Country music

Rock critic Ken Tucker looks at the "New Traditionalism" in country music as performed by such singers as Randy Travis and Rodney Crowell, and with a unique twist by the Jayhawks.

Rock critic Ken Tucker gives his picks for the best albums of 1989.

Rock historian Ed Ward looks back on Roy Orbison's early career at Sun Records. Ed says that early work shows that Orbison was a more versatile performer that his big hits would indicate.

Rock historian Ed Ward examines the performers that led the way for Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis burst on the scene in the late 50s, but Ed shows that lots of other guys were pounding the keys way before the killer.

Rock historian Ed Ward investigates the little known original versions of some of rock's most classic songs. Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis' covers are discussed.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new albums by Webb Wilder and the quintet Billy Hill. Webb Wilder's "Hybrid Vigor" is an outsider's eccentric blend of rock and roll livened up with country, blues and rockabilly. Billy Hill has produced an album with a different type of eccentricity --they're Nashville insiders whose oddball act gives an edge to their country music.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Too Long in the Wasteland," the debut album of singer and songwriter James McMurtry. Like his father, the novelist Larry McMurtry, James McMurtry writes of the drifters and loners of the high plains.

Musician Lucinda Williams. She's been playing the folk and country scenes for most of the 80s, but her new album, titled "Lucinda Williams," is a type of straight-ahead story telling that crosses genres. Many listeners think of Williams as a folk singer, but in this album, Williams fronts a rock band.

Rock historian Ed Ward looks at how country musicians in the age of Elvis took their cues from African American blues and boogie-woogie to develop a new, electric guitar-fueled style.

Rock critic Ken Tucker says the group's first collaboration with country artists, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, breathed new life into their music. The second volume of that effort is less focused, with a strange and haphazard assortment of collaborators.