Chris Gaffney "Road To Indio" (1986)
The first solo album by guitarist/songwriter Chris Gaffney... Long out-of-print, it has been reissued on CD on the Live And Then Some collection, listed below.

Chris Gaffney "Chris Gaffney & The Cold Hard Facts" (1989)

Chris Gaffney "Mi Vida Loca" (Hightone, 1992)

Chris Gaffney "Man Of Somebody's Dreams" (1994)

Chris Gaffney "Loser's Paradise" (Hightone, 1995)
(Produced by Dave Alvin)

Chris Gaffney "Live & Then Some" (Tres Pescadores, 1999)
A 2-CD set including a reissue of Gaffney's first studio album, Road To Indio.

Chris Gaffney/Various Artists "THE MAN OF SOMEBODY'S DREAMS: A TRIBUTE TO CHRIS GAFFNEY" (Yep Roc, 2009)

Sue Garner & Angel Dean "Pot Liquor" (Diesel Only, 2004)
An interesting, modernized reworking of Carter Family-style harmonies and old-fashioned country murder ballads, along with some moody lo-fi instrospection. Sounds a lot like Freakwater, with maybe less of a rough edge, and while the subject matter tends to be bleak, it suits the music well. Nice stuff, though it might fit more into the "rock" side of the altie equation.

Jeremy Garrett "I Am A Stranger" (Sugar Hill, 2009)
(Produced by Jeremy Garrett)
A solo album from the fiddler and singer of the Infamous Stringdusters... A nice, mellow mix of subdued, melodic truegrass and plaintive honky-tonk heartsongs, hearkening back to the sweeter, slower stuff by folks such as Jean Shepard and Webb Pierce. The best modern comparison might be to Ricky Skaggs, showing the same heartfelt appreciation for the sentimental side of old-fashioned twang. Garrett might not be the most powerful vocalist, but he's a mighty fine fiddler and clearly an accomplished student of hillbilly roots music. Nice stuff -- definitely worth checking out!

Anna Garrott "Only Time Will Tell" (Blue Steel, 2010)
(Produced by Rick Holt)
An independently produced album by an artist who sometimes tilts towards more commercial country, but seems comfortable with showing her indiebilly side as well. Garrott has a mousy little voice (the kind of mousy voice I like) which is perhaps best suited to smaller-scale production, but is pretty appealing on most of this album. About half the tracks were written by guitarist-producer Rick Holt, so I suppose it's as much a songwriter's demo as an artist debut; it's sometimes uneven, but the good tracks are strong. The set includes a couple of songs about domestic violence and related issues, including "Pink Roses" and "Only Time Will Tell," both co-written by Holt. Worth checking out.

Mary Gauthier "Dixie Kitchen" (The Orchard, 1999)

Mary Gauthier "Drag Queen In Limousines" (In The Black, 1999)
A striking, strikingly downcast set of well-crafted Americana ballads. The title track is an acerbic recollection of high school days in the South, with various brands of freaks running around, getting high or drunk any which way they can. Even more forceful is Gauthier's tribute to Karla Faye Tucker, the Texas convict whose death sentence became a national issue, particularly when (then Governor) George W. Bush refused to commute her sentence. Gauthier tells the story of Tucker's heroin addiction, the drug-fueled murder that sent her to prison, and of the jailhouse conversion that made her a devout born-again Christian, and finally of the hardness of heart that Texas justice provided. Most of the songs on here are similarly downer-iffic, though several, like "Lucky Stars," have a soft touch that shows the hand of a masterful songwriter... Comparisons to Lucinda Williams are inevitable, and Gauthier more than holds her own, infusing her songs with a similar white-hot intensity and glum, reflective passion... This is a very impressive album, with plenty of emotion backed by very solid songcraft... Recommended!

Mary Gauthier "Filth & Fire" (Signature Sounds, 2003)
A super-mournful, entropy-ridden set of alt.country sadcore, heavily laced with themes of ruefullness and thwarted redemption. With Gauthier's connection to Gurf Morlix (he produced and played on this album) I made the inevitable Lucinda Williams comparison, then found my thoughts drifting to the similarly mopey, spiritually-inclined Canadian folksinger, Ferron, and finally was able to hear Gauthier as her own artistic voice. She's pretty downerific, and the religious bent of this album can also be a little offputting (although Gauthier's not so much proselytizing as lamenting her own perpetual fall from grace, also potentially alienating for the casual listener...) Her songs are well-crafted, although not necessarily melody-driven: fans of the late Townes Van Zandt will probably find a lot to cheer about here. Good stuff, kinda high-concept and forlorn, but gritty, engaging and intelligent as well.

