You’ve heard of Donald Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill? This writer would rather talk about big, beautiful box sets. Here (listed alphabetically, by artist) are 21 of popular music’s most spectacular gargantuan anthologies, each featuring 10 or more discs. Mildred Bailey, The Complete Columbia Recordings of Mildred Bailey (2000, 10 CDs). You’re probably wondering who the […]
Laura Chavez My Voice On My Voice, blues guitarist Laura Chavez treats the instrumental album like a self-portrait: part ancestry, part flex, part love letter to the sounds she grew up listening to. Split between covers and originals, the record doesn’t just showcase chops—it reveals the complexities of touch, tone, and taste, the kind of […]
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Bentley’s Bandstand: April 2026 Leeann Atherton, GOOD GOD. Roll back all the music since the Earth welcomed humans walking uprighht all those centuries ago, and there’s a good chance that gospel exhortations would be among the earliest. As soon as voices rose high, it was thankfulness that cracked open the spirit. Now, all these years […]
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Charlie Winton – Shadowland Another Scott Mathews (Brian Wilson, Van Morrison) produced effort, recorded in Mill Valley, CA, showcases the raw-voiced Northern Californian-native Charlie Winton’s 8-cut Shadowland (Drops May 1/Independent/31:15). It starts with some vigorous music from the well-arranged & performed “Dreamin’s The Best.” By the time he slides into “Never Say Never” & “Shadowland,” […]
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Ryan Dart – If Love Don’t Break You This Colorado artist, raised in rural Arkansas, possesses a warm, distinctive voice & ignites with the opening title number “If Love Don’t Break You.” Ryan has a light touch with his music. Poignancy & sincerity are key factors. If Ryan were an artistic painter, he wouldn’t give […]
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Kacey Musgraves Middle of Nowhere From the first line of the first Kacey Musgraves song I ever heard – “Woke up on the wrong side of rock bottom,” from “Silver Linings,” the lead track on her 2013 debut, Same Trailer Different Park – I knew she was one of the good ones. In the dozen-ish […]
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Brian Cullman “How To Prepare For The Past” is a Satisfying Ride Through Music, Memory, and a Vanished World What a fun and wonderful thing it is to stumble into a book that doesn’t just tell stories about music, but also makes you feel like you’re right there in the room with a radio in […]
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Ben Musser Sentimental Fever Something different from a singer-songwriter. Instead of a folky, alt-country approach, Wyoming’s Ben Musser applies soulful vocals to a smooth blend of classic pop & soulful Americana spiked with middle-of-the-road threads. Different. His voice, while not as friendly as say, James Taylor has a rough-hewed, polished tone which only complements the […]
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Florence Dore Hold The Spark Character studies are the focus of Florence Dore’s 3rd LP (no relation to Charlie Dore, “Pilot of the Airwaves,” “Sleep All Day”). The Nashville-born, Chapel Hill, NC-based Americana artist has quite a cast of musicians adding to the festivities. The music cruises through mists of alt/rock, twangy country-rock, fanciful acoustic […]
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Reverend Freakchild – Blues & Spirituals/Hymn Hustler – 2 CDs This artist has kicked the musical can further & further down the musical road since 2001. With this ambitious framing, it’s actually his first 2 albums from 2001 & 2003 reincarnated, digitized, remastered & humanized as a new double set. Reverend Freakchild offers in one […]
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