Chris Knight, "Almost Daylight" (Thirty Tigers)
In his first release in more than seven years, Kentucky-born country rocker Chris Knight has snarled out an album that's gruff, uncompromising and perfect for the times.
"Almost Daylight" rails against hardship, misfortune and phoniness, set against a musical backdrop that's built around Knight's charmingly marble-mouthed singing style and the jagged-edged electric guitar swagger of Dan Baird and Chris Clark.
Long known for his visual, earthy songwriting, Knight has matured from his days as a rebel in the tradition of John Prine and Steve Earle. But his music remains grounded in his deep Kentucky roots, so much so that he can plausibly rhyme "rich" with "catch," as he does on "Send It On Down."
Country great Lee Ann Womack lends background vocals to that one, and Prine himself chimes in on the raucous closer, "Mexican Home" — both signs of the respect Knight commands among Nashville songwriting royalty.
That's partly because Knight never seems inauthentic the way some more commercially successful country singers do. He just doesn't seem capable of being anyone but himself.
In his work, hope always bangs up against hard reality. Whether he's declaring his love for a woman with a "heartbroke smile" in "Crooked Mile" or complaining about media lies in "The Damn Truth," he's looking for salvation in all of it — and the search itself is often poignant.
"Sometimes hope sinks like a stone," he sings on "Go On." ''Keep your head up, keep your head up, keep your head up and go on."
It's not happy music exactly. But it's the sort of striving that makes Knight, once again, an important voice for our times.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.
At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.
In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.
FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
