For the first time, it’s hat’s off: Clark’s ready to let her roots (a dark-auburn color, by the way) show on the album cover, and the contents here are just as revealing. Clark’s seventh studio album shows a newfound wisdom and focus as the singer enters her 40s with new challenges in her career and home life. Musically, the album isn’t far removed from Nashville product; it’s the weighty material that lifts it a cut above Clark’s major label albums. As the sole producer, Clark laces these ten tuneful tracks with mournful moments of fiddle and steel that echo her recent turmoil. The corny novelty of “What Happens in Vegas (Follows You Home)” is the one weak link on a disc that deliberates her major-label departure, her mother’s battle with cancer and a recent divorce; these songs ring with a pure, vulnerable heartache.

Clark’s singing is stout, cocksure and, when necessary, it shines with a poignant intimacy that adds gravity even to lighter fare such as the gently-chugging “If You Want Fire” and the groovy “Poor Girl’s Dream.”

From a girl dropping her hard-earned cash on laundry detergent (“Poor Girl’s Dream”) to an older woman at the bedside of her dying best friend (“If I Could Be You”), Clark instills her characters with the understanding and compassion that come from her own experience. The most telling ballad is “A Million Ways to Run,” with a woman recounting days “at the bottom of a bottle, getting numb with every swallow.” Perennial harmony partner Vince Gill lends his sweet tenor on the stripped-down “The One You Love,” where Clark admits “When someone’s slippin’ away right before your eyes/How useless we are is a painful surprise,” seemingly haunted by her own helplessness.

She’s still got her feisty, fearless spirit, though, steering her twangy alto towards hope and even humor when the blues arrive. That winsome wit’s most evident on first single “Gypsy Boots,” a sultry, playful midtempo that shows she’s built of restless stuff. “I’m a country song, the kind that makes you cry,” she admits to a would-be mate. After all these years, she knows those are the ones you remember long after the last note. Likewise, The Long Way Home, the album of Clark’s career, is one for the memory banks.

The acronym stands for “certified guitar player,” a designation given by Atkins to a select few musicians who he felt made significant contributions to the world of guitar–Wariner was one of only four to receive this honor (the others were Jerry Reed, Tommy Emmanuel, and John Knowles).

Atkins, who died in 2001, is one of music’s most important figures. He worked with Red Foley, toured with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, released over 100 albums, influenced countless guitar pickers with his unique style, and, of course, spearheaded the Nashville Sound movement. He was also the man who signed Steve Wariner to his first recording contract at RCA in 1977 (Wariner was still a teenager when he got his start playing bass for Dottie West and Bob Luman, and was barely in his 20s when he signed with RCA) then subsequently “fired” Wariner as his bass player when Steve’s solo song “Your Memory” cracked the Top 10 a few short years later. The two men were dear friends, and this friendship/mutual admiration is tenderly displayed in the music and liner notes, which feature pictures of the two as well as the revelation that they called each other “Big Hero” and “Little Hero.”

My Tribute to Chet Atkins is generally arranged in chronological order, interspersing biographical Wariner-penned originals with songs that Atkins recorded during his six decades in the music business; the album is bookended by “Leavin’ Luttrell,” a song representing the start of Atkins’ musical career and “Silent Strings,” a moving eulogy in which Wariner pays tribute not only to his dear friend, but the guitar he left behind. As Wariner makes very clear in the liner notes, “You can’t out-Chet Chet.” He doesn’t try to, eschewing Atkins’ arguably best known singles “Yakety Axe” and “Mr. Sandman” in favor of songs that hold personal meaning, such as “(Back Home Again in) Indiana,” (recorded for the 1954 album A Session with Chet Atkins.) a song that Wariner, an Indiana boy, listened to religiously.

