VIDEO FEATURE & WEB-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Musician:  BONNIE BISHOP Video: “Poor Man’s Melody” Songwriters: Bonnie Bishop & Jimmy Wallace BONNIE BISHOP Web-Exclusive Interview with M Music & Musicians magazine publisher, Merlin David Photo credit: Jeff Fasano “Dreams are lifetime visions,” says Grammy-winning songwriter Bonnie Bishop. “And life is valleys and mountains. And if you can accept that, you’ll be fine.” Bishop... 

AMY SPEACE Land Like a Bird [Thirty Tigers] With Land Like a Bird, Nashville-based singer and songwriter Amy Speace has created a hypnotic set of songs that may be her best effort yet. She coos and croons through “Drive All Night,” “Galbraith Street” and “Ghost,” and assumes the role of nocturnal chanteuse on the alluring “It’s Too Late to Call It a Night.” There’s a decided sadness in Speace’s aching vocals and weary laments,... 

BOBBY BARE JR. A Storm, A Tree, My Mother’s Head [Thirty Tigers] Four years after his last studio album, Bobby Bare Jr. returns with his wry wit and droll eye for detail splendidly intact. Bare has never fit squarely into the country-singer mold of his father, but there’s subtle twang here, along with a gentle throwback-soul sensibility on tunes that would make you cry if you weren’t laughing. “One of Us Has Got to Go” is one of those, with... 

JIM LAUDERDALE Patchwork River [Thirty Tigers] Veteran singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale collaborated with legendary Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter for Patchwork River, and the result is a lovably twisted genre piece. Always an evocative singer, Lauderdale clearly relishes biting off existential verses such as “What do you get when you cross the street against the light with a cyclone fence?” In the best Dead tradition, Lauderdale and Hunter’s... 

GREAT AMERICAN TAXI Reckless Habits [Thirty Tigers] Great American Taxi takes a highway through the heartland that leads straight from the Mississippi Delta to the Colorado Rockies, dissecting other equally diverse realms in between. Born out of an all-star jam session featuring singer and keyboardist Chad Staehly and singer, guitarist and mandolin player Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon, Great American Taxi grew rapidly into a full-blown combo five...