Country and Americana

There’s not a bad track on the album, which isn’t surprising given how consistently Holzman’s fabled label [Elektra] issued superlative music in its heyday.

Doc Pomus began his musical career as a blues singer before turning to songwriting. He went on to write and co-write lots of classic early rock and pop hits, from "A Teenager in Love" to "Viva Las Vegas."

Formed from the ashes of a group called the Ashes (which included future Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden), the Peanut Butter Conspiracy dealt in frequently adventurous rock, much of which deserves more attention than it has received.

"Did you hear, she up and left me, like some old country song. Don't have a dog or truck, but if I did they'd be gone."

Perhaps the Pale Fountains will finally garner some notice following the appearance of a new four-CD box set devoted to Michael Head's critically acclaimed band, which formed in Liverpool in 1980 and split up in 1987.

“Buck took the shuffle beat and he took the lyrics and the style of honky-tonk, and he added the spunk, the vitality of rock and roll to his sound.”

The Wandering Hearts do stick close enough to CSNY's 'Déjà vu' arrangements to give fans of the original album a bit of the feeling named in its title.

Gene Wilson (aka Gene Forrest) and Eunice Levy, a married couple, scored several hits in the 1950s but dented the pop charts only once, with “Poco Loco.” But the songs collected here are almost uniformly excellent.

Andersen has been serving up poignant, powerful music for six decades now. 'Dance of Love and Death' leaves no doubt that he can still deliver.

While Nelson’s list of five-star releases is long, it’s hard to imagine that any of them outshine this album of Rodney Crowell covers.