JAMEY JOHNSON

Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran

[Mercury]

It’s fitting that Jamey Johnson, perhaps the best songwriter on the country scene, chose to honor one of the greatest and most prolific songwriters of all time. During his half-century in Nashville, Hank Cochran, who died in 2010, created a body of work so rich that this could have easily been a three-disc set. Instead, Johnson intersperses Cochran’s most famous songs, such as “I Fall to Pieces,” with lesser-known gems. Backed by traditional arrangements and instrumentation, Johnson surrounds himself with both Cochran’s contemporaries—Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price and Kris Kristofferson—and some of the finest voices in mainstream country. Johnson shows a knack for matching singer and song, pairing the ethereal-voiced Alison Krauss with the romantic ballad “Make the World Go Away” and teaming up with Western swing luminary Ray Benson for the irreverent toe-tapper “I Don’t Do Windows.” It’s easy to imagine Cochran is somewhere listening and smiling. –Juli Thanki

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