Country
Louis Fowler
Sincerity is nearly dead in songwriting. The image of the earnest singer with eyes tightly shut and a crack in his voice as he plunges to emotional depths has become a joke.

Country
Louis Fowler
When something really catches my ear, I tend to imagine it in the closing credits of a movie, and then I work backward, formulating a plot and actors. “Never Gonna Be Enough,” the opening track on Red Dirt rockers No Justice’s latest, America's Son, had me doing that within 10 seconds.

Country
Louis Fowler
Sometimes, irony can come back to bite you on the ass.

Country
Joshua Boydston
Few musicians ever get the chance to forge their own path, blazing musical territory previously unexplored. Stillwater singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave is one of them, helping etch out a place for the Red Dirt genre within the scope of American music.

Country
Joshua Boydston
Just a few minutes into Incommunicado, it becomes painfully obvious that Oklahoma native Chad Sullins knows his Red Dirt, country, classic rock and blues, and he blends them into the perfect barn-party soundtrack. The album plays like The Hangover set in Stillwater instead of Vegas, with all the emotions, amusement and reflections therein.

Country
Phil Bacharach
On Goodbye Normal Street, their third full-length album, Turnpike Troubadours serve up a potent brew of country, bluegrass, folk and even Creole (just to kick it up a notch). The quintet from Stillwater produces music that’s straightforward and simple, but hardly simplistic.

Country
Matt Carney
Carter Sampson’s voice and subject matter are too sweet to get lumped in with those rough ’n’ tumble Red Dirt boys, but instrumentally, her “Mockingbird Sing” isn’t far off.

Country
Matt Carney
“Down the Hatch” is an important debut release for more than just the duo of Gabriel Marshall and Bryon White, who go by The Damn Quails. It’s indie label 598 Recordings’ (Chance Sparkman and Mike McClure) first long player, and a product of a prodigious amount of homegrown talent.

Country
Matt Carney
As if the man born Hiram King Williams’ influence on country music (and all subsequently affected genres, particularly rock ’n’ roll) wasn’t already completely obvious and seminal, the long-dead crooner had to go and scribble a bunch more terrific songs about heartbreak and loneliness into his diary, just to remind us of his ownership of the subject matter even generations after he died.

Country
Stephen Carradini
The Point Blank Band is a tight unit, as each member contributes to its hot country sound. The title track and opener features great bass and guitar work, a neat fiddle part, and Mike Novotny’s welcoming vocals, which deliver memorable, ear-catching melodies.

Country
Stephen Carradini
Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Kyle’s “We Still Love Our Country” follows a very simple formula: Beautiful female vocals + easygoing male vocals + country standards + gentle acoustic-based accompaniment = an album of duets that’s an absolute gem, because they found an excellent plan and stuck with it for a wonderful half-hour.

Country
Stephen Carradini
Oklahoma City’s The Workweek follows The Jayhawks and Wilco in making the lines between folk, country and rock negligible on its debut release, “Promises, Promises.”

Country
Stephen Carradini
Average must be the most frustrating thing to be labeled.

Country
Rod Lott
Last week saw the release of “The Best of Leon Russell,” a 16-track collection of the Oklahoma native’s biggest hits of the 1970s, plus one song from last year’s collaborative album with Elton John.

Country
Stephen Carradini
At this point, Alison Krauss is impervious to criticism.