Joe South: The Other White South
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, June 1970
MOST WHITE people in the American South like country and western music. ...

Gram Parsons Dies in Desert
Report by Bill Wasserzieher, Village Voice, September 1973
PARK RANGERS found the half-charred body of country-rock musician Gram Parsons in a burned casket at Joshua Tree National Monument in California last ...

Van Dyke Parks
Interview by John Tobler, Hot Wacks, November 1973
...with contributions from Lowell George and Pete Frame ...

Maria Muldaur: Waitress In A Donut Shop
Review by Bob Woffinden, NME, November 1974
MARIA MULDAUR'S got class – no argument about it. It may have been a long, hard climb, but she is now receiving the attention she merits. ...

Sneeky Pete Kleinow
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, February 1975
SNEEKY PETE KLEINOW looks like you'd expect a veteran pedal-steel player to look. Green shirt with an elaborate marijuana-leaf motif emblazoned there-on, neatly pressed, white pants, ...

Maria Muldaur: Maria Hangs Loose
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, July 1975
Maria Muldaur, the American singer who has just completed a highly-successful week at London's Ronnie Scott Club, talks to KARL DALLAS ...

Commander Cody: Lost Planet Airman Finds Lone Star, Starts Drinking
Report and Interview by Mick Brown, Street Life, February 1976
THEY DIDN’T ask Commander Cody if they could use his face to advertise Lone Star beer, but he’s the first to admit it fits. "Country music ...

J.J. Cale: Troubadour
Review by Max Bell, NME, September 1976
THERE ARE only a few things you need to know about J.J. Cale. ...

Stephen Stills: Thoroughfare Gap
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, November 1978
IN THE end all will be disco, or so it would seem, so the best you can hope for is that your chosen hero exercises a ...

Ry Cooder: Bop Till You Drop (Warner Bros.)*****
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, July 1979
THERE'S PROBABLY a whole bunch of enormous ironies knocking around this world but right now I can't think of a bigger or more slap-happy one than ...

Thunderbirds Are Go!
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, March 1980
"I'M REALLY good at this kind of thing." said Kim Wilson. "Broken hearts or broken legs, they're all the same to me." He jabbed a finger ...

The Blasters: Down Home with The Blasters
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, New York Rocker, March 1981
FIRST THINGS first: I love roots music but I'm no great rockabilly fan. The part I like best – the beat – is pure black rhythm ...

The Blasters Ridin' On The Jubilee Train
Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, December 1983
PERHAPS TAKING A cue from the Book Of Rock Lists, I once considered compiling a list of the best rock records to listen to when going ...

Beat Farmers: Tales Of The New West
Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, July 1985
ROOTS? DID I HEAR somebody say roots? These grizzled nugget-miners have wandered in from the San Diego desert town of El Centro with an impressive set ...

The Blasters: Blaster Charge
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, July 1985
All aboard The Blasters' American Express, en route to the heartland of rock 'n' roll '85 style. "That'll do nicely," exclaims an impressed Jack Barron ...

Old Punks At Home: The Knitters and Danny & Dusty
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, July 1985
THE MOST VIGOROUS Los Angeles rock in the past five years has been staunchly traditionalist, the work of true believers rallying around and expanding upon the ...

Missing Parsons: The International Submarine Band
Retrospective by Sid Griffin, Sounds, September 1985
THE INTERNATIONAL Submarine Band is a classic example of a popular music act whose real worth was only revealed with the passing of ...

Maria McKee: Sweet Heart Of The Radio
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
So, what's it to be then? Is MARIA McKEE of LONE JUSTICE last year's pretty thing or next year's Queen of the airwaves? MAT SNOW makes ...

Saddled With The Blues: Cowboy Junkies
Interview by Len Brown, NME, 1988
JOHN WAYNE on smack? Is that what you expected and outfit who call themselves Cowboy Junkies to sound like? Wild country and western shoot-outs and shoot-ups ...

Ry Cooder: The Hardline
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, March 1988
FIVE YEARS AGO Ry Cooder packed out the Hammersmith Odeon for eight consecutive nights, the culmination of a triumphant European tour. ...

Buckwheat Zydeco: The Gospel Accordion To Buckwheat
Interview by Simon Witter, NME, March 1989
Down in New Orleans SIMON WITTER met squeeze-boxer Stanley 'Buckwheat' Duval ...