Mary Gauthier "Mercy Now" (Lost Highway, 2005)
This album has been hailed, rightly, as a modern-day Americana masterpiece. I'd recommend you skip the opening track, a plodding, interminable piece of Gothic twangery, derived from the Townes Van Zandt/Robert Earl Keen school of lofty 'billy poetics -- I know some folks love that kind of highbrow stuff, but it strikes me as unnecessarily dreary and difficult to slog through. I, for one, don't need to hear anybody sing dense, impenetrable songs to prove that roots music is "real art" -- I already know it is -- but if they can craft a few concise, well-chiseled stanzas and wed them to a memorable melody, well then I'm happy as a clam. Fortunately, Gauthier hasn't lost her touch in this regard, and this record is also packed with the same sort of deftly drawn songs that wowed me on her earlier albums... Songs like "Mercy Now," "Your Sister Cried" and "I Drink" are compact gems crafted with the same level of skill as Guy Clark or Lucinda Williams (back when she was still keeping things simple...) That's mighty high praise in my book, and sure enough, this record has stood up to several auditions and just keeps sounding better each time I listen. Produced by the ubiquitous Gurf Morlix, this has a streamlined simplicity and light melodic touch that'll keep you coming back for more... Recommended!

Mary Gauthier "Between Daylight And Dark" (Lost Highway, 2007)
So, like, is Ms. Gauthier in competition with labelmate Lucinda Williams to be the biggest, saddest bummer queen in Americana music today? I'm a big fan of Gauthier's skills as a songsmith, but while the quality of writing remains high here, the emotional tenor is unrelentingly and repetitively bleak. I found this a difficult album to get into -- the half dozen tracks that open it have ostensibly different topics, but the tone and the message is always the same: life is hard, life sucks, I'm not having fun and, really, neither are you. As the album title implies, the weary voices in her songs arise from Limbo, a joyless purgatory where nothing ever changes: life is hard, life sucks, I'm not having fun and, really, neither are you. It isn't until midway through that a sliver of hope appears, as she utters the words, "it's okay," and while the clouds don't entirely clear, at least the songs start to sound a little different from each other. The set closes with "Thanksgiving," a bitter working-class dirge about a family's holiday visit to a convict in prison -- with the oblique sadness channeled into anger, it actually is one of the more uplifting songs on the album. Fans of well-crafted, highbrow Americana will appreciate this record, although the utter lack of levity or reprieve may make it rough going for most of us.

Geraldine Fibbers "Geraldine Fibbers" (EP) (Virgin, 1994)
This 6-song EP convincingly blends a mild, atonal twang with arch, John Cale-style, artsy-fartsy, punky-wunky rock'n'roll drone... It's less blaring and more melodic than some of their other stuff, and while I wasn't initially drawn to it, it does have more depth than your average twangcore disc, and bears up to repeated listens. Plus, they get major extra points for covering both George Jones' "The Tour" and Bobbie Gentry's "Fancy," with a little Rolling Stones "Sympathy For The Devil" interpolation thrown in towards the end... All these songs were later included on the What Part Of... album that came out a few years later. Definitely worth a spin or two! (Oh, and it has a hidden "mystery track," too! Remember those? How darling.)

Geraldine Fibbers "Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home" (Virgin, 1995)

Geraldine Fibbers "Live At The Bottom Of The Hill" (Virgin, 1996)

Geraldine Fibbers "Butch" (Virgin, 1997)

Geraldine Fibbers "What Part Of Get Thee Gone Don't You Understand?" (Sympathy For The Music Industry, 1997)

Geraldine Fibbers -- see also: Carla Bozulich; Scarnella

Neil Getz "Factory Second" (Agillator, 2011)
(Produced by Neil Getz)
An enjoyable, playful mix of folkie twang and power-pop, featuring half-rueful, half-novelty, quite clever lyrics, along with catchy, kooky melodies and a puckish sense of fun. This Berkeley, CA uber-indie singer-songwriter reminds me quite a bit of Richard Thompson... And I mean that in a good way! A little less twangy than my usual Americana diet, but definitely worth checking out.