A highlight of the album is “Producer’s Medley,” a compilation of eight songs that Atkins produced, including “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “End of the World,” and “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.” According to the liner notes, Atkins used to play “Producer’s Medley” on the road, but never recorded it. Here, Wariner reconstructs the medley, making it all sound incredibly effortless, as though certified guitar playing is no more difficult than a marathon session of Guitar Hero.

For the most part, My Tribute to Chet Atkins is an instrumental album, letting the masterful fingerstyle guitar work–often supported by fiddle and piano–speak for itself. However, “Chet’s Guitar” features Wariner singing his lifelong admiration of Atkins, beginning with a childhood spent listening to “the touch and the tone and the twang of Chet’s guitar” on his father’s 45s, playing dive bars as a young man, and eventually making the Opry stage, “fingers all flying up and down the frets/Playing every lick that [he] stole from Chet.”

Clocking in at approximately 35 minutes long, My Tribute to Chet Atkins, may run a little short for some listeners’ tastes, but it’s a masterful tribute to a great friend and a legendary figure in American music that simultaneously showcases Wariner’s c.g.p. skill. He doesn’t deliver a carbon copy of Chet’s musical style, but instead pays homage to the man and the artist with a sense of understated grace that makes each song a joy to hear.

Will guitar-loving kids pick along to this just like Steve Wariner did to Atkins’ records so many years ago? It wouldn’t be surprising.

That famed Large Band of Lovett’s, referenced in the titles of no less than two of his albums, is not so large here. Gone is the bright, jazzy coloring the horns and gospely backing choir contributed to 2007’s It’s Not Big It’s Large. His new album is, for the most part, a sparer, more acoustic-based affair befitting the earthiness of both the material and the way he delivers it. Subtly, very subtly, he draws together the elements of his oeuvre, reminding us what elaborate introspective storytelling and singing the blues can have to do with each other. That point isn’t made terribly often—not convincingly, at least—in any sector of contemporary country.

The churning country-blues title track opens the set with a confession of restlessness rife with Texas (and generally southwestern) imagery, natural and man-made. Then Lovett turns to natural forces of a slightly different sort. He’s often written with prodigious wit, but “Farmer Brown/Chicken Reel” (for some reason—tracklist G-ratedness or the element of surprise—he opted not to use the lyric hook, “choke my chicken,” as the title) and “Pantry” are among his finest achievements in the double entendre arena. “Farmer Brown” swings hard, with Lovett and the drums, then Lovett and an enthusiastic chorus (made up of the musicians on the session) locked in an energetic call-and-response, invoking chicken-choking of both the barnyard and human male varieties. “Pantry” is the very next track. It’s a rollicking, steel-laced two-beat, and a plea for sexual and downhome culinary fidelity: “Keep it in your pantry.”

Once those two are out of the way, followed by a wistful ballad from Lovett’s pen titled “Empty Blue Shoes,” it’s almost all songs by Texans who aren’t him from there on out. New and original Lovett material is a welcomed thing; but in the case of a shortage, he knows how to select sturdy songs that feel natural for him to sing. A few of the songwriters he drew on for his 1998 two-disc covers album Step Inside This House pop up here as well. Townes Van Zandt’s an obvious choice. Eric Taylor and Vince Bell, not so much, although Taylor’s “Whooping Crane,” a yearning, finger-picking folk number that rather poetically captures a sense of environmental and spiritual loss, and Bell’s introspective “Sun and Moon and Stars,” which balances stubbornness and regret, are a couple of fine moments. So is David Ball’s “Don’t You Think I Feel It Too,” a willowy Texas waltz that plumbs the sadness on both sides of ebbing love.

These songs are all about evocative lyrics; their melodies and chord movements are understated, though pleasing, support. But Lovett sings them sensually, a little more sensually, it seems, than he has some songs of that ilk in the past. He sounds familiar enough with the material to relax and feel, rather than focus on, the words; to bring a bodily aspect of what he does—singing like a sly, blues-shaded devil—to that other, more confessional form of expression. Natural Forces probably won’t replace Lovett’s early triumphs—Pontiac, for one—as a career-defining recording, but it’s plenty satisfying.

