Johnny Cash was one of the most imposing and influential figures in post-World War II country music. With his deep, resonant baritone and spare percussive guitar, he had a basic, distinctive sound. Cash didn't sound like Nashville, nor did he sound like honky tonk or rock & roll. He created his own subgenre, falling halfway between the blunt emotional honesty of folk, the rebelliousness of rock & roll, and the world-weariness of country. Cash's career coincided with the birth of rock & roll, and his rebellious attitude and simple, direct musical attack shared a lot of similarities with rock. However, there was a deep sense of history – as he would later illustrate with his series of historical albums – that kept him forever tied with country. And he was one of country music's biggest stars of the '50s and '60s, scoring well over 100 hit singles.

For their latest, ninth, studio album as Truckstop Honeymoon, Kansas-based ex-pat Mike West and New Orleans-born wife Katie decided to make things a family affair. Recruiting the kids, Sadie, Vega, Julian and Esther, as musicians, along with background noises from their three dogs and parrot, Big Things and Little Things was recorded around their dining room table.

Together At Last is a new album by songwriter and guitarist Jeff Tweedy. It features the Wilco bandleader performing eleven of his own songs, culled from the Wilco catalog as well as from side-projects Loose Fur and Golden Smog, in a solo acoustic setting. Recorded at Tweedy’s Chicago recording studio The Loft, Together At Last showcases Tweedy’s accomplished and intricate guitar playing and his expressive, plaintive voice, and while audiences have experienced Tweedy live onstage as a solo performer for years, this is the first studio recording of its kind for the acclaimed musician.

The Show Ponies will release their latest album, How It All Goes Down, this Friday, January 20. Andy Freeman (Eisley/Manchester Orchestra, Rocketboys) produced this new record from the group, which is now available for pre-order on iTunes and Google Play. Clayton Chaney (lead vocals, bass) and Andi Carder (lead vocals, banjo) founded the group back in 2011 after relocating to California from Texas and Arkansas. The quintet, which also features Jason Harris (vocals, guitar), Philip Glenn (fiddle), and Kevin Brown (drums), continues to build enthusiastic supporters for their soulful Americana sounds.

Anybody who has followed the development of Ray Wylie Hubbard as an artist over the last dozen years or so has had to be keenly aware that he's been moving through changes in lyric style, melodic invention, and production styles. He's also been on a spiritual odyssey in his music that culminated on the excellent Eternal & Lowdown. Growl is a record of an awareness gained; it is expressed in the most basic, elemental physical and emotional truths (from humor to doubt to surrender to anger at hypocrisy) in these songs.

It seems strange that folks like Ray Wylie Hubbard once lived such wild lives but have been able to make solid comebacks later in life. Strange, because Hubbard, on Delirium Tremolos, sounds as good as he ever has. Better yet, the album has a nice, mellow country sound, and Hubbard has discarded, for the time being, his penchant for preachy, comic songs.

For nearly 20 years, Yonder Mountain String Band has redefined bluegrass music, expanding the traditional acoustic genre beyond its previously established boundaries by steadily pushing the envelope into the realms of rock n roll and improvisation. Yonder has always played music of their own design, in the process attracting a devout coterie of fans that often resembles a tight knit family on an epic musical journey as Yonder traverses the country with an ever-rigorous tour schedule. Yonder is a quintessential ensemble honing its craft night after night on the road, and the fans are there to experience it in real time. The result is music that doesn t stand still, it s always progressing and breaking unprecedented ground.

With gritty, grizzled vocals, brazen songwriting talent and one hell of a live show, Luke Combs stormed onto country music landscape as a force to be reckoned with. Combs' debut smash radio single "Hurricane" is quickly becoming a staple anthem for country fans. After attending Appalachian State, Combs, a true road warrior, built his avid fan base, delivering over 200 rowdy, hold-nothing-back shows per year. The 27 year-old Asheville, North Carolina native will release his debut This One's For You on June 2.

