The reissue expands the original 8-track album to 20 tracks in total, including never-before-heard material discovered in White’s personal archives after his death in 2018.
Forty-five years ago, Tony Joe White released an album of what he called “swamp rock” (an amalgam of southern rock, country and blues roots music), and he called it The Real Thang. It was only released on vinyl, it only had eight tracks, and it was not very successful in terms of sales; in fact, it did not gain much attention at all. It was perhaps because White, after some success with well-balanced country blues albums in the ’70s (Homemade Ice Cream, for example), decided to ramp up his songs with a disco beat (that was pretty popular at the time), overlaying…
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According to the fifth song on their first Christmas album, seasonal shenanigans in Old Crow Medicine Show’s family are boozy and raucous.
…remixed and remastered 10th-anniversary re-release of 2015 album, ‘Compromised’.
Singer-songwriter Afton Wolfe is arguably the most conceptually artful troubadour that we have heard since Tom Waits. The reference to Waits is rather obvious in Wolfe’s deep, gravelly voice and in his off-the-beaten-track concepts. Yet, Wolfe also possesses the fearlessness of Bruce Cockburn, the intellectualism of Leonard Cohen, the deep woods poetry of the late Malcolm Holcolm, and the dark mysticism and southern Gothic of his native Mississippi.
Music’s winding road sometimes takes unforeseen turns. 
While Jackson Scribner’s sophomore release likely won’t elicit cries of “Judas” directed at him, his move to a fuller, more electric sound warrants attention, just not the kind that involves booing.
The new Jason Isbell album, 
…includes two brand new tracks, a previously unheard collaboration with Logan Ledger, and Price’s poignant duet with Billy Strings, “Too Stoned to Cry.”
During the pandemic, Mike Hollon headed to Irving Park with a guitar, a notebook, and a bottle of wine. It was a period that inspired his debut album, and one he still remembers, saying, “I can take myself back there and it calms me.” Calm and confident are two words that best describe the eleven tracks on Irving Park, despite its initial recording being disrupted by Hurricane Helene, which destroyed the bar Hollon was working in at the time. A vintage baritone ukulele bought in Madrid adds atmosphere to the bright and breezy ‘Love’ and ‘Movin’ Along’. But it’s not all sunny skies and smiles; there’s some serious substance here. The opening ‘1000 Days’ is a post-breakup song where Hollon reflects on “a thousand days spent looking back.” While the blues-influenced ‘Fool No More’…
“Introducing Self Portrait, the latest chapter from the endlessly inventive one-man force Ryan Adams — a brand-new, 24-track album that brings together fresh, unheard originals alongside spellbinding reinterpretations of classics by R.E.M., New Order and more.
“You can’t tell a book by looking at its cover,” as Bo Diddley so memorably reminded us. And that cliché applies to the art adorning Americana/blues rocker 
1. Big Thief – No Fear
Colter Wall puts his mission statement (with a touch of irony) right there in his opening track. New album Memories and Empties begins with “1800 Miles,” noting the distance between Wall’s Saskatchewan home and Nashville. The singer’s about as country as it gets, but he often seems relatively untouched by Music Row. With Memories and Empties, he looks into a more traditional and radio-friendly sound, but only in his own way, still eschewing most of this century’s country music even as he moves himself off the plains.
The songs on Stars form a literal journey from morning into night into morning again, and a metaphoric journey from pain and nostalgia to acceptance. Songs, even when they dwell on darker emotions, contain a sprinkling of hope. This is reflected in the music, which has an early Elton John feel and often has an anthemic, defiant sound.