Jay Farrar
Stone, Steel & Bright Lights

Ask anyone who was lucky enough to squeeze into Cicero’s Basement Bar in St. Louis in 1989 or the Blue Note in Columbia. Missouri in 1993 to watch Uncle Tupelo play a show. Even way back then, Jay Farrar was a riveting live performer.

Farrar’s performances have gained in depth and in craft since those days. But if you are among the thousands of listeners who’ve had the good fortune to catch Farrar with Son Volt in the mid-1990s, or watch one of his remarkable solo performances in recent years, you already knew that.

Yet one thing has puzzled Farrar