Album Reviews
Dixie Chicks Revisited: Wide Open Spaces
Released in 1998, Wide Open Spaces established the Dixie Chicks as superstars right out of the gate. It produced five top ten hits, including three #1 singles, and sold more than twelve million copies in the United States alone. It remains their biggest selling album to date. But is it among their best?
Album Review: Buddy Miller & Friends, Cayamo Sessions at Sea
With a steady job as executive music producer for ABC-TV’s Nashville, as well as a hectic schedule in his own studio, Buddy Miller does not often release a new album. When he finally does, it’s bound to be excellent. Buddy Miller & Friends: Cayamo Sessions at Sea features Miller supporting some of Americana’s top artists. It demonstrates not only his sublime artistry, but his talent of nudging great singers into even greater performances.
Album Review: Allison Moorer, Down to Believing
Since making her debut with 1997’s Alabama Song, Allison Moorer has been one of country music’s most consistent albums artists. The singer-songwriter has three unqualified masterpieces to her credit— the flawless stone-country heartbreak cycle of The Hardest Part, the politically charged The Duel, and the somber, heady Southern Gothic of Crows. Despite having those triumphs— and other excellent albums like Alabama Song and Good Fortune— to her credit, Moorer’s latest effort, Down to Believing, is perhaps the finest album of her career because it finds Moorer challenging both her singing and her songwriting voices to plumb truly difficult emotional depths.
