Country

Blake has performed for more than 60 years. He was in Johnny Cash's band and played on Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album. Now 77, his new album is called Wood, Wire and Words.

Brandi Carlile is a singer-songwriter who has cited influences as various as Elton John, Patsy Cline, and Queen's Freddie Mercury. Carlile has been releasing albums for the past 10 years, and Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says her new one, called The Firewatcher's Daughter, is her best yet.

Complicated Game demonstrates a new range of style and subject matter for McMurtry.

Nora Jane Struthers is a singer-songwriter who grew up in New Jersey and was teaching high-school English in Brooklyn before moving to Nashville to attempt a full-time career in music. With her band The Party Line, she's just released a new album called Wake. Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

Mead hooks the listener, eager to show us the bleak side of what seemed like a bright scenario. That's the way he operates during much of Free State Serenade.

In the band's latest album Mono, Malo demonstrates how he likes to make music that confounds the usual expectations of what a country hit-maker can do.

The singer-songwriter usually follows in the story-song tradition of his forebears Townes Van Zant and Guy Clark. But in Happy Prisoner he brings enthusiastic curiosity to covers of bluegrass greats.

During a hiatus, some tapes surfaced of new songs Bob Dylan had been writing: the Basement Tapes. These songs have been collected in a box set.

Womack, who had the hit "I Hope You Dance," hasn't released a new album since 2008. The sound of her new album The Way I'm Livin' is different from the country music dominating the industry.

Bakersfield, Calif., has become famous for its own brand of country music, with such stars as Merle Haggard and Buck Owens given credit for putting the town on the musical map. But they evolved through a music scene that was wild and wide-open during the 1950s and '60s, and Fresh Air's Ed Ward has the story.

Out of love and necessity, Stuart has become a country-music historian. "People were throwing things away," he says. "I just took it as a family matter."

Billy Joe Shaver has just released his first new studio album in six years, called 'Long in the Tooth'.

Jenny Lewis achieved musical fame as part of the indie band Rilo Kiley, which broke up in 2011. Her third solo album announces a new chapter in her career — and perhaps her life.

A new album from Cowboy Jack Clement has the prolific producer performing many of his best-known compositions with help of Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell and John Prine.

Fresh Air critic Ken Tucker says Lauderdale's career is at once admirable and somewhat puzzling.

Trouble & Love is about a relationship that went bad. "I think that this is one where Mary finally gets the lesson," Gauthier tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Platinum continues Miranda Lambert's ongoing project to create songs about women who are complex, fun-loving, and assertive.

Songs feels like the work of an artist who's still figuring out who he is, where he wants to go, and what he wants to elaborate upon — or invent anew.

Williams is commonly considered the most important country music songwriter. Critic Ken Tucker has a review of a newly released CD of radio broadcasts and DVD of TV performances.

The country singer treats the classic songs on her new album like living, vital pieces of art that can withstand being taken apart, thought about and re-imagined.