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Still in the afterglow of her show last night at the Fillmore, so of course I’m posting Lucinda Williams.
Listen to me! No! Listen! Don’t you know!!! ?>??
Honesty to the level of awkwardness, from someone who’s been a songwriter for thirty years and a bona fide star for ten. A lover of music who isn’t afraid [...]

I listened to this album a lot when it came out even though I knew I was too young to relate to most of what he was saying.
Now that I’m older, I can’t say it makes the album better, but it does make it hurt a little more.
Lyle Lovett - I Know You Know from [...]

One of the natural benefits of the festival format is getting the chance to hear music from people you’re unfamiliar with (whom you’re unfamiliar). The Treasure Island folks did a great job this year of putting top-notch local acts into the early slots.
I had heard praise for Or, The Whale over at ipickmynose, so I [...]

I’ve told you again and again that the powers of the Avett Brothers are mighty, mighty, mighty. There is a level of songwriting here that goes beyond just your regular old great. When I talk about the Avetts’ songwriting, I mention names that you do not mention.
Add to this their astoundingly passionate live shows, and [...]

Rest peacefully, Jerry Reed. You were the BOMB BA DAM DIGGY.
I figured there probably would be plenty of tributes to Jerry’s fine guitar playing elsewhere on the web, so I decided to celebrate how crazy funny the man was. (Although the guitar and the funny were never too far from each other.)
Jerry Reed - Another [...]

HV has been pretty melancholy lately, so here’s a sweet little Possum treat to balance it out.
I just found out that this song has a different title than it did back in the days when I fell in love with it. It seems that after this song’s release in 1989, Hanna-Barbera politely asked CBS Records [...]

Jimmy Webb’s Wikipedia entry calls Glen Campbell “the finest interpreter of Jimmy Webb songs,” and I would have to say that “interpeter” is the perfect word choice, because who knows what Jimmy Webb is talking about most of the time?
That’s not a slight (at least not in my universe) — I’m about as big a [...]

This mighty titan of a country song was written by two people who have passed on in the last couple years — Cindy Walker (who also wrote “Sugar Moon” with Bob Wills) and Eddy Arnold. Arnold and Jerry Vale both charted with it in 1956, but when Ray Charles covered it in 1962, people wept [...]

Country music specializes in either “I’m deliriously happy” or “I’m completely miserable” songs, and Buck Owens was great at both. He could sing so you could hear the smile in his voice, and when he told you he was gonna lay around the shack till the mail train came back, you believed it. But he [...]

This delightful number is a staple around the Vegetables household, owing to our cat Merle (who turns his nose up at corn and taters but remains roly-poly nonetheless).
Written by songwriting legend Fred Rose, who wrote I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (with Hank Williams) and Blue Eyes Crying In The Mother-Slapping Rain (with [...]