Holiday playlist?

Well it was mainly oldies (but all of them goodies) this year:



Hollywood Town Hall - The Jayhawks
Carried to Dust - Calexico
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams
Townes - Steve Earle (which i really got into, having initially thought it was a bit of a mis-step)
And a compilation i made which worked out pretty well, with some Southern soul and blues thrown into the mix... I'll post that tracklisting up very soon.

Midnight at the Movies

I've been listening to this a lot on my recent travels. It's a fine second album from Steve Earle's son and, yes, you can hear his old man's influence (and voice) at times, but there's a wider set of influences too - the Pogues, the Replacements (there's a great mandolin-led cover of 'Can't Hardly Wait') and Ryan Adams (of Jacksonville City Nights-era). The title track is superb, but it perhaps lacks a couple more songs as strong as this, and the cover mentioned above, to make it a great album. Good though, nicely played and sung throughout, strong lyrics and a nice old-time feel to it.

The Late, great...

here's the man himself, from the superb documentary, 'Heartworn Highway' (which towards the end features a brief appearance by a very young Steve Earle)

Earle does Townes

Steve Earle, long time Townes Van Zandt evangelist, has cut an album of covers - jusdging by his version of 'Lungs' (complete with guitar from ex-RATM man Tom Morello!) which you can hear at PITCHFORK it's going to be quite a tribute.