John Prine

Long before Americana music had a name, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band helped lead the charge, mixing elements of country, bluegrass, folk, mountain music, and rock & roll into a sound that celebrated the full range of American music. With multi-platinum and gold records, strings of top ten hits such as "Fishin' In The Dark" and "Mr. Bojangles", multiple GRAMMY, IBMA, ACM Awards and nominations, CMA Awards and nominations, the band's accolades continue to accumulate.

Legacy Recordings will celebrate the 80th birthday of Kris Kristofferson with the June 10 release of The Complete Monument & Columbia Album Collection, a 16-CD deluxe box set.

This 2 CD set looks at the beginnings of country rock in the late 60s and follows it through the heady days of the 70s. Includes tracks both classic and rare from a stunning array of artists, including Gram Parsons, the Byrds, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Michael Nesmith and many more.

Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and film actor. He is known for such hits as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night". Kristofferson is the sole writer of most of his songs, and he has collaborated with various other figures of the Nashville scene such as Shel Silverstein. In 1985, Kristofferson joined fellow country artists Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash in forming the country music supergroup "The Highwaymen". In 2004, Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Collection includes: Kristofferson (1970); The Silver Tongued Devil And I (1971); Border Lord (1972); Jesus Was A Capricorn (1972); Breakaway (1974) with Rita Coolidge; A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand; Natural Act (1978) with Rita Coolidge; A Moment of Forever (1995); The Austin Sessions (1999); The Essential Kris Kristofferson (2004) 2CD; This Old Road (2006); Closer To The Bone (2009); Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends: The Publishing Demos 1968-72 (2010); Feeling Mortal (2012).

AMG:
As the follow-up to Low's universally acclaimed Things We Lost in The Fire, Trust comes with a set of expectations that might be impossible to meet. To the band's credit, Low doesn't just rehash the territory they covered on their previous album; instead, Trust goes in several different directions, mixing dark, sweeping epics with smaller, unpretentious songs and eclectic productions (courtesy of Tchad Blake) and arrangements. It's Low's most diverse work yet, but as it turns out, also their most uneven, which is somewhat surprising considering how their previous album was both consistently inventive and familiar. The chilly, almost ominous tone that pervades Trust is also something of a surprise, compared to the relatively optimistic Things We Lost in the Fire – the album-opener, "(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace," subverts one of the most reassuring hymns, offering only the cold comfort of twangy guitars and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker's close, tentative harmonies. The band follows that song with "Canada," which, with its dense, fuzzed-out guitars and propulsive drums, is the most rock song they've ever done, and especially unique considering the electronic leanings Low displayed awhile ago. Most of Trust follows this pattern, alternating a slow, sinuous song with a brighter or lighter one.

Jerry Williams’—aka Swamp Dogg—first love was country music, listening to it as a Navy family kid growing up in Portsmouth, Virginia. “My granddaddy, he just bought country records out the asshole,” Swamp remembers. “Every Friday when he came home from the Navy yard he’d stop off and get his records, like ‘Mule Train’ by Frankie Laine, or ‘Riders in the Sky’ by Vaughn Monroe.” His first time performing on stage, in fact, was a country song at a talent show when he was six years old: “I did Red Foley’s version of ‘Peace in the Valley.’”

Jerry Williams’—aka Swamp Dogg—first love was country music, listening to it as a Navy family kid growing up in Portsmouth, Virginia. “My granddaddy, he just bought country records out the asshole,” Swamp remembers. “Every Friday when he came home from the Navy yard he’d stop off and get his records, like ‘Mule Train’ by Frankie Laine, or ‘Riders in the Sky’ by Vaughn Monroe.” His first time performing on stage, in fact, was a country song at a talent show when he was six years old: “I did Red Foley’s version of ‘Peace in the Valley.’”

Kris Kristofferson is pictured smiling in sunglasses on the cover of Jesus Was a Capricorn, accompanied by his girlfriend and soon-to-be-wife Rita Coolidge. The album followed his previous LP, Border Lord, by only nine months and was his fourth album to be released within two-and-a-half years, which meant that a man who had struggled for half a decade to get anybody to listen to his songs was now writing and recording them as fast as he could. Not surprisingly, he was having trouble filling the pipeline; he borrowed the melody of John Prine's "Grandpa Was a Carpenter" for the title song and even recorded a cover song for the first time, performing a duet with Larry Gatlin on Gatlin's "Help Me."

Maggie Bell's beautiful voice rings true in this, her first solo album, originally released in 1974.