Heartworn Highways (Original Recording Remastered)

The documentary Heartworn Highways captured the mid-'70s Nashville scene where "outlaws" (David Allen Coe) and country-folk troubadours (Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark) intersected. Shot in a cinema vérité style, it features intimate, spontaneous-sounding performances by the Nashville-based artists who were blazing new trails in American music at the time. Consequently, the film's soundtrack is overflowing with powerful recordings unavailable anyplace else. You get the big daddies of the scene delivering intense, stripped-down versions of some of their classics, like Clark's wanderlust ode "L.A. Freeway" and Van Zandt's existential anti-anthem "Waitin' 'Round to Die," as well as little-known gems from cult heroes like Larry Jon Wilson (the smoldering country-funk killer "Ohoopee River Bottomland"). And when you hear then-fledgling artists like Steve Earle ("Darlin' Commit Me"), John Hiatt ("One for the One"), and Rodney Crowell ("Bluebird Wine") full of youthful passion and promise, you realize that Heartworn Highways encompasses multiple generations of master songsmiths.