far back as he could remember. ...
Ralph Stanley: Back to Clinch Mountain: Ralph Stanley
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Country Music, September 1998
"THREE GROUPS shaped bluegrass music," Ricky Skaggs told me recently, "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, the Stanley Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs. Everyone ...
Willie Nelson: The Lone Star Spirit of Willie Nelson
Profile and Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, December 1998
THERE WAS, of course, Texas music before Willie. Problem was, nobody outside of Texas heard it. The eclectic styles growing from lone star roots before ...
Essay by Blake Gumprecht, Journal of Cultural Geography, Fall 1998
Landscape into Art THE ROLE OF LANDSCAPE and the importance of place in literature, poetry, the visual arts, even cinema and television, is well established ...
Townes Van Zandt: A Gentleman and a Shaman: The Last Days and Sad Death of Townes Van Zandt
Retrospective by Matt Hanks, No Depression, January 1999
IF YOU CAN see through the hangover haze and black-eyed pea tradition that ties one First Day to another, January 1st can serve as a ...
Steve Earle: Rebel With A Cause
Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, February 1999
Country rock rebel Steve Earle has turned his back on cocaine and booze and talks to Graham Reid about politics and music ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, June 1999
Every month we navigate the high-water marks, rapids and stagnant ponds of a prolific artist’s output, so you don’t have to. We continue with... ...
Deep River: The Bounty of Alan Lomax
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, June 1999
THE CD STARTS with a banjo picker burning on a hoedown called 'Cripple Creek,' progresses along a chain of mountain songs to 'Arkansas Traveler,' and ...
Gram Parsons: The Long Way Around: Gram Parsons
Retrospective and Interview by Holly George-Warren, No Depression, July 1999
I keep my love for variations, even tho I've some sort of "rep" for starting what (I think) has turned out t'be pretty much of ...
Townes Van Zandt: A Far Cry From Dead
Review by Matt Hanks, No Depression, July 1999
LIKE DOCK BOGGS, Townes Van Zandt was obsessed with death. Both men were shadowed by their own mortality, obsessing over it and collapsing under ...
Townes Van Zandt: A Far Cry From Dead
Review by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, July 1999
STEVE EARLE ONCE gushed, "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world, and I'd stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my boots ...
Alison Krauss, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Sounds of Heartache: Alison Krauss and Me'Shell Ndegeocello
Essay by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, August 1999
IT WOULD BE hard to think of two female singers more different than Alison Krauss and Me'Shell Ndegeocello. Krauss, a straight European-American from the Midwestern ...
Kim Richey: Her Country: Kim Richey's Nashville fusion
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
THERE SEEM TO BE four kinds of country music these days. There's the pop stuff, a mix of up-tempo numbers and sugary ballads plied by ...
Merle Haggard: For The Record: The Hag Tells It Like It Is
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Country Music, November 1999
LAST APRIL Merle Haggard turned 62, well past the age when most men slow down and mellow out. The Hag, however, is busier and ornerier ...
Patsy Cline: 25 All-Time Greatest Recordings: The 4-Star Years (Varese Sarabande)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Varese Sarabande, September 2000
AROUND 2:00 PM on Tuesday March 5, 1963, a Piper Comanche light airplane left Kansas City bound for Nashville. There were three passengers and a ...
Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, The: Gram Parsons, Track by Track
Sleevenotes by Bud Scoppa, Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels (Rhino), September 2000
The International Submarine Band: Safe at Home ...
Emmylou Harris: Ghosts and Angels
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2000
The spectres of a war hero father and a doomed country troubador haunt her music. Emmylou Harris tells Phil Sutcliffe why she still hasn't found ...
Carter Family, The: The Carter Family: In The Shadow Of Clinch Mountain (Bear Family Records)
Review by Colin Escott, Journal of Country Music, 2001
WITH ENOUGH PATIENCE and old catalogs, you could probably confirm that at least some Carter Family recordings have been available for almost the entire span ...
Bobby Bare: The Singles 1959-1969
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, BMG International, 2001
AN OUTLAW before his time, a folk singer who never played a coffee house, a rock 'n' roller who gave away his biggest hit. Bobby ...
Willie Nelson: Expecting the Unexpected
Profile and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Gallery, March 2001
WILLIE NELSON studies martial arts. He has honed his skills as a karateka in various styles for around 40 years now. When you ...
Gram Parsons: Sacred Hearts And Fallen Angels (Rhino)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, May 2001
EXCEPT FOR A brief period in the early '80s, when I now believe I was trying so hard I put a clothespin over my crap ...