J.J.Cale: Travel Log
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989
SOME ARTISTS set a style so distinctively their own they become immediately generic; as with The Ramones or Led Zeppelin, J.J. Cale's first album Naturally (1972) ...

Cowboy Junkies: Horse Latitudes
Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, February 1990
"MOST OF THE SONGS, there's a grain of hope in there. The characters are always striving for something else. They're in a situation which is not ...

John Hiatt: Bottom Line, New York
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Times, August 1990
A SKINNY troubadour with a throaty, abrasive growl of a voice, John Hiatt slides in to the American rock dream somewhere between Ry Cooder at his ...

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Into The Great Wide Open
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
THE TITLE says it all. Space, horizon and all those rich possibilities are so central to the idea of America that it's hardly surprising they merit ...

Ben Fong-Torres: Hickory Wind – The Life and Times of Gram Parsons
Book Review by Bill Wasserzieher, Rock and Roll Disc, October 1991
"LIVE FAST, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse," the classic punk credo spoken by John Derek to Humphrey Bogart in Knock on Any Door (1949), ...

Maria McKee Gets Saved
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, May 1993
ANYONE WHO remembers Maria McKee whooping it up with her country-rock band Lone Justice back in the ‘80s will concur with Deacon Blue's verdict that the ...

Uncle Tupelo: Anodyne
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, December 1993
BEFORE UNCLE TUPELO'S No Depression sneaked out of Belleville, Ill., in 1990, the respective sounds of Sonic Youth and Lynyrd Skynyrd probably never occupied a common ...

Smog in a Wild Kingdom of Burning Love
Interview by Ian Christe, Alternative Press, 1995
BILL CALLAHAN has spent so much time alone that almost all he can do is be true to himself. He is absolute Bill, and people respond ...

Johnny Cash
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Musicweek, 1995
HE’S BACK IN BLACK...again. And, as ever, he means business. Johnny Cash, the original rock'n'roll spectre lets loose the leashes with new album Unchained, covering songs ...

Strangely Famous in Greece, the Walkabouts Trace Their American Roots
Profile and Interview by Jason Cohen, Option, November 1995
IT'S SATURDAY, just past noon, in Austin, Texas. A fine time to be in bed, or at the very least, shaking off sleep over a cup ...

Will Oldham's Palace
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, Mojo, May 1996
THERE IS A STRANGE subcurrent in the American rock music of the mid-'90s: a subcurrent of lo-fi, willfully inept, not-quite-country rock that stretches from the disbanded ...

The Bottle Rockets
Report by Geoffrey Himes, Crawdaddy!, October 1996
ON OCTOBER 20th, 1977, the single-engine prop plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed into a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing the band's lead singer Ronnie Van Zant ...

Wilco: Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
Live Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, June 1997
"WE SAW all those teenage girls outside and we assumed they were here for us. Hey, man, what gives?" ...

The Jayhawks: Sound Of Lies
Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, July 1997
IF, LIKE me, you thought The Jayhawks were just another bunch of New Country journeymen, then prepare to have your mind radically, brutally altered. ...

Viva Will Oldham: The Permutations of Palace
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty', 1998
THE VARIOUS mutations of the Palace name are a cover for the extraordinary career of Louisville's Will Oldham. The opposite of the businessman who opens numerous ...

Willard Grant Conspiracy: Rustic Grunge
Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, May 1998
LOG CABINS. Big coats. A stroppy Tindersticks undercut with ghostly suspense. Damp, misty woodland. Autumn. These are the things Flying Low, the second album by Boston's ...

The Handsome Family
Interview by Rob Hughes, unpublished, 1999
OCTOBER 1999. On the release of early-years compilation Down In The Valley - and four months prior to fourth studio album, In The Air - Chicago ...

Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Looking Forward in Y2K
Interview by Debbie Kruger, unpublished, 1999
GRAHAM NASH IS by nature an ebullient man, but maybe this time he went too far. Such was the anticipation of the long-awaited new Crosby Stills ...

On The Other Side: Mercury Rev
Interview by Ben Thompson, Mojo, January 1999
HOW MANY BANDS ARE THERE who have made their best records after losing their lead singer? Whoever said "Marillion", go and sit in the corner, and ...

