i first learned of ian’s work when i got his debut album, ‘between the country’, in 2019. i felt his writing and delivery were profound and unique, and that album stayed in my rotation for quite a while. he somewhat dropped off the radar after that, i am sure partly due to the pandemic. but now we get his follow up to that album – what he considers to be the flipside – with ‘river fools and mountain saints’. he claims he conceived of the title first, and then came up with the characters and stories to flesh it out. the landscape and people of his hometown of lee county kentucky are imbued throughout, appalachia history seeps up through the tracks.

it is tempting to try to lump him in with other kentucky artists that have recently made it big, like chris stapleton, sturgill simpson, and tyler childers. but ian is deeper and more pure than that. it is always unfair to compare new artists to legends like dylan and prine, but it is not terribly out of line here. i can hear a bit of both, especially their earlier work.

he says that most of his characters are real life people, with ‘river fool’ being about a local legend who is a fixture in the region, who ‘spends his days in a muddy haze, tangled in the cattail poles, working on an ancient bottle’. rather than trying to cast him as a local drunk, he shows the carefree and happy life he leads. it may be the most uplifting song on the album.

it was recorded over a span of two years strictly on reel to reel tapes, at a leisurely pace that gave time for the songs to marinate and evolve. if you liked his last one, you will surely love this one.

sometimes a post just nearly writes itself. i have been listening to a lot of new material lately, and as occasionally happens in my part time writing mode, nothing was really jumping out and grabbing me to sit down and pontificate about it.

but molly’s newest album changed that recently, and so let me tell you about it. molly tuttle is a renowned master of the clawhammer banjo and a crosspicking guitarist and a recipient of the musician of the year by the international bluegrass award committee. she is a very capable songwriter as well, and has released a number of albums on her own prior to this. but, for whatever reason, she has not actually done a bluegrass album before.

until now.

she not only put together one hell of a bluegrass band to flesh these songs out, she also has a very impressive list of guest artists. some are from the bluegrass world (old crow medicine show, sierra hull, billy strings, dan tyminski), and some are not (margo price, gillian welch). jerry douglas, the best and most recorded dobro player in the world, helps produce and plays on many of the tracks. she has a cowriter on nearly all the tracks, with ketch secor from old crow helping out on most of them.

it is just a solid effort from cover to cover, and it stayed in my rotation for quite a while. the aforementioned billy strings has been at least partially responsible for a rejuvenation in all things bluegrass, and rightly so. i have seen him a number of times and will be catching him in new orleans in may. he is likely on this album for a number of reasons: he and molly have been playing at events for years, they share a love for what they do, and he wants her to get a bigger audience. so do i, as i think she deserves it. they have slightly different styles when it comes to the guitar, but i for one do not think that one is better than the other. so if you are a billy fan, or a bluegrass fan, please give this one a try.

i have heard snippets of this for months now, mostly on sirius ‘outlaw country’, but i was waiting to get the hard copy in my hand, which finally arrived friday. as many of you know, i am still old fashioned and like to hear the whole thing in one setting with the liner notes and song details in front of me, and so i grow increasingly frustrated with the industry trend of releasing singles three to four months in advance of the hard release. from a marketing stance i do not understand that, but my curmudgeon side is coming out here, and i digress.

but this one is definitely worth the wait, and if you have heard any of these teasers like i have, it is time to belly up.

as you likely know, we lost the great john prine to covid in 2020. a singular voice in music was taken from us way too early. one of the great injustices was that his adoring fans – both regular fans like me and musicians – could not get together and grieve and show appreciation for his musical legacy. covid protocols seemed to dash all the concerts planned in his honor. i have heard that some are still in the works, but for now we have this.

volume one came out in 2010 while he was still alive and at that time a still revered figure but with a lower profile than what he came to know just a decade later. it seems that in his final few years he had become much more embraced by the americana community, especially around nashville, and the artists that have contributed to this second volume speak to that.

there are of course a few selections from some of john’s duet partners from his musical past – bonnie raitt, emmylou harris, and iris dement – but the rest are a who’s who of names most of you will recognize and appreciate.

brandi carlisle does ‘i remember everything’, nathaniel rateliff ‘pretty good’, amanda shires ‘saddle in the rain’, tyler childers ‘they oughta name a drink after you’, margo price ‘sweet revenge’, valerie june ‘summer’s end’, jason isbell, ‘souvenirs’, john paul white, ‘sam stone’, and sturgill simpson closes with ‘paradise’.

all tastefully done, with the arrangements giving proper respect to the originals but also adding their own creative licenses. are any of these better than the originals? well no, not really, but that doesn’t matter, does it? one that comes close is ‘one red rose’ by iris dement. she nails it. one of prine’s favorite duet partners over the years, there is a certain poignancy to hearing her sing this one on her own.

so make yourself a ‘handsome johnnie’ – his favorite cocktail – and enjoy.

