10 all-time favorite albums (as if I could limit it to ten), in no particular order. Albums that really made an impact and are still on your rotation list, even if only now and then.
I was raised on 60s musicals and 70s country and western music, which is to say, I wasn’t really that into music until I heard this album. 1970s Nashville-sound country was suffused with big string arrangements, maudlin lyrics, ultra-slick production and maybe a steel guitar or a slight twang that would identify it as “country.”
So, when my dad brought home this album, it was a bit of a shock. It was recorded live, with fiddles instead of strings and production so rough that you could use it as a chainsaw. I’d never heard “country” music with this kind of energy and musicianship. Hell, I’ve never heard it since.
In terms of “made an impact”, this one completely changed my understanding of what music was. This album was (and is) as rebellious as anything this side of Public Enemy (I mean, that’s a high bar). It was the antithesis of what the Nashville establishment wanted country to be and it’s all the better for it.