I don’t know whether life was easy for the boy named Shel, but he had this triple-threat set of talents that were used to address different audiences, and they were generally kept quite separate from each other, which could seem a little schizzy. Happy results of two of his sides are brought together on this [...]

It’s hard to know whether the Ass Ponys broke up or gave up, but they gave the thing every possible shot before their day was over. Six albums, including a stint on A&M. National van tours, a little critical adulation, decent notices, but it’s not like we were really going to hear Chuck Cleaver’s peculiar [...]

As a co-founder of Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and the short-lived, pre-fabricated Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, Richie Furay distinguished himself as a charismatic performer with a strong voice and a knack for crafting catchy, melodically infused, heartstring-pulling country-rock tunes. When he decided in the early 1980s to become an Episcopalian minister in Broomfield, Colorado, many thought that would [...]

Given that their sound falls somewhere between the sugary pop of Barenaked Ladies and the acoustic folk of the Duhks, it’s no surprise the Clumsy Lovers hail from Canada. They’ve not always had a knack for memorable pop songs, but on Smart Kid, primary songwriters Chris Jonat and Trevor Rogers show significant maturity. “London Bridge” [...]

With a sultry, blood-red vocal style and a dramatic songwriting flair, the strikingly exotic Patricia Vonne combines south-of-the-border mariachi sizzle, southwestern mythology, Texas roots-rock and spaghetti western cinematic sweep on this compelling bilingual effort. She certainly comes by the cinematic connection honestly: She portrayed Dallas (aka “Zorro Girl”) in her brother’s (director Robert Rodriguez) recent [...]

Woodyboye is Joel Rafael’s second toast to Guthrie, following 2003’s Woodeye; it includes several complete Guthrie compositions, four songs of Guthrie lyrics that Rafael has set to music, and one original Rafael tune. There’s also “Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key”, with lyrics by Guthrie and music by Billy Bragg. All the familiar but [...]

The best tunes on Iowa City singer-songwriter Sam Knutson’s fourth album (the third with his band Shame Train) achieve a bleary poetic grace and fuzzed-out bliss, serving as some sort of back-alley echo of Exile On Main Street. The first two songs are the best. “The Kelly Moore Estate” floats along on a loping drumbeat [...]

Emiliana Torrini’s bio reveals that she sang the “Gollum’s Song” on the Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack, co-wrote Kylie Minogue’s hit “Slow”, and had her trip-hoppy debut co-produced by Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal. Never mind those associations: For on her sophomore effort, the half-Icelandic, half-Italian, U.K.-based singer has left behind the [...]

Johnny Bush’s slowly rising star was shot down in the ’70s by spastic dysphonia, a rare neurological condition that impairs vocal chords. His voice has more recently been reconditioned to a remarkably robust state. Honky Tonic would conceivably thrust him into the upper echelons of country singers if the market for elderly honky-tonk statesmen weren’t [...]