‘handsome johnnie’:

1 oz red smirnoff vodka

diet ginger ale

wedge of lime

the compilation was put together by prine’s private record label, and the family said they had enough offers from other artists that they can easily follow up with a couple more volumes. amen to that.

it has been another great year of music releases. i wish i had more time to get to all of these when they came out. but as usual i try to do a year end roundup of stuff i have listened to all year but never got around to posting on, for various reasons. so here are a dozen small samples, in no particular order.

thanks again for following me and putting up with my musical pontifications.

seek.better.music

chrissie hynde, ‘standing in the doorway’

even though i did not do a full post on this when it came out, this might be my favorite album of the year. chrissie and multi instrumentalist james walbourne selected nine songs from dylan’s catalog and then do them in an acoustic stripped down fashion. it is flawless. somehow chrissie’s vocals take to these songs very well, and the arrangements are well thought out. if you decide to purchase just one of my recommendations here, i would suggest starting with this one.

robert plant and alison krauss, ‘raise the roof’

this is the second collaboration between this unlikely duo, the first being ‘raising sand’ in 2007. produced by t bone burnett, the song selection here is one of the most intriguing parts, with covers from a very diverse array of artists – calexico, everly brothers, allen toussaint, bert jansch, merle haggard and so many more. ‘raise the roof’ might be a bit of a misnomer, as the overall tempo of the album is more subdued than the original. but the production is outstanding and they have a lot of great studio musicians helping out – bill frisell, david hidalgo, marc ribot, buddy miller, and lucinda williams, just to name a few. i still think i like the first one better, but if you enjoyed that one, i think you will find value in this one.

hayes carll, ‘you get it all’

this one slipped by me somehow this summer. which is inexplicable as hayes is one of my favorite songwriters out there today. i think it is his best album in over a decade.

neil young and crazy horse, ‘way down in the rust bucket’

another installment in neil’s archive series, this one was recorded on november 13, 1990 at the catalyst in santa cruz, where the band was warming up for their upcoming ‘ragged glory’ tour. ‘ragged glory’ is one of my favorite crazy horse albums. if you like it as much as i do, then you will dig this. nineteen songs in all, and it captures them at one of their peaks.

sturgill simpson, ‘the ballad of dood and juanita’

sturgill’s attempt at a ‘concept’ album. it is the tale of a husband and wife, and the adventures that they go through out in the old west. clocking in at only 28 minutes, and featuring willie nelson on one of the tracks, it is an interesting addition to his catalog. i ordered it when it came out, but was away on vacation when it arrived. so the first time i heard it was on steve earle’s show on outlaw country, when i was driving home from maine. he interviewed sturgill about the making of the album, and then played it all the way through. pretty cool.

jerry garcia band, ‘garcia live volume 17 norcal 76’

the 17th installment of this great series is a doozy. recorded live at three different venues in northern california in november of 1976, it features keith and donna godchaux, john kahn on bass and elvis’ drummer ron tutt on drums. at over two and a half hours of material, and recorded by betty cantor-jackson, it has everything you want in a jerry garcia band show. very solid.

james mcmurtry, ‘the horses and the hounds’

this one is heavy on my rotation right now. like hayes carll above, mcmurtry is one of the great texas songwriters working today. this is his first new release in six years, but it is worth the wait. ten stories, told in his singular way – tongue in cheek wit with an attention to details. out on tour now, i am hoping to catch him in the spring.

the band, ‘stage fright, 50th anniversary edition’

this is the 50th anniversary version of their third studio album. the first disc has the original album in its entirety, but in the original song track order before it was changed. it also has ten outtakes and demos. the second disc is the complete show from royal albert music hall in november 1971 from the subsequent album tour. the second is worth the price alone.

jesse malin, ‘sad and beautiful world’

i thoroughly enjoyed his last album, so i definitely had to get this one. jesse has a very unique sound, one that is hard to categorize, but i find it very compelling. pop, with a bit of an edge. and he creates great videos.

sierra ferrell, ‘long time coming’

my friend tracy turned me on to this one. her debut album, it is a great one to start what hopefully will be a long career. a native of west virginia, her ‘category’ is bluegrass – and there is certainly plenty of that here- but there is quite a mixture of styles on display as well. new orleans jazz, calypso, jump blues, and so on. ‘bells of every chapel’ features billy strings on guitar. a vocal presence that is beyond her years.

van morrison, ‘latest record project, volume one’

as i have mentioned about van before, he is still very prolific in his recordings. and more importantly, he is still churning out great stuff and as such is still very relevant. this is a double cd, 28 songs and over two hours in length. there is some political content here, as he was one of the more outspoken artists in regards to the lockdowns in the british isles. but it might be only a half dozen here, with the rest being very typical morrison song content.

asleep at the wheel, ‘half a hundred years’

this is basically a celebration of the band’s 50 years of existence (hence the title). nineteen songs showing the diversity of styles that have inspired the group over time, and also featuring various alumni from the group’s history. there are also a slew of guest artists – willie nelson, lyle lovett, bill kirchen, george strait, lee ann womack, emmylou harris, plus many more – that show just how influential this band has been over their half a hundred years.