Chris Knight on Tue, April 23, 2013

Chris Knight actually does what most of the Nashville songwriters think they’re doing. He connects with country’s perceived blue-collar audience. But real connection doesn’t come through lyrics about pickup trucks and dirt roads. It comes through truth, honest emotion and hitting people where they live.

Knight has always excelled at those things, and that doesn’t change on his latest record, Little Victories.

It’s very much an album for the times. A great many of the songs focus on the down economy, hard times and social strife, but instead of blaming one politician or another and spouting a bunch of rhetoric, Knight sings about cinching up your belt, pulling yourself up and getting it done. That is, after all, what the vast majority of Americans are doing.

—Fred Phillips