ASHLEY MONROE HOMETOWN: Knoxville, Tenn. INFLUENCES: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris,Patsy Cline ALBUM: Like a Rose, out now WEBSITE: ashleymonroe.com A publishing deal as a Nashville songwriter helped Ashley Monroe land a major record deal in 2006. Although the deal fell through, she remained undaunted, scoring cuts with Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood, collaborating with the Raconteurs, Ricky Skaggs and Trent Dabbs, and lending her voice to projects... 

SHAWN COLVIN Feeling at home with some of music’s greatest singers and songwriters It’s been 15 years since Shawn Colvin’s “Sunny Came Home” catapulted the singer-songwriter into the mainstream. Since then the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter has collaborated with artists from James Taylor and Béla Fleck to Mary Chapin Carpenter and Sting. For All Fall Down, Colvin adds to that list producer Buddy Miller (who recorded the album at his... 

SHAWN COLVIN All Fall Down [Nonesuch] Procuring master guitarist and Nashville alt-country staple Buddy Miller as producer ensures authenticity in the Americana world—just ask Robert Plant, who tapped him for 2010’s Band of Joy—but Shawn Colvin needs no such thing for her first new album in six years. Her history with Miller is very different. She sang in his band early on and later toured with him, Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin as Three... 

RODNEY CROWELL  A unique teaming with poet Mary Karr brings it all back home   After more than three decades, 13 solo albums and collaborations with some of music’s greatest names, Rodney Crowell knows a born songwriter when he sees one—even if that particular songwriter has never written a song. When he read poet and memoirist Mary Karr’s 1995 book The Liars’ Club, he couldn’t help but see the parallels between himself and the author—they... 

JAY JOYCE Whether it’s country, indie rock or something in between, the vibe is king By Michael Gallant For Jay Joyce, producing isn’t a matter of hitting every right note, tracking with the finest mics or working with the hippest software plug-ins. Nope, it’s all about the vibe. “My job is knowing when and where a beautiful moment is happening, and capturing it,” he says. “Making records is a totally spiritual thing.” Joyce’s approach...