Profile and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, June 2001
COUNTRY MUSIC is over. There are lots of rock singers wearing cowboy hats these days, but genuine country music is all but dead and gone. ...
Obituary by Fred Dellar, MOJO, September 2001
HE WASN'T the most accomplished guitarist in country music. There were those in Nashville who could fashion half a dozen great licks in the time ...
Profile and Interview by Angus Batey, MOJO, November 2001
Lightning banjo picker Earl Scruggs was there at the birth of bluegrass. Over half a century later he's back with a new album and a ...
George Jones: The Rock: Stone Cold Country 2001 (Bandit)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, November 2001
IN MOST WAYS, this is a textbook follow-up to George Jones' eerie, surprisingly substantial 1999 album Cold Hard Truth – same basic song ideas only ...
Ooooh Las Vegas! 37 Stories, and It's All Out There…
Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, November 2001
Country music publicist Holly Gleason spends a night in Sin City – and comes to terms with the celebrity frenzy that is pop's new American ...
Retrospective by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, April 2002
HOW STEVE EARLE'S GUITAR TOWN BROUGHT A NEW ATTITUDE TO NASHVILLE. ...
Willie Nelson’s Straight Story
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, July 2002
IN DAVID LYNCH’S The Straight Story, the septuagenarian Alvin Straight showed his steel when the twin freak mechanics the Olsens tried fleecing him for repairs ...
Essay by Holly Gleason, Rock's Backpages, September 2002
THERE IT WAS ONE DAY – propped against my doorway in West Hollywood – a plain brown cardboard box like so many others. Anonymous. Almost ...
Carter Family, The: The Carter Family: Into The Valley
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2002
FIRST KILL YOUR HOG. SKIN IT, singe off the hairs and leave the hide to soften. Tug it over a round frame, whittle out a ...
Johnny Cash: The Man Comes Around (American Recordings)
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 2002
WEIGHTED DOWN by the difficult circumstances behind its recording – illness, hospitalisations, two bouts of pneumonia this past year alone, speculation that the increasingly fragile ...
Shania Twain: Up! Is A Direction: Shania Twain’s New CD(s)
Review by Rick McGrath, Culture Court, December 2002
More Of The Same Old, But I Give It A 10 For Marketing Moxie, Dick! ...
Flatlanders, The: The Flatlanders: Once & Again
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Harp, Summer 2002
After more than 30 years since their first recorded project together, the Flatlanders have come together again to record Now Again. Forward all 'thank you' ...
Interview by Joe Matera, Mixdown, 2003
GOLDEN ROAD, the second solo album from Keith Urban, symbolizes the life and musical journey that has taken him from the Australian farm town of ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2003
Thirty-five years ago, ex-felon Johnny Cash was invited to perform in two of America's toughest prisons – one of which he was no stranger to ...
Townes Van Zandt: Wanderin' Star
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2003
What do you do when you're really down? Listen to Townes Van Zandt Sylvie Simmons charts the artistic triumphs and personal disasters of sadness's most ...
Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, May 2003
COUNTRY SINGER June Carter Cash (73) died in Nashville on May 15 of complications from heart surgery. She was the daughter of country legend ...
Brooks & Dunn: The Long Road Home: Brooks & Dunn Risk Backlash With a Great Rock Album
Review by Carol Cooper, Village Voice, August 2003
IN THE RURAL east Texas graveyard where my father and his parents are buried, just a stone's throw from a black church built on land ...
Dixie Chicks, The: Dixie Chicks: Apollo, Manchester
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, September 2003
DISSENT STILL finds its focus in pop, more than any other art form. But there can have been few less likely standard-bearers for this radical ...
Dixie Chicks, The: The Dixie Chicks: Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Interview by Andria Lisle, MOJO, October 2003
When they criticised President Bush's war, the Dixie Chicks went from being new country darlings to enemies of the state. Now they’re unlikely keepers of ...
Johnny Cash: The Mantra In Black: Ten Reasons Why Johnny Cash Always Matters
Comment by Gary Pig Gold, earcandymag.com, October 2003
1. LUTHER PLAYED THE BOOGIE Without a red hot and blue band to back it all the way up, even a Man in Black's powers ...
Harlan Howard: Legends of Songwriting: Harlan Howard
Profile and Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, January 2004
THE TYPICAL songwriter who rolls into Nashville is an unknown hopeful with an acoustic guitar and a notebook full of half-finished songs and titles. When ...
Beat Farmers, The: The Beat Farmers: The Beat Goes on
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, April 2004
It was a small but ultimately influential early ’80s scene: the back-to-roots movement spearheaded by the Blasters, Rank and File, Jason and the Scorchers, Long ...
