Sound & Color – Alabama Shakes – ATO Records – Alabama Shakes’ second album is a statement of extraordinary confidence from a young and ambitious band.
Category: New releases
New: Spirit Family Reunion, Honeycutters
New releases: Spirit Family Reunion, Honeycutters, Jim Pelz, White Owl Red
Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “The Ruffian’s Misfortune”
Ray Wylie Hubbard’s bluesy tales of misplaced priorities, bad decisions and tragic characters are always entertaining,
New releases: Boxmasters, Sam Lewis
It’s not every album that has its own built-in mood swing. The Boxmasters – “Bud” Billy Bob Thornton, Teddy Andreadis, Brad Davis and J.D. Andrews – will release a new two-CD set this week, each disc with a distinctly different tone.
Tony Joe White: Complete Warner Bros. Recordings
Tony Joe White will always be associated with his swamp-rock hit “Polk Salad Annie,” but a new collection from Real Gone Music reveals an artist of greater depth and breadth
New releases: Allison Moorer’s “Down to Believing”
The power in Allison Moorer’s Down to Believing comes from marrying intimate and confessional lyrics to compelling musicality.
Review: Robert Earl Keen’s “Happy Prisoner”
Texas singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen returns to his bluegrass roots with Happy Prisoner – The Bluegrass Sessions.
New releases: Lily Hiatt, Joseph Wooten
Joseph Wooten’s latest solo album Soul of Freedom is both familiar and fresh, melding the influences of Steve Wonder and Sly Stone with very contemporary takes on the world around us.
New releases: Brandi Carlile, Ray Wylie Hubbard
New releases include albums from Brandi Carlile, Ray Wylie Hubbard, 10,000 Maniacs, Jon Chi, J. Tex
New releases: Vespers, Whitehorse, more
New albums from Whitehorse, the Vespers, Kimmie Rhodes, John and Judy Rodman and Parker McCollum.
New releases: Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle
New releases in Americana music, folk and blues
Review: Willie Nile’s “If I Was A River “
Willie Nile’s “If I Was A River” is distinctly different from its predecessors. These are reflective and intimate songs played on piano. It’s very spare, with Nile’s rough-hewn vocal at the forefront.
Americana Music Association’s Top 100 albums
The Americana music Association has just released its list of the Top 100 Americana music albums, based on airplay between December 2, 2013 and December 1, 2014
Review: Billy Joe Shaver’s “Long in the Tooth”
At 75, Billy Joe Shaver is no longer the young country outlaw he once was. But he’s still around and kicking, and on his latest album, Long in the Tooth, he bares his (figurative) teeth on songs about several things he’s not too happy about.
“An Americana Christmas” and other new holiday albums
Reviews of “Americana Christmas” and other new holiday albums
Reset to Pop: Bill Lloyd’s classic revisited
Bill Lloyd’s Set to Pop was a revelation upon its release in 1994, a buoyant and inventive slice of pop in a league with Emitt Rhodes and Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool. So it’s great news that Lloyd has chosen to revisit his classic album 20 years on.