Eliza Gilkyson - see artist discography

Tom Gillam "First Of All" (1999)

Tom Gillam "Dallas" (Gotham, 2001)
Country-rock with nice, punchy melodic hooks, draped over rambling, unruly, sometimes rather wordy tunes. This Philadelphia-based cowpoke unapologetically embraces the high, bright, energetic sound of '70s rockers like Jackson Browne or the Eagles... I think overall that his lyrics could use a little pruning back, and the production could be toned down a little, but this is still an impressive sounding disc -- with an audacious self-assurance, and more than the usual level of substance to back it up. Worth checking out, though maybe a little too rockin' for my tastes...

Tom Gillam "Shake My Hand" (95 North, 2004)

Tom Gillam "Never Look Back" (Treehouse, 2007)
(Produced by Joe Carroll)
Rich, good-natured retro-Southern rock with a light, mellow, playful feel; more Joe Walsh-y than Black Crowes-ish. If you appreciate that kind of old-fashioned, electrified twang, you might enjoy this album as well. Gillam's band, Tractor Pull, plug in and play loud, but they aren't too deathly serious about it -- they just like those rich, harmony-drenched power chords; you might too!

Colin Gilmore "4 Of No Kind" (EP) (Self-Released, 2002)

Colin Gilmore "The Day The World Stopped And Spun The Other Way" (Squirmy, 2004)
An impressive debut by Colin (son of Jimmie Dale) Gilmore, who busts out of Texas with a perky mix of ebullient indie rock and real, rootsy twang. Sir Douglas himself woulda been proud. There's a nice set of original tunes, and some cool covers (Terry Allen's "The Beautiful Waitress" and the classic Clash song, "White Man In Hammersmith Palais," played pretty much straight, as heard in the '77 original...) There is a noticeable vocal similarity between father and son, but not so much so that it overshadows Colin in any way. Indeed, he's very much his own artist, and with a catchy first album like this, I'm hoping we'll hear plenty more from him... very, very soon.

Colin Gilmore "Black Wine" (EP) (Self-Released, 2008)

Colin Gilmore "Goodnight Lane" (Self-Released, 2010)

Jimmie Dale Gilmore - see artist discography

Gin Palace Jesters "Honky Tonk Fools" (Rhythm Bombs, 2005)

The Gin Palace Jesters "Roadhouse Riot" (Self-Released, 2007)
(Produced by Dave Sisson)
Now, see, these folks are talking my language!! This is fun, good, old-fashioned hillbilly music, mixing a few well-chosen oldies with a slew of fine originals, mainly written by lead vocalist Dave Sisson (who is one talented fellow...) Two songs won me over right away: their cover of an old Jim & Jesse classic, "Are You Missing Me" (a longtime favorite of mine, originally written by the Louvin Brothers) and "Ol' Webb's Bullhorn Pontiac," a fine tribute to my hero, the late, great Webb Pierce, who was the first artist I profiled on this site, lo, those many years ago. I mean, golly, what else can I say? I'm sold! I've been hearing about these guys for a while now, and I'm glad I finally got to check them out... They've been called one of Chicago's best alt-country bands -- I think that can be upgraded to one of the finest bands around, period. Fans of Dave & Deke and other retro-hick bands will definitely want to check these guys out... They're the real deal! (Available through the band's website at: www.ginpalacejesters.com )

The Giving Tree Band "Unified Folk Theory" (Crooked Creek, 2007)
(Produced by Eric Fink)
Amiable, optimistic, eco-billy hippie-folk with a bluegrass base -- plenty of mandolin and acoustic guitar, gentle, wistful lyrics, a bit of blues, a lot of lazy, easygoing pickin' and general hangin' out. This 2-CD set has a sincere homegrown charm to it: these guys from Chicago certainly aren't superpickers, but these days, in a world awash with note-perfect truegrass supergroups, it's kind of nice to hear some folks who are just kickin' back and making music, just having fun. Also, they're idealists: for each album they sell, they're donating two bucks to a nonprofit called Hand To Hand USA which provides humanitarian aid for a drought-stricken region of India. (Also available through the band's website at: www.thegivingtreeband.com )

The Giving Tree Band "Great Possessions" (Crooked Creek, 2009)

The Giving Tree Band "The Joke, The Threat, And The Obvious" (Crooked Creek, 2010)

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Hick Music Index

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