Formed in Belleville, Illinois, USA in 1987, Uncle Tupelo revolved around childhood friends and songwriters Jeff Tweedy (b. USA) and Jay Farrar (b. Belleville, Illinois, USA). Primarily influenced by punk, then the blue-collar folk and country of Gra…

Featuring Eleventh Dream Day drummer Janet Bean and her songwriting foil, Catherine Irwin, 1990s and 2000s Chicago country ensemble Freakwater has a considerably more traditional and reverential approach to roots music than one would expect from a ba…

b. 10 September 1950, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Flores' background accounts for the strong Mexican influence in her brand of country music. When she was 12 years old, her family moved to San Diego, California, and she subsequently became part of an al…

b. 8 September 1970, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Now based in Tacoma, Washington, country singer Case's itinerant childhood saw her moving between various locations throughout the USA and Canada. She took up drumming in her late teens, playing with se…

The Handsome Family, essentially a husband-and-wife duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks, started out in the mid-1990s as part of the Chicago alt-country scene. They specialize in moody, gothic-tinged songs full of macabre, old-world imagery influenced by …

Formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985, the Knitters were a spin-off of the seminal punk band X. The Knitters comprised X members Exene Cervenka (b. Christine Cervenka, 1 February 1956, Chicago, Illinois, USA; vocals), John Doe (b. John Nommensen …

The majority of bands to emerge from New York City, USA during the late 90s seemed to all be cut from the same musical cloth (namely 70s era CBGB's bands such as Talking Heads, the Ramones and Television), but there were exceptions to the rule, such …

Chapel Hill NC-based insurgent country band Trailer Bride was led by singersongwriter Melissa Swingle a onetime member of the all-female trio Pussy Teeth Following that bands demise Swingle switched from bass to guitar began writing songs and formed …

Although they contain a set core of band members, the Chicago, Illinois, USA-based country/roots rock outfit, the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, often rely on special guests for their recordings. Formed during the mid-90s, the band features full-timers Jon …

b. 1 October 1968, Annandale, Oklahoma, USA. An Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter, Kelly Willis was signed by MCA Records' country division in 1990 and widely embraced by critics as a torchbearer for "new traditionalism'. Willis played in her fir…

After nearly two decades as a singer in various Seattle-area pop and roots rock bands Christy McWilson finally released her solo debut The Lucky One in 2000 McWilson first recorded in the early 80s as one-third of the girl group pastiche the Dynette …

This Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA-based quartet is built around the songwriting talents of Shawn Barton (guitar/vocals) and Tonya Lamm (guitar/vocals). Barton grew up in Florida, studying at the University of Florida under the influential southern no…

Equally comfortable with indie rock traditional country and jazz pop Georgia-based singersongwriter Kelly Hogan explored all of those directions and more in her career As the singerguitarist for the Jody Grind in the early 90s Hogan made a name for h…

Canadian alt-country singersongwriter Carolyn Mark was born and raised in Sicamous British Columbia growing up on her familys dairy farm Taught piano by her father himself an accomplished violinist in 1991 she surfaced as a member of the Victoria BC-…

Led by vocalist Jo Walston and songwriterguitarist Bill Anderson the insurgent country band the Meat Purveyors hailed from Austin Texas After signing to the Bloodshot label the group issued their debut LP Sweet in the Pants in early 1998 More Songs A…

From her early days in the post-punk group Neon Vein and the industrial outfit Ethyl Meatplow to her later work with the Geraldine Fibbers Scarnella and on her own Carla Bozulichs eclectic music is united by an honesty and intensity that is often unf…

b. San Antonio, Texas, USA. The younger sister of Steve Earle, Stacey grew up in an affluent middle class home in southern Texas, the daughter of an air traffic controller father and property administrator mother. Often the siblings would run away to…

When her debut album appeared in 1996, Gillian Welch was a marked contrast to her contemporaries. Miles removed from the Lilith Fair generation, Welch offered a willfully anachronistic sound deeply rooted in the traditions of bluegrass, folk, and old…