As anyone who’s attempted to capture a wedding on a camcorder knows, some things are best experienced live. That’s probably the case with The Wedding Dance Of The Widow Bride, the third album from Vancouver accordionist/klezmer revivalist Geoff Berner. The ten tracks here revolve around the act of tying the knot, and just as marriage [...]

Given that it’s been more than six years since the release of the last Martin Sexton album (save for a 2005 Christmas collection), Seeds feels at first a little slight, filled with songs about contentment, kicking back, and the ability to fail upward. Lucky for Sexton, though, that even trifles such as “Happy”, “Goin’ To [...]

Billed as L.P. Pearson when he played Austin jukes a half-century ago, Big Pete Pearson has been a fixture on the Phoenix club scene for 40 years. I’m Here Baby showcases a blues singer whose shouting style conceals an odd delicacy. He phrases with a shake at the end of a line; the vibrato keeps [...]

When it comes to narrative-focused country songwriters, few regions can match up to the Lone Star State. Add Steve Bedunah to the list of talented Texans with the ability to spin rugged and robust stories with almost literary flair. Plug It In And Play, his second album, details the desperate and down-and-out, the out of [...]

Slave songs and other musical artifacts of early African America would certainly not disappear without the caretaking of Kim & Reggie Harris. It’s doubtful, though, that anyone would bring them so fully to life. This husband-and-wife team performs these songs, though born from injustice, with a buoyant spirit that opens them to all listeners. Their [...]

This mostly wonderful collection of songs of intoxication and regret is, like the new Valcour label, partially the brainchild of Joel Savoy, son of Marc and Ann Savoy. A second-generation musician and folklorist, he’s recording his own generation’s take on Cajun music, which, reassuringly, sounds pretty much like it always has. But not entirely: Inspired [...]

Simone White’s “I Didn’t Have A Summer Romance” wobbles along in the great tradition of anti-summer songs, all lachrymose trombones and White’s lost-in-the-glare vocals. Born in Hawaii, White sings something like Astrud Gilberto, or like Sandie Shaw as a mooncalf. Replace Shaw’s girl-group pleading with White’s mutational coo, and you have a style that suggests [...]

Over three decades, San Francisco’s Joe Goldmark built a formidable reputation playing pedal steel with various country-rock outfits. He’s worked with Peter Rowan, Jim Lauderdale and the gifted country-jazz guitarist Jim Campilongo. On his eighth album since 1979, Goldmark, who has successfully integrated steel and rock with ease in the past, has no problems tackling [...]

Ted Russell Kamp, whose main gig is as Shooter Jennings’ bassist, stocks this solo outing with songs about heartbreaking, heartaching and life in a “three-ring country music caravan.” The album kicks off with the terrific “Swinging Doors”, a Nick Lowe-like poison pen letter to an ex-girlfriend. He plays the repentant bad boy on the southern-rock [...]

The sophomore solo effort from Barton Carroll, noted for his contributions to Crooked Fingers, Azure Ray and Micah P. Hinson, is a rare treatise that can handle the overwhelming subject matter of its title. Focusing on the understated, Carroll delivers a collection of folk/country that features his dry, affecting vocals and inventive fretwork. Inspired by [...]