Minton Sparks/Pat Flynn

Nashville-based poet Minton Sparks proved there is some room for literary, arty fusions of spoken word with traditional folk in the oft-conservative southern country-folk scene. Her laconic, sometimes sad and mordant, tales evoke quotidian country southern life. For her 2001 Middlin' Sisters CD, she backed her radio-ready, storytelling-like delivery with low-key Appalachian-flavored folk music on guitar, mandolin, dobro, mandola, and banjo. ~ Richie Unterberger