Steve Earle Gives New Meaning To The Expression 'Lifetime Achievement'
Interview by Toby Manning, Word, The, May 2004
MARRIED SIX TIMES TO FIVE DIFFERENT WOMEN, HE'S ENDURED THE JUNKIE'S LIFE, DONE TIME AND LIVED TO TELL. NOW A CHANGED CHARACTER, HIGH PROFILE CAMPAIGNER ...
Review by Andria Lisle, MOJO, June 2004
The Coal Miner's Daughter becomes a country music queen – with a little help from one of The White Stripes. ...
Loretta Lynn, White Stripes, The: Jack White and Loretta Lynn: Deconstructing Jack
Comment by Dave Marsh, Harp, July 2004
AT THAT POINT, after one and a half listenings, I concluded that White had heard all the Loretta Lynn records ever made and liked everything ...
Johnny Paycheck: The Little Darlin' Sound Of Johnny Paycheck: The Beginning (Koch)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, July 2004
SOMETIMES I THINK the Johnny Paycheck cultists are so enamoured of the sensational goth of stuff like '(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill' and ...
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, August 2004
"WE LOVE PLAYING HERE," Gillian Welch told us more than once, and since she and her musical soulmate David Rawlings were on for more than ...
Dillards, The: The Dillards: Pickin’ and Fiddlin’/Wheatstraw Suite/Copperfields
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
WHEN DOUGLAS and Rodney Dillard’s quartet hit Los Angeles in 1963 they blew everyone’s minds. Playing bluegrass with fuck-you rock’n’roll attitude, they wasted the competition ...
Uncle Dave Macon: Keep My Skillet Good And Greasy (Bear Family)
Review by Tony Russell, Maverick, September 2004
UNCLE DAVE MACON was the first real star of country music. True, Fiddlin' John Carson got on disc first: Uncle Dave made his debut recording ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 2004
THEY WERE "CONCEPTS" all right, but that didn't make them the product of cool, analytical thinking. Back in the early '60s, Johnny Cash was wrestling ...
Gillian Welch finds new audience with old-time Americana music
Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, October 2004
FOR SOMEONE WHOSE stark songs sound like they have come from the impoverished rural underbelly of Depression-era America, Gillian Welch seems as lively as a ...
Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam: Dwight Yoakam: The Very Best Of; Randy Travis: The Very Best Of
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, November 2004
ROUTE 88 WAS an ambitious cross-label campaign to establish several country stars in the UK, with Yoakam and Travis seen by many as the twin ...
Alison Krauss and Union Station: Lonely Runs Both Ways
Review by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, November 2004
THIS IS KRAUSS'S first studio album for three years, though in the meantime she's delivered a bestselling live album, won three Grammy awards, and made ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages Audio, 2005
Movies, fasting, fame and faith, plastic surgery, marriage, 9/11 and on being a gay icon: Dolly says more in twenty minutes than most do in two hours.
File format: mp3; file size: 22.1mb; Interview length: 24' 08"; sound quality: ****
Willie Nelson: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Independent, The, April 2005
AT THIS LATE stage, attending a Willie Nelson concert is more a gesture of pilgrimage than anything else. Nelson, now 71, with a ponytail that ...
Merle Haggard: Branded Man: Merle Haggard Brings The Bakersfield Sounds East With Dylan
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 2005
WHEN BOB DYLAN CALLS, other musicians listen. Even when they're icons and gifted songwriters in their own right. ...
Lucinda Williams: Southern Comfort
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, May 2005
LUCINDA WILLIAMS is a splendid mess, a charming and bruised beauty. ...
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Hackmart/Shout Factory! Records, May 2005
"I ALWAYS FIGURED David's stories were about ninety-two percent bullshit, but it made for good promotion," said record producer Shelby Singleton...who knew the value of ...
Charlie Poole: You Ain't Talkin' To Me: Charlie Poole And The Roots Of Country Music
Review by Tony Russell, Maverick, May 2005
THE PAST IS another country music: they do things differently there. In a rural school hall, dancers execute their circle-lefts and allemands, the fire in ...
Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris: Elvis Costello with Emmylou Harris: SummerStage, Central Park, NYC
Live Review by Mac Randall, New York Daily News, July 2005
"PITY ABOUT IT BEING so cold and all," Elvis Costello cracked toward the beginning of his Central Park SummerStage concert last night. ...
Chip Taylor: Lock 17, London ****
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, July 2005
EVEN BEFORE he met Carrie Rodriguez, Chip Taylor's life had the authentic ring of fiction about it. ...
