Before the Spotlight Widened, Neil Diamond’s A Modern Day Version of Love Brought Restless 1968 Energy to Velvet Gloves and Spit
Before the grand choruses and packed arenas, “A Modern Day Version of Love” caught Neil...
Before the Big Duet, Neil Diamond’s Let Me Take You In My Arms Again Carried His 1977 Album’s Ache
On a 1977 album filled with grand romantic shadows, Neil Diamond’s Let Me Take You...
Barry Gibb Sounds Unusually Exposed in Bee Gees’ One Minute Woman from the Bee Gees’ 1st Stereo Mix
Before the Bee Gees became a story of reinvention, One Minute Woman caught Barry Gibb...
A Fragile Bee Gees Reunion Turns Bright on Every Second, Every Minute from 2 Years On
On Every Second, Every Minute, the Bee Gees made reunion sound less like repair work...
Christmas Carries a Uniform: Josh Turner’s Soldier’s Gift Honors Veterans on King Size Manger
Josh Turner turns a Christmas album toward the quiet debt owed to veterans, making Soldier’s...
Josh Turner Makes Alan Jackson’s Midnight in Montgomery Feel Even Colder on Country State of Mind
On Country State of Mind, Josh Turner does not simply revisit Alan Jackson’s ghostly country...
Linda Ronstadt Made “Tell Him” Tougher on Get Closer, Recasting The Exciters’ Spark
On Get Closer, Linda Ronstadt turned “Tell Him” from a bright early-sixties plea into a...
The Hurt She Wouldn’t Oversing: Linda Ronstadt’s “Am I Blue” with Nelson Riddle in 1986
With Nelson Riddle’s orchestra behind her, Linda Ronstadt turns “Am I Blue?” into a study...
Before Believing Gave Emmylou Harris’ Pieces of the Sky Its Quietest Country Proof
On Before Believing, Emmylou Harris turned Danny Flowers’ quiet country doubt into one of the...
When Emmylou Harris Stepped In: Gram Parsons’ We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning on 1973’s GP
On GP, a country song about desire, guilt, and daylight became the first clear glimpse...
A Door Left Open: Emmylou Harris’s Waltz Across Texas Tonight at the End of Wrecking Ball
At the end of Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris did not resolve her reinvention so much...
A Tattoo Carries the War in Emmylou Harris’s The Ship on His Arm on 2011’s Hard Bargain
On Hard Bargain, Emmylou Harris turns a tattoo, a marriage, and the shadow of war...
The Comeback Had a Machine Pulse: John Fogerty’s “I Can’t Help Myself” on 1985’s Centerfield
John Fogerty returned on Centerfield with his old fire still intact, but “I Can’t Help...
A Wicked Grin After CCR: John Fogerty’s You Rascal You Cover on His 1975 Self-Titled Album
On his 1975 solo album, John Fogerty did not polish You Rascal You into nostalgia;...
David Cassidy Chased a New 80s Shadow on Someone from 1985’s European-Only Romance
On Someone, David Cassidy stepped away from the glow of teen-idol memory and into the...
The Man Behind the Teen Idol Emerged in David Cassidy’s Tell Me True from Didn’t You Used to Be…
With Tell Me True, David Cassidy sounded less like a memory being revived and more...
Beyond the Hit Duets, Linda Ronstadt’s Cry Like a Rainstorm Revealed Her 1989 Multi-Platinum Album’s Vocal Core
On Cry Like a Rainstorm, Linda Ronstadt turns vocal power into weather, proving that the...
Linda Ronstadt Turned “Oh No Not My Baby” Into a Quieter Test of Faith on Winter Light
On Winter Light, Linda Ronstadt made “Oh No Not My Baby” feel less like defiance...
After Midnight, Neil Diamond’s Midnight Dream Finds a Deeper Glow on 2001’s Three Chord Opera
On a 2001 album built from plain chords and grown-up questions, Neil Diamond’s Midnight Dream...
Before the Fever, Bee Gees’ It Doesn’t Matter Much to Me Revealed the Arif Mardin Shift on a 1974 B-Side
Before the dance-floor breakthrough, a modest 1974 flip side caught the Bee Gees learning a...
Two Deep Voices, One Quiet Room: Josh Turner and Randy Travis’ 2006 CMT Cross Country ‘Deeper Than The Holler’ Duet
On a 2006 CMT stage, Josh Turner and Randy Travis turned “Deeper Than The Holler”...
Linda Ronstadt Put Heritage First With Gritenme Piedras del Campo on Grammy-Winning Mas Canciones
On Más Canciones, Linda Ronstadt made Gritenme Piedras del Campo sound less like a revival...
The Ryman heard Guitar Town differently when Emmylou Harris and The Nash Ramblers turned it acoustic
At the Ryman, Emmylou Harris and The Nash Ramblers turned Guitar Town into a bright...
A Quiet Reckoning: Emmylou Harris Recast Tracy Chapman’s All That You Have Is Your Soul on All I Intended to Be
On All That You Have Is Your Soul, Emmylou Harris turns Tracy Chapman’s warning into...
Fogerty’s One-Man Country Leap: John Fogerty Covers Webb Pierce’s I Ain’t Never on The Blue Ridge Rangers
Before John Fogerty fully reintroduced himself after Creedence, I Ain’t Never let him hide in...
That Dixieland First Hello Reframes The Partridge Family’s “Hello, Hello” From 1972’s Shopping Bag
A Dixieland flourish slips under David Cassidy’s bright lead on “Hello, Hello,” turning a Shopping...
A Betrayal Found Its Voice When Linda Ronstadt Sang Perfidia on Grammy-Winning Frenesí
On Frenesí, Linda Ronstadt carried Perfidia back to its Spanish-language ache, where elegance and accusation...
The Storm Inside Neil Diamond’s Heartlight: How Hurricane Cuts Through His 1982 Pop Glow
On Hurricane, Neil Diamond lets the polished surface of Heartlight carry rougher weather: desire, tension,...
Maurice Gibb Breaks Through as Bee Gees’ House of Shame Drives the 1989 One Comeback
Inside House of Shame, the polished comeback surface of Bee Gees meets a sharper dance-floor...
Old-School Longing Sneaks Back In on Josh Turner’s Pretty Please from This Country Music Thing
On Pretty Please, Josh Turner treats old-school country not as a museum piece, but as...