Reese Witherspoon's Golden Globe-winning performance as June Carter Cash in
Walk the Line introduced a general-interest audience to the sublime charms of a spirited twang. Witherspoon has demurred about making her own album (her feisty takes on "Jackson" and "It Ain't Me Babe" appear on the
Walk the Line soundtrack), humbly denying music fans the rare opportunity to hear a moonlighting actor who can actually sing. But even though neither Hollywood nor Nashville is churning out authentic female country vocalists, such artists still storm the heartland circuit.
Cindy Woolf, a Batesville, Arkansas, native who honed her tone in the Baptist church, will be belting out original bluegrass numbers at some Midwestern venue at a rate of almost every other night for the next month. For Wednesday's Record Bar show (and the following evening at the Replay Lounge), she joins Big Smith singer and guitarist
Mark Bilyeu (supporting his solo electric-folk record as well as accompanying Woolf)
Kasey Rausch, a laid-back local acoustic artist.
