Hank Cochran, who died at age 74 in 2010, wrote country ballads so perfectly shaped and cadenced you hardly believe they were written at all. Jamey Johnson's tribute record enlists an amazing intergenerational all-star team (Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello), who join Johnson in traditionalist renditions of 16 Cochran classics, from the Patsy Cline favorite "I Fall to Pieces" to the heart-wrenching "Make the World Go Away." It's loving genuflection; it's also proof that Johnson, 21st-century country's outlaw ne plus ultra, is also one of its most sensitive balladeers – beneath the scary beard, he's an old softie.

Preview Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran: 

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.