Great songwriters are a dime a dozen in Nashville, but Kevin Gordon is an anomaly: a recovering poet who is better at selling outsider art than country hits, though Keith Richards and Levon Helm have sung his songs. The centerpiece here, "Colfax/Step in Time," is a slow-burning 10-minute slice of life about a kid in the desegregated South, with Gordon's talking-blues-meets-codeine-rap flow remembering his marching-band days and slyly rhyming "Kool and the Gang" and "Ku Klux Klan." Meanwhile, the title track parses religious fervor in terms of politicians and human bombs. But the smarts on Gloryland never undercut the roots-rock rush. Dude's a juke-joint professor emeritus.

Listen to "Gloryland":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."