And anyone else who's interested.
Lyle Lovett: "Lyle Lovett" (debut album), "Pontiac," "It's Not Big It's Large" (with the Large Band) - a good introduction is "Anthology Vol 1, Cowboy Man", but there are no bad songs on the early albums and damn few on the later ones; it's worth buying the full albums in my view.
Steve Earle: God, anything really. But especially "Guitar Town" and "Transcendental Blues."
Townes van Zandt: Anything and everything. A good introduction is "Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, TX" - there are some compilations but I don't like the looks of them.
Willie Nelson: Anything and everything. A good introduction is the recent comprehensive box set. Just buy it. :-)
Guy Clark. The alt.country singer-songwriter's singer-songwriter. Anything. His last couple of records ("Dublin Blues," "Some Days The Song Writes You") are solid as they come.
Joe Ely - both as a solo artist and with The Flatlanders. Look for an anthology.
Robert Earl Keen - another member of the Texas smart-country set. "The Party Never Ends" is canonical.
Buddy and Julie Miller: If you buy just one record, buy this one: "Written In Chalk".
T-Bone Burnett: Producing more than performing these days, but proves that Christian Rock does not have to be "I found God and lost my talent." He writes heartbreakingly beautiful songs.
John Prine - all of it.
Emmylou Harris - all of it pretty much.
Lucinda Williams - all of it, but especially "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road."
Tift Merritt - a good introduction is "Live in Birmingham" (England, not Alabama)
1 comment:
Bunny, look into the Brit mag Uncut. It has record and movie reviews but more importantly fixates on Americana in a more friendly way than, say, No Depression does.
And Barry shows his Old School Country roots by not mentioning guys like Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown etc etc.
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