Reality-show prodigy turned down-home diva, Carrie Underwood has earned little critical praise despite moving over 10 million albums since her 2005 American Idol win. Nashville’s now the stomping ground for ‘80s pop-rock refugees, and Underwood’s widely viewed as a key cog in the nouveau Music Row machine–with high-minded traditionalists blanching at her country bona fides.

Despite her scratchy connection with country’s yesteryear, Underwood’s racked up a laundry list of industry honors with just two albums under her belt buckle, a reward for her gentle, tuneful voice and wholesome brand of straight-ahead twang pop. Her third disc, Play On, starts promisingly, with a whiff of boozy, barroom novelty. The playful “Cowboy Casanova,” an ode to a hard-to-keep lothario, plows along to a grungy electric guitar laced with a curling pedal steel line. This all-American girl, it seems, means serious business.

The remaining 45 minutes, though, are more Hallmark than honky tonk. Play On is a tastefully-done pop pleasure, with little of the pretentious production that gutted much of her first two discs. Better still, Underwood’s found new creases in her sweetly-Southern voice, an engaging instrument that’s grown with each album. She’s in a cheerful frame of mind these days, too: the joy she’s found in her budding romance with hockey star Mike Fisher makes the tender-hearted love songs sound like gossip night with the girls.

At her best, Underwood excels at handling the finest storytelling that Nashville has to offer. The album’s strongest track is “Someday When I Stop Loving You,” a brooding tune framed beautifully by her delicate performance, while “What Can I Say,” a collaboration with sibling trio Sons of Sylvia, is a simple, elegant declaration of longing. And the all-American girl even delivers a tart-tongued reading of the spunky, Shania-esque “Songs Like This.”

Play On, though, leans heavily on the polish of Underwood’s still-golden pipes. Too often she’s trying to outact a bad script, with a heap of platonic platitudes laid out over these sleek, bright rhythms. Underwood co-wrote seven of the thirteen cuts, and she clogs songs with stale ideas that dent the impact of her soaring soprano. Given the chief hooks of “Undo It” (a severely-processed uptempo romp) and “Unapologize” (a nice slice of swirling pop-rock), it’s a mild shock that Diane Warren doesn’t rest among the whopping twenty-five songwriters listed in the credits. Treacly anthems like “Change” and the title cut are a killjoy, too: “The smallest thing can make all the difference,” she swears on the former, aping her #1 smash, “So Small.”

Few singers could save insipid statements like “Play on, when you’re the losing the game,” and Underwood scrapes through by the skin of her teeth. Further, her hired guns hand her no favors; successful pop-rock collaborators, chief among them Idol judge Kara DioGuardi and Swedish hooksmith Max Martin, contribute little to an often-dull conversation.

No matter, as Play On will plant itself firmly atop the charts for months to come, and Underwood’s warbling saves a good deal of the dreck. With the herd of hard-charging teens now drenching the airwaves, it’s hard to believe that Underwood’s only 26. Near the top ranks of mainstream music for four years running, the reigning ACM Entertainer of the Year has long proven to be an unstoppable force. Play On, though saddled with its share of loose songwriting, is a convincing reminder of a blonde, budding talent.

Bush actually gets a hand on instrumental “Apple Blossom” from New Grass Revival bandmate Courtney Johnson (banjo). The thing is, Johnson’s been dead for thirteen years. This 90-second song is from 1976 and previously unreleased; for NGR fans, it’s a treat to hear Bush and Johnson play together again, no matter how briefly.

