Osburnt: Dispatches From a Life Seared by the Arts

  • Lera Lynn

    Lera Lynn

    Start with her name and her voice. They both speak of country and its close cousins folk and Americana. The name implies a pedigree that, so far as I know, is coincidental (assuming it is not a stage name: other than that she is from Georgia and went to certain schools, her available bios are,…

  • Blues for Dixie

    Blues for Dixie

    It should not have surprised me that Allison Moorer singing about the South brought tears to my eyes. Indiana, where I was born, and St. Louis, where I went to fourth grade, are more Southern than is obvious from the map. A strain of my ancestry runs through Virginia and Kentucky, and the nursery years…

  • Neko Case

    Neko Case

    I think it was around 13 years ago that I saw Neko Case perform in a narrow, smoke-filled dive in downtown Albuquerque. The sound system was bad, the drinks were worse, the bar food even more so. I squeezed up the stairway to nab a stool with a good sightline, and brushed shoulders with a…

  • Iris Dement

    Iris Dement

    I have changed since last I heard Iris Dement live, sometime in the late ‘90s soon after the release of what, until now, was her last album of original songs. She was for me in that decade the premier artist of that conglomeration of bluegrass, gospel, country, acoustic protest, blues, and anthemic individualism that we…