Product Description

md99 NEW, SEALED!! Original tape and box.

Track Listing

1. Weightless Again - The Handsome Family
2. Pardon Me (I've Got Someone to Kill) - The Sadies, Andre Williams, Andre Williams, Andre Williams
3. Guided by Wire - Neko Case,
4. Meat off the Bone - The Gourds
5. Lost Highway - Townes Van Zandt
6. Ft. Worth, Texas - Johnny Dowd
7. Song for You - Hazeldine
8. You Don't Know What's Right, You Don't Know What's Wrong - The Long Ryders
9. Run With the Ponies - The Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers
10. Hello to Everybody - The Waco Brothers
11. Railroad Bill - Dave Alvin
12. Oh My Good Ol' Gal - Oh Susanna
13. Me and Queen Sylvia - Neal Casal
14. Standing on a Snake - NoahJohn
15. Kiss of Death - Split Lip Rayfield
16. My Fear - Utah Carol
17. So That I Don't Miss You - Nadine
18. E-Z Ridin' Cowboy - Cowboy Nation
19. She Ran Me Down - The Arlenes
20. Carousel Days - Western Electric

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161086 in Music
• Released on: 2001-07-10
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to less-well-known Alt-Country
This album is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of alt-country, and the songs are mostly by relatively obscure bands - Neko Case being about the only exception. Nevertheless, I found this album to be not only a great pleasure to listen to but also a great introduction to some "unknown" but very talented artists.

I have bought CDs from several of the artists with songs on the Americana album, including Utah Carol, Neal Casal, The Gourds, and almost all of the Handsome Family CDs. The Americana CD was also how I found out about the more mainstream Jayhawks (mentioned in the liner notes), as well as the definitely not mainstream but wonderfully quirky Victoria Williams (Victoria and Mark Olson, formerly of the Jayhawks, have a song on Americana, and I now own almost all of Victoria's albums).

For the musically adventurous, I highly recommend this CD.

My intro to 7 amazing artists (plus other great songs)
Our friend Judson came out from San Francisco to visit us in Colorado before moving to Louisville for the summer. He brought us a fistful of CDs he'd burned from his extensive folk/bluegrass/Americana collection. They were all worth listening to... but this one changed the face of our music collection.

From the sonorous drone of "Weightless Again," the Handsome Family's intro track, to the heartbreaking honesty of Noahjohn's "Standing on a Snake," to the banjo-thumpin' goodtime riffs of Split Lip Rayfield's "Kiss of Death," this album provided an entree into the underdiscovered underbelly of an indescribable subcategory of American music.

Sure, it may not be "Americana" for the purist... there's nary a paean to river baptism or cabins in the piney woods, and there are even a few naughty words and suicide references. But if you're interested in the direction that music can take when you combine true-blue American styles like country twang, bluegrass banjo, punk rock and steely blues, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

Oh yeah... the 7 artists whose work we've gone on to collect voraciously are Handsome Family, Neal Casal, Noahjohn, Split Lip Rayfield, Utah Carol, Neko Case and Townes Van Zandt. In case you were wondering. And as we always do when this impressed by a record, we went out and legitimately purchased it.

Good. Not great, but good.
The World Music Network has released a broad range of "Rough Guides" to certain musical genres, from Cumbia to Flamenco to Klezmer. Most are fantastic compilations. This installment features music that can be described as alternative country, insurgent country, or no depression. The name "Americana" is tricky. I consider Americana music to be American cultural music, or music clearly influenced by American cultural music. This can mean anything from jazz to bluegrass to zydeco. However, many folks define Americana as a specific genre, as is the case here. Rather than debate the point, I'll just let it be. Many of the usual suspects that one would expect on such a compilation, such as Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, and Whiskeytown, are bypassed in favor of lesser-known performers. The tracks are almost all good, though there are few true stand-outs.

For the uninitiated, I would recommend Exposed Roots: The Best of Alt. Country, Uncle Tupelo's "No Depression," Son Volt's "Trance," and Whiskeytown's "Strangers Almanac." However, for those interested in delving deeper, this compilation will provide an entry point for exploring many under-exposed but worthy artists.