Town & Country October 2013

Elsinore are an adventurous pop group from Illinois whose music combines elements of folk-rock and alt-country as well as indie pop, the latter influence growing stronger as the group's history wears on. Elsinore were formed in 2004 when songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Ryan Groff, keyboard player and vocalist Mark Woolwine, and drummer and vocalist Dave Pride were all studying music at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL. The three classmates became friends, and as they discovered they had similar tastes in music, they got together to play open mike nights at Charleston night spots. The three became regulars on the local music scene, and after they met another EIU student, bassist and vocalist Chris Eitel, he joined the group and Elsinore was born.

"Drunk Americans," the first single from Toby Keith's 18th studio album, appeared in October 2014 but the accompanying 35 MPH Town didn't show up until a year later, a good indication that the single didn't perform as well as expected. Despite its alcoholic title – something of a tradition for Keith in the new millennium, where all seven singles subsequent to 2011's "Red Solo Cup" bar one have booze on the brain – "Drunk Americans" did suggest Keith was looking to break away from the slight electronic sheen of 2013's Drinks After Work, as it was the work of songwriters Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, and Bob DiPiero, a trio who represented a post-bro country vanguard.

Allan Taylor is one of England's most-respected singer/songwriters. His songs have been covered by artists on both sides of the Atlantic, including Don Williams, Frankie Miller, Fairport Convention, Dick Gaughan, the McCalmans, the Fureys, the Clancy Brothers, and De Dannan. Folk Roots praised him for his "ability to crystallize a mood and evoke an era with the ease of a computer memory access, crafting perfect songs with dramatic changes in the spirit of Brecht, Bikel, and Brel." The Oxford Book of Traditional Verse felt as strongly, writing that Taylor was "one of the most literate and sensitive of contemporary songwriters in terms of words and music and one who is capable of exploring more complex subjects than most of his contemporaries."

The Austrian Document Records label continues its series of CDs presenting Leadbelly's commercial recordings in chronological order from 1939 with this third volume, which picks up with a session for record company owner Moses Asch (whose label was now called Disc, but who would later found Folkways) probably held in October 1943, material issued on the album Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly (tracks one through six). The singer's contract with Asch was nonexclusive, and in February 1944 he returned to Musicraft Records (for which he had recorded in 1939) for sessions that resulted in the album Leadbelly Sings Ballads of Beautiful Women and Bad Men/With the Satin Strings (tracks seven through 14)…