John Prine & Mac Wiseman, Standard Songs for Average People:
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Old-fashioned folk
There’s nothing special about Standard Songs for Average People — except for everything. Fashioned after the folk-country albums of the ’50s and ’60s, this collaboration between 60-year-old singer/songwriter Prine and 81-year-old first-generation bluegrass singer Wiseman features understated performances of lesser-known tunes from great American songwriters. The choices are part of the album’s charm, and part of its greatness. Who else — other than perhaps Johnny Cash and producer/raconteur Cowboy Jack Clement, the man who introduced these two — would include Old Cape Cod and Old Rugged Cross alongside Kris Kristofferson’s Just the Other Side of Nowhere and topical songs such as Death of Floyd Collins? These two do, and they sing them as casually, as warmly as only two new, old friends could do. — Mansfield
>>Download: The above-mentioned, plus Where the Blue of the Night >>Skip: I Forgot to Remember to Forget
