Various Artists - Heartworn Highways

Back in the mid 1970s, Austin and Nashville were home to a crop of young songwriters with rural roots and the heads of poets, songwriters who staged a quiet revolution against the cookie-cutter genteelness that was country's stock in trade at the time. Their names have gone on to renown in some circles: Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe, Townes Van Zandt, Gamble Rodgers, and John Hiatt, to name a few.

All these people are a little grey and a little grizzled now, and the sound they pioneered - the immediate predecessor to what we now call Alternative Country or Americana - has been around for so long it's hard to remember there was a time when it was brand new.

It should be clear by now that I am not so much reviewing Heartworn Highways as falling in love with it. Performances like these live or die on the quality of the writing. But despite the fact that these are songwriters still learning their craft (Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Around To Die is actually, so he claims, the very first song he ever wrote), there really isn't a single dud, outright cliche, or bit of hokey filler here. ~ Full Review at BlogCritics

Track Listing :

• L.A. Free - Guy Clark
• '...That's A Lightnin' Lick...' - Dialogue
• Ohoopee River Bottomland - Larry Jon Wilson
• That Old Time Feeling - Guy Clark
• '...People Condemn Whiskey...' - Dialogue
• Waiting Around To Die - Townes Van Zandt
• I Still Sing The Old Songs - David Allan Coe
• Intro - Heartworn Highways
• Desperadoes Waiting For A Train - Guy Clark
• Bluebird Wine - Rodney Crowell
• Alabama Highway - Steve Young
• Intro - Heartworn Highways
• Pancho And Lefty - Townes Van Zandt
• Texas Cookin' - Guy Clark
• Charlie's Place (Gamble's Story) - Gamble Rogers
• The Black Label Blues - Gamble Rogers
• '...These Guards All Drive Cadillacs!' - Dialogue
• River - David Allan Coe
• One For The One - John Hiatt
• Darlin' Commit Me - Steve Earle
• Ballard Of Lavern & Captain Flint - Guy Clark
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Steve Young
• The Mercenary Song - Steve Earle
• '...Would You Do Elijah's Church?' - Dialogue
• Elijah's Church - Steve Earle
• Silent Night - Various Artists