At least the concept hasn't died

It appears that Utne magazine has borrowed an idea from the late lamented Oxford American, and will include a music CD with its upcoming issue on "Indie Culture".

The OA's annual music issue and its accompanying CD of music from and about the South was one of the things I most enjoyed about that magazine. It introduced me to a number of musicians I never would have noticed otherwise, and who would never, ever be heard on a Clear Channel radio station (or even on NPR). Where else can you hear gravel-voiced Billy Bob Thornton and legendary bluegrass banjo-picker Earl Scruggs collaborating on a surreally hip-hop-flavored version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, sentimental Civil War ballads sung by Billy Bragg and Wilco (and then omitted from their Woody Guthrie album Mermaid Avenue after they found out that Guthrie didn't write the song after all), and R&B crooners like "King Pleasure" imitating the sounds of lonesome train whistles on songs like Swan Blues, mixed together with bits of rare aural gold from nearly-forgotten doo-wop groups like the Delta Rythym Boys, bluesmen like Fred McDowell, and regional Southern bands like the Yo-Yo's?

Utne has a high standard to meet, if it plans to replace the OA's musical collections in my esteem. I wish them well.