Autumn Souvenir

9.4 Across my record collection, there are maybe 40-50 records that I believe deserve a nod alongside the likes of  Born To Run , Highway 61 Revisited and Exile on Main Street, yet never really made it beyond a core group of followers. Over the next year or so, I'm going to shed a little light on some of those records. These aren't good records; these are classics, somehow lost, having never found their commercial stride.   If I span my entire collection, there isn't a record more deserving of a spot on this list more than the Philadelphia-foursome Marah's debut. I heard this record not long after its release and it immediately lurched my life in a million different directions. This was Mick and Keith but in the 90s. Before I could even catch my breath, I was driving from NYC to Philly nearly every weekend to see the Brothers Bielanko, Ronnie and Danny. Thrust into the center of the already brimming alt.country scene, Marah stretched across the Americana plain an...

I learned via Facebook this morning that Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac turned 20 yesterday. By about a thousand-fold, people probably know the name Ryan Adams more than they do Whiskeytown. In the 17 years since Adams disbanded Whiskeytown, nothing he's released touches his work with Caitlin Cary, Steven Terry, Phil Wandscher, Skillet Gilmore and Brad Rice in Whiskeytown. And across their impressive, yet sloppy catalogue, they hit their stride and released one masterpiece, Strangers Almanac . I was 23 and living in New York when SA was released. And looking back, 1997 was, without question, the best year for music in my lifetime. Stand out records by Old 97's, Richard Buckner, Son Volt, The Jayhawks, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse and close to a hundred others, inspired my friends and I to literally live in the New York rock clubs. Irving Plaza, Mercury Lounge, Bowery, Tramps, Bottom Line -- we were often out 4-5 nights a week, many nights until the sun ro...

1 Lucinda Williams / Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998) 2 Emmylou Harris / Wrecking Ball (1995) 3 Gillian Welch / Revival (1996) 4 Aimee Mann / The Forgotten Arm (2005) 5 Damnations TX / Half Mad Moon (1997) 6 Aretha Franklin / I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967) 7 Aimee Mann / Bachelor No. 2 (2000) 8 Cat Power / The Greatest (2006) 9 Kelly Willis / What I Deserve (1999) 10 Joan Shelley / Over and Even (2015) 11 Gillian Welch / Soul Journey (2003) 12 Emmylou Harris / Red Dirt Girl (2000) 13 Liz Phair / Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998) 14 Neko Case / Middle Cyclone (2009) 15 Alice Coltrane / Journey In Satchidinanda (1971) 16 Camera Obscura / Let's Get Out of This Country (2006) 17 Kelly Willis / Easy (2002) 18 Lucinda Williams / Lucinda Williams (1988) 19 Freakwater / Old Paint (1995) 20 Victoria Williams / Loose (1994) 21 Gillian Welch / Time (The Revelator) (2001) 22 Beth Orton / Central Reservation (1999) 23 Lucinda Williams / World Without Tears (...