An Interview with Jon Langford
Interview by Jason Gross, Bangsheet, May 1999
IN THE MIDDLE of yet another tour for the alt-alt-country act the Waco Brothers and on hiatus from his original band the Mekons, Jon "Boy" Langford ...

Chris Smither: Accoustic Blues
Profile and Interview by Chris Smith, Revue, May 1999
DESPITE HIS UNPARALLELED folk-blues guitar work, a voice that seems to channel ancient, Appalachian spirits, and near-legendary status in folk-circles, Chris Smither has never been a ...

Bastards No More: Life After Grifting
Interview by Andria Lisle, Raygun, July 1999
The Grifters’ David Shouse seeks redemption with THOSE BASTARDS ...

Johnny Dowd: Pictures From Life's Other Side (Koch Entertainment)
Review by Gary Pig Gold, inmusicwetrust.com, October 1999
I SURE HAD A feeling something was up when a strange little disc called WRONG SIDE OF MEMPHIS, written and solely performed by a forty-nine-year-old moving ...

Chuck Prophet: Underworld, London ****
Live Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, November 1999
IN 1989 CHUCK Prophet was the snake-hipped, guitar-slinging foil to Dan Stuart's punch-drunk sheriff in American rock'n'rollers Green On Red. ...

Drive-By Truckers: Pizza Deliverance (Soul Dump/Ghostmeat)
Review by Eric Weisbard, Village Voice, December 1999
WE DROVE TO Pittsburgh the weekend before Halloween, to watch the leaves change and attend a three-day fest called the Haunted Hillbilly Hoedown. ...

The Jayhawks: Smile
Review by Barney Hoskyns, cdnow.com, 2000
THE BAND THAT helped kick-start the alterna-country sound over a decade ago has undergone a major transformation since the departure of co-founder Mark Olson following 1995's ...

The Handsome Family: Tales Of Extra Ordinary Madness
Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, April 2000
Welcome to the dark, disturbing world of Brett and Rennie Sparks, otherwise known as THE HANDSOME FAMILY. ...

Kings Of Americana: Lambchop, Calexico, Wheat
Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, June 2000
Lambchop
THE GREAT AMERICAN Music Hall is an exotic relic in the middle of San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Outside, the streets are full of junkies, hobos and ...

Various Artists: Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Collection 1960-2000 (Arhoolie)
Review by Tony Russell, Mojo, November 2000
A 5-CD box set and photo-packed book celebrate a life committed to roots music. Subtitled The Journey of Chris ...

Buddy & Julie Miller: Buddy & Julie Miller
Review by Holly Gleason, Cleveland Free Times, 2001
WHAT IS THE sound of marriage hardfought, hardscrabble, hardwon? Is it Yoko Ono's dissonant shrieking? Trent Reznor's most post-ndustrial cacophony? Or the ruminations on various states ...

The Prince Of Darkness
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, March 2001
"I created Billy and let him take care of the performing. It's not me, Will Oldham, who gets up on ...

Jim White: In God's Country
Profile and Interview by Rob Hughes, Uncut, April 2001
ON HIS EXTRAORDINARY NEW ALBUM, NO SUCH PLACE, HE HAS CONTRIVED AN ASTONISHING MIX OF SPOOKILY DEMENTED COUNTRY, SKEWED ROCK AND HIP HOP THAT CHARTS THE ...

Alejandro Escovedo Under the Influence
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, April 2001
ON MARCH 22, 1998, Alejandro Escovedo introduced a new song at La Zona Rosa in his hometown of Austin, Texas. He was dressed cowboy-formal in a ...

Emmylou Harris: Anthology (Warner Archives/Rhino)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
ALTHOUGH RARELY FORWARDED as a "woman in music" icon, it’s hard to think of a more exemplary career - male or female, consistent and daring - ...

The Handsome Family: Twilight
Review by Rob Hughes, Uncut, October 2001
CALL IT WHAT you will – proto-country, Southern Gothic, backwoods noir, Americana, cow-punk, insurgent twang, murderous balladry, Appalachian folk. Whichever way you slice it, The Handsome ...

Kelly Joe Phelps: Beat The Devil
Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, February 2002
KELLY JOE Phelps is on stage at the Knitting Factory in New York City, one month after the World Trade Center's destruction, in front of a ...

Lambchop's New Flavour
Interview by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, February 2002
Kurt Wagner, songwriter and former floor-layer, has stripped down the sound of his 13-strong band for their latest and finest album. He tells Ben Thompson that ...

