Artist: Johnny Cash

The ethical questions surrounding this final album in the American Recordings series are as unavoidable as they are, ultimately, peripheral. While the vocal tracks were recorded in the months just prior to Johnny Cash's passing in September 2003, the arrangements weren't undertaken until two years later. And though producer Rick Rubin had become a trusted friend, the Man in Black wasn't around to approve or disapprove, let alone guide, the final sessions. However, if the pure power of these recordings doesn't quiet the skeptics, nothing will. With Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and slide guitar session pro Smokey Hormel on board (all three of whom appear on earlier Cash albums), along with guitarists Matt Sweeney and Johnny Polansky, the sound is stately and acoustic, but rarely staid, even as the dynamics of earlier recordings in the series are absent. Instead, the songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices.

The songs Cash sings are, unsurprisingly, confessional and reflective: his mortality and his mistakes, his maker and his salvation, and the loss of his wife June...
Don't judge too quickly, 2010-02-24
When I listened to this album for the first time I didn't like it.
How wrong I was.I have listened to it through several times now and am wondering why on earth I didn't like it.
Sure it is almost too autobiographical and even morbid at times with the lyrics about death and such like.
I am listening to it whilst writing this feeling choked and saddened listening to this amazing mans last contribitions to his art.
What an astonishing way to say goodbye.

Artist: Dolly Parton

Dolly sings., 2010-02-17
If you are a Dolly fan you need this album, not want it, you NEED it. Enough said.

Artist: K.D. Lang

KD Lang Has The Purest Voice In Music, 2010-02-06
KD Lang arguably has the most pure and ethereal vocals in the music industry. She can wondrously sing country, ballads, jazz and torch music. Some of her songs literally send enthralled shivers up listeners spines. Recollection is loaded with fantastic songs. "Trail Of Broken Hearts" is a melancholic marvel. "Constant Craving" remains an awesome vocal performance. Her rendition of "Air That I Breathe" is amazing. "Helpless" is an astoundingly brilliant rendition of a Neil Young song. "The Valley" is incredibly emotive and gorgeous. Her rendition of the iconic Leonard Cowen's "Hallelujah" is indeed heavenly. "Crying" with Roy Orbison is one of the greatest vocal performamnces in history. "Calling All Angels" with Canada's Jane Siberry is refined perfection.

KD Lang can do it all evidenced by her charming version of the Beatles "Golden Slumbers." Words are unable to describe the grandeur and luster of KD Lang's boundlessly talented vocals. Recollection is a must have CD. Every song is vintage.

Artist: Rosanne Cash

What a CD !!, 2010-03-02
The List

I ordered this after hearing one track on the radio. The list is a list of a hundred or so songs that the great Johnny Cash told Rosanne she needed to know if she was to be a performer. The CD is made up of songs from that list & I recommend every one. Obviously they are classics, but she gives them all her own treatment without spoiling them.

Long Black Veil, She's Got You, 500 Miles, Take These Chains From My Heart - every one is a gem. The only one I took a couple of plays to get into was Miss the Mississippi & You.

Enjoy

Artist: Dolly Parton

Dolly at her best., 2010-02-28
One of Ms. Parton's best concerts. Very good songs and of course costumes (and wigs !). A real 'showbiz' lady.
Nicholas E. from London.

Artist: Johnny Cash

Fitting Epitaph, 2010-03-06
I've always been a big Johnny Cash fan and there are surely no other singers who can have stayed so relevant over the decades, inspiring and working with artists from all generations. Ain't No Grave is a fitting epitaph to the great man. His voice is much frailer but still has that unique gritty quality; the songs have a sad theme and yet they are somehow uplifting through their gentle simplicity.

