Nashville-based poet Minton Sparks demonstrated there is certainly some room for literary, arty fusions of spoken word with traditional folk in the oft-conservative southern country-folk scene. Her laconic, occasionally unfortunate and mordant, stories evoke quotidian nation southern life. On her behalf 2001 Middlin’ Sisters Compact disc, she supported her radio-ready, storytelling-like delivery with low-key Appalachian-flavored folk music on acoustic guitar, mandolin, dobro, mandola, and banjo.