Whats on your turntable tonight?

Tarpaper Sky by the always dependable Rodney Crowell. Great songs, singing, and musicianship (he has a great band). As for SQ, the drums and guitars sound pretty good, but for some reason this New West album doesn't sound quite as good in other ways as do some titles in their (and Rodney's) catalog. There is a slight lack of transparency, a thin veil (or as J. Gordon Holt called it, a "skrim") between listener and Rodney's voice. Not bad, but noticeable and mildly disappointing. Not anywhere bad enough to disqualify the album, however!

A raving Rocker (featuring great piano playing by 1st-call Nashville drummer Eddie Bayers, and cool guitar solo by Steuart Smith), a Blues shuffle (more piano by Eddie), a Cajun tune, a Gospel with Rockabilly flavoring (and a VERY cool guitar solo), some in singer/songwriter style. Guest appearances by Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Chely Wright, Shannon McNally, and Ronnie McCoury. This is a really good album.

@bdp24   Nice review.  Music that I’m not familiar with nor likely to come across but am interested in by the reading.   Thanks for the post - will check it out if I can find it.  

@boxer12, the Old & In The Way album is in fantastic sound quality, isn’t it?! It’s original release was on the audiophile label Acoustic Disc. I used it as audition material back in the ’70’s. T Bone Burnett’s Truth Decay on Takoma does too (be sure to get the version pressed by Chrysalis Records; the mastering engineer who did the version pressed by Allegiance cut off the ending of the song, after the false ending. Impatient! ;-).

Speaking of Desert Rose, Chris Hillman’s Sugar Hill Records albums are great musically and sonically, assuming you don’t mind Bluegrass. Chris and fellow Desert Rose Band member Herb Pedersen have done a bunch of albums together. And the lead guitarist of The Desert Rose Band---John Jorgenson---was in the instrumental guitar trio The Hellecasters. Like Los Straitjackets, but on a virtuoso level.