Together they offer up a straightforward bluegrass album under the duo name Pitney Meyer that warms your cockles, and does for bluegrass what Mo Pitney did for traditional country previously: make you hopeful for the future.
Listening through Rhinestone Requiem, the boldness of its audio flavors, and the passion brought to the songwriting, it gives you a sense that Sunny Sweeney is just now hitting her peak.
There’s something about hearing Whitey Morgan’s music that makes you feel 100 feet tall and bulletproof. It’s everything that makes up Outlaw country concentrated into its most pure form.
“Snipe Hunter” by Tyler Childers is nowhere near as good as some of the hyperbolic proclamations being bandied about profess, and it’s not even close to the colossal letdown that others are alleging.
While other top level names in independent country continue to present you with polarizing twists and confounding turns, the consistency of Cody Jinks is incredibly comforting.
By utilizing jazz cords, surf tones, and making unintuitive turns, Chasen Wayne takes country music and the intrepid listener into uncharted territory, though with plenty of familiar sounds and guideposts.
“The Mirror” is a Trisha Yearwood album. It’s an album that feels inspired, passionate, and purposeful. It’s the best album Trisha Yearwood could make in this season of her career.
It doesn’t even feel apt to characterize Tami Neilson as a “musician” in the conventional sense. She’s a force of nature, a Category 5 Typhoon blowing in from the archipelago, a volcanic eruption of power and talent.
When the news came down that Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton would be releasing a song together, it was hard to not get a little excited, irrespective of your level of excitement for either of these artists.
‘Ain’t Rocked in a While’ is a loud, rambunctious, greasy, uninhibited affair that puts songwriting second to finding a groove and laying down in it. It’s garage rock deep fried in a vat of ’70s sweat.
Releasing ‘Little Crosses’ in the dead of summer is smart timing for Stamm and Co. This is a summer album full of serious heartland rock, songs that stoke sentimental memories, and a little bit of recklessness.
Those who take the time to dig for the best in music are handsomely rewarded via the experience of this album, and before the rest of the world and the music business get their opportunity to get their greasy mandibles on it.
It’s never been easy to pigeon-hole Parker McCollum, or summarize his music career or sound in a concise sentence. He’s a Texas artist with mainstream impact. He’s an independent-minded performer with commercial impact.
This is what it’s all about right here folks! The Honky Tonk Sweetheart of Austin, TX is back with a kick ass new country record, and there’s no dipping your toes in. This thing is so warm and inviting, you dive right in.
Produced by Wade Bowen, Bleu Edmondson’s new album ‘To The End’ is a stunning, bold, and ambitious work that accomplishes in only six songs what some entire discographies often fail to.
Myron Elkins opens his mouth, and a wormhole appears to a smoky nightclub in blue collar Detroit in the 1970s, or a Muscle Shoals recording session pre air conditioning installation. It’s borderline unbelievable.
Telluride Bluegrass doesn’t just entertain revelers on a local or regional level. It works as an incubator for talent, a launching pad for stars, and the implications of what transpires both on and off the stage is often momentous.
James McMurtry is such a master class songwriter, you might even hear other songwriters referred to as the “James McMurtry” of their era or region. But James McMurtry is the James McMurtry of James McMurtry’s.
Kelsey Waldon has also never been more Outlaw in tone and texture. From grooving in half time, to the pounding bass drum and 2-tone bass guitar lines, this album puts you right back in the ’70s.
In ‘Tropicana,’ the cunning use of subgenre dialects and instrumental modes, and the fearlessness he brings to writing silly melodies and singing his guts out to them is a version of genius you just can’t help but appreciate.
Hailey Whitters makes for one of the most navigable bridges between the independent and mainstream, and the classic and contemporary. She offers something entertaining and enlightening to just about everyone.
“Son of the San Lorenzo” feels like Jesse Daniel’s most complete, involved, and thoughtful work overall, and adds to a growing catalog of high caliber country.
If you’re looking for the real deal in Texas honky tonk music straight from the most iconic dance halls in the state, Weldon Henson is your man, and “Stone Gold Country Gold” is your album.
Country traditionalist Big City Brian Wright isn’t the first to record a country trucker album, and he won’t be the last. But he is the first to take a country trucker album, and make it fly.