Lambchop: Off The Wall
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mojo, April 2002
A year ago, Kurt Wagner was laying floors. Now his country-soul collective Lambchop have become Nashville's strangest success story ...

Life After Whiskeytown: Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary
Comment by Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper, May 2002
Who was the most important figure to emerge from the break-up of Whiskeytown – Ryan Adams or Caitlin Cary? Geoffrey Himes ponders the ...

The Lee Hazlewood Interview
Interview by Rob Hughes, Get Rhythm, July 2002
IT'S BEEN A hellish few days for Lee Hazlewood. Three days into a four-day promo frenzy of our nation's fair capital, and everyone after a slice. ...

Tom Ovans: On The Road
Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, August 2002
IN 1971, WHEN he was 18, Tom Ovans dropped into an underground America, and never came back. Born into a working-class community just outside of Boston, ...

Demolition Man: Ryan Adams
Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Herald, September 2002
RYAN ADAMS IS not feeling well. "Summertime cold," he snuffles, and for a while, early on in our conversation, he seems intent on spreading the blues ...

Flying Burrito Brothers: Sincity — The Very Best Of The Flying Burrito Brothers (Universal)****
Review by Max Bell, Uncut, September 2002
ALTHOUGH THEY fit neatly into the silver-stitched seams on the patchwork quilt that became the country-rock heritage centre, The Flying Burrito Brothers were neither as popular ...

Ryan Adams: Demolition
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mojo, October 2002
BETWEEN HIS spare solo debut Heartbreaker and last year's swaggering Gold – the one where he sounded like he'd swallowed a jukebox of Stones, Who and ...

Still Voice, Distant Life: Will Oldham
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, November 2002
He’s the finest songwriter to come out of America in the past decade. Just ask Johnny Cash. But Will Oldham doesn’t play the fame game. He ...

Willard Grant Conspiracy: Come Together
Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 2003
The Willard Grant Conspiracy has gone underground. The only way you can hear the new album by one of America's best bands in their home country ...

Calexico: Bowery Ballroom, New York City
Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
IN MY OLD AGE, I am trying to get hip. So I have temporarily relinquished my inner redneck. Left that twang-and-trash loving gal on the shelf. ...

Lucinda Williams: World Without Tears (Lost Highway)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, May 2003
IT STARTS WITH A shivery vibrato guitar, straight off one of those '60s New York soul ballads – Betty Harris' 'Cry To Me', perhaps, or Garnett ...

Lucinda Williams: The Albums
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, May 2003
A concise guide to the Williams oeuvre before World Without ...

Lucinda Williams: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, May 2003
I LAST SAW Lucinda Williams live about ten years ago when she supported Mary Chapin Carpenter in London – not an auspicious show. She seemed nervous ...

Western Union: Rank And File
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Seattle Weekly, May 2003
A new archival set revisits Chip and Tony Kinman’s pioneering alt-country outfit Rank And File, as the brothers continue to expand their Cowboy ...

Honky-Tonk Grande Dame: Loretta Lynn And Jack White On Country’s Favorite Daughter
Report and Interview by Fred Mills, Detroit Metro Times, June 2003
SOME MIGHT SEE it as a generational passing of the torch: an established music icon sharing the stage with a younger rising star, and there’s no ...

White Stripes Or Shite Hype?
Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2003
NEXT WEEK the White Stripes release their latest single, a highly distinctive reading of the Burt Bacharach standard 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With ...

Lucinda's World
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World Acoustic, August 2003
"I KIND OF MISS the days when I wasn't well known," says Lucinda Williams, "Then, I was an 'undiscovered genius' when people heard my albums. Now ...

Going Up the Country: The Byrds and Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, ICE, August 2003
THOUGH OPINIONS differ on who recorded the first country-rock album, there is no question that the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first one by ...

Gillian Welch: Soul Journey (Acony)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2003
GILLIAN WELCH, with her hard 'G', is indisputably a Good Thing. Tall and gawky, decidedly non-photogenic, Gillian gives hope to all of us who contend that ...

David Olney: Borderline, London
Live Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, October 2003
THE QUALITY OF his writing has earned him namechecks from the late Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle, and the likes of Emmylou Harris and Linda ...

