Margo Cilker’s ‘Little White Cross’ is a beautiful collection of Western stories backed by country and Americana music that allows you to explore a host of strong emotional experiences imbued with meaningful connections.
It was only a few short years ago where the discussion around the steel guitar was whether the instrument that has been so instrumental to the appeal of country music would survive into the next decade.
This album is fine. It’s meant to be fun. It’s meant to be fluff. And similar to the Sturgill Simpson/Johnny Blue Skies “disco” album from earlier in the year, if you take this business too seriously, you run the risk of the joke being on you.
“She can bring folk and country together, and marry them into sentiments about love and love lost the resonate universally with all fans of music. This is what she does to favorable results on ‘Wayfaring Woman.'”
It’s no longer just Kenny Chesney. It’s Country Music Hall of Famer Kenny Chesney. And no matter if you feel it was fair, or if you feel it was an indictment on the institution’s standing to elect Chesney, the deed is done.
This is definitely one of those albums that will be bandied about in certain circles as the best of the year, and that’s certainly not an unfair discussion to have around it. Ian Noe definitely has that blessing/curse of the premier songwriter.
This is a surprisingly jagged edged, gritty, and at times, hard country affair where Wade’s not looking to try and distract you from all your dilemmas and worries, but speak to them with bruised and bloodied songs that pull no punches.
Joe Stamm puts you right in the room where the song was written, or the scene where it was inspired. Joe has such keen vision for songs, finding them in places many other songwriters would miss.
In what’s officially Katrina Cain’s debut full-length album, she presents personal vignettes with palpable emotions in songs that are ultimately very enjoyable and even fair to call accessible thanks to her superior vocal capabilities.
It’s Alicia Blue’s fearlessness to speak about her experiences often free of metaphor and innuendo that makes the music novel. But it’s her voice that really separates her from the herd. So confidently delivered and character-filled.
From the festival’s inception, the clear goal is to honor the great Earl Scruggs legacy by bringing in artists of all backgrounds, motivated by a love of the banjo and the music in its various forms, with the intention of inspiring future generations.
For those of you that love to put on an old George Jones record and pretend like the last 50 years of country music never happened, the music of Jason James will be as welcomed as that first bit of crisp autumn air.
Bradshaw takes that same blisteringly ambitious and expansive approach to writing songs, and also brings it to producing and arranging them. certain songs and moments absolutely overwhelm you on this album.
The Earls of Leicester, a bluegrass super-group featuring dobro legend Jerry Douglas and other fantastic players put on a show that absolutely packed a punch. They were followed by the renowned master of the banjo, Béla Fleck.
It’s never too late to start a new tradition, especially when it’s one that honors and pays forward so many old traditions, and in such a historic place. That’s what songwriter Hayes Carll, The Band of Heathens, and Luckenbach TX are doing.
Chasen Wayne and his band The Honky Tonk Machine are patently uninterested in simply making conventional country music. They’re seeking to reach uncharted territory along the frontier of everything that music can be.
This album’s a total vibe in a “push play and let it roll” kind of listening experience. Their fifth album is solely devoted into leaning into what they do best, which is capturing a mood that reminds you of the late ’70s.
In 1,000 parallel universes, it feels like Billy Strings only ends up as an improbable arena-level bluegrass star in one of them. But luckily, that’s the universe the rest of us inhabit with him.
It was only a few years ago when it felt like writing a love letter to the Austin music scene would be almost an impossibility. But it feels a bit different now. Post pandemic and with a renewed interest on the creative arts scene…
Whether through his work with the New Orleans-based music collective The Deslondes, or his numerous collaborations with other performers, or his first solo album a few years back, some probably recognize the name Riley Downing.
Tony Hannah’s Love It Or Leave It is one of those albums you don’t really need to make a convincing argument for. You simply press play, and the music does the rest. It’s so hard to find fault in, and so easy to fall in love with.
Though the rest of the world knows him as the frontman for the new wave rock and roll band The Killers, he might have just accidentally hauled off and made an Album of the Year contender in country.
Zach Top’s career feels like it’s at a crossroads. Smartly, Zach Top has released two new songs in hopes of re-igniting some of that initial momentum behind him. And generally speaking, they feel like they could be valuable in that pursuit.
Kimmi Bitter is country music’s throwback honky tonk sweetheart with a voice like Patsy Cline, and a style like The Ventures. She doubles down on the mod/Countrypolitan/surf/’60s sound that’s so succulent to the ear.