“Souvenir Bottles,” originally from the New Grass Revival’s 1979 album Barren County is so depressing that listeners might want to spin “Whiskey Lullaby” afterwards as a pick-me-up, because lyrics don’t get much sadder than “He had been a road musician playing banjo with the band/He had a lot of souvenirs of a lot of one night stands/And they all were whiskey bottles/Plain glass and cheap/He poured his life out years ago and saved the memories,” especially when they’re sung by Bush’s warm, weathered voice. NGR’s “Whisper My Name,” the album’s hard driving closer, segues into a hidden track: the buoyant cover “They’re Red Hot” is one of the record’s most pleasant surprises, although invoking Robert Johnson raises a few questions, namely whether Bush made a similar Faustian bargain at a crossroads one night. Could there be any other explanation for such fine musicianship?

When you’re Sam Bush, you have the luxury of getting some mighty fine musicians to play on your record. His band, Byron House on bass, drummer Chris Brown, banjo picker Scott Vestal, and guitarist Stephen Mougin (Bush serves double duty with both mandolin and fiddle) work together like a well-oiled machine, and there are some big name guest stars who seamlessly fit in with Bush and the boys too. Most notably, Del McCoury shows up to sing on a pair of songs that were also recorded by his old boss, Bill Monroe; “Roll On, Buddy, Roll On” is one of the more traditional bluegrass numbers on the album, and the Bush and McCoury one-two vocal punch will likely make for happy fans.

Dobro whiz Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer join Bush on “Junior Heywood,” six minutes of auditory bliss bolstered by Meyer’s bowed bass. Come to think of it, Circles Around Me is something of a family affair for Meyer, as son George and wife Cornelia Heard contribute twin violins to somber instrumental “The Old North Woods,” a song seemingly made for this time of year as the colors of autumn slowly transform into grey winter.

There’s not a bum track on this album, but if there’s one that especially stands out, it’s “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle.” Co-written with Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson, it’s the story of Hee-Haw musician/comedian David “Stringbean” Akeman and his wife, who were murdered by two men looking for Akeman’s rumored cash cache (they didn’t find much); he and Estelle were found the next day by Grandpa Jones. “It was just a simple plan/To rob a banjo man/But he wouldn’t let go of his Opry pay,” Bush sings, and the senselessness of the crime is further compounded when a stanza reveals that two decades later, $20,000 was found stashed in the Akemans’ fireplace, too rotted to be of any worth.

Bluegrass, newgrass, call it whatever you want. Circles Around Me is damn good music no matter what it’s classified as.

Dolly is not the first attempt to box Parton’s career, but it may be the best. It covers nearly half a century of successes and failures, making room for the big hits (“Jolene,” “9 to 5”) as well as previously unreleased obscurities (“Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can),” “Eugene Oregon”). Even at twelve years old, singing “Puppy Love,” she displays remarkable self-possession, delivering the throwaway pop ditty with surprising sass and confidence. She was Dolly even then, and she remained Dolly when she tried the pop circuit, when she was Wagoner’s effervescent sidekick, when she set off on her own, when she appeared in movies, and when she went bluegrass late in her career. She has always been ineffably Dolly: a one-woman genre.

Dolly hints at the full breadth of her range as well as her limitations. Even though she presented herself as happy-go-lucky, with a perky spirit that turned the trials of an impoverished upbringing into a goldmine of nostalgia, Parton slipped easily into sentimental kitsch, especially during her early twenties. “In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)” and “Coat of Many Colors” play into some of the sappiest clichés of country music, with nostalgic details painted on thick. “Jeannie’s Afraid of the Dark” foretells the swamp of cancer ballads that became obligatory among less ambitious acts this decade, and “What Will Baby Be” is a moralizing sap—one of the few times Parton comes across as a scold.

Perhaps these songs are simply dated—the product of bygone musical trends and values—but they suffer for their proximity to the tougher-minded material on Dolly. Ironically, Parton sounds most convincing and commanding when she’s writing and singing not about happiness, but about happiness denied. “Jolene” thrums with romantic distress, and the frailty of her vocals, coupled with the urgent minor key, only underscores the hopelessness of the situation she describes. Likewise, “I Will Always Love You” is both heartbroken and wistful, her spoken-word delivery on the verses conveying both vulnerability and steadfastness.

