In Heavy Rotation

Unlike Cousing Don, I rarely play entire albums anymore. So here are 5 songs I have been listening to quite a bit recently on the iPod. Each link has a soundbite somewhere on the page:

1. NRBQ - Riding in My Car. Is there a more clever, listenable, and engaging band than NRBQ circa 1978? Not that I've heard. I still think about them when I'm riding in my car.

2. Widespread Panic - Coconut. I don't normally go for these free-form Grateful Dead style jam session songs, but "Coconut" is too much fun to ignore.
I like coconuts
You can break them open
They smell like ladies lying in the sun.

Indeed.

3. Nanci Griffith - Goodnight to a Mother's Dream. A beautiful, spare, folk ballad with heart breaking lyrics:

Mother, to tell you the truth,
I would trade your dream away,
Just to hear some loved one say,
I love you, too.

*sob*

4. Lucinda Williams - Hot Blood. Again, I don't have much blues in my little tune collection, but this song has a terrific blues riff. And what a voice.

5. Alison Krauss and Union Station - Restless. Grammy award winning bluegrass. Follow the link for the NPR Morning Edition piece on the band.