Wow! This album is R.E.M's best album they've ever created. Loud and powerful! If you've ever listened or liked R.E.M. in the past, this is the album to get! Accelerate, the first studio album in four years from R.E.M., finds modern rock’s most acclaimed band returning to the stripped-down, loud, guitar-driven power just like Life's Rich Pagent.

Growing up, I listened to R.E.M. all the time (Green, Life's Rich Pagent, Automatic for the People, Out of Time, Eponymous), but I stopped when the Monster album came out ... they just went in another direction. R.E.M. is back!! Check out this album!

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss put out an album together - can you believe it? I was pleasantly surprised to hear "Killing the Blues", the same song I really like from Shawn Colvin's Live 88 album. The songs are very good, interesting and easy to listen. I also like "Please Read the Letter" as well as "Polly Come Home" which happens to be a a soft and easy-listening song.

I would classify it more like folk-rock with a little of country in it. But, maybe once or twice on the album, Robert does belt out a classic Led-Zep outburst such as the end of "Please Read the Letter".

Alison Krauss is also the producer of Nickel Creek's latest album, "Why Should the Fire Die?", which is great. I've seen them twice and both times were excellent shows. Will Robert and Alison tour? I sure hope so!

Lucinda Williams is one of my favorite singers. I went by myself to see her in concert at Orlando's Hard Rock Live and it was most definitely my favorite show of all time. Lucinda Williams in my opinion is one of the best American songwriters and has one of the greatest female voices in folk music.

See stepped on stage wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt and a cowboy hat, and had a very casual attitude. She talked with the crowd between every song, received roses, signed someone's guitar and played songs that were not part of the regular tour because she told the crowd she really enjoyed playing in Florida. She sang well past midnight playing many older songs from Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. The pictures are pictures from the show that night.

West is her new album, which Rolling Stone Magazine gave 4 out of 5 stars and is by far my favorite album in my entire CD collection. I think this year it will be nominated for a Grammy.

If you want to check out an album, I highly recommend Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1998 and is also on Rolling Stone magazine's top 500 list of albums.

Click here to watch her now on Austin City Limits

Steeleye Span
London Palladium, England - December 21, 2004

My second favorite show of all time was the Steeleye Span show in London. Tyler and I traveled all the way to London to see this show for Christmas. For a band that has been around for more than 35 years, they still know how to put on a great show! I did see Steeleye Span only once before in Massachusetts but that was when Gay Woods was the main singer because Maddy Prior was away from the band at that time. I still think of that moment when I saw Maddy Prior live for the first time step out on stage and sing her first note, it was amazing. The review the next day in the paper read: "But nobody can touch Prior: pure, genuine, a truly gorgeous voice."

Steeleye Span is an British electric folk/rock group formed in 1969 and is still together today. Their songs can be traditional folk songs or they can be hard rock, and everything in between. Many of the songs are actually folk-tales such as Tam Lin, an old story about a women who travels through the forest and is captured by the Queen of Fairies and to escape the forest, she must find the man she loves and hold on to him as he changes into many different things such as a snake and a wild-boar.

Music is a big part of my life ... I always have a CD playing while programming. I've seen everyone listed here live at least once except for June Tabor and the Oyster Band. Hmmm - maybe someday.

• Nanci Griffith - another great singer/songwriter I've seen live at least 10 times and one of my all-time favorites.
• Tracy Chapman - When it comes to live shows, my third favorite show of all time, Atlanta Georgia 1996 that I drove 7 hours to see. She's an angel.
• Counting Crows - What can I say ... Lyricallly, everything Adam Duritz writes is amazing. The CD New Amsterdam is excellent and I've probably played that more than any other CD I have.
• Xavier Rudd - When I was travelling to Australia, his music was piped in on one of the music channels on the plane. I was hooked, and since it was a 14 hour flight, I was able to listen to it over and over. I immediately bought the album when I returned home. I saw him in Los Angeles in January at Hard Rock Live ... great show!
• Richard Thompson - one of the best guitarist around, great song-writer and best seen live.
• Teddy Thompson - Great music, great voice! ... well, I like his mother and father just as much. (see above, Richard and Linda)
• Nickel Creek - I saw them do a 3-hour show at Janus Landing in St. Pete, but unfortunately they are breaking up this year.
• Fairport Convention - A British Folk/Rock band that has been around more than 35 years as well. Once a year, they put on an outdoor festival called Croperdy in Oxfordshire England which Tyler and I went to in 1995.
• Live - I was lucky to see them live back in 1998 when they were just starting out and were not the popular band that they are now. Their latest album, Songs from Black Mountain is excellent and one I play often.
  
• June Tabor - A jazz/folk singer from England with an amazing voice. The only person I've not seen yet in concert, maybe someday. Her boxed set is excellent! Check her out if you like Jazz and Folk music.
• Oysterband - Going to celebrate their 30th anniversary this year. Irish Folk Rock.