Rolling Country 2014

It's a new day for a new year, brothers and sisters---so let yore Electro Sh-h-h-i-i-i-eye-e-n-ne now:

[img]http://www.countrymusictattletale.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Big-kenny.jpg[/url]

aw fuck
http://www.countrymusictattletale.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Big-kenny.jpg

Anyway, here's the music, all of it masterminded by Big Kenny and Chebacca---my faves are the remix of Big & Rich's "Born Again", ft. Bon Jovi; the long and otherwise uncensored version of Electro Shine's own "Dance Upon The Solid Ground"; and especially their "Electro Country Shine", ft. Big K, Chebacca, Megan Mullins and Dave Stewart---really has a sensuous starshine groove, enough to remind me of "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This"(has any country artist covered that?) http://electroshine.tv/the-creation/listen/

....some thangs to consider if still filling out the Singles section of that there Nashville Scene ballot. (Okay, I'll stop now.)
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Kenny+Country+Thunder+Day+1+wySLn8Kxb8ol.jpg
(Source: Rick Diamond/Getty Images North America)

Here's my Country Music Critics ballot. I was thinking of leaving the albums category blank, since I didn't give it the attention it needed, and Ashley and Kacey would have done fine without my vote. But Sturgill deserved the shout-out. Not that any category got the attention it needed. And I subsequently wrote Geoff that I was second-guessing what I wrote about Sturgill Simpson's bitterness; not that the bitterness isn't glaringly, bitterly evident, but I don't know if I did right by its complexity. Simpson's in an interesting fight with his pain (I mean both senses of "with"). Trigger at Saving Country Music thinks "The World Is Mean" is about acceptance and moving forward. I don't really buy that. Nonetheless, I am a bit worried about not having been fair. But who said life was fair?

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2013:

1. 2YOON - "24/7"
2. Miranda Lambert - "Mama's Broken Heart"
3. Kacey Musgraves - "Blowin' Smoke"
4. The Civil Wars - "The One That Got Away"
5. Luke Bryan - "That's My Kind Of Night"
6. Sturgill Simpson - "Life Ain't Fair And The World Is Mean"
7. Cassadee Pope - "Wasting All These Tears"
8. Chris Stapleton - "What Are You Listening To?"
9. Taylor Swift - "22"
10. Gwen Sebastian - "Suitcase"

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:

1. Sturgill Simpson - High Top Mountain
2. Ashley Monroe - Like A Rose
3. Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer Different Park

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Toby Keith
2. Luke Bryan
3. Dean Brody

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Miranda Lambert
2. Kacey Musgraves
3. Ashley Monroe

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2013:

1. Shane McAnally
2. Ashley Monroe
3. Kacey Musgraves

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2013:

1. Lady Antebellum
2. The Band Perry

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2013:

1. Kacey Musgraves

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2013:

1. Sturgill Simpson
2. Ashley Monroe
3. Kacey Musgraves

COMMENTS:

Sturgill Simpson could rename himself Grumpy Stodgill, so resolved is he to be left-behind and to resent it. So the album works way better as music than as music criticism, but I'm sure Grumpy'll take that tradeoff. Hard, bitter, immovable.

Korean duo 2YOON's "24/7" isn't country so much as it's a visit to a country theme park (that's exactly how it's portrayed in the video). But as a lark rather than a lived-in world it manages to be more alive and rousing than a year's full of defensive, redneck partying, maybe because it isn't burdened with having to represent the vitality of an American South that is still determined to feel defeated.

Women have been going musically berserk in response to broken hearts since well before Frankie plugged Albert (not to mention Johnny) and Miss Otis sent her regrets. And Kacey's "Merry Go Round" references Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" (1962), and it could have footnoted Ray Davies' "Well Respected Man" (1965) as well, for adoring the girl next door while dyin' to get at her. But there is a twist of feminism and newness coming from the McAnally-Musgraves-Lambert-Monroe clique, as they frame these old tropes as a breaking out rather than a breaking down. This isn't all that new either - Martina McBride and Shawn Colvin were lighting up the sky in rebellion a decade before Miranda struck her match with "Kerosene." But if people keep claiming a newness, this could lead to their creating some genuine newness. The experience isn't new but the response to it can be.

(I didn't vote for reissues or live acts, and obviously I didn't fill in all the spots for albums, groups, and new acts. And my one vote in that last category was questionable (Kacey's been releasing stuff for years), but Geoff said we could count as a newbie anyone whose first album on a major (or a major indie) was in 2013.)

My NashScene ballot; no comments per usual. Decided not to vote for Musgraves as a "Best New Artist" despite her apparent eligibility because I'm pretty sure (maybe erroneously) that she placed in that category last year.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:
1. Ashley Monroe – Like A Rose (Warner Music Nashville)
2. Kacey Musgraves – Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury)
3. The Mavericks – In Time (Valory Music Co.)
4. Gretchen Wilson – Right On Time (Redneck)
5. Gary Allan – Set You Free (MCA/Nashville)
6. Pistol Annies – Annie Up (RCA)
7. Brandy Clark – 12 Stories (508/State Creek)
8. Shanytown – Shanytown (Garage Door)
9. Cassadee Pope – Frame By Frame (Republic Nashville)
10. The Band Perry - Pioneer (Republic Nashville)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2013:
1. 2Yoon – 24/7
2. Regulo Caro – Empujando La Linea (El Minilic)
3. Lady Antebellum – Downtown
4. Taylor Swift - 22
5. Kacey Musgraves – Blowin’ Smoke
6. Lee Brice – Parking Lot Party
7. Pistol Annies – Hush Hush
8. Miranda Lambert – Mama’s Broken Heart
9. Toby Keith – Drinks After Work
10. Luke Bryan – That’s My Kind Of Night

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2013:
1. Swamp Dogg – Total Destruction To Your Mind (Alive)
2. Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys – Lost And Found: The Famous Living Room Tape (Avenue A)
3. Doc Watson – The Definitive Doc Watson (Sugar Hill/Vanguard)
4. Dwight Yoakam – 21st Century Hits (New West)
5. Shaver – Shaver’s Jewels: The Best Of Shaver (New West)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:
1. Raul Malo
2. Gary Allan
3. Kenny Chesney

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:
1. Miranda Lambert
2. Ashley Monroe
3. Gretchen Wilson

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2013:
1. Shane McAnally
2. Brandy Clark
3. Ashley Monroe

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2013:
1. The Mavericks
2. Pistol Annies
3. Shanytown

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2013:
1. Brandy Clark
2. Shanytown
3. Cassadee Pope

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2013:
1. Ashley Monroe
2. Kacey Musgraves
3. The Mavericks

Not so thrilled by these sweeps, but here's the word, from Scene Music Editor Patrick Rodgers:

Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark and Ashley Monroe Dominate the Nashville Scene’s 14th Annual Country Music Critics’ Poll

The 98 writers from all over North America who voted in the 14th annual Country Music Critics’ Poll named Kacey Musgraves Artist of the Year, New Artist of the Year, Album Artist of the Year, Singles Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. Right behind her in all five categories were Brandy Clark and Ashley Monroe. It was an unprecedented sweep by three artists releasing their first nationally distributed albums.

In an hourlong special tomorrow morning at 10 a.m./9 a.m. Central (and again on Sunday, Jan. 26, at 9 a.m./8 a.m. Central), CMT and host Katie Cook will count down the Top 10 Country Singles of 2013 as selected by this year’s poll.

In addition to Musgraves, Clark and Monroe, there are other winners: Jason Isbell was voted the No. 4 Best Album, the No. 1 Male Vocalist and the No. 3 Best Songwriter. Miranda Lambert, the big winner in 2009 and 2011, was voted No. 2 Best Single, while her band with Monroe, Pistol Annies, was voted the No. 1 Best Group, the No. 5 Best Album and the No. 8 Best Single. Taylor Swift was voted the No. 1 Best Live Act.

But the poll was dominated by Musgraves, Clark and Monroe. Tomorrow's Nashville Scene cover story will offer much more than just the results. Geoffrey Himes, who conducts the poll each year, provides context for the voting with an essay and an interview with Musgraves. There are also comments from many of the voters.

The voters included writers from coastal newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times as well as smaller heartland dailies such as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Idaho Statesmen and Lincoln Journal Star. They write for magazines like Rolling Stone, Spin and Country Weekly and for music websites such as Engine145.com, Pitchfork.com, CountryUniverse.net and PopMatters.com.

Here are the links to the stories, which will go live tomorrow at 4 a.m.:

http://nashvillescene.com/nashville/in-2013-the-new-artists-were-also-the-best-artists-with-kacey-musgraves-brandy-clark-and-ashley-monroe-leading-the-charge/Content?oid=4034331

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/kacey-musgraves-tops-this-years-poll-for-one-simple-reason-good-smart-songs/Content?oid=4034343

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-results/Content?oid=4034364

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-comments/Content?oid=4034379

My ballot from this year. Haven't written any comments for the past three years; I find the "What is..." angle tiresome and counterproductive, especially in what I felt was the first year in a full decade that the Americana / alt contingent made better, more interesting music than the mainstream acts.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:

1. High Top Mountain, Sturgill Simpson
2. Southeastern, Jason Isbell
3. Like a Rose, Ashley Monroe
4. 12 Stories, Brandy Clark
5. Bakersfield, Vince Gill & Paul Franklin
6. In the Throes, John Moreland
7. Not Cool, Tim Easton
8. Spitfire, LeAnn Rimes
9. Cheater’s Game, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison
10. American Kid, Patty Griffin

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2013:

1. “Sober,” Little Big Town
2. “Bible on the Dash,” Corb Lund featuring Hayes Carll
3. “If I Loved You,” Delta Rae featuring Lindsey Buckingham
4. “Follow Your Arrow,” Kacey Musgraves
5. “Railroad of Sin,” Sturgill Simpson
6. “DONE,” The Band Perry
7. “Borrowed,” LeAnn Rimes
8. “You and I,” Laura Bell Bundy
9. “9,999,999 Tears,” Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison
10. “Could it Be,” Charlie Worsham

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2013:

1. Silver Bell, Patty Griffin
2. Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, Billy Bragg & Wilco
3. Bottle Rockets and The Brooklyn Side, Bottle Rockets
4. The Warner Bros Years, Steve Earle
5. Grand Ole Opry’s New Star, George Jones

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Jason Isbell
2. Chris Stapelton
3. Charlie Worsham

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Ashley Monroe
2. LeAnn Rimes
3. Brandy Clark

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2013:

1. Sturgill Simpson
2. Jason Isbell
3. Hank III

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2013:

1. Brandy Clark
2. Jason Isbell
3. Patty Griffin

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2013:

1. Little Big Town
2. The Band Perry
3. Pistol Annies

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2013:

1. Brandy Clark
2. Sturgill Simpson
3. Charlie Worsham

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2013:

1. Brandy Clark
2. Jason Isbell
3. Ashley Monroe

My comment on the poll results, as posted on facebook: Singles list is kind of pathetic -- It's like country critics are as lazy as Pazz & Joppers a couple years ago, just picking songs off albums they voted for. (Jason Isbell has *singles*? Really?? Well, maybe on Americana stations; I wouldn't know. Still -- I'm surprised and bummed that neither "Downtown" nor "22" made the winners list.)

Despite it all, one of the main things (other than walking hard while re-listening, and re-reading/deciphering notes) still making polls worthwhile: always seeing stuff I haven't checked out, like on y'all's ballots. Here's mine--also, with comments in a second post below it, on http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com Sorry for any typos; I'll check again later.

(Hon. Mentions etc. after official ballot categories)

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:
(just in order that they come to mind)(and yeah, I know this looks like a Paste list)

1. Natalie Maines: Mother (Columbia)
2. Various Artists: Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War (ATO)
3. Willie Nelson and Family: Let’s Face The Music and Dance (Sony Legacy)
4. Willie Nelson: To All The Girls… (Sony Legacy)
5. Mavericks: In Time (Valory)
6. LeAnn Rimes: Spitfire (Curb)
7. Pistol Annies: Hell On Heels (Sony Nashville)
8. Patty Griffin: American Kid(New West)
9. Jason Isbell: Southeastern (Southeastern/Relativity)
10. Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell: Old Yellow Moon (Nonesuch)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2013:

1. Guy Clark: ”My Favorite Picture of You” (Dualtone)
2. Bob Dylan: “Pretty Saro” (Columbia)
3. Gary Allan: “It Ain’t The Whiskey” (MCA Nashville)
4. Toby Keith: “Drinks After Work” (Show Dog/Universal)
5. Marshall Chapman: “I Don’t Want Nobody” (Tallgirl)
6. Electro Shine (ft. Big Kenny, Chebacca, Megan Mullins and Dave Stewart): “Electro Country Shine” (Glotown)
7. Big & Rich (ft. Bon Jovi): “Born Again” (Electro Shine remix) (Warner Bros)
8. Maggie Rose: “Better” (RPM Entertainment)
9. Luke Bryan: “That’s My Kind of Night” (Capitol Nashville)
10. Lee Brice: “Parking Lot Party” (Curb)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2013:

1. Buck Owens: Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955--1967) (Omnivore/Universal)
2. Townes Van Zandt: The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (Omnivore/Universal)
3. Townes Van Zandt: Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions & Demos 1971-1972 (Omnivore/Universal)
4. Shaver: Shaver’s Jewels (The Best of Shaver)(New West)
5. Wanda Jackson: The Best of The Capitol Classic Singles (Omnivore/Universal)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Willie Nelson
2. Toby Keith
3. Gary Allan

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2013:

1. Natalie Maines
2. LeAnn Rimes
3. Patty Griffin

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2013:

1. Mavericks
2. Willie Nelson & Family
3. Pistol Annies

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2013:

1. Maggie Rose
2. Kacey Musgraves
3. Brandy Clark

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2013:
1. Willie Nelson
2. Natalie Maines
3. Mavericks

Albums---Hon. Mentions:
Guy Clark: My Favorite Picture of You (Dualtone), Toby Keith: Drinks After Work (Deluxe Edition)(Show Dog/Uni), Patty Griffin: Silver Bell (A&M/Universal), Hot Club of Cowtown:Rendezvous In Rhythm (Gold Strike), Marshall Chapman:Blaze of Glory (Tallgirl), Todd Snider: Time As We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker (Aimless),
Holly Williams: The Highway (Georgiana), Susan Werner: Hayseed (Sleeve Dog),
Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison:Cheater’s Game(Premium), Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses): The Low Highway (New West), Cyndi Boste: Nowadays (WMP),
Gary Allan: Set You Free (MCA Nashville), Courtyard Hounds: Amelita (Columbia),
Maggie Rose: Cut To Impress (RPM Entertainment), Kandia Crazy Horse: Stampede (Bluebilly),
Bryan & The Haggards ft. Dr. Eugene Chadbourne: Merles Just Want To Have Fun(Northern Spy), Carrie Rodriguez: Give Me All You Got(Ninth Street Opus), Brandy Clark:12 Stories (Slate Creek), Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury Nashville)
Ashley Monroe: Like A Rose (Warner Bros)

Albums---other(about half good)
Tim McGraw: Two Lanes of Freedom(Accelerated Deluxe Edition) (Big Machine), Sheryl Crow: [Feels Like Home (Warner Music Nashville), Alan Jackson: The Bluegrass Album (Universal Nashville), Kellie Pickler: The Woman I Am (Black River Entertainment), Wayne Hancock: Ride (Bloodshot), James King:Three Chords And The Truth(Rounder)

Singles---Hon. Mentions:
Electro Shine ft. Big Kenny, Chebacca, and Chessboxer: “Dance Upon The Solid Ground” (Glotown), Electro Shine ft. Big Kenny, Chebacca, Ky-mani & KJ Marley: “Hope Chant”(Glotown), Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton: “You Can’t Make Old Friends” (Warner Bros/Elektra/Atlantic), Avicii ft. Dan Tyminski: “Hey Brother” (Island)

Reissues---other (about half good)
The Buckaroos: The Buckaroos Play Buck and Merle(Omnivore/Universal)

Oh, The Perry's Pioneer should have been in Albums--other (about half-good): as I said in the blogged comments:
Kimberly P. can’t tote such generic ballads by herself; helps when guys’ voices sprout as she belts the Bay City Rollers-on-Broadway-type stuff: radios appear, hand-claps too, theirs and mine. At least four or five of these are keepers, and urge a tolerant re-consid of a couple other babies’ potential

“Bible on the Dash,” Corb Lund featuring Hayes Carll

Wow, is this the same song as Gunplay's rap single from last year? (If so, I definitely need to check it out.)

