Well, I guess it’s my turn. Kasey and RSV have already dropped their faves of the year (here and here) on y’all, so there’s just no avoiding it for me now. This year was particularly difficult due to the sheer amount of great music that came out, and had I made this list tomorrow it would certainly change. That said, you can edit forever but eventually you have to settle on something and call it your list. So, with out further ado I am gonna steal RSV’s formatting and get this show on the road:

20. Eilen Jewell – Sea of Tears
19. Those Darlins – Those Darlins
18. Strawfoot – How We Prospered
17. Justin Townes Earl – Midnight at The Movies
16. Malcolm Holcombe – For The Mission Baby
15. Jon Snodgrass – Visitor’s Band
14. Ben Nichols – The Last Pale Light In The West
13. Cam Penner – Trouble and Mercy
12. The Fox Hunt – America’s Working So We Don’t Have To
11. William Elliott Whitmore – Animals In The Dark

Top 10 (with mp3s) are under the cut…

(more…)

To call me a Chuck Ragan fan, you’d pretty much have to stretch the limits of elasticity of the word to it’s breaking point. A couple of years ago, while my friends were buzzing like meth heads about an upcoming Chuck Ragan show, I’d never even heard of the man. Their references to Hot Water Music also fell on deaf ears, as I’d never heard of them either. Then, as the initial Revival Tour was announced, I looked into the album Feast or Famine only to find myself underwhelmed and that’s why I’m as surprised as anyone else to be making the following statement.

I can not find a single fault with Chuck Ragan’s newest effort, Gold Country. Since it’s release, Gold Country has been one of my favorite cds on my iPod, and my attachment to it seems to be growing with every listen. The improvement from Feast or Famine to Gold Country is not something to be glossed over. Feast or Famine, to me, felt like the standard punk frontman putting out his obligatory folk album, as was the rage those days, but Gold Country is something else all together. Gold Country is, at is core, a country album. There are still some punk ethos bubbling through lyrically, but even this is cast in a much more mature light. Now I’m not gonna pretend to know anything about Chuck Ragan, but you can tell he spent some time working on these songs and the result is a instrument-heavy, passionate album that should make everyone (non-fans like myself included) sit up and take notice.

So I guess this bears the question, am I now a Chuck Ragan fan? For now I’ll just say I am a Gold Country fan. It’s a great album, possibly my favorite this year. There something about its passion that keeps pulling me back in and it certainly seems to be standing the test of time and the constant onslaught of new music that my ears endure. I guess that if the growth seen from Feast or Famine to the Austin Lucas collaboration, Bristle Ridge, to Gold Country continues, then the answer, quite simply, will be yes. There will be plenty of time for those conversations in years to come, though. For now, let’s just enjoy the fuck out of this album.

Chuck Ragan – Rotterdam
Chuck Ragan – Get Em All Home
Chuck Ragan – Don’t Say A Word

Chuck Ragan’s Official Site, Chuck Ragan on myspace, Buy Gold Country

Making the post of the Revival tour reminded me that I needed to mention the upcoming Chuck Ragan and Austin Lucas collaborative effort, Bristle Ridge.

While on a West Coast swing Jon Gaunt and Chuck teamed up with Austin, Austin’s father Bob and fiddler Digger Barnes on a hilltop in Ohio and recorded the whole thing. Featuring 3 Ragan originals, 3 Lucas originals, 3 Ragan/Lucas collaborations, 1 Bob Lucas original and 2 traditional tunes it is a record that needs to be heard. When Chuck mentioned the album he said, “the entire record has a very strong sense of bluegrass, folk and old time gospel with a certain feel of exactly where we were and what was going on when we layed it down” and I couldn’t agree more. You can pre-order it on Chuck’s web site. I imagine we’ll hear a few of these tracks in September.

Chuck Ragan and Austin Lucas – Bloody Shells
Chuck Ragan and Austin Lucas – Cold Night
Chuck Ragan and Austin Lucas – Darling Corey

EDIT: The album is also available digitally on iTunes and Amazon