George Hamilton IV Celebrates 50th Opry Anniversary; Cactus Cafe Still Closing; Carrie Underwood’s “Temporary Home”

“As a loyal Texas Union Employee for the last 29 years, beginning as a UT student, I am disheartened to hear the recent news to phase out the Cactus Cafe. However, the Cactus staff and I remain committed to keeping the Cafe humming by day, while putting on the shows we have become known for by night, until the last song is sung.”

At its best, Quicksand is perfectly titled – an album that stops you in your tracks, envelops you in a consuming experience. It doesn’t always hit that mark, but it hits it often enough that you won’t even think of trying to escape. A highly rewarding listen for fans of soulful acoustic music that’s reverent without ever being stodgy.

“It’s harder than you think,” says the Eleven Hundred Springs frontman. “It’s hard to be objective with yourself; it’s hard to wear both hats. [But] it was certainly fun.”

Hillyer and his Dallas-based bandmates decided to produce their latest record, This Crazy Life, themselves last summer at Fort Worth’s WaveLight Studios. After working with respected producer Lloyd Maines for 2008’s Country Jam, Hillyer and Springs co-founder Steve Berg felt that they were finally up to the task.

The resulting 12 tracks, adorned with plenty of fiddle and pedal steel, as well as evocative titles like I’ll Get on to Getting Over You Tomorrow, are more of the same, grittily authentic country music that fans have come to expect from the quintet.

I hate it when younger artists sing songs about the sad current state of country music. Shurman almost ruined a good album by including the whiney, hokey “Country Ain’t Country Anymore.”

The best commentary is to make a pure country album like this sophomore release from Billy Brent Malkus and Rebecca Cannon, known together as the Texas Sapphires. With fiddle, banjo, pedal steel guitar and mandolin on just about every track, this record imagines a time when the most famous Garth is the sidekick on “Wayne’s World.” Even when they rock, as on “Farmer’s Tan,” they can’t shake the hillbilly shawl.