Actually, Chuck, I was just picking albums off the singles I voted for (or something).

But Xhuxk, we've had this discussion before, and you're simply wrong about the laziness,* and I'd thought Dave and I had convinced you. Geoff doesn't print ballots so it's impossible to prove it in regard to the country poll, but in Pazz & Jop it's been clear for years that people are combing the boonies hither and yon for songs, with rarely more than a few on any particular person's ballot that more than one or two other people even voted for; but therefore neither Hither nor Yon show atop the polls, but rather only the few tracks that people do vote for in common.** This is what popularity polls do.

*Well, except for my laziness, given that I barely heard any country albs but refused to disqualify myself, and I basically listened from a pool of tracks that you guys recommended.

**Xgau wrote an impossibly vague essay about this year's P&J in which he seems to be hoping for a reversal of the "atomization" that afflicts critics' ballots, i.e., he seems to think the world would be better if critics were liking more of the same songs as each other than they like now. (Don, Scott, JD, Alfred, and I chat about this essay over at rockcritics.com.)

On a different topic, I feared from the title that Eric Church's "Give Me Back My Hometown" would be pandering to the antimodernity or antiimmigrant crowds (and maybe in a half-subliminal way the title is trawling for such purchasers via dog whistle), but rather its message is, "It's the same old town, but with a different meaning since you been gone," rather like Kix Brooks' "New To This Town." Glad that Eric's way of singing sorrow doesn't preclude prettiness.

(Not yet making sense of the video, which has suicide overtones, though according to Church in an interview on Country Vibe the vid is deliberately in fragments, is the first in a series for the album's singles, at the end of which we'll know who really killed Laura Palmer.)

Oops, Eric Church interview is here.

Eh? "My father killed me," Laura Palmer told Agent Dale Cooper during slight return, and that turned out to be true, or so it sure seemed, 23 years ago...

Speaking of Sturgill Simpson uphtread, Frank perceived exactly what I also saw w/ Simpson, the night he premiered his new record at Station Inn in Nashville in front of a big crowd. I'd heard the Sunday Valley bluegrass-rock-blues record he'd done and thought it was good. Sturgill did seem sort of sunken away from the proceedings, singing well but somehow, trapped in his groove, not communicating what he wanted to, and I got the vague feeling he thought he was selling out. So the record doesn't really move me too much, though I think he could be good.

“Bible on the Dash,” Corb Lund featuring Hayes Carll

Wow, is this the same song as Gunplay's rap single from last year? (If so, I definitely need to check it out.)

my god, if only

I'm not a regular listener of recent country music but I've run into a couple of things lately about country acts who focus a lot on drinking and girls and trucks and such other tropes and it made me curious - do any modern country artists ever sing about weed or getting high?

Seems like a natural fit in a lot of ways and something utterly taboo in others, wasn't sure if this was a thing or not.

Kacey Musgraves - 2013 Anticipation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdfqzuQ8j5I&feature=kp

Eric Church - Smoke a Little Smoke

http://youtu.be/XxWjtWONuGc

The highly acclaimed Brandy Clark, "Get High"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL4a0v7T-HU

toby keith & scotty emerick - weed with willie

http://youtu.be/wDQANmQO2g0

from 2012, Willie Nelson & Snoop Dog & Jamey Johnson & Kris Kristofferson,
"Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KbKH4A7VFY

Used to hear this 'un quite a bit on the radio, back in the 70s: Jim Stafford, "Wildwood Weed"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKym33vK1cs

Turns out Eric Church's album is his worst. I feel bad that new features tout Eric Church as the smart alternative to bro country and he's made a conflicted, confusing bro country album with racist overtones.

I've found the pre-release coverage of Church's album to be exhausting; a horde of poptimist writers I really like and respect, all agog over an album they'd be rolling their eyes at were it classified as the rock it sounds like for most of its running time and barely engaging with its problematic content. I'd love to banish the word "signifiers" from music writing, generally, but especially when it comes to Church's album.

Really sharp observations there, Alfred. Compared to someone like Miranda Lambert, Church has no idea how to create a clear, distinct persona even though it's clear that's what he seems driven to accomplish on this album.

Which poptimists do you mean, Alfred?

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20783671,00.html

More importantly, though, The Outsiders — the still-rising star's most brazen, brilliant disc yet, and the first great album of this year — challenges country's chart-dominating pickup polishers, drawing on riff-wagging rock and early Beastie Boys-style beats.

Nick Catucci in Entertainment Weekly never seems to have even a small bad word for big-name country acts

Is the Eric Church album streaming anywhere? Last I looked, Spotify only had the title track?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/eric-church-and-dierks-bentley-country-singers-excelling-outside-the-bro-zone/2014/02/17/22ac6a70-974d-11e3-8461-8a24c7bf0653_story.html

He critizes Church a little bit but also offers lotsa praise

Which poptimists do you mean, Alfred?

― Tim,

me or jon oh?

Sorry, I met Jon Oh.

Excerpt from Mikael Wood interview in L.A. Times with Church on different aspects of the new album not mentioned above

And the album has hard-to-define numbers such as "The Joint," which Church referred to as a cross between JJ Cale and "Rock On" by David Essex, and the disco-streaked "Roller Coaster Ride."

"I don’t know what the hell that one is," he said with a laugh, crediting his longtime producer, Jay Joyce, with helping to create an atmosphere of open experimentation during the album's recording. A couple of songs, including "Cold One," even make prominent use of trombone -- a rarity on modern pop, rock or country radio.

"I went to this jazz club in San Francisco and just fell in love with that sound,” Church explained. "When I went back to Jay, every song I’d be like, 'Trombone!' It became a joke in the studio."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-eric-church-gets-back-out-there-with-the-outsiders-20140212,0,193844.story#axzz2thFkmnlr

Jody Rosen is full of praise w/ very little criticism too

Since then, Church has released a new album roughly every two and a half years, each stronger than the previous, proving himself not just the most consistent male country star of his generation but one of the brightest lights in any genre—right up there with Kanye West, Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend, et al. Church’s new album, The Outsiders, is, in keeping with the pattern, his best yet; it’s also his most blustery, with the guitars and the outlaw swagger turned up, as the poet said, to eleven.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/music-review-eric-church-the-outsiders.html

I'm astounded by the plaudits tbh. In Jody's case particularly, for he's not a johnny come lately to Church.

Joygoat, if cocaine counts, there's Merle Haggard's "Wishing All These Old Things Were New, though it's not exactly a party song; and Shooter Jennings' "Little White Lines," if that's what it's about. For the leaf, there's Shooter's "Busted In Baylor County."

Dierks Bentley sang “"you can grow marijuana way back in the pines/or work for the man down in the mines” in “Down In The Mine” a few years back. And I'm pretty sure there was another song on the same album, Up On The Ridge, that talked about smoking pot or at least generically “getting high,” but I’m drawing a blank on which track it might have been.

So far I like Dierks’s new album even less than Eric Church's, by the way, if only because I'm way less likely to return to its best songs. Only songs I like much on Church's are "Talladega" and "Like A Wrecking Ball," though maybe half of the rest (including the current single) is at least tolerable. Agree with Alfred (at least so far) that it's his worst album; in fact, I'd been predicting that since I heard an advance EP of song snippets last fall, and finally confirmed it this weekend.

Interestingly given something said above, @nn P0w3rs (who thinks it's a great record) told me on facebook that she thought "poptimists" would have trouble with the new Church album, since (she says) he's obsessed with being "authentic" (or something like that). (I didn't know whether that meant she thought I was a poptimist or not. I also still don't believe there's any such thing, but that's old news.)

Frank probably deserves an answer to what he said upthread about what I'd said about lazy Nashville Scene poll voters. And he's probably right (though I'm not sure that previous discussion he linked to had to do with singles results mirroring album results, which even if not lazy makes for a boring and not particularly useful singles list) -- not to mention that I'm probably just as lazy sometimes. But mainly I need to give it more thought.

Music City Roots streams Wednesday night live audio-video shows from Nashville, with a variety of performers, playing with ye olde-tymey live country radio format (extended into TV Age via brief occasional on-stage commercials, presented, usually, by Hee Haw/Dazzy Duk-style gals). Tonight's line-up headlines Shonna Tucker & Eye Candy (regular/steel guitarist John Neff, a founding, recurring, now adamantly ex-Trucker, with guys from Elf Power, I think). Haven't yet gotten that much into late-'13 debut album, but live glimpses so far were promising.
The show starts with Julie Roberts, whose first album, past the starpower of her first single/video, was pretty disappointing. But she may have had more control over the unexpected 2013 return, which I haven't heard, or heard of, 'til I read this round-up(also: Jason D. Williams, Willie Sugarcapps, and The Barefoot Movement--better than their name, hopefully)
http://musiccityroots.com/here-comes-the-sun

Lots of prev. shows still in the archive, last time I checked. All the ones I've seen are two hours long.

Oh, and I keep forgetting: Kacey Musgrave/Dale Watson's Austin City Limits sets are still streaming, for now (gotta set up a PBS.org account, but just takes a sec).
Not crazy about his albums, the few I've heard (hers either, consistency-wise), but he plays somewhere almost every night, so should be tight, right? Autopilot, possibly, but http://video.klru.tv/video/2365170232/

Jamey Johnson (who, like Shooter Jennings* everybody seems to have already forgotten about in all this Eric Church hoopla, though maybe I just haven't read the right reviews), "Can't Cash My Checks": "You can't make a good living these days 'cause the truth just won't sell/So if you go out my back door just over the hill/You'll see all these plants that's been paying my bills."

* -- who put out a way more metal -- and even worse! -- album than The Outsiders a couple years ago by the way.

Also pretty sure Kid Rock's mentioned weed at least once or twice, if he counts. (If nothing else, "Picture" -- a #21 country hit that talked about cocaine, though possibly not in the radio version -- ought to.)

And really late-period Kid Rock should count, in part because Church's "That's Damn Rock'n'Roll" is basically a late-period Kid Rock song.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:

1. High Top Mountain, Sturgill Simpson

wow, wish i would have seen this talked up more in the world at large a la kacey et al

well, this is a hell of a song

http://sturgillsimpson.bandcamp.com/track/some-days

I'm getting pretty tired of the state things are in
Sometimes I feel like cutting a vein, just watching it bleed
I'm tired of laying it down, getting nothing on the other end
and people only wanting to be your friend when you got something they need

Well I'm getting pretty tired of being treated like competition
When the only one that can hold me down is inside my head
Whats a honky gotta do around here to get a little recognition
Start to think I might be worth more to everybody if I was dead

I'm getting pretty tired sitting around and wasting time
I'm tired of taking blame when I ain't done nothing wrong
I'm tired of other people trying to take what's mine
and I'm tired of y'all playing dress up and trying to sing them old country songs

Well some days you kill it and some days you just choke
Some days you blast off and some days you just smoke
Well now maybe I do and maybe I don't
Everybody says they'll be there but in the end y'all know they won't

would be strange to be in an audience for it, i think

the haden triplets, album release party at the bootleg theater, los angeles -- more old-timey/retro than this thread tends to go, i think, but i like the album, which places occasionally raggedy sisterly harmonies over pretty arrangements of country and bluegrass standards. recommended if you like the carter family and you find yourself missing 1947 and the knitters were too rock for your taste. the tempos are all almost aggressively slow, which doesn't bother me on the album, but onstage i really really wanted them -- needed them -- to rock out at least a little. i kept waiting. they kept getting slower. but they and their band, a mostly acoustic five-piece but with ry cooder playing electric lead for at least half the set, were endearingly loose, unpolished. they were less precious live than on record. and ry did rock out on his corner of the stage, sitting on a folding chair and playing wonderful ry cooder lead bits. first show in a long time where i was continuously thinking, "more guitar solos, please." they played an awful lot of songs by brothers -- louvins, stanleys, everlys -- which is maybe an inside joke because they're sisters, or maybe when you're doing country and bluegrass covers you don't really have a choice. i was also amused when, after playing a couple jesus songs, they said to their friends in the audience, now you understand why we can't pay the temple israel fundraiser.

...can't *play* the temple israel fundraiser.

Ha. Charlie's kids

I clicked on that Sturgill Simpson Bandcamp link and this is the portion of his bio that's immediately visible:

Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky. Pure and uncompromising, devoid of...

