Way before I ever got into country music—let alone started to think about performing it—I knew and loved a handful of country songs that I’d come across in one fashion or another. I didn’t necessarily recognize them as country songs, but I’d heard “Can the Circle Be Unbroken,” “The Wabash Cannonball” and “Tennessee Waltz,” and … Continue reading Me and ‘Me and Bobby McGee’
Songwriting
Program Notes: ‘A Distant Country 2’
“Worried Man Blues” (Carter Family, 1930). I have a theory about this song. I’m struck by the lines “I went across the river and laid me down to sleep. When I woke up, I had shackles on my feet.” Clearly the narrator has crossed a river and ended up in the wrong place, a place … Continue reading Program Notes: ‘A Distant Country 2’
‘That Isn’t How It Goes’
On the iconic country-revival album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” (1972), by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a legion of friends, perhaps the most resonant song on an album full of resonant songs is the penultimate track, a live-in-the-studio all-star jam on the title song that features (among others) Maybelle Carter and Roy Acuff … Continue reading ‘That Isn’t How It Goes’
