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Artist:
Gillian Welch
Blessed with a soulful and expressive voice and an innate grasp of the melodies and themes of traditional country music, Gillian Welch has made three beautiful and often brilliant albums. Yet one can make the case that she's still searching for her own true artistic voice. Soul Journey brings her ever closer to that elusive goal. After 2001's austere, solemn and at times inscrutable Time (The Revelator), this follow-up finds Welch showing more warmth, ease and openness as both singer and songwriter. As the title portends, the concept of travel (physical and emotional) is a prevailing thread through these 10 tracks; she sings of rolling stones "on the roa...
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List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.39
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Artist:
Emmylou Harris
Harris's 1980 back-to-the-roots album marks a high point in her career. With stellar support from Tony Rice (acoustic guitar), Albert Lee (mandolin), and Ricky Skaggs (fiddle), Harris wanders comfortably and warmly through traditional-country and bluegrass pastures. Skaggs, Dolly Parton, and the Whites add beautiful harmonies as Harris slides effortlessly from the Carter Family to the Stanley Brothers to the Louvin Brothers to Paul Simon. Among the set's peaks are Flatt and Scruggs's "I'll Go Stepping Too", with Rice, Skaggs, Lee (on superb electric guitar), and dobro master Jerry Douglas turning up the instrumental heat, and the spiritual "Jordan", with Harris, Skaggs, R...
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List Price: £6.99
Our Price: £2.99
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On his two early-1970s solo albums, collected here on one disc, Gram Parson lends his fragile, aching tenor to music that's the definition of what he called "country soul". Neither of these titles is quite as strong as the work Parsons had previously done with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but with originals as great as "She" and "In My Hour of Darkness"--not to mention backing from Emmylou Harris and the core of Elvis's early-1970s band--both GP and Grievous Angel still stand as country-rock classics. --David Cantwell
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List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £2.99
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Artist:
Johnny Cash
In 1994 Cash stunned the music world with this commanding collection of 13 solo acoustic performances that roll from gospel to cowboy to sarcastic folk. Minimalism had long been Cash's meal ticket, but this time around, producer Rick Rubin stripped it all away, recording the bulk of the record in Cash's cabin or his own living room (two cuts were captured live at the Viper Room in front of an emphatic audience). Cash offers five typically direct and vivid originals, but he also seizes control of songs by Kris Kristofferson, Nick Lowe, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Loudon Wainwright. 40 years after "Hey Porter", Cash delivers a pure, naked, and incredibly mov...
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List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £3.24
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Artist:
IRON AND WINE
Iron & Wine is Sam Beam, a back-porch Florida singer-songwriter whose sad little songs pack a helluva wallop. Recorded in his living room on a vintage four-track, The Creek Drank the Cradle co-stars cassette hiss, ambient room sound and Beam himself. Beam's immediately likable tunes paint such clear pictures that songs like "Southern Anthem" and "Muddy Hymnal" are more akin to short stories by Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor than to your average pop ditty. A stripped-down one-man band, Beam contributes delicious Delta-flavoured slide guitar, passable banjo and deliriously beautiful harmonising. Beam isn't just a songwriter the equal of Will Oldham and Leonard ...
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List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £4.33
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Artist:
The Low Anthem
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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £3.30
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Artist:
Ryan Adams
With a touch of Robyn Hitchcock in his vocal timbre, a smidgen of Steve Earle in his narratives and instrumental writing and a heap of Gram Parsons in the fullness of his overall sound and structure, Ryan Adams steps well above Whiskeytown with Heartbreaker, his solo debut. By turns raucous, wistful, raspy and simply sweet, Adams makes the most of a top-shelf acoustic band, including Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and even a guest spot from Emmylou Harris on the tenderly yearning "Oh My Sweet Caroline". There is little dependence on the usual alt-country twang and a far more rounded sense of textures here (the multiple vocal tracks on "Amy", for example, sound Be...
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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £6.09
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Artist:
Gillian Welch
The considerable promise carried forth on Gillian Welch's first two albums is thoroughly fulfilled on Time (The Revelator). Welch has traded the guidance of her previous producer, T-Bone Burnett, for the sympathetic studio skills of her longtime guitarist-harmony singer David Rawlings, who loosens the reins just enough to allow moments of spontaneity to sparkle within the duo's spare, eloquent playing. "Revelator" is an instant classic, perhaps the first great American folk song of the 21st century. "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll" is three minutes of Louvins/Everlys-style bliss. "April the 14th, Part 1" haunts its historical context with an achingly melancholy ...
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List Price: £11.99
Our Price: £5.59
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Artist:
Josh T. Pearson
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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £2.72
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Artist:
Ryan Adams
Torrential creativity has fast-forwarded the artistic evolution of former Whiskeytown frontman Ryam Adams from country-rock boy wonder to despondent troubadour with a 1960s fixation (his solo debut Heartbreaker), but it may also explain why listeners often need to wade through some pedestrian material just to find a few pearls of poetic excellence. Gold is no exception to that trend, a sometimes engaging middle-of-the-road roots-pop album that's both overlong (70 minutes) and at times overindulgent. There are high spots--such as the bouncy, breezy opener "New York, New York" and the plaintive ballad "When the Stars Go Blue" (which features a vocal turn remin...
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List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.76
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