I came back without even pressing play on the song. Might go back and try again later.

I'm new to Eric Church; picked up Chief and The Outsiders at Target last weekend. Chief is very good, The Outsiders is pretty bad. I listen to way too much Cannibal Corpse, to name just one, for his lyrics to get me worked up, but as far as the music's concerned, I'll just cut 'n' paste what I put on Facebook: "I feel SLIGHTLY less baffled (in the 'did I get the same CD I read about in the reviews?' sense) and ripped off after this purchase than I did after buying the first Big & Rich CD. Slightly. I guess the lesson here, which I fortunately only have to re-learn once a decade or so, is to never take advice on country music from pop critics."

hey let us know if there's any other music you almost listen to but don't

All right, I went back and listened. You'd think a guy so wound up about authenticity would have rounded up a live drummer. The voice is very Waylon to my ear, and since I'd been listening to that Nashville Rebel box from 2006 or so recently, I was OK with that.

"I feel SLIGHTLY less baffled (in the 'did I get the same CD I read about in the reviews?' sense) and ripped off after this purchase than I did after buying the first Big & Rich CD. Slightly. I guess the lesson here, which I fortunately only have to re-learn once a decade or so, is to never take advice on country music from pop critics."

You posted this on Facebook a few days ago, and I'm baffled why you're posting it here when just about everyone on this thread has written at length about country.

Seriously: xhuxk, dow, Kogan, a few others here review country albums all the time and probably send Nashville Scene ballots yet they're "pop critics" reviewing country music? And you condescend to (a) them (b) pop music?

They weren't the critics I was talking about. I was talking about Powers, Harvilla, and all the other people who've suddenly bubbled up to rave about Eric Church's new album.

Of course it was xhuxk who sold the world on Big & Rich...

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/scathing-jason-aldean-concert-review-censored

man there's already a lot being written about that without stooping to that SCM bullshit

and under armour didn't complain (they can get fucked anyway tho)

I'd call myself a rock critic writing about country. But I wouldn't object to the designation "pop critic writing about country."* Face it, my sensibility isn't country's, and I don't want it to be. (Not that country has but a single sensibility.) And maybe my not being country makes me a better critic of country.

Fwiw, I think many or most country critics started off writing about rock and pop, though actually I don't really know a lot about who writes or wrote about country. The three books I have about country are by Nick Tosches, John Morthland, and Bill Malone, only the last of whom I'd designate more a country critic than a rock critic.

As for authenticity, I'm all for it, and think as a writer and thinker I'm authentic, in that I seek the truth, challenge assumptions (incl. some of my own, sometimes), take account of good counter-arguments, don't lie, don't write in bad faith. When I think of what underlies most people's idea of authenticity, and why arguments over the "real" just will never ever go away, and shouldn't, I think of the Big Youth line, "Marcus Garvey say... black people will never know themselves until them back against the wall," meaning you don't know who you are until you've been tested, and you don't know whether an idea's good until it's been tested, and so forth - i.e., you're willing to stand up for something when it costs you to do so. The trouble is, people take a shortcut, make a fetish of paying a price, so they think paying a price for a stance makes the stance right, and paying a price for a belief makes the belief true. And they take further shortcuts, making being downtrodden and persecuted a mark of authenticity. So they mistake the markings of authenticity for the rightness of a stance and the truth of a belief, and their test for whether something is right becomes a tallying of what sort of person supports it and what sort of person opposes it, rather than whether (if it's a belief) it matches evidence or is consistent with one's other apparently true beliefs (if it's not, you gotta rethink something) or, when it's a stance or action, what its consequences are, what it builds and what it tears down. But as long as power is unjust and truth is corrupted, people will find authenticity in whatever looks to be embattled, whether it's old gone masculinity or sneered-at girlie pop. All this is understandable. I think Sturgill Simpson is lazy in donning the mere trappings of "authenticity," which ironically makes him seem phony to me in his presentation, but that doesn't mean there's no value in his singing and no truth in his experience.

Also find the word "authenticity" to itself be too much of a shortcut, that it waves its hand at issues without spelling them out, and I prefer the adjectival form, "real," attached to some noun. (Also think I wrote at more depth and therefore better about this stuff here and here, basically about why I'm not an antirockist.) But I really have no respect for people when they're saying, in effect, "It's these other people who are all hung up on authenticity, but we know better than to care about it." I know better than not to care about it.

*And my number one country singles of various years have included songs by Miley Cyrus, Marit Larsen, and 2Yoon (my justification for my Marit vote included the statement, "Norway's a country").

is that what simpson is doing, donning trappings? i kind of thought that the number of songs about him as a performer/songwriter and the music business were sort of meant as a stab at threading the needle between being inauthentic by choice (ruled out) and being authentic naturally, as if there were a way of doing the latter that he had in mind but could not do without the reflexive me-and-this-business self-consciousness. but his way of doing it -with- that stuff seems like it's not exactly reducible to 'donning trappings'. sometimes it seems to me like even a matter of deliberate incongruity with the expectation that as a performer he'll only 'perform' country-unhappiness, country-life-problems etc. that first verse of 'some days' doesn't sound performed: it sounds like the kind of uncomfortable admission that a songwriter operating under a more conventional/stylized form of 'authenticity' might have looked askance at, and taken simpson aside to say, hey, look, if we could change this to make it more… soulful, heartfelt… wouldn't that be better? but he leaves it that way.

Talking about "authenticity" is difficult. Frank says it quite well above. You do got to think about it, "realness." Of course there is that aspect to music, and all art. It seems rather basic, but you do have to remember that art is both subject matter and an attitude toward subject matter, as well as an attitude toward formal elements which themselves become the subject matter, in many cases. I suppose this is why writing or thinking about country clearly can be so difficult for people. Of course I give a damn that Merle Haggard really lived the life he writes about, but Merle Haggard cares about how well he can make up stuff. So I think there's a disconnection between artists' intentions and audience expectations now, when "pop" or "rock" critics think about this stuff, that perhaps did not exist back in the olden days of country music.

Here's me on Jerrod Niemann's new record, which raises some of these authenticity questions, in its comedic way.

i think the general ILM position on "authenticity" is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind. but this is an interesting place to at least try talking about it, as country and hip-hop seem to be the two genres where the elusive idea of "authenticity" seems to be a core value that is as important to the music as it is to discussion of the music. there are plenty of "real country" radio stations out there. not sure if there are any "real pop" stations. i'm fascinated by sturgill simpson, who i saw for the first time at sxsw. he stood between a guitarist and bassist who both were dressed head-to-toe in two very different takes on authentic country dress. guitar guy looked like a longhaired southern rock acolyte. bassist looked like he was auditioning for the lead role in a tv show about an alt-country band from brooklyn. and standing in the middle, sturgill himself, in short hair and dad jeans, looked like a dental equipment salesman in a breakfast buffet line at a convention. he didn't seem like he was trying at all. which maybe is just a different way of trying. i loved his voice and the sound of the band. don't remember a single song, though. (and then i was surprised to go online and see the cover of his upcoming album, on which he looks like the very picture of an authentic country outlaw.)

frank k's take on authenticity is great.

country and hip-hop seem to be the two genres where the elusive idea of "authenticity" seems to be a core value that is as important to the music as it is to discussion of the music.

Well, don't forget metal. That fits, too.

Also want to mention that the first reference to "authenticity" on this thread had to do with Eric Church, not Sturgill Simpson (who I've barely paid attention to myself, but then again I've never had much stomach for Waylon's singing, either).

Told Edd on facebook that the new Jerrod Niemann is a major disappointment for me, seeming both dumbed down and reined in after his first two (the second of which made my Pazz & Jop ballot a couple years back.) I like the new David Nail and Eli Young Band albums more, though they've both done better in the recent past too. Beyond that, country is drawing a blank for me so far this year like it hasn't since I don't know when. (New alt-country/folkieish one by Mary Gauthier -- who I think Frank has mentioned before, though I forget in what context -- actually sounded tolerable enough in the background that I'm committed now to figuring out whether there are actually any memorable songs on it.)

I did do these 3 mixes for Rhapsody in the past month or two, though:

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/square-dance-tronica-mix

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/country-dance-remixes

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/rnb-covers-country

Wow, those look weirdly appy when clicked on; I had no idea. Direct links to the actual complete playlists, fwiw:

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.141201242

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.136642041

More discussion of Eric Church (don't think this March 12th piece was mentioned upthread):

http://www.popmatters.com/column/179709-the-outsiders-of-country-music/

A recent CBS Sunday Morning interview with Church depicted him, purposely or not, as a popular kid, the class president, who learned that dark sunglasses, stubble and drug references brought the biggest cheers from audiences. So he decided to turn up the “outlaw” aspect of his persona.

Might sit down on my diamond plate tailgate
Put in my country ride hip-hop mixtape
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain

Luke Bryan 2013 video still getting airplay

No talk in here about the "lost" Johnny Cash album?

it's pleasant

No talk in here about the "lost" Johnny Cash album?

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Monday, March 31, 2014 2:55 PM

Alas, after one's wilderness years, much shit is left behind.

That refer to the Cash album, btw, not your ILX handle.

I wanted more chatter about the Jerrod Niemann album; what I've heard is pretty damn anonymous. Last album was a breakthrough, maybe the most ambitious bro country album of the last three years.

The Cash album is worth checking out---after all those death's door and beyond albums (although The Man Comes Around was really good), it's startling to hear him hale and even sassy---not that the lead-off, suicide-by-cop song is sad on the bridge, but otherwise he gets caught up in the vicarious thrill (singing about those who will take any kind of release), his trademark empathy with dark underdawgs now (in early 80s, when album was cut) enhanced by career and marital tumult. He's pretty chirpy throughout--what the hell, he can still do this, even if little else is working out---and he and June are still cool together in the studio; Waylon shows up too---however, the only tracks so far grabbing me are the sleaziest: when he and she are going over Lover's Leap in a Cadillac he ain't nearly paid for, cheering like Slim Pickens riding the Bomb; and a tale told by a guy who claims to have banged a country star---he ain't no groupie, he's just bold and lucky (JC has this kind of barroom BS down cold). Could be too creepy, but has a novelty punchline. But maybe Columbia agrees that the best tracks were the ones with NO country radio chance back then, and likely now. I'll listen some more; whole thing is a nice pick-me-up.
Really been enjoying most of these recent posts---oh, and this just in from Cary Baker (HW's live radio work, especially on the Health and Happiness Shows, really have a pleasing range, so looking fwd to this)

http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20140328/49/3f/b9/d8/eb1cdb0e87a1c03c0689e42a_440x314.jpg

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED MUSIC FROM HANK WILLIAMS
SURFACES IN THE GARDEN SPOT PROGRAMS, 1950
On May 20, Omnivore Recordings will issue 24 songs and jingles recorded
in Nashville, and last heard generations ago.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Omnivore Recordings will soon release the full-length version of The Garden Spot Programs, 1950, featuring 24 performances, unheard for 64 years, from country music legend Hank Williams. Rescued from obscurity, these shows originally aired more than six decades ago; The Garden Spot Programs, 1950 collects material from the four episodes now known to exist. Due out May 20, 2014, the set follows the release of Omnivore’s collectible 10” vinyl Record Store Day EP sampler.
From hits to standards to songs rarely (if ever) performed, this is pure Hank Williams, including playful between-song banter. Featuring fully restored audio, The Garden Spot Programs, 1950 is an exceptional listening experience. Painstakingly transferred, restored and mastered from original transcription discs by Grammy Award winning engineer Michael Graves. Williams’ daughter, Jett, is excited that her father’s lost material is not only seeing the light of day decades later, but will be available on CD, digital and LP.
The CD packaging contains rare photos and liner notes from the collection of set co-producer and Williams biographer Colin Escott. Also available on LP, the first pressing will be on limited edition, translucent red vinyl (with black vinyl to follow), containing Escott’s informative notes and a download card.
Escott writes in his notes: “Set the time machine for early morning on KSIB-AM, Creston, Iowa. February 1950. Country radio was beginning its slow transition from live music to DJ shows. Live music and DJ shows were augmented by transcribed shows. After buying 15 minutes of airtime on small-market stations, sponsors would prerecord shows with well known artists, duplicate them, and ship them out on 12 or 16-inch transcribed discs.”

“That’s how Hank Williams came to be on KSIB in February 1950. Sandwiched between the local ‘live’ acts, it was almost as if he were visiting with Skeets and those Radio Rascals. His sponsor was one of the nation’s largest plant nurseries, Naughton Farms, seven hundred miles south in Waxahachie, Texas. Given that Naughton was a big player in the nursery business, Hank’s shows were almost certainly shipped to many small stations, but only KSIB’s copies survived. Those of us who have studied Hank’s life and career had no idea that these recordings existed.”
Any music from Hank Williams is worth celebrating. Discovering material that has been unheard for generations is monumental.
“It’s incredible to me that we’re still finding new recordings by my dad — great ones at that,” says Jett Williams. “No one even suspected that these recordings existed. We partnered with Omnivore Recordings for this release, and I especially love it that they’re taking my dad back to vinyl.”
Track Listing:
1. The Garden Spot Jingle
2. Lovesick Blues
3. A Mansion On The Hill
4. Fiddle Tune
5. I’ve Just Told Mama Goodbye
6. Closing/Oh! Susanna
7. The Garden Spot Jingle
8. Mind Your Own Business
9. Lovesick Blues
10. Fiddle Tune
11. At The First Fall Of Snow
12. Closing/Oh! Susanna
13. The Garden Spot Jingle
14. I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind
15. I Don’t Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)
16. Fiddle Tune
17. Farther Along
18. Closing/Oh! Susanna
19. The Garden Spot Jingle
20. I’ll Be A Bachelor ’Til I Die
21. Wedding Bells
22. Fiddle Tune
23. Jesus Remembered Me
24. Closing/Oh! Susanna

Tracks 1 - 6 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #4
Tracks 7 - 12 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #9
Tracks 13 - 18 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #10
Tracks 19 - 24 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #11
Here's the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr6-DuFS0aE&feature=youtu.be

"not that the suicide-by-cop song *isn't* sad on the bridge" and tastefully earnest all through, but yeah a trace of "let's do it!" too.

I wanted more chatter about the Jerrod Niemann album; what I've heard is pretty damn anonymous. Last album was a breakthrough, maybe the most ambitious bro country album of the last three years.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 31, 2014 9:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Need to hear it, but so far have just read about it-- how he records in his home studio and uses auto-tune and rap and then brings that to his producer who reels him in a bit on some songs. He's getting married and has a song or 2 for his fiance also.

