If Buck Owens and Don Rich had dropped some acid and become hippies, it’s quite possible their music would have sounded a lot like the debut of the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Fronted by a Palo Alto, California, singer and songwriter named John “Marmaduke” Dawson, the band formed in 1969 when Dawson, steeped [...]

When Roy Acuff signed a contract with Capitol Records in 1953, he was 50 years old and a country music superstar, even though he hadn’t had a hit in many years. He ruled the roost every Saturday night on the Grand Ole Opry, but his string-band style was already something of an anachronism, having lost [...]

It’s always been tempting to dismiss Johnny Cash’s so-called “patriotic-themed” albums — he recorded several for Columbia — as little more than cartoonish curiosities. Who wouldn’t rather hear Cash sing “Big River” or “Folsom Prison Blues” than recite the Gettysburg Address? Sure, America: A 200-Year Salute In Story And Song, from 1972, has its kitschy [...]

Like his musical soulmate, Elvis Presley, Marty Robbins refused to be confined to one particular style of music. He began his career singing country weepers, but he was just at home doing rock ‘n’ roll, cornball pop, gospel, Hawaiian, and cowboy numbers. His remarkably smooth voice — without a trace of hillbilly twang — was [...]

Bill Monroe’s 1930s recordings with his brother Charlie have been unavailable for so long that it seemed reasonable to think they were of little significance. Wrong. The 60 sides recorded by the Monroe Brothers for Bluebird Records from 1936 to 1938 are forgotten classics of American music, and their reissue in four volumes, two of [...]