Today's random playlist

• "Way Downtown" by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - 3 stars - I remember first hearing Will the Circle Be Unbroken back in college and The Girl buying me the double cd for my 21st birthday. She even had to hide it when we visited a bookstore in Bloomington that weekend because I was planning to buy it for myself. The beautiful simplicity of the old school hootenanny feel of the session is absolutely wonderful throughout. This isn't my favorite song of the sessions, but Doc Watson's voice comes through crystal clear over the Dirt Band's backing.
• "Souvenirs" by John Prine - 3 stars - This one's from a tribute concert held in honor of Steve Goodman, a songwriter and friend of Prine's. This song is heartwrenching, telling of a man's loss of youth and innocence as he goes back through his 'childhood souvenirs,' some of which have been lost to him. This live performance is a little flat; the studio recording by Prine got four stars from me.
• "Kill the Lights" by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - 3 stars - We're looking at almost three years since Ryan Adams's last major release, Cardinology in October 2008. This double disc of outtakes comes from the same sessions that produced Cold Roses, his first album with The Cardinals. I preferred Cold Roses to this collection. This one has a harder, looser feel to it, a band getting to know each other and feeling each other out musically. This track has a nice, yelling chorus, but that's about it for me.
• "19th Nervous Beakdown" by the Rolling Stones - 4 stars - I think everybody knows this one, eh? It's a classic look at the era and always makes me think of "Mother's Little Helper" as a thematic pairing.
• "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder - 3 stars - 1970s Stevie Wonder...the man threw off classics like this as though he were just breathing. It'd be tough to find an artist with as strong a prime as Stevie's 1960's-70s output, and this is right in the heart of the run (1970).
• "The Wicked Messenger" by Tim O'Brien - 4 stars - From O'Brien's Red on Blonde album in which he covers Bob Dylan in his unique bluegrass style. Turns out that these Dylan songs translate pretty well.
• "Inventory" by Meryn Cadell - 5 stars - I'll admit to having been a little disappointed when, the last time I went with a random ten, I didn't get a single song that I'd rated as five stars on iTunes. Much happiness when this one came up this time.And it was odd that this song would pop up as I had been thinking about writing a blog post based on this song for the past few days, listing things in my house in the order corresponding to this song's lyrics. By the time you get this playlist, however, I might have already written and published that blog post (I'm writing this on July 1 as Nadal plays Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semifinals.) 
• "Angel from Montgomery" by Bonnie Raitt & John Prine - 5 stars - Possibly Prine's finest song, and this duet is easily the best performance of it I've ever heard. "How can a person/go to work in the morning/come home in the evening/and have nothing to say?" Man, tears come to the eyes at that line every time.
• "Happy This Way" by Judith Owen - 4 stars - Judith Owen has worked with Richard Thompson for years, and she came with him to St X where I saw them perform their 1000 Years of Popular Music show a few years back and went hunting down Judith's then-new album soon there after. Her voice is beautiful - clear when it needs to be, warbly when it works - and this song showcases it perfectly, building to a creshendo about 4/5 of the way through the track.
• "Theme from Route 66" by Nelson Riddle & His Orchestra - 3 stars - There was a time when I was gobbling up the Ultra Lounge series of music.It was a quick era, full of zoot suits and shark skin jackets, hep cats and Swingers, Rat Packs and swing dancing (none of it for me, of course). I still enjoy a good Deano or Frank, and this instrumental version of the television show's theme song is still fun, but the era's brief renaissance has passed.