Johnny Dowd: The Spitz, London
Live Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, November 2003
BECAUSE THEY SHARE a dark gothic sensibility and a preoccupation with biblical notions of sin, Johnny Dowd is often bracketed with Nick ...

Ryan Adams: Saved By R'n'R
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, December 2003
Ten Things You (Don't) Want To Know About Ryan Adams: He spills the beans on his romantic foibles, his phobias and chocolate. ...

The Handsome Family: Singing Bones (Carrot Top)
Review by j. poet, Harp, December 2003
THE HANDSOME FAMILY - the duo of Brett Sparks, composer, singer and instrumental jack of all trades and Rennie Sparks lyricist, harmony vocalist and plucker of ...

Lambchop: Aw C'mon/No You C'mon
Review by Ben Thompson, Observer Music Monthly, February 2004
LIKE OUTKAST'S Speakerboxx/ The Love Below, the eighth album by Nashville's premier artisan country/ soul collective is a double-disc set designed to prompt endless speculation about ...

In His Hour Of Darkness: Gram Theft Auto and the Road Mangler Deluxe
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Times, March 2004
IT IS THE midsummer of 1973. Two men stand together amidst a throng of mourners at the graveside of Clarence White, former Byrd and the greatest ...

Tracks of His Tears: Kurt Wagner and Lambchop
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, April 2004
IT’S KURT Wagner who spots The Nipple. ...

The Long Ryders: Lock 17, London
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, The Independent, July 2004
THE LONG RYDERS enter to a tape of the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven, and begin their set with a cover of the Byrds' 'So ...

Burrito Deluxe: The Whole Enchilada
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
Inoffensive country rock featuring original Burrito Brother Sneaky Pete Kleinow plus Band deity Garth Hudson on ...

Willy Mason: A Breath Of Fresh Air
Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, November 2004
IF YOU'RE FEELING bad about America after last week's election, Willy Mason is one reason to change your mind. The 19-year-old New Englander has already won ...

AUDIO: The Ry Cooder Interview, parts 1-3 (2005)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 2005
From his youth in Santa Monica via the Ash Grove scene through to movie soundtracks and his explorations of world musics: Ry on the music business, ...

The Backpages Interview: Robbie Robertson
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, October 2005
RBP: A Musical History seems like a formidable ...

Confessions of a Trucker
Interview by Jason Gross, Creative Loafing, November 2005
TRYING TO FIT in as the newbie in an established band is a weird, awkward, disorienting task – just ask Ron Wood what it was like ...

Dave Alvin: Romeo's Escape
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acadia Records, June 2006
THE TIME: Summer, 1987. The place: Downtown Manhattan hang-out The Kat Klub. It's the height of the annual industry beanfest, the New Music Seminar, and among ...

Bonnie Raitt: Red Hot Mama
Profile by Jason Gross, Creative Loafing, August 2006
ARE THERE ANY active old-school divas that we can still look up to? Cher? Retired. Tina Turner? Retired. Barbara Streisand? Her too. Joni Mitchell? Yep. Linda ...

Lambchop: Damaged
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2006
THERE WAS a time when Kurt Wagner’s Lambchop dwelled in the very eye of the alt.Americana hurricane: a folksy but literate Nashville troupe making highbrow country ...

Lucinda Williams: West
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, February 2007
MUCH IS MADE of Lucinda Williams the writer, the poet of southern aches and pains. Time magazine called her "America's Best Songwriter" and the New Yorker ...

Levon Helm: Dirt Farmer
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, November 2007
LEVON HELM was the southern heart of that essentially Canadian group The Band, the drummer/singer/mandolinist who gave Robbie Robertson's songs their corn-starch authenticity. Helm it was ...

Bon Iver: Victoria Apollo, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, December 2008
"THIS IS AN extremely big deal for us," says Justin Vernon, standing beneath a giant pterodactyl. Vernon is the songwriter, lead singer and creative mainspring of ...

Howlin' Rain: Magnificent Fiend
Press Release by Don Waller, Birdman Records, Spring 2008
MAGNIFICENT FIEND is the second album from Howlin' Rain and the first to be issued under a joint agreement between multi-platinum record producer Rick Rubin's American ...

Gilllian Welch: Revival/Hell Among the Yearlings/Time (the Revelator)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, March 2009
Reissues of first three albums by the high priestess of "American Primitive" and partner David ...