There’s been a plethora (love that word) of releases on the rock side of the genre ledger that has demanded by attention. You see, the rocksters listed here were all riding high back in the seventies, so naturally, I was curious to see if they still got “it.” In eachRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Today, John Hiatt is among the leading American folk-rock singer-songwriters, standing in stature just below Springsteen and Mellencamp, but it was no overnight success story for him. Hiatt struggled to get traction on his career for over a dozen years after releasing his first album inRead More

NICK DERISO: Used to be, liking the Alabama-born Sullivans was akin to being part of some secret society. Nobody knew ’em. But the ones who did, well, they flat-out loved ’em. Then, somewhere along the way, Jerry and Tammy Sullivan went from being little-known gospel greats to gosh-dog superstars. We’reRead More

NICK DERISO: Sequencing an album by the New Orleans-based Irish folkie Beth Patterson must be like trying to make sense of a series of radio stations. The first track on her debut solo CD was a classic reel, one of those familiar yet still luminous moments with the swirling rhythmsRead More

NICK DERISO: Man, this is something else. Adamantly not Nashville, for one. (Which is still saying a lot.) Adamantly retro. (Not as unique, but still just fine.) And completely Gary P. Nunn — one of a series of former Jerry Jeff Walker sidemen to step out into their own spotlight.Read More

NICK DERISO: Even four solo records later, you keep expecting Billy Bob Thornton to do something wacky on his new release “Beautiful Door,” to be issued by Universal on July 24. See, in the movies, he’s Bad Santa. The Astronaut Farmer. That murderous dude in his Oscar-winning plot for “SlingRead More

James McMurtry, we know now, had only just begun making steel-toe tapping records that take a while to sink in.

NICK DERISO: This anthology — perfectly subtitled, “How the Time Does Fly” — was a great place to sit for spell and ruminate on the distant twangy past. Flying Fish included 18 tracks culled from nine of Hartford’s brilliant, throwback banjo records. His brand of riverboat bluegrass stayed interesting —Read More

The lead-off track from Anders Osbourne’s Grammy-nominated ‘Living Room’ is a rootsy jam and a helluva good time.

NICK DERISO: On this, their second release, the Bluerunners were not so much tinkering with their tough southern-Louisiana sound, as they were utterly revamping it. “Chateau” (on the terrific old Monkey Hill label) was to traditional Cajun what punk music was to rock — a whole new version, but bornRead More