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Singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Steve Young (1942-2016) was a pioneer of “country rock” and of “outlaw country,” two movements that transformed mainstream country music and impacted other genres of American popular music. Several generations of artists—country music’s new traditionalists during the 1980s, alternative country acts in the 1990s, as well as those associated with Americana music in the current century—broadened their audiences by merging country music with elements of other music genres. All those musicians have been indebted to Young and such contemporaries as Gram Parsons and Gene Clark, who collectively demonstrated how to integrate country music with other music genres (rock, pop, folk, blues, R&B, bluegrass, and gospel). Young, a Southerner, recorded more than a dozen distinctive albums, but none was more fully realized than his 1975 album Honky-Tonk Man. Recorded at the acclaimed Minneapolis studio Sound 80 and released by Mountain Railroad Records, a small independent label based in the Upper Midwest, Honky-Tonk Man documented the musical world of a complex if largely misunderstood artist during the peak of his powers. Now, Honky-Tonk Man returns as part of Stars In The Southern Sky—a collection highlighting that monumental 1975 era. The whopping 47-track set contains Honky-Tonk Man, “Stanley And Henry” (Young’s collaboration with Jim Post from Post’s 1978 I Love My Life album) and 34 previously unissued live tracks including standards and original material including Young’s classic “Seven Bridges Road” (a 1980 hit for the Eagles using Iain Matthews’ Michael Nesmith produced version as a template, and also covered by Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, Rita Coolidge and more.) So, revisit the origins of Country Rock, Outlaw Country, and Americana. Sit back and enjoy the Stars In The Southern Sky!