Chris Knight has survived the "next Steve Earle" hype to forge a solid career as a plainspoken and hard-hitting country-rocker. The solo performances on The Trailer Tapes - they really were recorded in a trailer, in Knight's native Kentucky - were put down in 1996, before he cut the first of his four studio albums.

These 11 songs - three would reappear on his albums - set the template for his work: Knight, a former coal-mine-reclamation inspector, writes mostly dark tales of rural guys struggling to come to grips with change and loss, and the desperate measures they - and their women - can be driven to. Much as on Springsteen's Nebraska, the solo settings underscore the stark, brutally honest nature of Knight's songs and his delivery of them.
--- Nick Cristiano