I’ve never met Malcolm Holcombe, but he used to call me late at night. The phone would ring in the hours between midnight and 2 a.m., and I wouldn’t pick up. Calls at that hour normally involve romance, intrigue or tragedy. In the late 1990s, the first two possibilities weren’t possibilities. I would have needed [...]

The new Tom Petty album played on the jambox in Todd Snider’s East Nashville basement as he and old friend/frequent collaborator Will Kimbrough faced each other, cups full of Centenario rum and ears perked by Petty’s jangle. “‘You’re flirting with time, baby’? Is that what he just sang?” Snider asked. Assured of the affirmative, Snider [...]

At the Country Music Hall of Fame, they’re letting the problem children back into the fold. A few years ago, hell-raiser Faron Young was inducted, and Waylon Jennings made it even though he’d said quite clearly that he didn’t give a shit about a Hall of Fame that didn’t have Carl Smith in it. (Waylon [...]

It hasn’t all worked out for Cowboy Jack Clement. Back in the 1970s, he lost a healthy life’s savings producing an obscure horror movie called Dear Dead Delilah. He helped launch the career of mondo-successful country artist Don Williams but failed to sign Williams to his JMI Records label, and the lack of Williams-spurred profits [...]

“God, this beer’s good,” says Bobby Bare Jr., shaking his tousle-topped head after another sip of domestic, marveling at the cold glass in his hand and the tiny, aftertaste-less, alcohol-fortified ice crystals melting instantly on his tongue. Bobby’s dad, longtime country music singer, songwriter and celebrity Bobby Bare, was best at wise. On now-classic recordings [...]

Dogs on the floor, mandolin on the couch, paintings on the wall. Kieran Kane made the paintings, plays the mandolin, pets the dogs. Kane is sick today, dressed in staying-home clothes. He hasn’t been painting, though he’s likely been noodling around on the mandolin a bit. That’s the same mandolin — a modest, inexpensive Kentucky [...]