Author Archive for: Norman

Whether you hail from the innermost corner of one of America’s biggest metropolises or the same Appalachian foothills so eloquently described in the song, there’s just something undeniably comfortable about “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

This was no raucus dance of jubilation, though: not a flag waving triumphalism. This was the jubilation, it seemed to me, of the satisfaction of survival and a new-found freedom to move forward. It was a jubilation that carried memories of those lost along the way.

Craig´´ Jenkins´ review, of Kasey Musgraves´ newly released album, Star-Crossed, lived up to the promise of that first sentence at the head of this piece, as he looked at her album, making sense of the lyrics and what they say about Kasey´s feelings at the time of writing them. Like all the great music writers, though, he then also looked at what the codes to live by that we might find in the album, where it is coming from with all the clutter of classification in the recording industry and media and how it will impact on all that.

The two musicians strode on, centre-stage, and these ´kids´ erupted, whooping and hollering as if this were The Beatles at Shea Stadium, although I doubt that any of these patrons would understand that reference.