Fireflies. June Bugs. Cicadas. Menthol Lights. Heirloom Tomatoes. Duke’s Mayonnaise. Cherokee Purples. American Aquarium frontman and songwriter BJ Barham knows that the smallest details often make for the most vivid memories.

Since her dense, varied, postmodernist eponymous second album illustrated that Sheryl Crow was no one-album wonder, she wasn't left with as much to prove the third time around. Having created an original variation on roots rock with Sheryl Crow, she was left with the dilemma of how to remain loyal to that sound without repeating herself on her third album, The Globe Sessions. To her credit, she never plays lazy, not when she's turning out Stonesy rockers ("There Goes the Neighborhood") or when she's covering Dylan (the remarkable "Mississippi," an outtake from Time Out of Mind).

With his sophomore effort for Dawn, everything came together for guitarist and songwriter Mike Cooper. Trout Steel established him as one of the pre-eminent players on the Brit folk and blues scenes. Given his organic approach to composing; his truly dazzling abilities with acoustic and slide guitars; and his predilection for just the right sidemen and arrangements, Cooper was among the most poised musicians of his generation, and Trout Steel proves the point time and again over its 11 tracks.

Shelby Lynne has followed her own sometimes reckless, always adventuresome muse throughout her career. Just a Little Lovin' is her personal homage to the late, legendary Dusty Springfield. Nine of its ten cuts are inextricably linked to the late British vocalist whose sway Lynne came under years ago, but a chance conversation with Barry Manilow – of all people – led to the making of this record. Lynne doesn't attempt to sound like Springfield.

Shelby Lynne has been seeking the place inside her music where everything cracks and opens for over a decade. From her Columbia Records debut, she has been writing and singing songs that seek to get underneath themselves and communicate something of the wildness, ambiguity, and emotional depth that is in the grain of her voice. Suit Yourself is a self-produced, loose, organic set of 12 new songs, ten of them originals.

Sie ist eine Power-Frauen der Country Music, vergleichbar mit einer Rhonda Vincent. Zwar steht Allison Moorer nicht so sehr im kommerziellen Rampenlicht, beeindruckt aber in vielleicht noch stärkerem Maße mit ihrem künstlerischem Durchsetzungsvermögen. Sie hat eine eigene Art entwickelt, ungewöhnliche Geschichten auf ebenso ungewöhnliche Art zu erzählen. Allison Moorer schreibt ihr Songs fast ausnahmslos selbst und trägt sie mit einer unter die Haut gehenden abwechslungsreichen Stimme vor.