Posts tagged with "New West"

DELBERT & GLEN

DELBERT & GLEN Blind, Crippled and Crazy [New West] A 40-year gap between collaborations must be some kind of world record, but it’s not as if Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark—who last recorded together in 1973—have been sitting around doing nothing. Clark’s songs have found their way to the likes of Bonnie Raitt and the Blues Brothers, while McClinton has been an Americana hero since before that genre had a name. What’s most remarkable... 

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES (& DUCHESSES)

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES (& DUCHESSES) The Low Highway [New West] Though not exactly a New Orleans record, Steve Earle’s latest has a distinct Big Easy flavor. In part, that’s because Earle wrote three of the songs for the HBO series Treme, on which he played a street musician. There’s zydeco-style accordion on “That All You Got?”, and jaunty bayou fiddle on “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way,” and the titular reference of “After Mardi... 

RICHARD THOMPSON

RICHARD THOMPSON Electric [New West]  Recorded in a few days at producer Buddy Miller’s Nashville home, Electric sounds more live than Thompson’s Dream Attic(2010), an actual live album. Perhaps it’s because he didn’t overdo it in the studio. Thompson has said that he and his trio banged out the recording with minimal fuss, and the lack of embellishment does these songs good. Fortunately, austerity doesn’t come at the price of substance,... 

BUDDY MILLER AND JIM LAUDERDALE

BUDDY MILLER AND JIM LAUDERDALE Buddy and Jim [New West] The two brightest stars in Americana have found success with solo albums and written gems for giants like George Strait and the Dixie Chicks. They’ve also scored with collaborative efforts: Miller has played with Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant’s Band of Joy, while Lauderdale has recorded with Ralph Stanley and toured with Elvis Costello. This team-up album has been a long time coming. Comprising... 

ROBERT ELLIS

ROBERT ELLIS Photographs [New West] He may be only 22, but Houston native Robert Ellis displays an impressive ability to channel influential elders while nimbly shifting his own style. The first five songs on his debut find him in singer-songwriter mode a la the early ’70s, with Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Paul Simon and the Laurel Canyon crowd serving as obvious reference points. Mellow acoustic ballads with occasional strings offer the impression... 

OLD 97’S

OLD 97’S The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 [New West] Like the Replacements before them, Old 97’s enjoy navigating that tricky line between brilliant songcraft and ramshackle execution. Following fast on the heels of its 2010 companion disc, Grand Theatre Vol. 2 picks up right where its predecessor left off. Opener “Brown Haired Daughter” sets the tone: Powered by hard-strummed acoustic guitars, a Crazy Horse-style solo and an exhilarating chorus,... 

BUDDY MILLER

BUDDY MILLER The Majestic Silver Strings [New West] Despite a long run of stellar albums as a solo artist and with his wife, Julie, Buddy Miller’s reputation as super sideman to artists like Robert Plant, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and others tends to overshadow his own work. He has it both ways on his star-studded latest, enlisting top-shelf guitarists Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz for some adventurous reworking of classic... 

OLD 97’S

OLD 97’S The Grand Theatre Volume One [New West] While earlier albums found them etching their own variation on the roots-rock template, The Grand Theatre Volume One suggests the Old 97’s have again chosen to pursue a more rambunctious direction. The three songs that open the album—“The Grand Theatre,” “Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You)” and “The Magician”—constitute a rowdy triple threat that soars on rapid-fire refrains... 

JOHN HIATT + The Open Road

JOHN HIATT The Open Road [New West] From 1986’s Bring the Family forward, John Hiatt had a reputation for being rock’s poet laureate of complex contentedness, singularly gifted at chronicling the joys of family and sobriety in a way that still sounded complicated, messy, poetic and greasy. Even so, there were a few of us longtime fans who hankered for Hiatt to get back in touch with the more malcontented side he showed early in his career, and... 
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