Personnel: Nanci Griffith (vocals, acoustic guitar); Phillip Donnelly (acoustic & electric guitars); Patrick Alger (acoustic guitar, high-string guitar); Mac McAnally (acoustic guitar, background vocals); Rick West (acoustic guitar); Lloyd Green (dobro, pedal steel); Bela Fleck (banjo); John Catchings (cello); John Jarvis (piano); Emory Gordy (electric bass, mandolin); Roy Huskey, Jr. (upright bass); Russ Kunkel (drums, percussion); Lucy Kaplansky (background vocals).

Recorded at Soundstage and The Back Stage Studios, Nashville, Tennessee in July 1986.

If there was any question that Nanci Griffith would lose her edge after signing to a major label, LONE STAR STATE OF MIND answered it definitively in the negative--if anything, on her first album for MCA, Griffith sounded even more authentically country than ever. As always, her singing was superb, the songs (both her own, including a remake of "There's a Light Beyond These Woods" from her debut album, and an ahead-of-its-time cover of Julie Gold's "From a Distance") were instantly memorable, and the instrumental backing by the cream of Nashville sessioneers, including innovative banjo whiz Bela Fleck and fiddle star Mark O'Connor, was beyond flawless. Bottom line: If this is what selling out sounds like then everybody else should sell out immediately.