Monday's post featuring James McMurtry and Ray Wylie Hubbard has sent me down an Americana rabbit hole.
From January 2001, when Americana was probably at its zenith, Uncut released an essential compilation entitled More Sounds of the New West - The Best of Americana 2000. A quarter of a century ago - gosh.
Just look at this tracklist I would say that the vast majority of the songs on this CD are essential. Available on Discogs for a couple of quid it should really be on your shelves.
By my reckoning I have seen 13 out of the 18 acts featured and have albums by all the acts except Slaid Cleaves and The Mayflies USA.
Here are Lou Ford, Slaid and The Handsome Family. Don't be surprised if I return in the near future with some of the others.
I visit CCM nearly at least weekly - love your blog. We have similar tastes (and I believe are of a similar age) and I own and/or like 80% of what you post. But the beauty of these music blogs is having someone show you something new. I had not heard of Lou Ford before. You think you know all this and that music but then there's always a few artists that never enter the radar. Lou Ford is one of those for me. I immediately went to YouTube and looked up what I could find and, damn! This is good stuff! So thank you for the good lead and keep doing the Lord's work! (and btw, "Too Much Wine" is prob one of my desert island songs - so quirky and detailed and sad and gorgeous.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting
DeleteGlad to here from a like minded soul!
Alan Freed's Radio by Lou Ford is well worth checking out
A great album as you say. Uncut magazine did 2 other Sounds Of The New West cover mounted CDs. First up was SOTNW of Alternative Country in Sept '98, then the one you featured and finally in Feb 2001 with SOTNW Vol 3. A handful of the same artists appeared on 2 out of 3 of these but they did ring the changes a fair bit. All are worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteYup
DeleteAll three are very good.