Paradise
For hardworking buckaroo and ranch owner Wylie Galt Gustafson, paradise sounds like galloping fiddle-backed swing, loping barroom waltzes, yodels floating down the canyon, and pedal-steel guitars leaping and flickering like a campfire. With his plangent, magnetic voice, Gustafson pulls familiar Western themes of horses, blue skies, and the romantic cowboy life into a timeless country sound, as at home in the honky-tonk as it is on the range. Though they focus on finely shaped new originals, Gustafson and his band--anchored in his touring group of Ray Doyle, Dave Reynolds, and Duane Becker--let the austere prairie heart ofBob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country" speak with an eloquence and soul rarely heard.Paradiseis not only the best cowboy album of 2001; it's among the year's finest country efforts to boot.--Roy Kasten