Rolling Stone contributor said:

he does take his brand of country music to sonically innovative and admittedly polarizing levels. Take, for instance, "Drink to That All Night," the album’s first single. Its lyrics alone read like a good, old-fashioned drinking song that the Luke Bryans and Toby Keiths of the country world have cut a million times. But Niemann throws listeners for an Auto-Tuned loop by practically rapping two verses over an electronic dance beat. The track travels into a more familiar, country-rock neighborhood by the chorus, but it remains one of the most unique songs to crack the country singles chart’s Top 20 in a long time.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jerrod-niemann-on-his-innovative-and-potentially-polarizing-new-lp-20140324#ixzz2xaGLDyE6

I'm guessing the writer is not giving enough credit to listeners who at this point, may not be stunned by autotuned vocals and rapping

I liked the first and loved his second album.

Just listened to "Drink to that All Night." It is catchy pop, and that verse referenced in the Rolling Stone piece is not "polarizing" and likely doesn't throw anyone for a loop.

Need to hear the whole thing a few times to see whether I agree with Edd's Nashville Scene piece closing lines from his review:

With its high-grade instrumental backdrop, High Noon never lets up on the studied eclecticism. But as Jones could teach you, keeping it simple can often let the real insanity of country come through, and Niemann seems far too sane to approach that level of expression.

Niemann's "Come On, Come On" from the new one is kinda nice. "Donkey" uses old-school rapping and goofy lyrics --ride my donkey to the honky-tonkey. I like the line in one song about "I'm not Shakespeare or Kristofferson..."

But I hear less "studied eclecticism" on this one than Edd. Lots of standard pop-country with a few songs ("Drink...", "Donkey") nodding to other genres. But the eclecticism on those cuts does sound a bit studied.

And as for the other country singer getting press, Sturgill Simpson has apparently meshed his more traditional sounds with lyrics:

Inspired by the writings of American psychonaut Terence McKenna and Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” Simpson sings about the bardo of Tibetan Buddhism in the baritone of Waylon Jennings.

“I’ve been reading about the idea of cyclical lives — it matches up to the idea of string theory and a multiverse,” he says in a deep, dead-serious voice. “So I wanted to write a record about that instead of another song about broken hearts and drinking.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sturgill-simpson-a-country-voice-of-and-out-of-this-world/2014/03/31/46277cce-b8f9-11e3-899e-bb708e3539dd_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e

Hook it up to Joe Diffie's "Third Rock From The Sun," which xhuxx IDs as a country song about chaos theory.
Good points on the aforementioned prev. unreleased Cash album, and this somewhut chaotic stage of his career--had forgotten about Johnny 99 and "The Chicken in Black":
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/03/johnny-cash-eighties-man.html#entry-more

Rat off, der Jerrod has nice sub-audiophile headphones appeal. But I know what Edd means about mebbe being "too sane": he certainly sounds too sober to call us us all aboard the bro-country party train. So he does better when he just takes his place on the bandwagon, settling in for some cool, low-key salesmanship, dispensing with the expected yeehaw on "Donkey" and "She's Fine," the latter being one of the most appealing, maybe seductive, as he undulates over the steady banjo and bass, with Colt Ford's rap adding a little more counter-rhytmic appeal ("undulates" like some of the prev. album's Carribbean-associated tendencies getting assimilated/re-emerging just a bit, as happens on a couple other of these tracks). The relatively bluesy "The Real Thing" also has some suavity, its bent-note reflectiveness fits with the one negatory track, "I Can't Give In Anymore," where he's tired of rolling around, having gotten the "Space" he wanted (good opening track, with electric stars spangling the chorus, but as always, no over-selling). I suppose he might establish himself as an older bro Chesney for the electrically inclined, but even several of the better tracks plateau in attention-keeping, even though all are under four minutes. I'll listen some more, but seems like (ahead of any cherrypicking, to put the ones I've mentioned with keepers from prev. albums), this setseems like less than the sum of its parts, kind of a (sub-)Nashville Skyline.

Also NS re quite reasonable, underwhelming follow-up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/business/media/losing-a-few-hay-bales-country-music-goes-mainstream.html?emc=edit_th_20140407&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31119931&_r=0

Now America's most popular music radio format. Country's live concert audiences have grown, and Rolling Stone is looking to cash in:

Rolling Stone recently opened an office on Music Row, a formerly residential strip in Nashville, and is preparing to introduce Rolling Stone Country, a new website. “I am convinced Rolling Stone will provide a lens into the genre that currently doesn’t exist,” said Gus Wenner, the director of RollingStone.com and a son of Jann Wenner, the magazine’s founder.

While country broadcasters typically give their stations names like “The Wolf” or “The Coyote,” suggesting rural stereotypes, Lew Dickey, chief executive of Cumulus, said his new brand captured a broader and more upwardly mobile audience for the genre.

“We wanted to eschew the conventional stereotypes in the format and go with something more aspirational,” Mr. Dickey said. “Nash is cool; Nash is fun; Nash is relevant.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/07/acm-awards-big-winners-best-and-worst-performances-most-awkward-moments/

list of some of the winners and nominees:

Entertainer of the Year
Luke Bryan
Miranda Lambert
Blake Shelton
George Strait (winner)
Taylor Swift

Male Vocalist of the Year
Jason Aldean (winner)
Lee Brice
Luke Bryan
Blake Shelton
Keith Urban

Female Vocalist of the Year
Sheryl Crow
Miranda Lambert (winner)
Kacey Musgraves
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood

Vocal Duo of the Year
Big & Rich
Dan + Shay
Florida Georgia Line (winner)
Love and Theft
Thompson Square

Vocal Group of the Year
Eli Young Band
Lady Antebellum
Little Big Town
The Band Perry (winner)
Zac Brown Band

New Artist of the Year
Brett Eldredge
Justin Moore (winner)
Kip Moore

Album of the Year
“Based On A True Story…” – Blake Shelton
“Crash My Party” – Luke Bryan
“Here’s To The Good Times” – Florida Georgia Line
“Same Trailer Different Park” – Kacey Musgraves (winner)
“Two Lanes Of Freedom” – Tim McGraw

Single Record of the Year
“Cruise” Florida Georgia Line
“Highway Don’t Care” – Tim McGraw feat.Taylor Swift and Keith Urban
“I Drive Your Truck” – Lee Brice
“Mama’s Broken Heart” – Miranda Lambert (winner)
“Wagon Wheel” – Darius Rucker feat. Lady Antebellum

Song of the Year
“Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain)” – Gary Allan (Written by Gary Allan, Hillary Lindsey, Matthew Warren)
“I Drive Your Truck” – Lee Brice (Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, Jimmy Yeary) (winner)
“Mama’s Broken Heart “– Miranda Lambert (Written by Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, Kacey Musgraves)
“Mine Would Be You” – Blake Shelton (Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, Deric Ruttan)
“Wagon Wheel” – Darius Rucker feat. Lady Antebellum (Written by Bob Dylan, Ketch Secor)

lmao at justin moore winning, or even being nominated for, new artist. his first country #1 was onoly what, 5 years ago?

Yep. I guess the ACM's are like the Grammys, who similarly decide someone is a new artist years after the fact.

Sorry I've not visited in a while. I love j's image of "threading the needle," and would like to spend more time with Sturgill's lyrics to see if I think the image is apt or not. But I haven't made the time yet. Even if I eventually decide j's wrong, I like the image, enriches my sense of what Simpson could be doing, what potential lies within his music, whether or not the potential's actually expressed.

"i think the general ILM position on 'authenticity' is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind"

I find this statement baffling, since I don't think people at ILM (or anywhere else, mostly) have gotten much beyond square one in their thinking through their "position(s)" or concepts of authenticity; but to the extent that there is an ILM hivemind on the subject, I believe I'm against it. I think making judgments about what's real (in two senses, real versus imaginary and real versus fake) is an inescapable part of being alive, just as making judgments about being true is inescapable. But the tendency at ILM (at least back when I was paying a lot more attention to the overall ilX/ILM than I am now) has been to go, "oh, those people are all hung up on authenticity, but we know better than to be hung up on authenticity." Which means the ILM people's own authenticity ploys and judgments go unrecognized as such, and don't get examined or understood. I don't know. Is my memory wrong? Or has ilX changed? In any event, I don't know better than to be hung up on authenticity. And I still urge you guys to read those two pieces I wrote for the Las Vegas Weekly about why I'm not an antirockist. At least read the last four paragraphs of the second one. Money quote, with some emphasis added: "Antirockism is rockism with a few of the words changed, and I don't mean that it shouldn't be like rockism or that the antirockists uncritically like pop and sneer at rock, which they don't, but rather that they're trying to get out from under the drab and the false just as much as the rockist is, they just place drabness and falseness in somewhat different locales."

Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead

Where The Real Wild Things Are

Hitting me real despite some falsity--Dierks Bentley tune from the new one where he gets on his knees to believe, vocals wavering off into some negative zone, U2 guitars droning on in nagging fashion as he sings how there are no answers down here on earth. It's almost as spiritual a tune as the next one, my favorite on the record, "Drunk on a Plane."

just as making judgments about being true is inescapable

I meant to write "just as making judgments about what is true is inescapable."

Haven't taken the time to click other people's links yet, so I'm probably a hypocrite in asking people to click mine.

I enjoyed that, on the one hand Humorist was immediately driven away from the Simpson bandcamp site when he read the statement, "Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky. Pure and uncompromising, devoid of...," but then, on the other, right away challenged in effect the authenticity of pop critics writing about country. Not that one necessarily shouldn't challenge the authenticity of such critics, or that one shouldn't be put off by the fatuousness of "Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky." But all this just underlines my point that to make judgments regarding what's real and what's not is inescapable.

These are my top three country singles for the first quarter of 2014. They comprise 43 percent of the new country songs I've heard this year. Haven't yet listened to the 4minute EP to see if either of the two Yoons, or any of the remaining three 4's, followed up on the country experiment of "24/7."

1. Brantley Gilbert "Bottoms Up"
2. Rascal Flatts "Rewind"
3. Eric Church "Give Me Back My Hometown"

Still haven't heard the Church alb you've all been grousing about, but the single is hummable enough.

Dwight Yoakam and Eric Church are touring together in October and they're playing Madison Square Garden. I am really gonna try to get to that show.

anyone heard Martina McBride's new covers album?

New Miranda Lambert record's tracklist was announced a couple days ago. Looks to be in the same wheelhouse as the last two records. Quite a few tracks penned with Natalie Hemby ("Fine Tune," "White Liar," "Only Prettier," "Airstream Song"), one with Luke Laird & Shane McAnally, one with Brandy Clark, and two with Ashley Monroe.

http://www.countryweekly.com/news/miranda-lambert-reveals-platinum-album-track-list

I'm not exactly optimistic about the trend toward guest spots and away from clever cover choices (e.g., "Easy from Now On," "Getting Ready," "Time to Get a Gun," "Kerosene"--which I count), but I'm glad she keeps going back to Frank Lidell's well. She's been in remarkably trustworthy hands behind his production, and it's good to see his continued success shaping the sound of modern country through Pistol Annies, Kellie Pickler, et al.

It's strange how Travis Howard's name isn't in these credits. The guy wrote some of her most defining songs--"Mama, I'm Alright," "Famous in a Small Town," "Guilty in Here," "Heart Like Mine"--but hasn't had a tune on either of the last two records.

And as for the other country singer getting press, Sturgill Simpson has apparently meshed his more traditional sounds with lyrics:
Inspired by the writings of American psychonaut Terence McKenna and Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” Simpson sings about the bardo of Tibetan Buddhism in the baritone of Waylon Jennings.
“I’ve been reading about the idea of cyclical lives — it matches up to the idea of string theory and a multiverse,” he says in a deep, dead-serious voice. “So I wanted to write a record about that instead of another song about broken hearts and drinking.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sturgill-simpson-a-country-voice-of-and-out-of-this-world/2014/03/31/46277cce-b8f9-11e3-899e-bb708e3539dd_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, April 1, 2014 9:31 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first track and single, "Turtles All the Way Down," is now up on Spotify (http://open.spotify.com/track/5AlmqxIrxgiNBKItTM5L5J). Per the article linked above:

During the album’s opening track, “Turtles All the Way Down,” he encounters Jesus Christ, Buddha, a hit of DMT, an angry God and “reptile aliens made of light.”

@nn P0w3rs (who thinks it's a great record) told me on facebook that she thought "poptimists" would have trouble with the new Church album, since (she says) he's obsessed with being "authentic" (or something like that). (I didn't know whether that meant she thought I was a poptimist or not. I also still don't believe there's any such thing, but that's old news.)

Well, the words "poptimists" and "authenticity" are broad, vague, confusing, and contested, which doesn't mean that they're necessarily defective. (I'd say that words like "rock" and "pop" and "country" are just as broad, vague, confusing, and contested and that for them these are virtues.) By "broad" I mean they refer to a lot of disparate content, by "vague" that you can nail them down to a set of characteristics, by "confusing" that people mean different things by the words and the various things they mean are sometimes at odds with one another, and by "contested" that people use the words in arguments, that they argue about how to use the terms, and that one of the uses of the terms is to start arguments over how to use the terms. But it does mean that if you yourself use the words "poptimists" and "authenticity" you very likely will have to elaborate further if you want to actually say something that will get us thinking. Fact checking cuz's "i think the general ILM position on 'authenticity' is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind" just screams for elaboration -- e.g., what is the hivemind's position on authenticity?

What happens with the words "poptimists" and "authenticity," though, is that they way too often get used as buzzwords, so that the people who use the words will often just wave them around, feeling that by doing so they've identified a position or a set of people or a set of characteristics and feeling as if they've made a point; and the conversations that follow go round in narrow circles. Anyway, I've stated that there's no such thing as "poptimism," and Chuck quoted this in Rock And Roll Always Forgets -- though note that what I said was conditional ("unless by 'poptimism' you mean every interesting critic ever"), so I'm not saying that the word "poptimism" is meaningless, even if there's no such thing. But I'll set that discussion aside, to focus on a different point, which is that I don't think we can get away with saying there are no poptimists.