Dolly shows Parton to be an expert interpreter, fully inhabiting all of her songs and conveying a range of emotions. “Touch Your Woman” and “The Last One to Touch Me” understate an erotic thrill not often associated with country music of the era. And Parton is particularly devastating on “Down from Dover,” which turns her downhome reveries inside out and allows her girlish voice to sell a southern-gothic story of a deceptive lover and an unwanted pregnancy.

When Parton broke free of Wagoner’s influence in the late 1970s and established herself as a truly solo artist, she became much more adventurous both musically and professionally. She made compelling concessions to pop music with “You’re the Only One” (with its lovely George Harrison-style guitars) and the Donna Summer cover “Starting Over Again,” and appeared in movies like The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, 9 to 5, and Rhinestone, for which she recorded the award-winning soundtracks. Loosing herself from the strictures of the industry, she became a synthesizer of styles and sounds. “Islands in the Stream” was written by the Bee Gees, but it’s the chemistry between Parton and Kenny Rogers that has made it a staple of karaoke nights and wedding receptions. It’s a shame that her two Trio albums with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris are only mentioned in the liner notes and not represented on the tracklist, and her ‘90s and ‘00s are compressed into just a handful of tracks, despite the fact that albums like The Grass Is Blue and Halos & Horns garnered her a considerable Americana audience.

Despite its shortcomings, Dolly ultimately feels like so much more than the sum of its parts, just as Parton’s appeal and popularity transcend any one song, album, or trend. It’s much more satisfying than it should be, due not to any curatorial control the producers exerted over the tracklist, sequencing, or packaging, but to Parton’s sassily endearing and enduring persona, which can redeem even the weakest material. She shines through unmistakably on every note here.

An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel: Thinking man’s soundtrack for said road trip.

Another explanation, of course, could be “Third album by Texas transplant and wordsmith Drew Kennedy;” however, since Kennedy’s musical aesthetic defies mainstream country molds somewhere between Americana and indie singer/songwriter, definitions aren’t nearly as important to this record as directions.

East, west, north and south–“life on the road” songs are intrinsic to country music and its icons Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Jerry Reed, yet they remain tricky territory: For the average listener, a life spent sleeping on a speeding tour bus or a rumbling big rig in search of the next big break can be largely foreign terrain.

In that regard, Kennedy successfully brings an accessible twist to this common theme. As a loose concept album, its strengths lay in his ability to effectively craft uncontrived lyrics and organize them into two universally recognized aspects of meaningful travel: the journey and the destination.

While getting there may be half the fun, Kennedy both celebrates and laments his cases of rambling fever. On the straightforward, Pat Green-like “Miles From Anywhere,” he wails “But if I stop now/What if I miss out/On the one thing that turns it all around?” As a reflection of the monotony of going through the motions, the tune is a nice contrast to the emotion-fueled “Rolling Around in the Bed,” the only co-write (with Kent Agee) on the disc. As a standout song that contrasts the rattling of a man’s possessions in his truck bed with the images of his lover and another man, it follows a very different journey down the trail of an escape route.

While the bulk of the album is tied up in wandering, Kennedy skillfully carves out specific, tangible vignettes, including a hotel room in “Room #27,” a mechanic’s garage in the oddly philosophical “Headlights” and a window seat over a hopping cityscape in “Buzzing Like a Wire.” Other destinations are linked to geographical points—including “St. Abilene” and the haunting “Cincinnati”—that follow how relationships form and dissolve according to location and the ways those interactions, in turn, become a driving catalyst for change.

Kennedy plows through these songs by bending and twisting melodies in a way that makes ordinary words about ordinary subjects seem special. In the rare instances he turns on cruise control—love songs “Love and Rain” and “Songbird” seem out of place in the collection, although the latter showcases his best vocal performance of the album. Kennedy’s voice can skew nasally and sound occasionally out of place sans the honky-tonk heartache usually associated with the country and Texas music genres, but the emotion of “Songbird’s” descriptions come through fully on the chorus’ declaration “She don’t know why/Songbirds can’t help but to fly.”

