A dozen years after scored a well-deserved hit with the updated of , the South Carolina native is still in the game even if mainstream radio has turned its back on him, and his eighth album, , is a lively and superbly crafted tribute to the sounds of Nashville's noble past. Packing 12 songs into just over half an hour (just like they did back in the old days), features 11 standards played with no small skill by a polished but emphatic band of Music City pickers, with the fiddle and pedal steel accents conjuring up the spirit of Nashville's Golden Age while finds just the right emotional pitch for each song, whether it's the sentimental the boozer's lament or the bitter farewell of 's voice, slightly rumpled but clear and strong, fits these tunes like a glove, and he wrote one new tune for this set, a hymn of praise to honky-tonks everywhere that's one of the disc's highlights. In fact, the song is good enough to point out this album's most obvious flaw -- has chosen some great songs for , but they're also ones that any serious fan already knows by heart, and while he sings up a storm on each number, no one is ever going to top on or Rather than just celebrate 's past, shows can still make a little history of his own, and it's a shame he doesn't do a bit more of that on , though anyone who loves a classic song will still find this album to be glorious stuff. ~ Mark Deming