The analogy I use would be that though there are jocks, there isn't a "jockism" or a jock ethos or a jock ethic. Of course, you can claim that there is one, but my point is that there doesn't have to be for "jocks" nonetheless to be a meaningful term and for it to potentially identify actual human beings. And back in the late '60s and early '70s there were freaks who used to hang out in front of the drugstore across the street from my high school, smoking cigarettes -- it was as if they were on stage -- without there being a freakism or a freak dogma etc. Which didn't mean that, e.g., John Koniar and Tim Page and Winn Biesele had nothing in common, but it did mean that you couldn't predict from the attitude of one of them what the others' attitude would be, and you couldn't predict in advance what their common attitudes would be. They were perfectly capable of challenging each other.

So, in the '00s (and occasionally still, I think) there was a club night in London called "Poptimism," many of the attendees having first come to know of each other on ILM or Freaky Trigger. And both Freaky Trigger and ILM were started by Tom Ewing, who had a column at Pitchfork called "Poptimist" and I think was also the person who started the (now moribund) poptimists community on LiveJournal, though Kat Stevens and Starry and several others were as important to that general LiveJournal cluster as Tom was. But certainly there are actual, identifiable people who posted at "poptimists" and who did and do frequently converse with Tom and crew online. And I was/am one of them, even if people like me and Lex Macpherson tended to be cantankerous and at odds with others on many subjects (and Lex actually made a point of leaving the community at one point); but that just means we're human beings. So in that sense I'm a "poptimist" even if I don't identify with a lot of positions that get attributed to poptimists. I mean, I wouldn't call myself a "poptimist," but someone else calling me a poptimist because I run with other people they also call "poptimists" isn't exactly being ridiculous in doing so. Anyway, there's one nexus of "poptimists" consisting of people who hang with Tom, and then there's a different set, people like Ann Powers and Jody Rosen, who also embrace the word as a self-description (or at least did so in the past), this set maybe including Carl Wilson and some others. I'm not as up with Ann as I used to be, so don't know where she much less they are now with the word.

So there are identifiable people you can locate as "poptimists," whether the word helps or hinders our understanding of what this set or sets of people actually do and say. I probably need to expand on this subject more, but not right now. But anyway, it's -- obviously -- not a given that a "poptimist" would dislike the Eric Church album, or, if she did, would do so on the grounds that Eric is attempting to be "authentic," if indeed that's what he's doing. (I still haven't listened to the thing.)

by "vague" that you can nail them down to a set of characteristics

I meant to type "by 'vague' that you CAN'T nail them down to a set of characteristics."

Rodney Crowell's Tarpaper Sky starts with a stilted Big Sky perspective "The Journey Home," which come to think of it, fits with this set's family resemblance to the kind of Dylan album, like most of 'em this century, for instance, which occasionally backfires but then glides along the scenic route as gracefully as a Model T, or Model A, anyway. He doesn't sing Dylany, but he's got a taste for juicy, sometimes dusty notes and seemingly offhand words that fall into place, like over drinks, on postcards, or maybe elsewhere: sure would like to hear Pistol Annies cover "God I'm Missing You," but it's not strictly necessary, considering the way he does it, conversing with someone who may be next to him, or miles/years away--then there's "Somebody's shadow/Is making me erect/Somebody's shadow/Like a noose around my neck." "Jesus Talk To Mama" mostly plays it straight, lyrics-wise, though a few bits like "Last night I beat the Devil to the draw" and def. that bone-rolling guitar have me thinking 'bout the kind of Saved gunmen to be found in Boardwalk Empire and Justified. "The Flyboy and The Kid" incl. a light-fingered skim/improvement of "Forever Young."
Mind you, this is unmistakably a Crowell album, but does suggest Dylan as a mostly good influence, not so far in effect from RC's actual collalbums with co-writer Mary Karr--their Kin also recruits a rich variety of other singers--and of course Emmylou (oh yeah, and his production of Chely Wright's Lifted Off The Ground, in which they display mainstream pop-country, fully-formed and new and true and gay as and when and how it wants to be, minus excess drama or dilution).
Streaming here, with good 'uns by Carlene Carter, Jon Langford, and others I haven't checked yet:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=0

That there Carlene album, Carter Girl, is something I'm not totally into yet. but it certainly is better than I feared, when I heard she was going to salute the roots, with Carter Family chesnuts. I mostly know her from my ancient, scruffy-sounding twofer, Musical Shapes & Blue Nun, where she and Nick Lowe tried for Bakersfield/Beatles (and I guess Rockpile)appeal: rocking country, rather than country-rock, Also, she had a rave-up with NRBQ-to-Nashville guitarist-songwriter Al Anderson on Austin City Limits. This album, produced by Don Was mixes old and new songs and beats in an overcast atmosphere, never anachronistic nor murky. The rhythm can be a guide, though not a cheerleader, in "Lonesome Valley 2003," where she goes to and from several funerals, and even slaps butts on "Me and the Wildwood Rose," a road song about childhood rolling with Carter ladies and little sister Rosey, later a true desperado (track record not mentioned, but the song visits her funeral). Carlene and Elizabeth Cook leave a life of crime to settle down, attended by angels and what sounds like a tumbleweed full of mechanical bulls. Elsewhere, she may lope or trot or (once) waltz through variously challenging situations, incl. those associated with outlaws, but she's always adapting, with no self-congratulation.
Hey:just give her those flowers right now, even if you think, with her own track record, you might not have long to wait for yet another send-off; and furthermore, "Kind words are no good/In a bed too narrow." Lots of family, incl. Johnny and June, sing along on the finale, "I Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," where she's ditched again, but on the other hand, see title; and also, "Pretty girls are dancin' on the cold, cold ground," so that helps too (far as I'm concerned).

Eric Church's xpost latest isn't on Spotify, but migt check the 2013 live album they have, since I enjoyed piecing The Outsiderstogether on YouTube, from official studio and exemplary audience recordings. Fun band, springy tunes, some Zep-hop and (on "Devil Devil") bar band metal distilled to one-note solos for the climax. But the voice, even with studio padding, is really thin and so nasal he seems to be trying to reassure--himself?---that this is still country, not goin' too wild, despite all the slightly distanced, kind of tentative portents of storms and wrecking balls (saw a couple interviews where he mumbles something to the effect that he wasn't too sure, early on, about some of the producer's ideas).

Oh yeah: it's the rhythm, mainly the bass, not Carlene personally (unless she's playin' bass, thus) slappin' butts on "Wildwood Rose."

From the EMP Pop Conference 2014 thread:

I dunno who else was at Carl Wilson's country panel, but the back and forth between the panel and audience was among the most intelligent and edifying experiences I've had in four years of attending these things.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:27 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sounds like a good panel, Alfred

Heartlandia
Anthony Easton, "Hurry to Get Done: Chasing Deer and Chasing Class in Contemporary Country Music"
Jewly Hight, "Drag and Slide: Country Connotations, Clogging Steps, and the Power of Breaking Routine"
Tom Smucker, "When Michigan Moved to Tennessee and Texas: Regionalism and Globalism, the Rust Belt and the New South in the Music of Toby Keith and Brad Paisley (and Ted Nugent and Kid Rock)"

― curmudgeon, Sunday, April 27, 2014 3:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Guessing it was much better than the Lefsetz emails I just read on the huge Stagecoach country music fest out in Cali (where Coachella is held)

― curmudgeon, Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I admit that that country panel was the one time all weekend that I switched rooms mid-panel, as I was just not processing Anthony's lexicon at all. But it was clear to me that that was me, so I'm very glad to hear that other people made sense of it!

― glenn mcdonald, Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, the discussion ooncretized, if you will, Anthony's paper. The discussionists by the way: Ann Powers, Jody Rosen, me, Josh Langhoff, Jewly Hight.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 27, 2014 9:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would like to see a summary of your comments, Alfred.
So far, the folk country of Hurray For The Riff Raff's Small Town Heroes has me thinking "Snorah Jones" more often than not. While the actual Norah invokes her nickname while diligently trying to get past it, Alynda Lee Segarra tends to steer her capable l'il crew right into the warm milk lullabies. Some reference to "Southern Gothic" in their Wikipedia etc; maybe this is meant to be more normal.(Live sets, like in NPR's Newport archive, can be perkier.) Still, it's got its moments, like a perfect version of "San Francisco Bay Blues," floating like a blooming branch, in the beauty of memory and desolation (see what you're leaving behind, Babe). Also, the title song and a couple others toward the end, where she, almost as an afterthought, mentions how and where the bodies are, traces of who screwed who, guess you could call that Southern Gothic, or local history, or just small town talk, don't believe a word, though the way she undersells it when she's really cooking, is something I can't dismiss. What a flukey gift.

I was underwhelmed by my sole listen to Ann Powers' fave Hurray for the Riff Raff. Nice backstory about Segarra's move to and life in New Orleans (with ocassional busking on the street), but yeah "Snorah Jones" folky-country that is only intermittently impressive

Lefsetz with more emails about the Stagecoach Fest:

BEST T-SHIRT

"Stagecoach is Coachella with SONGS!"

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/307746474/first-listen-sturgill-simpson-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music

I only heard Sturgill for the first time a few weeks ago when I finally clicked on this thread. This one looks interesting - eye-catching title anyway.

I meant to pop in here last night and ask if Rolling Country thinks Sturgill's album is as great as I do. Man...it's great.

Alpine, I was just listening to a Sturgill track off his upcoming record, over at Nashville Scene.

As I've said before, I've talked to Sturgill, good guy, and I also wrote about his old band, Sunday Valley, whom I quite liked. But so far, I'm just not getting what is all that distinctive about his voice or delivery--it's good country singing (reminds me as much of Jerry Lee as it does Waylon, and maybe that's part of my problem with Sturgill: I am not a big Waylon fan) but...it seems like another version of retro country, to my ears, well done. Americana. I guess I could say the same thing about Carlene Carter's new one, which I enjoy, but does it bring anything new to the discussion? Not sure about that.

I don't follow the discussion, so I have no idea. What I'm hearing is great singing and really cool light psychedelic touches. It isn't experimental, but there's a kind of retro-experimentalism (an evocation of past experimentation, like maybe the White Album) that I like.

That may be overstating it though. It's really just "It Ain't All Flowers" that has the spacey backwards guitar. Most of this stuff is straightforward.

Yeah. and like I said, there's a refreshed quality, incl the rhythmic appeal, and she's seen her way through various losses, acknowledged directly and somewhat indirectly (the latter being more traditional and traditional-sounding, involving violence and romance), with stoicism and vitality, some cautious hopefulness, wryness. Her version of wised-up outlaw country, matter-of-fact rather than flaunting what a badass she is (of course I'm mixing in vague memories of tabloid headlines and gossip, but she allows for that, invites it, anyway finds it inevitable, sounds like).

(My posts there were on SS not CC)

Yes, sorry about that, jmm, Carlene's album keeps cueing up again in my headbox; dunno why.
Just checked that xpost First Listen stream of Sturgill. Initially, I'm put off by the way he loses the end of lines, especially on the early originals: why make an effort to write distinctive lyrics, his own true testimony of outlaw country zigzag wanderin', if you're gonna drop 'em into [unintelligible]. I thought of Jerry Lee several times before I saw that Edd picked up on the similarity too: it's a slightly louder or higher, anyway harder, rising attack (no Waylon vibrato, although that's also true of the mellower tracks that sound more like Waylon). Still, neither of those guys had a diction problem. It's def not part of the country tradition, any of 'em.
Really, really liked the one about hearing voices, the main prob being that they don't have much to say, and will go on talkin' 'til the end of time. I know those voices (in terms of social commentary, that is). Perfectly followed by the truck tape chestnut about being "somewhere, tryin' to find the end of that white line."
Thee weirdness times realness of these two is seen and raised by "It Ain't All Flowers," where he cogently reflects on mental-emotional-logistic traffic jamz, eventually resolving into a hick-hop groove with somewhut Pink Floydian morphology, also country-appropriate, since Dark Side of The Moon is a trailer park favorite from way back, fairly frequently replaced after parties. I know this from having worked far too long in record, tape and CD shops (also not-working in trailers). "Pan Bowl" is poignant, but emphasizes the looking-back overview a bit generically. Oh well, as he says, "Me and the boys are still workin' on the sound," and I'll listen some more, workin' on gettin' used to the diction, for a little while longer, anyway. look forward to his next, and will check out previous (incl. xpost Sunday Valley, hopefully; thanks for the tip).

Speaking of weirdness times realness, there are five or six keepers on Dolly Parton's Blue Smoke, also streaming at First Listen. Following current post-Album Age album protocol, the worst ones are all up front: run the gauntlet and it gets better--in this case, not just by comparison. Once she slows down a little and thinks the verses out loud, it works, especially in that silvery, pinpoint delivery, which don't hurt a bit, though she knows you know it so could. But life hurts enough, so why get redundant. "If I Had Wings" and "You Can't Make Old Friends" have as many airborne shades of blue as necessary (also "From Here To The Moon and Back," with Willie, which is also a good wedding ballad, as xhuxx noted in Rolling Stone last year, when it first showed up on Willie's To All The Girls). "Put Your Hands On Me" is an erotic gospel song, riding the supernal mountain freeway tide, with the populist goddess's more reassuring inspirations.

She cranks up some good mainstream country/rock anthems too.

I'm with Edd re Sturgill:

I'm just not getting what is all that distinctive about his voice or delivery--it's good country singing (reminds me as much of Jerry Lee as it does Waylon, and maybe that's part of my problem with Sturgill: I am not a big Waylon fan) but...it seems like another version of retro country, to my ears

Starting to get caught up with xxhuxx's March postings of his Rhapsody playlists, starting with the electro-hoedown:http://www.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102"> http://www.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102
I see by this outfit that I'll have to check out the rest of A3's Exile On Coldharbour Lane, among quite a few of others. "Sweet Home Alabama" sounds perfectly at home on the Moog. "The Safety Dance" is the only one that seems out of place here (although I've never welcomed it anywhere). Got some of these, and sure wish I hadn't sold that 90s Rednex-led comp of Euro country techno pop, supposedly evidence of a whole scene, with girls dancing on hay bales in strobe lights (and dazzy duks). It seemed too harsh and trebley, which may well have actually been the fault of my neurotic 90s speakers. Sure hope the Mekons get back to their jokey smokey take on this approach, one of these decades.
(Those Electro Shine mixes on my Scene ballot's singles list, posted upthread, still sound pretty good too.)

Don't know why the hell xxhuxx's list got pasted twice; click on the second.

I really like the second Sturgill Simpson album much more than the first.

Agghh I need help! There's this country song by a woman/women's group that references Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings. Not sure in which way but there's clear references to those guys. The song is about 2/3 years old (i think?)