The album was produced by Kennedy and Matt Powell, who also plays a host of instruments on the record. The pair is joined by drummer Matthew Briggs, Geoff Queen on steel and Stefano Intelisano on keys, who help to create a wide mix of sounds that mesh well without becoming predictable or sounding thrown-together. By the numbers, An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel clocks in at 11 songs, 50 minutes and 24 seconds —but then again, this is an album best measured in miles, not minutes.

Keith wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs on American Ride (mostly joined by longtime collaborator Bobby Pinson), and while there aren’t any particularly masterful lyrics, they get the job done and are halfway catchy to boot. The only song Keith didn’t have a hand in writing is the title track, and maybe that’s a good thing; “American Ride” is the weakest song on the album, with Keith shouting his way through an asinine chorus and lyrics referencing “the YouTube.” If you’re looking for humorous commentary on modern society, Jason Boland & The Stragglers cover the same ground a little more deftly in their song “Pearl Snaps.”

Though he’s known for his chest-thumping (and let’s face it: there are few, if any, commercial country artists who can do it better), the best songs on American Ride are the ones in which Keith drops the swagger and the shouting and just sings. The result is a sound similar to the 1990s material that initially catapulted him into country superstardom. “Gypsy Driftin’” is a toe-tapper about life on the road while the slow burning “Are You Feelin’ Me” would sound right at home among the ballads of Dream Walkin’. “Cryin’ for Me (Wayman’s Song)” is a touching tribute to jazz musician/basketball player Wayman Tisdale (the album is also dedicated to Tisdale); it’s also some of the best songwriting Toby Keith’s done to date, featuring an opening lyric that’s like a punch to the gut for anyone who’s experienced a similar loss: “Got the news on Friday morning/But a tear I couldn’t find/You showed me how I’m supposed to live/Now you showed me how to die.” Keith’s singing here really shows what he’s capable of as an artist, especially as he stretches his own musical boundaries a bit by enlisting the help of Dave Koz, who contributed some lite jazz saxophone to the song, Arthur Thompson, and Marcus Miller.

Now, just because he’s dropping the swagger doesn’t mean the guy can’t be funny. After all, this is the fella who wrote “You Ain’t Much Fun.” One of the album’s standout songs, “You Can’t Read My Mind” finds Toby at his most charming as he desperately tries to avoid screwing up a chance at love, singing “Baby I can’t tell you what I’m thinking/I’ve had way too much to drink tonight/This is where I usually say something out of line/Just be glad that right now you can’t read my mind.”. Trying for funny and missing the mark is the admittedly catchy “Every Dog Has Its Day,” whose infectious hook is offset by an unfortunate stanza that may have been cribbed from Go Dog Go.

Rounding out the record is “Ballad of Balad,” a grunt’s-eye-view tale about military life that begins with some iffy recruiting methods down at the Winn-Dixie and ends with a rowdy singalong courtesy of The Hogliners. Accented by banjo, “Ballad” is free of the jingoism Keith’s detractors often accuse him of, though his use of the unwieldy phrase “all them son of a bitches” puts the Big Dog Daddy, as banjo picker Steve Martin might sing, in the grammar slammer.

There’s nothing inherently unlistenable about American Ride except perhaps the title track. There is, however, too much unmemorable filler in between the quality songs. Maybe it’s time for some fresh blood in the Show Dog kennel.

