Various – Heartworn Highways (2xLP)

For this terrific documentary, director James Szalapski traveled to Texas and Tennessee to photograph the radical country artists who were reclaiming a genre in which they avoided the mainstream from Nashville and turned back towards folk and bluegrass. TOWNES VAN ZANDT, GUY CLARK, STEVE YOUNG, DAVID ALLAN COE, STEVE EARLE and many others appeared both on screen and on the soundtrack, which featured musical highlights such as CLARK's brilliant "Desperados Waiting For A Train", YOUNG's "Alabama Highways" and the emotional “Waiting Around To Die” by VAN ZANDT.

The hard life - which also includes the hard partying - of the pioneers of the outlaw country unfolds on the screen when we visit VAN ZANDT in his trailer, see COE perform at the Tennessee State Prison, the whole gang to the infamous Wig Wam Tavern in Nashville and witness an alcoholic Christmas party at CLARK.

So it's no surprise that the film's original announcement said: "The best music and the best whiskey come from the same part of the country." The film was shown at several film festivals and remained unpublished for five years after its completion, until it was finally released in 1981 and began its triumphal march as a cult film.