I was thinking that it was either an Ashley Monroe or a Pistol Annies tune, but cannot find it on their albums. Desperate to find it!
Hope someone can help :))

not sure if it mentions Kristofferson, pretty sure Waylon and Cash are though...

Loving the Highwaymen right now. Not sure if that's credible enough for y'all but it's fantastic. Need more of it.

Try the expanded reissue of Wanted: The Outlaws, which was the flagship of the Outlaw Country campaign in the mid-70s: Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and (yay) Jessi Colter. If you like her tracks, check her comeback, Out of the Ashes. I'm not that big on Kris, but look for a couple of his early albums, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I and Jesus Was A Capricorn. Nelson, Haggard and Kristofferson have been working on a new album, out this year, mebbe.

Oh yeah, Cash & Jennings did one called Heroes, apparently along the same lines as the Highwaymen series. Haven't heard it, but told it's good.

Gonna look those up, thanks much!

I like this song from Nikki Lane's new album, answering the musical question: "Nikki, when is the right time to do the wrong thing?" https://soundcloud.com/newwestrecords/nikki-lane-all-or-nothin-right/s-l71iv
Also digging the title song from her 2011 EP, which I was totally ignorant of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwzdQRfM-4

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19386-sturgill-simpson-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/arts/music/sturgill-simpsons-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music.html?_r=0

expecting wire and complex reviews soon

wow, dow otm

Just checked that xpost First Listen stream of Sturgill. Initially, I'm put off by the way he loses the end of lines, especially on the early originals: why make an effort to write distinctive lyrics, his own true testimony of outlaw country zigzag wanderin', if you're gonna drop 'em into [ unintelligible ].

yeah so i found the song i was looking for! Is it country? Don't know. But it's First Aid Kit - Emmylou
http://youtu.be/PC57z-oDPLs

phew

congrats on finding it

re sturgill simpson losing the end of his lines: ding ding ding. i like the new album quite a bit, but that's one of the things that's keeping me from loving it. also, in addition to the other comparisons that have been made in sturgill literature so far (waylon, jamey johnson, etc.), something about the particular way his voice drawls reminds me of early dwight yoakam.

LEE ANN WOMACK PREMIERES FIRST SONG FROM
THE WAY I'M LIVIN' ON WSJ.COM

Album Produced by Award-Winning Frank Liddell,
First New Music in Over 6 Years
The Way I'm Livin' was produced by Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, David Nail), and features the songs of Chris Knight, Mindy Smith, Buddy Miller, Mando Saenz, Hayes Carll, Neil Young, Bruce Robison and one cagey cover lifted from Roger Miller. The album will impact at radio in June

Haven't heard that song yet. List of songwriters makes it seem too alt to "impact" radio, but yea, haven't heard it yet so who knows

Yes, "WSJ.com" is Wall Street Journal...

impact AT radio

We need Alfred to teach them grammar

I'm still recovering from the Nunn daughter in Georgia using "to architect"

Speaking of xpost Nikki Lane (still haven't heard the whole album, but so far so cool)
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/nikki-lane-the-rise-of-a-country-rebel-20140523?google_editors_picks=true

Well, no hobbling vocal mannerisms (Church as well as Simpson) from John Fullbright: he's got the flair of fellow Okies Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, and sometimes carried-away Carrie Underwood. But also, maybe with an ear to the longevity of Okie-once-removed Merle the Hag's best work, he knows about the appeal of self-restraint, when you've really got something to restrain. So, he breaks his projection into succinct sincerity, applying the reins as he starts to rise (a little wry twist, tightening the jaw and nostrils as he starts to wail, biting the words to make sure they jump a little more).

Good thing, because he knows he could make it on this sound times glib sentiment, each one alibi-ing the other.Especially since, when he adds drums, and keeps the keys, he doesn't even need a balancing act, he could just hit like country-as-early-70s-Top Forty, in there between Tumbleweed Junction Elton John and, say, Albert "It Never Rains In California" Hammond. We know he knows, because, early on Songs(May 27), he's got this song within a song within a song, seems like, where he starts out hoping to get by another day without a cliche, and then goes into several cliches, culminating with "keep hope alive." Then brood on a while, and suddenly he's "Little Lord Fauntleroy/In a La-Z Boy/Tryin' to keep hope alive." But past the irony and self-mockery and self=pity, he seems like he does want and feel the need to keep hope alive.

So, I'm thinking this, and *then* he actually comes up with one about "Writing a song/About a song/Write a line about the line within the line"! But again, not just round and round the navel, he's also thinking about "living the life you wanna live," like implying, is this--which amounts to living a life that's about living a life---The Purpose_Driven Life, yes thank you Rev. Rick Warren--is this any more or less something than writing a song about a song etc.? Maybe too good a question!
Anyway, he then hauls out the drums for good radio bait relief, then gets kind of abjectly romantic while of course still sounding good(but not quite good enough to cover the weepier lines), and then, just as my increasing discontent became aware of missing the perspective-finding shifts between first and third person, re the sometimes scary and always ambitious From The Ground Up(2012), he (spoiler alert) got his gears back together. But it was a close call, and there's still-smelly valentines in some of the previous songs, which may drive me away from many future listens. Though at the very least, it's yet another good(in this case, good-to-killer) EP trapped in an album's body. We'll see.
Oh yeah, it's still streaming here for a little while (and maybe on Spotify later, like the 2012 set) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=4&

What's Willie Nelson's best album? Or is that too broad of a question?
Can't get enough of The Highwaymen and Waylon, need more like this. Again!

8-song preview (does not include "Automatic") of Miranda Lambert's new record:

http://www.cmt.com/artists/miranda-lambert/

Maybe it's just the initial rush of getting new music from one of your favorite artists, but this sounds great. The production is similar to the last album (which I thought had both pros and cons), but there are some big, memorable melodies, more reminiscent of the first two albums. Standout for me is "Oh Shit," but there really aren't any obvious missteps in these 8 tracks. The Little Big Town guest spot could have been a train wreck, but instead is a lovely, anthemic singalong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/arts/music/country-music-opens-its-ears.html

Jon Caramanica's overview of country's interest in rap

What's Willie Nelson's best album? Or is that too broad of a question?
Can't get enough of The Highwaymen and Waylon, need more like this. Again!

Shotgun willie is one of my faves

Yeah, Shotgun Willie and since you like Waylon too, try Waylon and Willie, that's the best of their several I've heard, although Take It To The Limit is good too. Phases and Stages is an usual breakup album: he writes the first side from the woman's point of view, the second from the man's. Both do go through various stages, incl. "Oh well, what the hell," and back to the bars (uh spoiler alert--but it's cool that it's not all weepers, though there are def some of those too; real good ones). Also, his other big concept album is The Red Headed Stranger; then check Pancho & Lefty,with Merle Haggard, and Me and Paul(a non-duet album, despite the title). All these add up to the best of his 70s, maybe early 80s sets with Outlaw and Highwaymen-appeal(of the ones I'm familiar with).

If you want to range further afield, try Face of a Fighter(demos, but awesome); the western swing album with Asleep At The Wheel,Willie and the Wheel; Stardust, which is prob his best exploration of The Great American Songbook; the all-instrumental Night and Day and mostly-instrumental Let's Face the Music and Dance, plus his collaborations with many good-to-great female singers, To All The Girls....

Any opinions on the band "Exile"? They had a country career that I know utterly nothing about, but their pre-country "Kiss You All Over" just came up on one of the local oldies stations* and struck me -- musically -- as "Walk On The Wild Side" repurposed as mainstream love slush, and not bad at that.

*KCKK, owned by a company in the Denver 'burb of Lakewood; interesting playlist, as they seem to go for a good deal of the nonobvious: mid-level hits from the mid Sixties to mid Eighties, on a middle path (e.g., I'm not expecting to hear Motley Crue or Sugarhill Gang but right now they're playing the O'Jays "Used Ta Be My Girl"), for an audience that's probably middle-aged at the youngest. And now they're playing the album version of Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side Of Town."

(Oh, and I see "Kiss You All Over" was a Chapman-Chinn song.)

Exile's local, so they still have a pretty big following here, even though the original line-up has long since disbanded and only a couple of guys still play occasional nostalgia tour gigs.

In their mid-80s heyday, though, they were pretty huge-- a bunch of #1 hits at country radio. Because of their origins as a rock outfit, they were seen at the time as less "authentic" than, say, Alabama, which is why they never made many inroads at the CMAs or ACMs, but their singles ("Give Me One More Chance," "Woke Up in Love") hold up as well as most anything else from that era. The local classic country station keeps both of those singles, along with "She's a Miracle" (and "Kiss You All Over," fwiw) in pretty steady rotation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nashville-hitmaker-luke-bryan-at-jiffy-lube-live/2014/06/01/33100c4a-e933-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html

If someone eventually reveals that Luke Bryan is a robot built by scientists trying to create the ideal country-music superstar, count us as among those who will not be at all surprised.

First, no human should be able to breathe while wearing pants that tight. More important proof: Just one day after taking a nasty spill off the stage at his concert in North Carolina, Bryan displayed over-the-top, full-force energy during his Friday night show at Jiffy Lube Live, as if nothing had happened.

Lyrics with so many mentions of trucks may also have been written by robots (although many of them work I must admit)

went to the just-opened "country: portraits of an american sound" exhibit at the annenberg space for photography in LA today. really nice collection of photos by les leverett (longtime official grand ole opry photographer), leigh wiener, henry horenstein, henry diltz and a few others. it's a pretty big exhibit. heavy on '60s and '70s shots (and extra-heavy on johnny cash shots), but a few older ones and a small but interesting collection of current portraits. worthwhile if you're in LA (and free). i think my two favorite shots were a black-and-white study/mockup for the cover for the louvin brothers' satan is real -- which was nicer than the actual cover -- and charlie rich hanging out on a porch with c.j. allen, the sharecropper on his family farm who was one of his mentors on the piano.

I wonder if the the exhibit will tour?

"Talk of Dreams" (1980) by Lee Beom-yong & Han Myeong-hoon (이범용 & 한명훈) sounds fairly country. And from last January there's a TV version, still countryish, by the two remaining members of V.O.S, a mid-'00s boyband. Very pretty (the song as well as the singers).

Thanks for the info about Exile. Seem on the border between lite soul, lite rock, and lite country; sound okay, though I actually think the country rhythms get in the way of what otherwise is a nice bit of Quiet Storm.

Working on a piece about the Country Cavaleers, whose singer, James Marvell, is still out there doing his thing in Christian Country, and who was once in a series of Tampa garage bands with Buddy Good, who later joined him in Mercy (on their re-recorded version of 1969's "Love (Can Make You Happy)," and later went to Nashville and made some singles as the Country Cavaleers, and appeared on the Wilburn Bros. show in '72. Marvell bills himself as the original country outlaw, because the Cavaleers had long hair (and an anti-drug message to boot). Easily the most obscure country act that actually has some credence to their almost-career I've ever run across, and found their two LPs, which are so obscure that there's absolutely no discographical info anywhere, though they did cut one single for the "custom" label Cutlass (a Dickey Lee-Don Williams-produced (!) cover of "Stop! in the Name of Love" b/w a Jack Clement tune originally done by Charley Pride in 1968) as well as one MGM single, "Humming Bird" b/w "Hang on to What," which scraped the bottom of the charts. Other singles were on the Maryland label Country Showcase America; the LPs were independently issued on their own JBJ and Versha labels. The JBJ album features Good and Marvell imitating Tiny Tim, Ed Sullivan and Marlon Brando on the back cover, along with a song called "Turn on to Jesus," which is kind of Beatles-esque, a nod to their '60s garage-band roots. (Ironically, they apparently attempted to interest future Outlaw marketing auteur Jerry Bradley, of RCA Records, in their proto-outlawism, which was more comic than bad-ass.) Quite a story.

Country Cavaleers doing "Hang on to What," 1973 MGM single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0E3OzyYy8c

James Marvell, 1981, a song about how he invented outlaw country in the '60s. Props to whoever made the decision to have the female background singers chime in on "outlaws" in the chorus. "Urban Cowboys, Outlaws, Cavaleers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkE0QB7IvQE

Finally got to Mary Gauthier's Trouble and Love: breakup and recovery and then some--though she claims (in interviews) to be through with romantic love, realizing she just wasn't made for it, and maybe vice versa, and though (in song) she does demonstrate "How You Learn To Live Alone," that's a co-write with Gretchen Peters (perfectly placed on Hashville the TV series to boot):another example of how she's regrouping, realigning her musical and emotional resources, into sweet unpretentious forging on, with "Worthy" the tiny turning point on a dime: "ashes into flame"--sure, why not, rewind is no great leap of imagination---once *something* provides the key, but then, you've already got to be unlocked, for creativity to do its mysterious thing, whatever the process (obviously she's a vet, a pro, almost slipping into solemn folk-country soap opera at times, but usually not: "Oh Soul" does have a choked-up male vocal shadow, and yeah she's at the crossroads and ready for repentence, but does she have to "pray at the grave of Robert Johnson"? Maybe so, considering the better lines). One of the year's best.

"Hashville"! I wish. Where the struggling hero is named Gram (get it?).

xhuxk's rhapsody playlist delving into the "source material" of miranda's platinum is stellar.

the essay:
http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/source-material-miranda-lamberts-platinum

the music:
http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.152027918

Splendid, thanks. Also enjoying this (even saluting deep roster of Average Joes or Joe's!) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/a-history-of-hick-hop-the-27-year-old-story-of-country-rap-20140627

...although they did leave out this pioneer crew: http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-05-25/music/the-groovegrass-boyz/full/

Pistol Annies' Angaleena Presley's solo debut is up-front autobio, to wit:

1. "Ain't No Man" (Angaleena Presley)
2. "All I Ever Wanted" (Angaleena Presley)
3. "Grocery Store" (Angaleena Presley/Lori McKenna)
4. "American Middle Class" (Angaleena Presley)
5. "Dry County Blues" (Angaleena Presley/Mark D. Sanders)
6. "Pain Pills" (Angaleena Presley)
7. "Life of the Party" (Angaleena Presley/Matraca Berg)
8. "Knocked Up" (Angaleena Presley/Mark D. Sanders)
9. "Better Off Red" (Angaleena Presley)
10. "Drunk" (Angaleena Presley/Sarah Siskind)
11. "Blessing and a Curse" (Angaleena Presley/Bob DiPiero)
12. "Surrender" (Angaleena Presley/Luke Laird/Barry Dean)

More details here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/angaleena-presley-album-reveals-american-middle-class-life-20140627#ixzz35zLCMAdb"> http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/angaleena-presley-album-reveals-american-middle-class-life-20140627#ixzz35zLCMAdb

The Sturgill Simpson record is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOCFWd8qusw

atlantic: The Bro-Country Backlash Is Here

(you can listen to the maddie & tae track here fyi, since it's hard to find elsewhere: http://musictumblrnotes.tumblr.com/post/90397213533/girl-in-a-country-song-maddie-tae-maddie )

Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell co-headline this week's http://musiccityroots.com/roots-tv/, streaming tonight from 7 'til 10(?) (Central, anyway).

