Taking a backwoods approach

The dinner was going well until someone said they didn't like country music, and someone said they didn't mind it. Then we tried to define our terms.

Was Shania Twain country? Nope, she's a property investor said Dave.

Emmylou Harris was still country, Joe Ely and Tom Russell were sort of although we liked them because they were also Tex-Mex rockers.

Then things got difficult. Steve Earle (sometimes, sometimes rock), Lucinda Williams (hmmm, maybe sometimes) and Willie Nelson (definitely, even when he sings pop ballads). And whatever Dolly was, we liked her anyway.

Which seems as good a place to start on albums some will call singer-songwriter, some will consider country.

Dolly Parton's Live And Well (Sugar Hill) was recorded in her Dollyworld concert hall two years ago and favours songs from her three recent bluegrass albums - The Grass is Blue, Little Sparrow, Halos and Horns - which are among the best of her long career.

This double disc finds Dolly in typically celebratory mood (she rocks in with Orange Blossom Special/Train,Train) before taking her audience into some of the just plain pity-full sad songs in her current repertoire.

She throws in favourites (Coat of Many Colors, 9 to 5, Jolene), an a cappella medley (Islands in the Stream, Here You Come Again) and delivers affecting versions of Neil Young's After the Goldrush and Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. And she closes with a song she wrote which became a pretty big hit for someone else, I Will Always Love You.

Dolly is still a star, a significant songwriter, and her onstage wit is both self-mocking and amusingly honest. Fans might want to grab the DVD of this for the full be-wigged experience. The lump of coal that became a diamond.

Buddy Miller may be best known as Emmylou Harris' guitarist, the one who opened for her at the Civic four years ago.

His impressive solo albums thread together country, Americana, rock'n'roll, bluegrass and even gospel soul. His latest outing, Universal United House of Prayer, doesn't break that pattern of excellence, and lyrically deals with matters of faith and the human spirit.

He opens with Worry Too Much, delivered like an angry Steve Earle, next up is an old Louvin Brothers fiddle'n'spiritual, There's A Higher Power, and later he undertakes a timely and emotional treatment of Dylan's With God on Our Side pulled out for a full nine minutes.

But it is his own soul-searching material - co-written with wife Julie, Jim Lauderdale and Victoria Williams - which most impresses: Shelter Me is a massive throb of a spirit in need of redemption; Wide River To Cross is a classic ballad of world weariness and reflective ennui; Fire And Water drags out gritty guitar work which wouldn't shame U2; Don't Wait works over a Johnny Cash train-song guitar-twang before booming with urgency; and Is That You is a plain spooky piece of soulful spiritualism.

Miller's solo career hasn't won him a wide following, but here's more evidence as to why he shouldn't be overlooked.

Tony Joe White's career has been in slow decline since his various peaks: in the late 60s as the king of swamp rock then author of the classic ballad Rainy Night in Georgia; when Tina Turner covered Steamy Windows; and his albums of the late 80s/early 90s like Closer To The Truth. But it's been diminishing returns and some degree of unintentional self-parody since then.

On The Heroines he brings in some favoured female singers (Shelby Lynne, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Jessi Colter and Michelle White) and also dips into his back pages (Ice Cream Man). The result is a much more satisfying album which smoulders with his signature sexuality, wah-wah guitar and low rumbling Southern drawl.

The earthy blues suits Williams on Closing in on the Fire but the highlights are Lynne on the dialogue between errant granddaughter and grandfather on Can't Go Home, and Colter on dark and intense Fireflies in the Storm.

Some swamp-fillers elsewhere, but the duets elevate this above White's recent, somewhat ordinary, releases.

Chuck Prophet is a singer-songwriter whose career started in a rock band (the inspired Green On Red out of Tucson) but which slowly assimilated elements of country. After he embarked on a solo career he kept up with the play and by the late 90s had embraced scratching and samples.

Age of Miracles, his seventh solo album, balances his long personal history and various musical traditions (aural references to Dylan, lyrical references to doo-wop and rap on You Did) within the framework of crafted songs embellished by pedal steel, strings, Wurlitzer and beatbox.

It's a wide musical frame he's filling and though there are dark songs (the murders in West Memphis Moon), a pure 60s power pop structure supports the loving Just To See You Smile. And it's a testament to a musical survivor whose lyrics here (You've Got Me Where You Want Me, the gutsy Heavy Duty co-written with Dan Penn, and Solid Gold) speak of the strength of the inner man.

Tres Chicas are Lynn Blakey, Caitlin Cary and Tonya Lamm, whose other bands include Whiskeytown, Lets Active and Hazeldine. With fiddles, producer Chris Stamey adding guitar textures, and a repertoire which includes Lucinda Williams' Am I Too Blue, Loretta Lynn's Deep As Your Pocket and George Jones' Take the Devil Out Of Me alongside their crafted, close harmony originals, they come off like an alt.country version of the Dixie Chicks with some serious underground country cred added.

Elements of bluegrass, the country-gospel harmony tradition and tough West Texas songwriters are all here, but they never sound like anyone other than themselves, and you can hear why this was picked as one of last year's top 10 country albums by amazon.com.

Dolly Parton: Live And Well
(Herald rating: * * * *)
The live album of the same-title DVD captures the star ascendant in songs which shift effortlessly from country to pop to Led Zeppelin
Label: Shock

Buddy Miller: Universal United House Of Prayer
(Herald rating: * * * * *)
Emmylou Harris' guitarist steps out again in yet another superb solo album, this one full of soul-searching spiritual songs
Label: New West

Tony Joe White: The Heroines
(Herald rating: * * *)
Something stirs in the bayou and out of the swamp comes the fox, and this time he's got some sexy company
Label: Sanctuary

Chuck Prophet: Age Of Miracles
(Herald rating: * * * *)
Former Green On Red singer-guitarist continues an exploratory solo career and distils his best this time out
Label: New West

Tres Chicas: Sweet-Water
(Herald rating: * * *)
Three women with credible track records form an alt.country semi-supergroup. Acclaim follows
Label: South-bound