A 8tracks of selections, the song I included is in bold after the title.

Country/Folk/Rock/Blues
Between the Whiskey and the Wine by Miss Leslie (Between the Whiskey and the Wine) 2008 release. Hard core honky tonking.
Undone: A Musicfest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen by Various Artists - Right Ave Records (Corpus Christie Bay Darren Kozelsky) Listen to the original instead. It's not bad, quite pleasant but most tribs fall into the "listen to the originals" basket for me. A good new REK original performed by him though.
Live at the Palladium in NYC, New Years '77 by Levon Helm and The RCO All Stars (Got My Mojo Working) Featuring Dr John, Paul Butterfield, Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper. Details here. It's a little ropey in a too-many-cooks sort of way but exuberant and definately worth checking out if you are a fan of that whole crew.
Animal Party by The King Khan & BBQ Show (Animal Party)
Haymaker! by The Gourds (All the Way to Jericho) This is very nice in a background kind of way, I don't know why the Gourds rarely stay long in my head but I enjoy it at time of listening.
Broken Dreams by Eleven Hundred Springs
Home by Delaney & Bonnie (It's Been a Long Time Coming and Just Plain Beautiful) On the occasion of Delaney Bramlett's death, Mojo online highlighted this 1969 disc (and it's on Stax, and thus on eMu) and it's my January download I probably listened to the most -- 56 times in whole or part according to last.fm, which doesn't include iPod time. It combines the sort of bouncy backporch jamming sound of The Band and that era's country-rock with the soul of Stax, and thus combines two of my favourite things. Most things I have in this ballpark are country-rock with some soul, whereas this is a soul album with those other things creeping round the edges. I like the term "prairie-funk" in that Mojo story. I need more prairie-funk! I'm pretty familiar with the "Further Listening" they list there, but they're not quite the same to my ears.
Adam Carroll Live by Adam Carroll (Erroll's Song)
Early Tracks Volume 1 by Howie Epstein (Simple Conversations) Collection of lofi bedroom demos from the early 1970s by the late muso who played with too many people to mention. Was my last download so I need more time but early listens promising. But you would expect nothing but quality from someone who played bass on Knocked Out Loaded.
For The Love by Tracy Lawrence
Shapes Of Things by Jeff Beck (Mr. You're A Better Man Than I) The presence of original 60s stuff like this is a bit patchy on eMu because they're mostly major label but there's a fair bit of quality early Yardbirds and this Jeff Beck collection which covers the essentials (not that I'm an expert.) This is sort of where you really miss the liner notes with digital downloads because I'm not at all sure what is what and where and when, the people at Amazon say its post-Yardbirds but "Mr You're a Better Man Than I" and "Heart Full of Soul" sure sound like the 'birds originals with Keith Relf on vocals to me so I don't know. None of which stops me enjoying listening to it.
Tuva Rock by Yat Kha (Amdy Baryp and Khandagaity)
I have to thank Andre in comments for the tip on this one. I reaally love this album, a pretty perfect blend of Tuvan sounds -- the throat singing but also the other traditional musical streams and rock. The other Yat Kha album there is one of covers, including a Hank Williams song that sort of creeped me out. I want to get it but I have to psychologically work up to it.
We Can Get Together by Sean Costello (Going Home)
Sean Costello was a promising young Atlanta bluesman when he died suddenly last year. Drugs I think, silly boy. This is a tremendous album that I also listened to on high rotation this month -- blues-rock with a side of soul and gospel, he has a distinctive honey-and-whiskey kind of voice that appeals.
Jazz/Funk/Eartha
The Space Book by Booker Ervin
Eartha Kitt in Person at the Plaza by Eartha Kitt (How Could You Believe Me?)
Spiritual Jazz by Various (Paul's Ark, Morris Wilson Beau Bailey Quintet)
The Best of Jazzman Records (Web Exclusive) by Various Artists (Send in the Clowns, Lorez Anderson)
Fiyo At The Fillmore Volume 1 by The Meters
Introducing The Tinh Nguyen Quartet by Thinh Nguyen Quartet
Bach 2000 by David Matthews And The Manhattan Jazz Orchestra (Air on the G String) Jazz interpretation of Bach pieces. Why not?
This Is What We Do by The New Mastersounds (The Tin Drum feat. Sam Bell)
At The 5 Spot, Vol. 1 [ RVG ] by Eric Dolphy
Sample My Funky Groove by Various Artists

The list at Shock Records. Thanks to Cat Politics. The Factory, which resides conveniently in the same suburb as FEM HQ, is tiny.