Johnny Cash's populist fusion of folk, country, and gospel done up with an unhurried, plainspoken eloquence made him both a country icon and an American treasure. Whether singing his own songs or covering songs written by young alternative rockers in his autumn years, anything he touched became vintage Johnny Cash as soon as he stepped to the microphone. This collection includes the classics "I Walk the Line" and "Big River" as well as Cash's fine version of Bob Dylan's "Wanted Man," but it lacks essentials like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues," and ends up being a little hit or miss, but – as they say – any Johnny Cash beats no Johnny Cash at all.

Steve Forbert's youthful features and boyish voice certainly become misleading once his lyrics are heard. His folk-rock styled songs are usually centered around life's ups and downs and the problems of adulthood, portraying him as an artist who's just trying to get by. Alive on Arrival is an album full of earnest tunes about loneliness, self-worth, aspirations, and disappointments. Forbert's wispy, innocent sounding voice floats gently (and cuts roughly) over his acoustic guitar to homespun ditties with a down-to-earth feel. This album represents Forbert's music perfectly, and even though his latter albums sound less subtle, it is Alive on Arrival that so aptly personifies him.

Although Jackrabbit Slim was Steve Forbert's best-selling album, containing his only Top 40 hit, "Romeo's Tune," and his only other chart single, "Say Goodbye to Little Jo," it took Nemperor (formerly part of CBS, now part of Sony) 17 years to put it out on CD (on September 3, 1996). It sounds as good as it did before, thanks both to Forbert's excellent songwriting (also included: "January 23-30, 1978," one of his best diary songs) and to John Simon's production. In a newly added note, Forbert says Simon was a late addition, after his producer was stolen by Barbra Streisand.

‘Tis the season for country-themed side projects. Just a few weeks before Mt. Desolation’s release, Tired Pony – another indie rock supergroup with rootsy inclinations – issued their own debut. What was billed as a country album turned out to be little more than standard pop/rock, though, which makes Mt. Desolation’s debut – recorded by a loose group of British musicians, with Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley and Jesse Quin serving as co-captains – all the more charming. The best songs here sound like genuine Americana, not pop songs dressed up in acoustic guitars and cowboy shirts, and even the filler material has a cohesion that’s rare for most first-time supergroups. “The Midnight Ghost,” with its barroom ambience and harmony vocals, is a woozy Western ballad that takes its cues from Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, while “Platform 7” – featuring the Killers’ Ronnie Vannucci on percussion – is bar band country-rock, filled with all the twangy trimmings that the Killers attempted (with mixed results) on Sam’s Town.

Anne Murray's Greatest Hits is a compilation album by Canadian Country vocalist Anne Murray, issued by Capitol Records in 1980. It is a collection of nine previously issued singles released between 1970 and 1980, as well as one new track, "Could I Have This Dance", which was newly recorded for this album (and simultaneously appeared on the soundtrack to the film Urban Cowboy). Though Murray's fourth compilation album, Greatest Hits was the first collection of her biggest charting singles, from her breakthrough Top 10 smash, "Snowbird", through 1980. (Previous compilations had included some of Murray's chart hits along with album tracks and lesser known songs.) It peaked at #16 on the Billboard album chart, hit #2 (where it held for nine weeks) on the Top Country Albums chart, and is certified 4× Multi-Platinum by the RIAA in the United States - Anne's biggest selling career disc.

Johnny Cash was fortunate enough to enjoy a massive resurgence of attention and respect in the last decade of his life, but while no one seemed to be paying much attention to him from the early '80s (when his contract with Columbia ran out) to 1994 (when the Rick Rubin-produced American Recordings reminded listeners that a great artist was still in our midst), Cash continued to make good-to-great records and play for fans around the world, and this album, taken from a 1987 taping session for the long-running television series Austin City Limits, shows the Man in Black was still in sterling form as he traveled beneath the radar of country radio and the hipster music press…