There's a down-home country tone to Tom T. Hall's The Magnificent Music Machine that both new listeners and longtime fans will find relaxing. Hall has a knack for slice-of-life story songs, from telling of the cold-hearted beauty who "left me to die, like a "'Fox on the Run'" to the mellower, more wryly humorous plaint of "Momma's Got the Catfish Blues." In between are tales of horse racing, with "Molly and Tenbrooks," hunting ("Fastest Rabbit Dog in Carter County Today"), and the album rounds out with a nostalgic look at meeting "In the sweet bye and bye/In that "'Bluegrass Festival in the Sky.'" Hall has a likable voice, and his tunes get listeners humming along and joining in on the choruses.