Tag Archives: Americana

Robin & Linda Williams’ Visions Of Love

Posted on 4th March 2018 by Robert

(This review was written by Judith Gennett for a prior incarnation of GMR.) Visions Of Love is, by my count, the sixteenth album by American music harmonists Robin and Linda Williams. It is produced by Garrison Keillor and, unlike most … Continue reading →

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Cliff “Oats” Williams’ One More Train to Ride

Posted on 4th February 2018 by Robert

This review was written by Craig Clarke. What does the average reader really know about the culture of the American hobo? Mostly they keep themselves out of sight due to the misdemeanor status of actions necessary to their survival (e.g., … Continue reading →

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Clay Eals’ Steve Goodman: Facing The Music

Posted on 28th October 2016 by Gary Whitehouse

Everybody knows one Steve Goodman song. The Chicago-born and -bred folksinger wrote “City of New Orleans,” the iconic ’70s song popularized by Arlo Guthrie. If that were the only thing he’d ever done, it would be enough, because it’s a great … Continue reading →

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Red Clay Ramblers’ It Ain’t Right

Posted on 29th July 2016 by Gary Whitehouse

The Red Clay Ramblers have been playing what’s now known as “new old-time” music since the early 1970s, and it’s entirely possible that they invented the genre, or at least played a part in its birth. They’ve put out more … Continue reading →

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Vacilando’s While They Were Dancing

Posted on 11th September 2015 by Gary Whitehouse

Slow-core and alt-country had a brief marriage in the mid- to late ’90s, with releases by artists like the Scud Mountain Boys and the Oldham brothers’ various Palace-themed projects. The best known were Cowboy Junkies. I’m sure there were a … Continue reading →

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The Decemberists’ The King Is Dead

Posted on 21st September 2011 by Gary Whitehouse

One truism of the record-reviewing business is that the final track on an album often forecasts an artist’s next step. When The Decemberists released The King Is Dead in early 2011, it was immediately apparent that this album followed that … Continue reading →

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Judith Tick’s Ruth Crawford Seeger’s A Composer’s Search for American Music

Posted on 2nd December 2000 by Gary Whitehouse

Ruth Crawford Seeger is a pivotal but little-known figure of American music in the 20th Century. Judith Tick’s biography is a suitable monument to Crawford’s life and work. A pianist, composer, teacher and folklorist, Crawford straddled the worlds of modernist … Continue reading →

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Nolan Porterfield’s Jimmie Rodgers, The Life and Times of America’s Blue Yodeler

Posted on 2nd August 1999 by Gary Whitehouse

Most people who know anything about American popular music know something about Jimmie Rodgers. They may know he’s sometimes called “the Father of Country Music,” or “the Singing Brakeman.” That he died young of tuberculosis. That he yodeled a lot. … Continue reading →

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