Album Notes

The Stragglyrs' "Country Project" strips country back to its roots and fertilizes it with just the right touch of folk, rockabilly and Americana. The sparse, live-in-the-studio sound is as honest as the 14 original songs about old trains, doomed coal miners, life's elusive struggle for meaning, the West, changing times and true love. You will hear story songs delivered
in three- and four-part harmony; the kinds of tunes that used to be played on small, rural country-and-western stations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan. Nowadays, the label "country rock" is all too often casually slapped onto commercial music that really is nothing more than a din of over-produced, sloppy rock 'n' roll. "Country Project" aspires to deliver a pristine, genuine sound -- tastefully spiced with steel guitar, banjo, mandolin and harmonica -- that recognizes that country rock is not just a classification of music but a quality of music -- the kind of sound that Gram Parsons called "Cosmic American Music."