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Rich Kienzle
Rodney Crowell
Same Roots, New Branches
Rodney Crowell arrived in Nashville in 1972, bent on finding a niche for himself in the country music he’d loved since his childhood in Houston. He wrote songs for Jerry Reed’s publishing company and, in 1975, Emmylou Harris added him to her Hot Band as rhythm guitarist. He wrote hits including “’Til I Gain Control…
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Rich Kienzle
Willie Nelson
For The Good Times: A Tribute To Ray Price
Soon after arriving in Nashville in 1960, Willie Nelson signed a songwriting contract with Pamper Music, co-owned by Ray Price, one of the era’s biggest stars. It launched a friendship that endured until Price’s death in 2013. Spending much of ’61 playing bass and singing with Price’s band, the Cherokee Cowboys, Willie worked alongside guitarist…
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Rich Kienzle
Doyle Bramhall II
Rich Man
In the 15 years since his debut album, Welcome, Doyle Bramhall, II has been in great demand. Along with a decade working with Eric Clapton in the studio and onstage, he’s has collaborated with a lengthy list of artists including Elton John, Roger Waters, Sheryl Crow, and on the Tedeschi-Trucks Band’s last three albums. This…
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Rich Kienzle
Peter Rowan
Carter Stanley’s Eyes
Peter Rowan spent 1963 through ’67 as lead singer/guitarist with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys before his own solo albums, his work with progressive bluegrass bands like Jerry Garcia’s Old and In The Way and Muleskinners, and rock bands Earth Opera and Sea Train. At one point Monroe and Rowan traveled to rural…
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Rich Kienzle
Joe Goldmark
Blue Steel
Along with his work with Jim Campilongo and others, San Francisco-based pedal steel guitarist Joe Goldmark has produced eight solo CDs (and three earlier vinyl albums) covering broad swaths of popular music, among them collections of ’60s rock and Beatles tunes. This latest follows a similar path, as Goldmark navigates a blend of original instrumentals…
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Rich Kienzle
Joe Negri
Royal Handyman, Jazz Legend
Long before becoming Handyman Negri on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” he had already been a teen guitar prodigy, first-generation bopper, and a peer of the giants of jazz guitar. Though New York beckoned, he stayed home and became a star, anyway.
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Rich Kienzle
Brad Paisley
Hot-Picking Comfort Zone
Brad Paisley’s albums have followed a formula that began on his 2001 sophomore album Part II. Generously programmed with abundant cameos, they blend love songs with catchy numbers celebrating idealized small-town and rural lifestyles as well as the digital era. His attempts to meld old and new cultures have always been sincere, though he’s drawn…
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Rich Kienzle
Shooter Jennings, Ryan Bingham, and Various Artists
Outlaw: Celebrating The Music Of Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings, who died in 2002, would have turned 80 in 2017. He and compadre Willie Nelson still personify country’s early-’70s Outlaw movement, focused on gaining creative control of their records after years of letting Nashville producers call the shots brought only middling success. Given a chance to record their way, they finally found the…
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Rich Kienzle
Roy Orbison & Friends
Black & White Night 30
The year 1987 saw Roy Orbison in the midst of a triumphant resurgence. His ’60s recording “In Dreams” was featured in the hit film Blue Velvet. He joined Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne in the Traveling Wilburys. And that September, he taped the Cinemax special A Black & White Night at Hollywood’s…
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Rich Kienzle
George Barnes
Country Jazz
When Chet Atkins arrived in Chicago for his first RCA recording session in August 1947, he was astounded to meet George Barnes, who’d been hired to play rhythm guitar. To Chet and others, Barnes was guitar royalty, a virtuoso the teenaged Atkins encountered the same place he’d first heard Merle Travis and Les Paul –…
