Album: Buddy Miller, The Majestic Silver Strings (New West)

This is a guitarists' mutual appreciation society affair that ought to be unbearable, but is actually gorgeous, thanks to the modest brilliance of those involved.

Alongside Buddy Miller are pedal steel player Greg Leisz and six-string polymaths Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, combining talents on material ranging from cowboy C&W (Tex Owens's "Cattle Call"), to frisky R&B (Mickey & Sylvia's "No Good Lover") and Elizabeth Cotten's skiffle standard "Freight Train". Highlights include the interplay of Ribot's dervish acoustic guitar and Frisell's astringent electric flourishes on a "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie", sung by Ribot in the diffident manner of Bill Callahan, and a version of Roger Miller's "Dang Me", given a darker tone by the singer Chocolate Genius, supported by Ribot's spiky guitar.

DOWNLOAD THIS Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie; Dang Me; Meds