MCR newsletter: "We are expecting solo acoustic performances by each (Emmylou, Rodney) at Roots, with some duo moments as well."

Nah gah live post the whole thing, wouldn't be prudent, but right now: Humming House, young acoustic pickers, but all with powerful, non-nasal voices; the woman snare drummer was singing lead--rich sound--this guy's okay too. Here she is again, contralto maybe, and with the most starpower, even sneaking up on this spooky ballad.

ha, Harris & Crowell right into a duet: Parsons' "Wheels," and yeah, acoustic, but with upright bass and ace piano, plus three guitars. Luvly.

Still together for "Pancho and Lefty," "Til I Gain Control Again," fuuuck (they still archive these, or most of 'em; might be some artists/labels holding out)

best (heartbruising) rendition of "If I Needed You" I've heard; can seem like one of TVZ's atypically formalist turns, but not here.

Picking up the tempo for "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight," with the pianist switching to accordion, and a nuanced touch (ditto the pickers)

Thanks for the link to Music City Roots, dow. Damn, I love Emmylou and Rodney. His memoir was excellent, and Emmylou's is coming out in the next year or two, I understand.

Oh, didn't know that, thanks. Also, during the MCR interview, she said they're working on a second duo album, this time writing together. Don't think they've ever done that before--?

Tonght's Music City Roots features Amy LaVere. whose recent Runaway's Diary is really striking, for the tone: sounds really young,like, "I can't believe I'm doing this," and also "I'm doing this, wow!" and always observant, drawing back a little more, too, whenever things get too gnarly--nevertheless, scary ol street dude Townes Van Zandt drops science in her face, via song, not personal appearance(good selection and sequencing of originals and covers).

checking into thread entirely to love sturgill simpson, even if he does swallow the ends of his lines.

IT'S MARDI GRAAAAAAAAAAAS
UP IN THE CLOUUUUUUUUUDS
I'M UP SO HIIIIIIIGH
MAY NEVER COME DOWN!
I'LL TRY ANYTHIIIIING
TO DROWN OUT THE PAIIIIIIN
THEY ALL KNOW WHY I'M GETTING DRUNK ON A PLANE

"drunk on a plane" is fucking perfect

Headliner on tonight's Music City Roots live radio/TV stream (7-10 PM CST): Irene Kelley, whose has cool phrasing has stayed with me from a few previous broadcast sets over the years. Mainly known as a back-up singer and co-writer, though she's had a few albums, which I haven't heard. New Pennsylvania Coal has her fellow A-List Nashville cats picking, with guest star vocalists. On the same bill: American Aquarium, The Vespers, Songs Of Water---not a good week for names, but descriptions seem fairly promising.

x-post--Dierks Bentley getting abandoned groom sympathy bro-style without dissing the not-to-be-bride who left him

singing the blues...

Well, this is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUQ2ltrdkTw

drunk on a plane" is fucking perfect

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson)

the "quarterback" video is interesting in that it ends differently than the song does. the song ends with everyone in school and in town siding with the quarterback and no one believing the girl. the video ends with seemingly everybody in school taking the girl's side.

I must say, the Singles Jukebox nailed it, if I may so:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=12354

the bendy riff on "Drunk On A Plane" is fantastic but the vocals just sound so melodically & rhythmically bankrupt to me and I hate that.

kinda hate "drunk on a plane" but good for y'all

"quarterback" is very affecting

Now it can be told! Edd Hurt, via the invaluable Perfect Sound Forever, on idiosyncratic early 70s lawnghaired Nashville cats The Country Cavaleers http://www.furious.com/perfect/countrycavaleers.html

http://www.furious.com/perfect/graphics/countrycavaleers.jpg

http://www.wonderingsound.com/feature/kira-isabella-quarterback-country-radio-date-rape/

More re "Quarterback" and country lyrics

That's by Charles Aaron, who was at Spin for ages

interesting + carefully compiled analysis of the prospects of emerging major-label radio-promoted solo acts (since 2008, since 2007 is when country's current biggest superstars, male and female, emerged): http://www.mjsbigblog.com/the-country-radio-climb-how-are-major-labels-serving-new-acts-male-female.htm

it's a fairly long read w/ lots of tables but the main takeaways are

- significantly fewer of the women who are promoted to radio will ever score a top 20 hit compared to men.
- whether women have an established fanbase prior to being promoted to country radio (from tv talent shows, acting, or a career as a pop artist) is a far more important determinant of whether they can score that first hit compared to men, for whom having a prior fanbase seems to make no difference. of the nine women who succeeded at getting a top 20 hit, the only two that did not have significant fanbases beforehand were sunny sweeney and kacey musgraves (and even she had her minor stint on nashville star).
- solo men who score a top 20 hit are extremely likely to score more of them later on. meanwhile, not even one of the solo women to have scored a top 20 has logged a second hit since 2008. (cassadee pope and kacey musgraves both have songs currently charting, but it's looking like both will fail to reach the top 20.)

i think it would have been interesting to look at how much being part of a duo or group helps for men compared to women but i don't think the results would be surprising

Tonight's Music City Roots live audio/video stream incl. Susan Werner, whose 2013Hayseed was all about life on the fsrm, like dealing with freaky weather, whether you call it climate change or the roll of the dice; also, "My my, hey hey/Pesticides have made me gay," snd the awesomeness of yet another big fat moon. Also, David Olney, who used to stomp around like late 70s/early 80s Joe Ely Band; dunno know what he's up to now, but the last tunes I heard were still all-weather. And: Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper: heard Cleveland with other bands, which were good modern bluegrass, not too nasal. Oh yeah, and Micheal-Ann; got a promising promo from her.

sorta surprised not to see mention of "girl in a country song" here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MOavH-Eivw

i posted a link to it a month ago along w/ some thinkpiece but it didn't spur much (any) discussion itt

i'm kind of sick of how gender role reversal in music videos recently has to come with some obnoxiously obvious signifier (big ROLE REVERSAL switch in this video, useless introductory sequence in jlo's 'luv ya papi' video) apparently b/c ppl would be confused otherwise

i'm kind of sick of how gender role reversal in music videos recently has to come with some obnoxiously obvious signifier (big ROLE REVERSAL switch in this video, useless introductory sequence in jlo's 'luv ya papi' video) apparently b/c ppl would be confused otherwise

Think of it as waving a big red flag to get Slate writers' attention.

lol

Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited

A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Anniversary

of Cash’s Landmark Album Available August 19

Album Features Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Bill Miller,

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Norman and Nancy Blake and others (full track list at end)

Of all the dozens of albums released by Johnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964’s Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was among the closest to the artist’s heart. A concept album focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history of the United States, its eight songs—among them “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” a #3 hit single for Cash on the Billboard country chart—spoke in frank and poetic language of the hardships and intolerance they endured.

Now, 50 years after it was recorded, a collective of top Americana artists has come together to reimagine and update these songs that meant so much to Cash, who died in 2003. Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks, August 19), produced by Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville), features American music giants Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Bill Miller, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Norman and Nancy Blake, as well as up-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids and Rhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music of Bitter Tears for a new generation. As his project was for Cash, the new collection is a labor of love with a strong sense of purpose fueling its creation.

“Prior to Bitter Tears, the conversation about Native American rights had not really been had,” says Henry, “and at a very significant moment in his trajectory, Johnny Cash was willing to draw a line and insist that this be considered a human rights issue, alongside the civil rights issue that was coming to fruition in 1964. But he also felt that the record had never been heard, so there’s a real sense that we’re being asked to carry it forward.”

Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades as one of Cash’s greatest artistic achievements, did not realize its stature as a landmark recording easily and quickly. At the time that Cash proposed the album, he was met with a great deal of resistance from his record label. They felt that a song cycle revolving around the Native American struggle as perpetrated by the white man took him too far afield of the country mainstream and Cash’s core audience. Cash still released the album and although it did not perform as well as he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.

Ironically, at the same time that his own label was balking because it felt he would alienate the country audience with his Native American tales, Cash was finding a new set of admirers among the burgeoning folk music crowd that had recently made stars of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Cash’s debut performance of “Ira Hayes” at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews. His appeal was undeniably expanding beyond the country audience, and for those who did connect with Bitter Tears, among them a 17-year-old aspiring singer-songwriter named Emmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and important. “The record was a seminal work for her as a teenager,” says Henry. “She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment that Johnny Cash was a folk singer, not a country singer, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the great folk singers at that moment.”

Henry’s awareness of Harris’ affection for Bitter Tears led him to invite her to contribute to Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited. Following the epic, nine-minute album-opener “As Long as the Grass Shall Grow,” written by Peter La Farge—a folk singer-songwriter who Cash had befriended—and sung here by Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead vocal on the Cash-penned “Apache Tears,” which also features sweet, close harmonies by the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprising Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. For Henry, carefully matching artist to song was integral to the integrity of Look Again To The Wind. For some of the tracks, that process required a great deal of consideration. But when it came to deciding who would interpret “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.

Another of five songs on the original album written by La Farge, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” is based on the true story of Ira Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World War II photograph. Hayes’ moment of glory was followed upon his return to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Cash, moved by Hayes’ story and La Farge’s recounting of it, vowed to record the song. When planning out Look Again To The Wind, Henry knew that only a few living singers could deliver the song the way he wanted to hear it. He called Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing background.

“I wanted somebody whose relationship with Johnny Cash was not only musical but personal,” he says. “I’d worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not ask? Who else has a voice with that kind of power and authority?” That same sense of intuition guided Henry to choose the other participants and the material they would render. For La Farge’s “Custer,” the album’s third song, the producer knew instinctively that Steve Earle was the right man for the job. “Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I can imagine working right now who could deliver a song that is that pointed in that particular way and do it authentically without cowering from it or making it feel a little too arch,” Henry says. “He really could embody the kind of swagger that that song insists upon.”

Similarly, Henry chose Nancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on backing vocals) for the Cash-written “The Talking Leaves,” Norman Blake to sing “Drums,” the Milk Carton Kids to lead “White Girl” (both of those authored by La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalist Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album’s finale, “The Vanishing Race,” written by Cash’s good friend Johnny Horton. To bolster the album (the original, typical of mid-’60s vinyl LPs, ran just over a half hour), Henry fills out the track list of Look Again To The Wind with reprises of “Apache Tears” and “As Long As the Grass Shall Grow”—both sung by Welch and Rawlings—and ends the set with the title track, a La Farge tune that did not appear on the original Johnny Cash album but instead on the songwriter’s own 1963 release As Long as the Grass Shall Grow: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here it’s sung by Bill Miller, with Sam Bush providing mandolin and Dennis Crouch upright bass, a fine and fitting coda to the collection.

From the start, Henry looked at the project as one that would require great personal commitment and responsibility on his own part. Approached as potential producer of the project by the man who first envisioned it, Sony Music Masterworks’ Senior Vice President Chuck Mitchell (who’d been in conversations with Antonino D’Ambrosio, author of A Heartbeat and a Guitar, a book about the making of Bitter Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. “Johnny Cash was my first musical hero and I feel a profound debt to him as an artist, and as a courageous one,” he says. “How could I say no to that?”

He also realized that the Bitter Tears album held a special place in Cash’s canon, and that in many ways the issues it raised still resonate today—this had to be apparent in the new versions. “Mr. Cash knew that if he took this on, even if his point of view was not adopted, he had the power to be heard,” Henry says.

The album was recorded in three sessions: the first two in Los Angeles and Nashville and, lastly, one at the Cash Cabin, in Cash’s hometown of Hendersonville, Tennessee, where Bill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental backing for most of the album are Greg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards), Patrick Warren (keyboards for the L.A. sessions), Jay Bellerose (drums) and Dave Piltch (bass).

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, OKeh, Portrait, Masterworks Broadway and Flying Buddha imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.SonyMasterworks.com.

TRACKLIST:

1. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow – feat. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

2. Apache Tears – feat. Emmylou Harris w/The Milk Carton Kids

3. Custer – feat. Steve Earle w/The Milk Carton Kids

4. The Talking Leaves – feat. Nancy Blake w/ Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

5. The Ballad of Ira Hayes – feat. Kris Kristofferson w/ Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

6. Drums – feat. Norman Blake w/ Nancy Blake, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & David

Rawlings

7. Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat. Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

8. White Girl – feat. The Milk Carton Kids

9. The Vanishing Race – feat. Rhiannon Giddens

10. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (Reprise) – feat. Nancy Blake, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

11. Look Again to The Wind – feat. Bill Miller

The aforementioned Nikki Lane's current album, All Or Nothin' is about a rowdy gal who sometimes quietly busts her partner in luv crime---gotta keep honor among thieves, after all. Pretty confident, though not invulnerable, either way, and suggests (what may have actually happened, for all I know) Wanda Jackson keeping her 50s edge and losing the hopefully imposed late tearjerkers in the mid-60s, demonstrating, as Buck Owens did, how country could adapt to the Beatles, (and vice versa, via covers, the influence of Everlys harmonies, and even L-McC's "I've Just Seen A Face"). Which of course is something Dwight Yoakam's returned to over the years, incl Three Pears, but it seems more of a female tradition, thinking of, say, Those Darlins, Holly Golightly, or that album of Elizabeth McQueen pub-rock covers(yeah, but sounded mid-60s too, as pub-rock could in the mid=70s), discussed several Rolling Countrys ago.
Though the closest comparison might be to the late great Amy Farris's Anyway, with a twangy slender voice unfazed by sometimes flamboyant production. Whether it'll keep seeming like more than a stylistic excercise remains to be seen, but it's good exercise at least. Go Babe!

anyone heard/liked the new sunny sweeney record? concrete was one of my favorite albums of 2011, only just starting the new one

I don't like the single.