Two of my favourite Crowell numbers. Til I Gain Control Again. Didn't know there was a video for I Walk The Line (Revisited). Cash rerecorded his vocals for it so it's a bit weird seeing/hearing them paired with a Sun era self. Couldn't make the studio that day I guess.

I mentioned in my Justin Townes Earle at the Annandale rave that he did a new song about his parents. A studio version is now up at the Bloodshot site. (direct link to MP3 -- this link was wrong, fixed now) From his new album out March which far, far, far too long away. Just ... wow.

Hat tip No Depression. Also see there for info on a new Buddy and Julie Miller record.

I didn't get reminded to check this out until I kept seeing it turn up on year end lists, but Jamey Johnson's That Lonesome Song should retrospectively make my Best of 08 list. ALTHOUGH the true mavens, like at The 9513, excluded it from 08 since it was actually self released digitally in 07 (it made their 2007 best list) -- but then got picked up by Mercury and put out with all the trimmings last year. It qualifies for Grammys this year so I'll go with that and the rest of the world.

There are two instant classics on it for mine, "In Color" and most especially "The High Cost of Living." I think "Between Jennings and Jones" tries a little hard but is a good addition to the pomo self-ref country hagiography cannon, and the rest of the songs are extremely solid.

"The High Cost of Living" -- one of my faves of the year -- is a genre piece in its chronicle-from-jail of debauchery and a wasted life, with the modern twist of being six minutes long and blaming 8 balls instead of Jose Cuervo. The best version on teh tube cannot be embeddened but watch/listen here. I believe all this is autobiographical but I won't go into the gossip. Do I look like TMZ?

That southern Baptist parking lot
Is where I'd go to smoke my pot
Sit there in my pickup truck and pray
Staring at that giant cross
Just reminded me that I was lost
And it just never seemed to point the way

My whole life went through my head
Layin' in that motel bed
Watchin' as the cops kicked in the door

Love that shitkicker's existentialism on that last verse there.

"In Color" is a more country radio friendly song mining/milking the traditional themes of nostagia and the honourable lives of old folks. But it's a good 'un.

"This Land is Your Land", Lincoln Memorial.

DON'T CRY, I know you're a bunch of damn old hippies.

Apparently HBO is being assiduously frakwitted in issuing takedowns of these Inauguration concert vids so be warned it may suddenly disappear. (YouTube rendition!) Also, make sure your irony metre is sitting down.

Bonus classic Boss on same song:

Been listening to the new Marianne Faithfull long player, Easy Come Easy Go. I am going to jump straight to track 10 -- "Sing Me Back Home" with Keith Richards on harmony. A bit of music nerd fan fiction that is, the seamless colliding of a couple different musical-historical slipstreams. Keith and his history with the song via Gram*, his own haunting version from Toronto drug bust boot (that link is YouTube. I put up the MP3 for download at the end of the entry), the whole Marianne bio. Keith provides ghostly harmony on the chorus and some other words/phrases (plus guitar) and I spent a good while fiddling with the equaliser in iTunes to boost the vocals so I could cop a better listen. Their voices spiral towards each other like the smoke from two cigarettes, if you listen closely to the edges of Keith's phrases curl around Marianne's. Of course it's one of the greatest country songs, and she can sound a bit cabaret but always sincere. Marianne Faithfull as death row wretch works, but of course it is the almost-lullabyish promises of the chorus which make it a favourite for interpreting.

