Waitin' on Joe (CD - 2002)

Personnel includes: Steve Azar (vocals); Rafe Van Hoy (acoustic & electric guitars, strings, bass); Sonny Landreth (electric guitar); Jonathan Yudkin (mandolin); David Angell, David Davidson, Pamela Sixfin (violin); Kristin Wilkinson (viola); John Catchings (cello); Jason Young (harmonica, background vocals); Tania Smith (keyboards, strings); Chris Kent, Spadey Brannon (bass); Luke Mason (drums, percussion); Terry Brock (background vocals).

Recorded at Moon Temple, Media Mix Studios, Nashville, Tennessee. Includes liner notes by Steve Azar.

Digitally remastered using HDCD technology.

Personnel: Steve Azar (background vocals); Rafe VanHoy (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Sonny Landreth (electric guitar, slide guitar); Dan Harris (slide guitar); Gary Morse (steel guitar); Jonathan Yudkin (mandolin); Pamela Sixfin, David Davidson , David Angell (violin); Kristin Wilkinson (viola); John Catchings (cello); Tania Smith (strings, keyboards); Jason Young (harmonica, background vocals); Luke Mason (drums, percussion, background vocals); Terry Brock (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: John Kelton.

Recording information: Media Mix, Nashville, TN; Moon Temple, Nashville, TN.

Photographer: Dean Dixon.

Arranger: John Catchings.

Steve Azar is neither a prefab pop-country "hat act" nor a Merle-revering new traditionalist. Rather, WAITIN' ON JOE finds a comfortable point between middlebrow mainstreamers like George Strait and Gary Allan and the literate, rebel rock-influenced sound of Joe Ely and Charlie Robison. It won't come as a surprise that the more commercial production tendencies of the album are part of the reason for its success, but equally responsible are the proletarian tendencies of Azar's lyrics. What sets him apart, though, is that while many of his contemporaries toss off knee-jerk working-man sagas that are as simplistic as they are inauthentic, Azar speaks of ordinary lives with both a short-story writer's eye for detail and an easy believability. minimize