Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash's legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, At Folsom Prison. The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, At Folsom Prison is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, ...
The title of Rounder's Alison Krauss compilation A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection is a bit misleading. While it does contain previously recorded material, it is not to be taken as a greatest-hits package; rather, the 16 tracks are compiled from Krauss' numerous collaborations, soundtrack appearances, and other non-Union Station gigs. That ...
At the height of outlaw country, Willie Nelson pulled off perhaps the riskiest move of the entire bunch. He set aside originals, country, and folk and recorded Stardust, a collection of pop standards produced by Booker T Jones. Well, it's not entirely accurate to say that he put away country and folk, since these are highly idiosyncratic ...
Willie Nelson recorded for many labels during the course of his lengthy career, but his greatest commercial success arrived during his time on Columbia during the late '70s and early '80s, which is one of the reasons that the career-spanning double-disc collection The Essential Willie Nelson appeared on Columbia/Legacy in 2003. The other reason, ...
The Dixie Chicks spent the first half of the '90s toiling away on the independent bluegrass circuit, releasing three albums on small labels, before sisters Martie Seidel and Emily Robison decided to revamp their sound in 1995, adding Natalie Maines as their lead singer and, in the process, moving the group away from bluegrass and toward a major ...
Many of Johnny Cash's biggest hits, among them "Ring of Fire," "Understand Your Man," and "A Boy Named Sue," are included on Legacy's 16 Biggest Hits. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Rhino's 2002 collection The Complete Greatest Hits is certainly welcome for presenting what is essentially all of his most popular songs on one 20-track disc, but, the thing is, that's actually a trickier task with Gordon Lightfoot than you might think. On both volumes of Gord's Gold, he re-recorded early songs and mixed them with current hits -- ...
Sara Evans wasted no time getting back to what she does best in the music game after her divorce. While it's true that this is a compilation released just a week after the messy event was final, this set arrived and four of its 14 cuts are new tracks. There are some real problems with assembling a collection like this: for starters it contains not ...
Following the success of Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot continued his success by releasing a greatest-hits compilation. A double album (now a single CD), it contained the most popular songs from his Warner Bros. years on disc two, and he re-recorded many of his early songs for side one of record one. Although not as good, perhaps, as the originals, ...
Following the success of the startlingly popular traditional old-timey soundtrack for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, contemporary bluegrass pioneers Alison Krauss & Union Station moved in the opposite direction for their 2001 release, New Favorite. While Krauss and Union Station guitarist/vocalist Dan Tyminski got deeply in touch with their ...
There's good reason for Tim McGraw's endurance at the top of contemporary country: he's a restless visionary who's worked hard to improve as an interpretive singer. In 2002, McGraw bucked the trend and convinced his label, and producers Byron Gallimore and Darran Smith, to let him use his road band in the studio. The rough and tumble intimacy of ...
Americana with attitude is the best way to describe the Avett Brothers' music, a sublime blend of folk, country, hillbilly, and blues, swirled through with pop, rock, and a touch of wry punk. In their dreams, it all sounds perfect, but not so much so, they think, when they awake. "Yeah, you deserve the best," they bemoan, not just some "Hand-Me ...
Alison Krauss had been recording a decade before she gained stardom, but she became a star in a big way. Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a retrospective of her ten-year recording career for Rounder, became the surprise hit of 1995, rocketing to number two on the country charts and into the Top 15 on the pop charts, which is remarkable for ...
Few artists will offer the story of a lighthouse, sung in the first person, but Nickel Creek has a flair for the unusual. "The Lighthouse's Tale," is but one of a dozen good reasons to enjoy this self-titled release. Produced by Alison Krauss, it features an eclectic collection of material, original and borrowed. Highlights include the ...
Though it is credited to Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, A Star Is Born is in effect the soundtrack album to the motion picture of the same name, a rock-oriented retelling of the story that had been filmed three times before. That it is not billed as a soundtrack only indicates that the album contains the songs featured in the film, but ...
Called the greatest songwriter ever by Nashville rebel Steve Earle, A Far Cry from Dead is a collection of the sharp, insightful writing that led Earle to make such a bold claim about Townes Van Zandt. Included are the songs that became hits for others, such as "Pancho & Lefty" (which Willie Nelson made into a 1983 hit), as well as the material ...
The soundtrack to Michael features a few angel-themed hits scattered amongst traditional hits by Don Henley, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Al Green, the Mavericks, Van Morrison. ~ Keith Farley, All Music Guide
Reasons Why is a double-disc best-of that treats Nickel Creek's fanatical fan base to a solid overview of this progressive bluegrass band's recorded career. There are 12 tunes here than can be called bona fide "greatest hits," at least among the faithful. They include "The Lighthouse's Tale," "Jealous of the Moon," "When in Rome," the title cut, ...
A calming, diverse collection of lullabies from the world over. Assembly of the compilation is by violinist Tracy Silverman (Turtle Island String Quartet), a father of two. Silverman succeeded in capturing most lullabies performed by families. A smorgasbord of cultures is represented: Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana, Iceland, Israel, Russia, and ...
This compilation of patriotic and inspirational country music clearly is intended to respond to the national mood in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It is for the most part a label sampler of recordings from Sony's Columbia and Epic labels. The material has been assembled from existing sources rather than being newly written ...
Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge inaugurated their musical partnership in 1973 (also the year of their marriage) with Full Moon, which topped the country charts, and they quickly followed with 1974's Breakaway, another album with healthy sales. By the time of their third and final duo LP, Natural Act, a little more than four years later, much ...
Shel Silverstein is a hard guy to pin down, which is part of not only his charm, but his genius. He's best known as a children's author, but also was a Playboy cartoonist who couldn't resist a dirty joke. He penned novelty songs, but also could write songs as heart-wrenching as "Silvia's Mother" and "Once More With Feeling." He was also a terrific ...
Loretta Lynn retired from the music business in the '90s, returning to her home in Nashville to take care of her husband, Oliver Lynn, as he was dying. As it happens, she left the spotlight at a time that was not kind to country legends like herself, as they were exiled from country radio and left with a fraction of their audience. Some tried to ...
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