This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Every so often, amid the empty Stetsons and gyrating belly buttons that ride herd over country music, a disc of actual, honest-to-Merle country somehow manages to escape the corral.
Here’s the latest and greatest example — 11 firecrackers of honky-tonk twang, rootsy romance and rollicking hillbilly boogie from a Nashville supergroup led by the dynamic duo of singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell and New Country chart-topper Vince Gill. Buy it for Crowell’s superb melodies and hickory vocals. Buy it for Gill’s smoky harmonies and tearstained bar-room ballads. Buy it for rib-ticklers like It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long. Or buy it for lyrics like this perfect couplet from the temptation tale Dangerous Curves: “I love my wife and that’s that / Now I’d best be looking for my hat. ” But whatever your reason, just buy it; these guys are dynamite.
