“It’s Not What You Make or Do, It’s How You’re Living” Tim Barry is one of those guys.  In the spirit of Ben Nichols, Chuck Ragan, Micah Schnabel, and Michael Dean Damron, he can climb on stage and belt it out armed with only an acoustic guitar and sincerity.  His songs are true, both to […]

One of my favorite John Prine songs, Dear Abby, has a line in the chorus that “you are what you are, and you ain’t what you ain’t.”  That simple but astute observation does a pretty good job of describing Prine’s music and musical sensibility.  Think about it: when you tell a friend about a musician […]

Caleb Caudle blew me away with his debut record Red Bank Road. That record was a calm exertion, a seamless acoustic record of classic Americana. Supplemented by occasional pedal steel flourishes, the record was largely just Caleb and an acoustic guitar. Red Bank Road lived in my car stereo for months. The songs, penned by a […]

As a music fan, I have always felt that recorded music and the live show are the yin and yang of an artist. You simply can’t have one without the other (okay I’ll give you the Beatles & Nick Drake, but they are the exception). But with a true music artist, both parts of the […]

Looking back 25 or 30 years ago, here are some things I never thought I’d see or hear; Kris Kristofferson winning an Academy Award, Bocephus still alive (much less a Hank III), Merle Haggard as a country pop crooner.  Yet, here they are, the latter of that list a nod to portions of Merle’s latest […]

So Brent Best is the kind of artist that makes Twangville tick. He’s a songwriter. He’s a rocker. And he’s a world class bad ass. He was a bad ass with alt. country giants Slobberbone and then the criminally underrated alt. pop rockers the Drams and now….with your help…… as a solo artist (and back […]