BLUEGRASS fiddler and blue-eyed country singer Alison Krauss has led the renaissance in American roots music, winning a record 17 Grammy awards, more than any other female artist.
Yet she is still a secret pleasure by comparison with Beyonce, Whitney and Britney. Lonely Runs Both Ways, her first studio set in three years, won't change that. However, it reaffirms Krauss's impeccable taste in material (old Woody Guthrie and Del McCoury, newer Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and Mindy Smith songs of heartbroken love) and alas her weakness for slick, calorific production. Her doting band Union Station reigns supreme at hillbilly but ladles on the maple syrup when Krauss is in wistful mode.
Gretchen Peters has stepped out of the shadows of writing to order for Bryan Adams, Bonnie Raitt, Faith Hill and Martina McBride to claim the spotlight for herself. Halcyon slipped this reviewer's attention on release last autumn but has since brought winter warmth with a bruised yet hopeful romanticism reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Lucinda Williams. Here is the lost art of late-night Nashville melancholia, restored, revived and wonderfully anew.
Updated: 09:11 Thursday, January 27, 2005
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article