#GreatAlbums1950s - #HankWilliams – Moanin’ the Blues (1952). One of two 10-inch LPs released during Williams’s lifetime, Moanin’ briefly encapsulated the bluesier side of the Williams canon on “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “I’m a Long Gone Daddy,” “The Blues Come Around” and five other tracks. The expanded version (available on streaming) adds raw solo-acoustic outtakes, including the brooding “Alone and Forsaken,” from one of the greatest bodies of music ever created.

#GreatCountryAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #LeftyFrizell – Listen to Lefty (1952). The archetypal hard-living honkytonk journeyman of the fifties, Lefty remains best known for “If You’ve Got the Money (I’ve Got the Time),” which temporarily made him a friendly rival to Hank Williams on the country hit parade. This ten-inch LP (digitized on Apple and Spotify) presents eight songs from Frizell’s heyday as a singer able to twang the heartstrings while keeping a firm eye on hardscrabble realities.

#GreatCountryAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #TheLouvinBrothers – Satan is Real (1959). As famous for its kitschy cover as the music within, this LP is a rare country-gospel classic. “The Christian Life,” famous from The Byrds’ cover on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, epitomizes the Louvins’ immaculate close harmonies and bluegrassy twang. There’s plenty of fire and brimstone to scare the wits out of believers, but songs like “The Drunkard’s Doom” are just as concerned with earthly demons of the flesh.

#GreatCountryAlbums

#GreatAlbums1990s - #ShaniaTwain – #ComeOnOver (1997). The guitars twang and the odd fiddle invades the mix, but this is pop music by any sane definition. Mutt Lange’s glistening production is sweet enough to rot teeth, but there’s no arguing with the craft of songs like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” and “You’re Still the One.” Plus, as Klosterman notes, for every person who bought Life Through This, 14 bought a copy of Shania – and guess who Taylor Swift prefers.

#PopMusic, #GreatCountryAlbums

#GreatAlbums1990s - TOP 20 - #LucindaWilliams – #SweetOldWorld (1992). Balancing her early traditional influences with the country-rock she’d adopt later on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Louisiana-born Williams defined the 90s Americana movement with songs drawn from personal experience and enough drive to appeal to a rock audience. The concluding Nick Drake cover (before his critical resurgence) showed Williams’s awareness of roots traditions writ large.

#GreatCountryAlbums, #Americana