For your listening consideration is this slightly curious, but certainly seductive offering from a duo that once was, isn’t really any more, but nonetheless taps into something eternal in musical truth to offer an album that takes you back, and entertains wickedly. It’s called ‘Memories To Burn.’
When you hear certain albums from some of country music’s mainstream performers, it’s patently clear to large portions of the audience that these albums aren’t pop country, they’re just pop, period. But in the pop world when artist dabble in country influences, they tend to be more honest about how the end result is still pop.
Perfection is certainly not at the heart of the appeal or staying power for Car Wheel on a Gravel Road. Instead it’s the sloppy, sticky, loose feel of it all, carried upon the words of Lucinda’s candid and real character recitations that make the record feel like the ultimate insight into the disheveled mind of the broken hearted.
Gregg Allman’s legacy was well secured before even a note was sung or played on Southern Blood. He didn’t owe us anything more. But like he did for half a century, Gregg Allman delivered, and not just for himself, but for one final hurrah of The Allman Brothers legacy that now has a life of its own.
Though you can’t mistake Ringo’s Liverpool accent, the steel guitar is laid on thick, and the answer portion of the chorus is indicative of Countrypolitan. If you ever wanted to hear one of The Beatles do a straight ahead country song, this would be it.
Lucinda Williams isn’t slowing down anytime soon. After releasing a double album in September of 2014 called Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, and walking away with the Americana Music Awards’ Album of the Year, the legendary alt-country Americana songwriter has been back at work and is ready to release a new record called ‘Ghosts of Highway 20.’
What on God’s wide creation would persuade the proprietor of a country music website to take the time and effort to compose a dissertation on some album by a pasty-skinned genre bender released over 15 years ago that has little to nothing to do with country music and doesn’t even comprise one of the more popular titles from his catalog?