Appropriately cut at a studio called Dark Horse outside of Franklin, Tennessee, the album was recorded with his road band, the Dancehall Doctors. McGraw employed this same practice on his 2002 album Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors in an effort to bring a looser and more earthy, “live” vibe to the album. It’s not the orchestration, however, that stands out on Southern Voice–it’s the well-chosen topics and the weightiness which McGraw brings to them. “Good Girls” is a captivating and stunningly sinister story song about double crossing best friends that shows that good girls are anything but (“Hell has no fury like a woman scored” indeed), while “You Had To Be There” is a fantastic moralistic tale of a father unforgiven for abandoning the teenager he got pregnant and the son he now talks with only through a glass jail wall. “I Love You, Goodbye” tackles that same familiar theme, albeit with a different outcome. It is an effective and emotional tale of parental struggle, loss and in this case, redemption.

Few of these stories are warm and fuzzy, but any could ripped from real life theater. Southern Voice thankfully leaves intact the harshness and rough edges that give the songs their bite. “I’m Only Jesus” talks of suicide, Russian roulette, and drug use–and is an example of the Dancehall Doctor’s influence, what with its Hendrix-like guitar solo to finish the track. There’s a debate of morality on “If I Died Today,” and even on some of the seemingly more lightweight fare, like “Mr. Whoever You Are” (a melancholy tale of a line worker who finds solace in her local bar by going home with whomever will dance with her), there’s an emotional twist that’s pretty for not being pretty.

Southern Voice’s two notable wrong turns are, ironically, the first two singles sent to radio. “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You” is cute throwaway of a song that is wordsmithing at its best (not too many songs can pull off a rhyme with Versace and Liberace), while current radio single and title track is the album’s weakest song, out of place on the album and little more than a rebel yell of every southern stereotype.

Perhaps the album’s recording was captured in a moment of time where McGraw’s song choices had him looking inward, taking inventory of life’s fragility and morality. Perhaps his cinematic work is giving him a new perspective on the power of good storytelling. Either way, Southern Voice delivers songs that make us question, react and most importantly, feel. It’s a new level of maturity and soberness that renders this one of McGraw’s most emotionally hefty releases.

Reinforcing this argument is Cash’s decision to move these songs from the country to the city, favoring a smoky, jazzy setting that nods to Owen Bradley and Norah Jones alike. On “Miss the Mississippi and You,” the curlicue guitar licks and buoyant brushed-snare pattern lend the song an easygoing river current that pushes her spry, precise vocals along steadily. “Long Black Veil” and Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” both get fluttery acoustic arrangements that emphasize their delicate melodies and forlorn sentiments.

Generally these austere arrangements work well, but her low-down, slowed-down “I’m Movin’ On” can’t even get the engine to turn over, much less peal out on the highway. Likewise, another song about travel–Haggard’s “Silver Wings”–lacks the forlorn finality of a good-bye, despite elegant backing vocals from Rufus Wainwright (Marianne Faithfull does better by Hag covering “Sing Me Back Home” on her own covers album, Easy Come Easy Go).

Like her father and like so many of the artists she covers on The List, Cash does not fit easily or very naturally into the parameters of country music, so this foray into new sounds and styles is neither a surprise or much of a stretch. With its subdued twang and exacting enunciation, her voice has too much polish to steal “She’s Got You” from Patsy Cline (and what artist, living or dead, could possibly do that?), but those same qualities illuminate The Carter Family’s “Motherless Children” and “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” and lend them a palpable sense of loss.

As the album title implies, Cash is engaging with these songs as a collection rather than as individual compositions, so it’s hard not to hear The List as part of the recent deluge of covers albums, including Tanya Tucker’s overrated My Turn and Patty Loveless’ rated-just-right Mountain Soul project—or, God help us all, Rod Stewart’s hoary series of standards cash grabs. But perhaps the most interesting comparison, in concept if not necessarily in quality, is with Willie Nelson’s ground-breaking Stardust, which proved that country was big enough to welcome the urbane fare of Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin. The List recalculates that Vin diagram and, despite its shortcomings, strongly suggests that these songs are rich enough and malleable enough to be considered part of the Great American Songbook.

Not that we needed persuading.