There's always a moment on Gillian Welch records when she reminds you that her old-timey music doesn't live in the past. On her fifth album - and first since 2003 - the moment comes on "Silver Dagger," which borrows the title and bloodlust of a traditional ballad popularized by Joan Baez in 1960, but it gets wistful about the good old days of "nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine." Welch's partner, David Rawlings, stepping back from his nominal star turn with Dave Rawlings Machine, continues as America's most low-key guitar hero; his sparkling lines and harmonies cling to Welch's rich vocals (which infused the Decemberists' recent The King Is Dead) like smoke plumes. The themes are often bleak: "Some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind," Welch sings at one point, probably with a wink. But there's a light that never goes out on The Harrow & the Harvest. "Hard times," she insists on the song of the same name, "ain't gonna rule my mind."

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“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."