Interview by Bud Scoppa, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 2005
Mr. Young on the Prairie Wind album; his aneurysm and surgery; the great Spooner Oldham; his archive project; and the Heart of Gold movie.
File format: mp3; file size: 46.6mb, interview length: 50' 55" sound quality: ****
Dolly Parton: The Essential Dolly Parton
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2005
DON'T BE FOOLED by the high hair, long nails or curvy torso. Dolly Parton may appear, on the surface, to be a prairie poppet moulded ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, January 2006
ROSANNE CASH has already been to church by the time we meet for breakfast. As dawn broke on this wintry Parisian morning, the singer-songwriter slipped ...
Comment by Andrew Mueller, Guardian, The, January 2006
WALK THE LINE, James Mangold's cinematic telling of the early life of Johnny Cash, takes its title from one of its subject's best-known songs. ...
Interview by Rob Hughes, Uncut, May 2006
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON is tough to nail. Uncut first catches him, fleetingly, en route to the airport at his home in Maui. ...
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, June 2006
IN MORE politically incorrect times there was an ad campaign that featured famous women wrapped in full-length Russian mink coats – people like Elizabeth Taylor, ...
Dixie Chicks, The: Dixie Chicks: 'We Had A Song At No 1. The Next Day It Was At No 70'
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Guardian, The, June 2006
NATALIE MAINES has a little cluster of black teardrops tattooed on her lower leg, trickling from her ankle down to her foot. Dixie Chicks' poised ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, July 2006
MORE THAN THREE YEARS after his death, the Man In Black is still enjoying the kind of final-act career resurgence that artists half his age ...
Retrospective by Holly George-Warren, Duke University Press, 2007
SHE'S BEEN called the J.D. Salinger of rock & roll. Mississippi-born singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Bobbie Gentry is every bit as mysterious as the steamy, Delta-flavored story-song she ...
AUDIO: NRBQ's Big Al Anderson (2007)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, 2007
Big Al takes us through life post-NRBQ, becoming songwriter to the Nashville Hat Act Stars, and looks back to the tough days on the road with NRBQ.
File format: mp3 File size: 33.5mb Interview length: 36' 25"; Sound quality: *****
Interview by Andrew Purcell, Sunday Herald (Scotland), January 2007
JOHNNY CASH lives with his daughter. He's in the set of her jaw, the power of her voice, and he stares down proudly from every ...
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, May 2007
YOU HAVE TO start at the end — where they paid respects to Townes Van Zandt, the songwriter/compadre who captured the essence of life after ...
Buck Owens: The Warner Bros. Recordings (Rhino Handmade)
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, July 2007
BUCK WAS ALWAYS the first to put down his Warners output, but you almost have to hear it all in one place to comprehend how ...
k.d. lang: kd lang: Kravis Center, West Palm Beach, FL
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Harp, March 2008
KD LANG WALKED onstage, guitar on her back and glided effortlessly into 'Upstream', a song about the nature of life, the struggle of human nature ...
Kathy Mattea: Station Inn, Nashville
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Harp, March 2008
IT'S AMAZING how expansive Kathy Mattea's old leaves and fall rainwater alto can be. With just a few acoustic guitar notes cascading around her on ...
Dolly Parton: Warmth, Wonder and Wisdom: Dolly Parton, O2 Arena, London
Live Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, July 2008
The superstar country singer proves her worth as a feminist icon ...
Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Legacy Edition)
Review by Mark Kemp, Paste, October 2008
IN THE DOCUMENTARY included with this new edition of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, daughter Rosanne shatters the mythology surrounding her dad, gently bringing him ...
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut Legends, December 2008
REGGIE YOUNG is a southern institution: the session guitarist's session guitarist. His inimitable licks and fills, at once clipped and fluid, have graced a zillion ...
Jessica Simpson: Gone Country: On Jessica Simpson's Nashville Conversion
Comment by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, January 2009
ASIDE FROM HIP-HOP, country music is the most wildly popular musical style people love to hate. The Bottle Rockets once wrote a song about a ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, March 2009
AS LONG AS people speak of country music, the music of Merle Haggard will live. As his career nears the half-century mark, Haggard's imprint is ...
Another Look at the Nashville Skyline
Report by Bill Wasserzieher, Rock's Backpages, June 2009
NASHVILLE IS a town of serene churches and raucous honky tonks. ...