Artist: Taylor Swift

18-year-old singing sensation Taylor Swift presents the listener with a conundrum. Her music isn’t particularly inventive--indeed it’s built largely on what you could call country music clichés--yet she does what she does so well you have to work really hard not to like it. With her blond hair, blue-eyes and pretty face, it’s easy to write Swift off as yet another "tweenie". But beneath the glossy exterior lurks some genuine talent: she writes her own tunes, plays (some of) her own instruments and even though she sings about the inevitable pop themes of love and heartbreak, she doesn’t rely on any "sex-sells" cynicism to shift her records. All of which is to say that Swift’s second album, Fearless, while it won’t win any awards for innovation, makes for pleasurable--if highly predictable--listening. --Danny McKenna
AMAZING!!!!!!!, 2010-02-27
I love this album sooooooooooo much!!!! I've had it playing non stop since I got it for Christmas.
I know all of the words and can't stop listenig to it!!!! Taylor Swift is now my favourite artist!
I especially love..Change,Forever and Always,Fearless and I adore The Best Day!
Her lyrics are so true and it really describes how you feel,there also really catchy and are always stuck in my head!
The best Cd i've ever bought!!!
Buy it now!!!!

Artist: Imagined Village

Another Corker from Imagined Village!, 2010-03-04
This is more of a 'band' album, the first album featuring more guests and 'assembled' pieces I would guess but here they sound as if they are playing together as a band on every number. A great album from a fascinating band. Martin Carthy's Updated version of My son John shows that songs written for the Napoleonic wars can still ring true today! Eliza's version Of Space Girl you may have heard on the radio and is great fun with the ring of truth and Martin's version of Cum on Feel The Noize is both a surprise and a delight. Though I have mentioned the Carthy clan here that in no way should detract from the fact that this is a 'Band' album and what an astoundingly good band they are. Give it a listen do, this band are National Treasures.

Artist: Johnny Cash

On first thought, the idea of the Man in Black recording such covers as "Bridge over Troubled Water", "Danny Boy" and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" might seem odd, even for an artist who's been able to put his personal stamp on just about everything. But The Man Comes Around, which also draws on Cash's original songs as well as those by Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt"), Sting ("I Hung My Head") and Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus"), may be one of the most autobiographical albums of the 70-year-old singer-songwriter's career. Nearly every tune seems chosen to afford the ailing giant of popular music a chance to reflect on his life, and look ahead to what's around the corner. From the opening track--Cash's own "The Man Comes Around", filled with frightening images of Armageddon--the album, produced by Rick Rubin, advances a quiet power and pathos, built around spare arrangements and unflinching honesty in performance and subject. In 15 songs, Cash moves through dark, haunted meditations on death and destruction, poignant farewells, testaments to everlasting love, and hopeful salutes to redemption. He sounds as if he means every word, his baritone-bass, frequently frayed and rava...
great stuff, 2010-01-03

Never rated this guy when I was younger, he is the business though. Brilliant stuff.

Artist: Drive-By Truckers

Drive-By Truckers at their very best!!, 2010-03-06
Drive-By Truckers have an unbelievable consistancy in writing great songs and churning out great records and The Big To-Do might even be their best offering yet! The band confessed to learning alot from recording with Booker T and this album see's the band concentrating just as much on the music and melody as the words to great avail.

The album starts with one of my personal favourites 'Daddy Learned to Fly', a song written from a child's perspective who's father has just died. It is a Patterson Hood classic, touching lyrics and a real rocker that just stays in your head. This follows with 'First Night of my Drinking' which seems a little like the Hold Steady especially with the repetition of lines towards the end. Next up is 'Birthday Boy' which Cooley wrote right at the end of the recording for the album, it is magic and I can't describe the words to do it justice - just listen for yourself!! Throughout the album there isn't really a weak song, those that don't hit hard on first listen continue to grow.

The album slows down a little towards the end with 'Santa Fe' and 'Eyes Like Glue' another two of my personal favourites especially the former written by Cooley about a man talking to his baby.

This album is fantastic, I cannot recommend it enough! If you a fan of good old rock music with intelligent lyrics this is for you. On the strength of this I can't wait for their next album 'Go Go Boots' due later in the year.