Heartache and Highways: 10 Country Albums Built to Last

Country music is the literature of the American working class — three chords and a story about love, loss, the land, and the open road. These ten albums range from Hank Williams' foundational honky-tonk to the outlaw movement of Waylon and Willie, from Johnny Cash's prison-wall empathy to Dolly Parton's mountain-clear songwriting. They are records built for the long drive home, for the moment after the bar closes, for the particular kind of honesty that only shows up when the music is plain.