James Hand: The Ballad of James Hand
Profile and Interview by Holly George-Warren, Texas Music, Fall 2009
"When I turned 13 I had a honky-tonk bandAnd now I guess I still doThere's a lot I've seen that I don't understandBut I'll tell ...
Mickey Newbury: An American Triology
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 2010
He was the hottest songwriter in town. But when he made his own records, the world wasn't ready for songs of utter despair accompanied by ...
Sleevenotes by Todd Everett, Bear Family Records, 2011
PAT BOONE, WHO GOT HIS START before rock and roll was invented, remarked in 2008 that he had issues with the fact that he hadn't ...
Mickey Newbury: Guitars, Boats And Fairways: Mickey Newbury and Friends on Old Hickory Lake
Sleevenotes by Chris Campion, Saint Cecilia Knows Records, 2011
IT LOOKS, FROM ABOVE, like a snake arching through the brush. A series of long blind curves that begins at Hendersonville, the small community formed ...
Lady Antebellum: Grammys 2011: Why can't Lady Antebellum find success in the UK?
Report by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, February 2011
COUNTRY-POP TRIO Lady Antebellum were The King's Speech of last night's Grammys, winning six awards (compared to Firth and Co's seven at the Batfas), including ...
Interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 2011
The comedian/bluegrass picker Steve Martin talks about banjos, learning to play, his long association with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 27.4mb, interview length: 29' 58" sound quality: *****
Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the Wronglers: Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland
Live Review by Holly Gleason, nodepression.com, June 2011
THEY CALL IT Heirloom Music, going so far as to make it the title of their first collaborative recording; but for Jimmie Dale Gilmore and ...
Dolly Parton: The Liberty Belle: Dolly Parton Speaks
Interview by Jude Rogers, Quietus, The, August 2011
Ever the showbiz professional, Dolly Parton leads Jude Rogers a merry dance during her allotted 20 minutes of chat about partners, Gaga, sexuality, The Lord ...
Hank Williams: On The Lost Highway: Hank Williams
Retrospective by Mark Mordue, Australian, The, October 2011
DAMNED cold. An ice storm over Nashville has closed down flights across the state of Tennessee. ...
Taylor Swift: Madison Square Garden, November 22nd, 2011
Live Review by Iman Lababedi, RockNYC, November 2011
STANDING ON A PLATFORM in the middle of the Arena, Taylor Swift looked genuinely amazed. A young girl in the cheap seats randomly began to ...
Gillian Welch: Air Miles: A Transatlantic Conversation with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings
Report and Interview by David Burke, Rock'n'Reel, Fall 2011
MOBILE PHONES, don't you just hate them? I know that to most of the Earth's populace they're as essential as a limb these days, but ...
Johnny Cash: Out Of The Blue and Into The Black: Johnny Cash
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 2012
IT'S NOT EXACTLY boom-chicka-boom, but the twangy guitar part that kicks off Johnny Cash's 1971 album Man In Black is the same minimal single-string picking ...
Obituary by Tony Russell, Guardian, The, May 2012
FOR ALMOST 50 YEARS, Doc Watson, who has died aged 89, was the most illustrious name in traditional American folk music. A superb, original guitarist ...
Rodney Crowell's Melodic Literacy
Interview by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, August 2012
RODNEY CROWELL, who turns 62 on August 7, has been on our radar since the 1970s, when he was the freshest horse in Emmylou Harris' ...
Rosanne Cash: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
A HOST OF FACTORS, including brain surgery, have conspired to keep Rosanne Cash away from London for the last six years. Returning to a full ...
Various Artists: Behind Closed Doors (Kent)
Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, 2013
AARON NEVILLE is a remarkable bloke. Muscular and tattooed, he looks like a bodybuilder or a bouncer, until he opens his mouth and sings: the ...
Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons: Heartaches and Hangovers: Gram Parsons' GP
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 2013
IT IS A FINE irony of her long career as the Queen of Country Rock that, on the night when Gram Parsons stopped by to ...
Eagles, The: Where Eagles Dared: California's Signature Rock Band Comes to London
Report by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, April 2013
Messrs. Schmit, Henley, Frey and Walsh (photo: Debbie Kruger) WELCOME TO the Hotel Connaught, the plush old Mayfair institution where Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh ...
back to LIBRARY
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
download eBooks and audio interviews
RBP on Spotify: The genius of Judee Sill
RBP Album Club in Chicago, June 30th: Paul Yamada and Liam (Plush) Hayes celebrate a Curtis Mayfield classic
Essential Listening: Roy Trakin meets the Replacements in '87
Essential Reading: Andrew Smith's history of the first dotcom boom
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut
Join the Facebook group now