For the rest, on the concept and guests I'll just quote from the official blub:

All the songs have been chosen by Marianne and Hal [Wilner], and range from Billie Holiday's "Solitude" to "The Crane Wife" by current band The Decemberists. Other tracks are "Sing Me Back Home" by Merle Haggard, "Children of Stone" by Espers, the title track " Easy Come, Easy Go Blues" by Bessie Smith, Morrissey's "God Please Help Me", Dolly Parton's "Down from Dover " and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Salvation". Easy Come, Easy Go also includes some interesting guest vocalists; Keith Richards appears on the aforementioned "Sing Me Back Home" Antony Hegarty on "Oo Baby Baby" and Jarvis Cocker on Sondheim's "Somewhere". Other guest appearances on the album come from Rufus Wainwright who contributes powerful vocals to "Children of Stone"' while his aunt and mother Kate and Anna McGarrigle enchant on the "The Flandyke shore". Warren Ellis plays his magic violin on 3 songs, and Nick Cave lends some vocals to "The Crane Wife". Sean Lennon and Teddy Thompson play guitar on a couple of the tracks, and Cat Power harmonizes on "Hold On, Hold On".

Not mentioned there, a cover of Randy Newman's creepy "In Germany Before the War."

I listened to it first without knowing much about the all star cast except for Keith, and it's a testament to the balanced production that I'd think "hm, that's interesting. I wonder who that is, if anybody" and want to look it up, rather than have the guesters smother the song with their presence. The exception to that would by the Smokey Robinson cover "Oo Baby" with Antony doing a wild R 'n' B thing but that's not a bad thing,Marianne Faithfull is allowed to get wild. Especially as the very frst track on the album is Dolly Parton's super-uber-tragic-miserydrama "Down from Dover." I think I'd prefer more restraint on the horns in this one, but it works better than I thought it would. Marianne Faithfull's voice is nothing if not the product of hard-won maturity, and the key to the song is the naivety of the teenage narrator (Dolly can sing it these days and still pass vocally for 18 more or less), but she made me believe. Other highlight's off the top of my head, the folk ballady "The Crane Wife 3" and "Flandyke Shore" and the playful jazzy excursions of the title track and "Black Coffee."

There aren't any songs on it I haven't liked, and I've been playing it mot of today back to back. I'm referring to the 2 disc version, there's also a 1 disc one that doesn't have all these songs.

* Good post. Deserves revisiting. As does that DVD.

MP3: Keith Richards, 1977 23-Sing-Me-Back-Home.mp3

I had cause to look at Lucinda Williams' official site just now to check a discographical detail and noticed that the "coverflow" display features a photo I took and put here. I suppose I have right click saved a lot of Lost Highway photos over the years so I will magnanimously call it even. ;-)

Singer, producer, helluva multi-instrumentalist Marty Stuart is well known not just for his own hits and collaborations but for efforts in documenting and preserving country music history and culture. For a while now he's been doing The Marty Stuart Show on some US cable station, and has put the innertubes to good use providing various videos and a show run down so we can have a slice of it too. It's a nudie suited, star spangled and straw bedecked hoe down in the Hee Haw tradition,and so far has featured guests like Charley Pride, Old Crow Medicine Show and Earl Scruggs. Plus regualrs, his band The Fabulous Superlatives and Connie Smith. In good conscience I cannot endorse banjo-playing comedians. The album Country Music is one of my favourites, and you can't go wrong with his recent concept albums Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota, Soul's Chapel and The Pilgrim, nor the older neo-trad TravisTritt collabs. He has one of the most goose-bumpy voice around today and he can even tempt Our Keith back home from the pop fauxtry of his current incarnation.

I'll embed this clip, with Earl Scruggs, but if you can spare the bandwidth go to the YouTube page and click "watch in high quality", it makes a lot of difference.

So I have these podcasts for this running programme thingy and the music is mostly doof doofy, which is fine as far as it goes. Gets the job done but I decided to make some mixes of my own music in Garage Band. I went through this whole thing of trying to break down the BPM appropriately, but I swear you guys, that is so complicated. I gave up and just chose "exercisey sounding" music in my collection already. It's a bit doof doof, but it's my doof doof. The only really twangy song is Ryan Bingham's Bread and Water but I'll put more effort into finding appropriate country things for the next installment. I have a track from Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier but on reflection it has a rather ... Benny Hill vibe and sort of weirds me out.

So of course I did an 8tracks of the songs I used. Curiously, I put more time/effort into the music than I ever do into the running.

Today, y'all.

And remember Flop Eared Mule's motto: 70s Elvis is the best Elvis! TCB FTW.
I might go to the Elvis tribute at the Annandale this Sunday.