Randy Travis – Same Old Way (Jewl CD)

Randy Travis arrived in the mid-1980s as a direct rebuke to the polished pop-country sound that had dominated Nashville, planting a flag for traditional honky-tonk and classic country values at a moment when the format desperately needed it. His baritone carried the weight of George Jones and Merle Haggard without ever feeling derivative, and his influence on the generation of artists who followed him is hard to overstate.