"bad girl phase"? that was all right. "carolina on the line" really really gorgeous

"Bad Girl Phase" is the nadir of the Wilson-Lambert crazy ex-girlfriend sound, I think.

well i definitely already don't remember anything about it

Two listens in and the album's decent but patchy. POW opener that the rest doesn't really live up to. The duet is p good too

surprise lucinda williams cover in the center of this thing

find myself very enchanted with the slower songs as usual with her. but yeah, kinda patchy. love the fake "i could never take the place of your man" guitar line on the otherwise unremarkable "front row seats"

Yep-- it's so patchy! Well, on first listen, seems like 7, maybe 8 keepers, out of 13 (in 47 minutes, a reasonable running time for that many tracks): not too shabby a ratio, but dammit, Concrete set the bar high/spoiled me, and---in terms of country-pop elegance and emotional impact, nothing here grabs my attention and sails around the room with it like, say, "From A Table Away" did. Although "Uninvited" comes close: it's an almost understated little chiller, as the well-mannered witness arrives at a social occasion, " moved through the room and the crowd divided/Somebody should have told me I was/Uninvited"--but that's not the worst of it.
All the songs I like so far, incl "Bad Girl Phase" ( currently enjoying the Southern Rock tinge, and the jaded vocal: she's been here before, knows we have too), "Second Guessing," "Can't Let Go," (though it clones the original, which might make more sense if she were trying to turn Country Radio listeners onto Lucinda, but c'mon it's a Kickstarter; the NPR audience isn't exactly unfamiliar with LW),"My Bed" (one that drops the blurry double tracking which eventually undermines several other ballads, for a good duet ritual with Will Hoge), maybe "Sunday Dress" (which could be the morning after "Uninvited"'s nightmare: she's still awake--but oops the double-tracking slips in, adding a little too much entrophy), definitely "Used Cars" (yay, uptempo again, where even double-tracking--chorus only, I think---adds a nice abrasion): "Just when I thought/All of the good ones were gone/Found another woman's wreck and made him someone I could/Depend on"(not the best rhyme, but it sounds like a good make-do fixer-upper: patchy in a good way), and "Backhanded Compliment" (like "You must have such confidence, to wear that dress!"---but she also makes a Note To Self: do not say "It's my personality that makes me hot!"), all those seem like they could be fragments of scenes from the same marriage (also the good kinda patchy) Maybe the tedious ones are too, but they seem just plain tedious.
Oh yeah, and "the world goes to hell in a feel-good song" is not really much of a problem, as I feel sure the world would agree/

Her first, Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame, is worth checking out too, though she's scorned it, said she didn't know how to make an album then (think it had as many good tracks as this one, with a frustrated beginner wheeling around)

Just got a download of the new Brad Paisley for a review assignment. Gonna give it a listen tomorrow. The cover art is typically lame.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61tXeIaeg7L.jpg

Haw. Great title too. Thank yew for sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI7VYXElZ9k

this is the best song ever
drake tip on the verses & "i knew you were trouble" explosion in the chorus

'she's so far gone' !! ! !

Willie shows Bobbie a card trick: http://willienelson.com/story/watch-card-tricks-with-willie/

Shovels & Rope continue to be a self-sufficient Mom 'n' Pop harmonizing multi-instrumental duo, kind of a diary-keeping musical Bonnie & Clyde, tending to muse before, during and after doing whutever else they do, like blowing shit up. However, the new Swimmin' Time, still streaming on NPR's First Listen for the moment, so far seems like it needs to pick up the tempo more often, more like prev. sets. Still, even the ones that haven't grabbed me (yet?) have spot-on changes in the arrangements, esp. on headphones, even with chainsaw fallen tree massacre going whole hog by my window.
Thinking of S&R and the aforementioned male=female roots pop combos Humming House and The Vespers (both in the Music City Roots home page-linked audio archive downloads) like the major label arena thing doesn't work out, mebbe The Band Perry should consider this direction. They could handle it great, allready do, when in "Better Dig Two" and all.
Tonight's Music City Roots incl. Dom Flemons, ex-Carolina Chocolate Drop and now with his solo debut, Prospect Hill. which I haven't heard yet. Self-contained sets by each performer so far can be downloaded here http://stringtheorymedia.typepad.com/music_city_roots_radio/, which is especially convenient re the recent Night Train To Nashville anniversary show, so I'd say skip the Jimmy Church Band lounge r&b talent show and the Valentines, unless you want geezer songwriter/sessioneers (like Mac Gayden) wheezing ancient hits. Do check acappella gospel masters the Fairfield Four, young Mavis Staples (for instance) experts the McCrary Sisters, and wickedly on point Charles Walker Band.

My review of the new Paisley.

Do they sue Chick fil A? (I know I should just listen, but)

Haven't seen anyone mention Jason Eady's album from earlier this year, Daylight & Dark. It's the record I've returned to again and again. Beautiful writing and really well produced. The ballads are something special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSxTfTPIF0

Paisley sounding defensive in this interview:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/brad-paisley-turns-up-the-fun-on-latest-album/2014/08/29/a9284896-2f85-11e4-be9e-60cc44c01e7f_story.html

and less so in this one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/brad-paisleys-country-continues-to-expand-its-borders/2014/08/24/79141af8-2af9-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html

Will check out Jason, thanks (also need to check David Nail, Eli Young Band). Just today, I've become infatuated with Elise Davis: she's conversational, candid, concise, conflicted, fun. Her unpretentious charm contributes to some confusing situations, no doubt, but those wide eyes see a lot. The Life EP is what cut through my own mental clutter initially, but it sometimes sounds a bit like standard radio bait compared to these older tracks (not saying they're nec. better as *songs*). She's not all the way there yet, but could def. see her co-writing/on the same bill with Pistol Annies (together and sep), Brandy Clark, Musgraves, Lucinda, Maggie Rose:
http://www.elisedavis.com/music/

Damn -- never seen Paisley so much as miffed in any interview.

Wonder if he read T. Coates

What we were not expecting is that the song would be misinterpreted and Brad would be cast as a racist

i still crack up laughing seeing sentences like this uttered about a song called Accidental Racist

Do they sue Chick fll A?

they do, and then brad sues carrie. really really like this song. this is a good line: "grandpa's with the lord now/but we got a new ford now."

That is a good line

Ain't nobody's newsletter like Mary Gauthier's:

Kansas. A state I was once thrown out of! When I was a seventeen-year old kid, I was living in a halfway house in Salina. I got a job driving cars through the carwash in the dead of winter, spraying off ice and salt from the cars, washing them down with a pressure washer, then driving them through the mechanical car wash. I had sticky fingers then, and I grabbed change, 8-track tapes, and in one case, a bottle of pills from a Catholic priest's long, white sedan.

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/5b6e3c06b2456de7159101994/images/28a1a620-9adf-4504-aa4e-e8334bd88c84.jpg/

I was arrested for my criminal ways the day before my 18th birthday, and put in the Salina County Jail. I spent my birthday in solitary, my only visitor a sweet little church lady, who came to pray and sing with me. I’ll never forget her kindness. I was so glad to see her it made me cry. Eventually, the police told me that if I left Salina and never came back, they’d let me out and they would drop the charges. That was 35 years ago, and this is my first time back to Salina. I will be performing a benefit for Central Kansas Foundation, “a provider of quality, effective, and innovative substance use disorder prevention and treatment since 1967.” Full circle, right? Glad to make my return for a good cause!

Also in my news, I’ve been playing at The Grand Ole Opry quite a bit lately and having a great time asking folks to join me on stage. Here’s a video of Another Train at The Opry, with Kathy Mattea, Marty Stuart, and Radney Foster. And, I'll be back at The Opry again on September 13. C'mon by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL87alUotk

Edd checks in with Robt. Earl Keen:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2014/09/05/robert-earl-keen-the-cream-interview

I'm suddenly struck by the irony that I'd always thought of him as mainly a singer-songwriter, who's better at the writing, yet he points out that his friends who co-write and place cuts etc are in a "different world": seems to see himself as mainly a road dog who can front a band and furnish his own material.
Guess that basically goes with a show preview I wrote in 2010:
Robert Earl Keen
Tuesday @ Huntington Park
Texas singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen likes to mess with
comfortable materials. Verses keep flexing the context of his most
famous (and bumper sticker-ready) chorus, "The road goes on
forever/And the party never stops." Most of the songs on Keen's "The
Rose Hotel" also provide excellent points of departure for restless
guests. Even the citizen who nostalgically dwells on "Throwing Rocks"
with his country rock honey gets overtaken by events, smoothly
infiltrating and re-calibrating his sentiments and grooves. Vitality
rides with mortality, and a bunch of colorful maps.

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/keen-robert-earl/then-came-lo-mein-11798.html

XP Er, that quoted lyric is "The road goes on forever/and the party never ENDS".

Guess I was cross-channeling Zappa's "The torture never stops," another good bumper-sticker.

It's the middle of the night where I am and a show called "Gone Country" just ended on MTV Hits ... here is what they played:

The Lumineers, "Ho Hey"
Lambert/Underwood, "Somethin' Bad"
Kongos, "Come With Me Now"
Avicii, "Hey Brother"
Aloe Blacc, "Wake Me Up"
Kacey Musgraves, "Follow Your Arrow"
Taylor Swift, "Red"
Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)
Maddie & Tae, "Girl In A Country Song"
Mumford & Sons, "Hopeless Wanderer"
Lucy Hale, "Lie A Little Better"
Lady Antebellum, "Need You Now"

Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)

I dunno, they've kinda grown on me, but I understand their polarizing tendencies

I'm waiting for the 2016 GOP Convention where FGL plays "Cruise" after Ted Cruz accepts the nomination

i like a few of fgl's songs but "this is how we roll" is horrendous

Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)

yes

that song is horrendous, yes, but actually looking at them in the video really put it over the top

anyway, i know better than to expect good things out of MTV and i went into this thinking "surely they're not going to play real country music for an hour" but Kongos -> Avicii -> Aloe Blacc still broke my brain.

Well, things could be worse, and as a matter of fact they are. I've liked all the Justin Townes Earle albums I've heard, which is most of 'em, and the more recent poetics of weariness were the more amazing for being any good at all, in terms of something I (def not his sponsor) could actually listen to, much less enjoy (shadow imagery of exhaustion countered by engaging arrangements, pretty often). But Single Mothers sounds like a man with no arms or legs in a shoebox in the middle of the road, not one with a lot of traffic, either, so no suspense there. No insult meant to actual men with no arma or legs; no doubt they're more resourceful. Nice drumming, though. (And a few tracks on this 29 minute-and-change specimen sound okay individually, but overall context, yuck.)

But don't sleep on JTE's non-weary The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.

Farm Aid 2014 will roll another for the YouTube starting this evening at 6 CST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePQMPfhZUrs

Pegi Young has cancelled her set.

The all-star musical lineup of the FARM AID concert will feature performances by board members WILLIE NELSON, NEIL YOUNG, JOHN MELLENCAMP and DAVE MATTHEWS with TIM REYNOLDS. Other performers include JACK WHITE, GARY CLARK JR., JAMEY JOHNSON, PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND, DELTA RAE, LUKAS NELSON, CARLENE CARTER, TODD SNIDER, INSECTS VS. ROBOTS, RAELYN NELSON BAND and JESSE LENAT.

Was on live from Raleigh apparently this afternoon on Willie's XM/Sirius radio station (& elsewhere???)

Some of it will be on FarmAid's YouTube channel. Meanwhile, looking fwd to hearing this album, and some of this other stuff:

Lee Ann Womack Gears Up For A BIG Week
Wall Street Journal To 1st Listen The Way I’m Livin’ 9/17
Tapes CMT “Crossroads” with John Legend 9/17 for 9/26 Debut
USA Weekend 9/14; NPR “World Café” 9/17 + AMA Showcases 9/19 + 21

(Nashville, TN) —September 15, 2014 — It may have been seven years since Lee Ann Womack put out a record, but she’s – as The Wall Street Journal noted when they debuted “The Way I’m Livin’" earlier this summer – “making up for lost time.” Having world premiered a provocative video that’s attracted much conversation on CMT – with a sneak peek at RollingStone.com – the new week is picking up momentum at a staggering pace.
Wednesday, September 17, The Wall Street Journal will again take the lead in bringing the Grammy-winner’s decidedly hardcore music to the pubic, streaming The Way I’m Livin’ in its entirety. Produced by Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, Chris Knight, Pistol Annies), the roots writer collection takes life at its most unvarnished and splintered – attracting those who lament the passage of the 'tough stuff' from the genre.
“The response is a little amazing,” Womack says. “Frank and I made a record of the songs we love... with players who really went deep to match my singing, the emotions I wanted...and we didn’t think about radio or marketing or anything. We just did this move us. You can’t second guess other people, but it sure feels good knowing other people share our hunger for this music too, because it’s definitely grown up country.”
Featured in this Sunday’s USA Weekend addressing the process and risks of TWIL, Womack proves music exists beyond neat boxes and convenient tags. She tapes CMT’s “Crossroads” with urban sensation John Legend on September 17, a collaboration that appeals to the 6-time Country Music Association Award winner. (The show will premiere on CMT on September 26.)
“John Legend comes from a deep place,” she says. “He’s a great musician and vocalist... Kanye West enlists him for that musicality – and whether it’s straight soul or hip-hop, John brings great melody and emotion. As someone who knows how soulful country can be, this is gonna get interesting.”
Womack’s ability to straddle and blur lines has made her a go-to for Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Alan Jackson and Buddy Miller. As the Americana Festival & Conference kicks off, the East Texan is featured on NPR’s “World Café” Americana coverage September 17. She performs at the Cannery Ballroom September 19 on a bill with Miller, Sam Outlaw (with Ry Cooder) and Trigger Hippie, as well as an "Americana's Most Wanted" guitar pull that afternoon for SiriusXM with Hayes Carll, Bobby Bare, Jr and Bobby Braddock. She will also be a guest for the "Rock My Soul" PBS special taping on gospel quartets featuring the McCrary Sisters and the Fairfield Four that September 21.
“This is everything music is: heart, soul, life, pain and the power to express beyond just words. Good music comes from the same root – and this is a chance to prove it with actions over words! I’m fired up, grateful and ready to get the music out.”

decidedly hardcore music

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/jason-isbell-cleans-up-at-americana-awards/2014/09/17/cdf750d0-3ee0-11e4-a430-b82a3e67b762_story.html?tid=pm_entertainment_pop

He still doesn't wow me (like I think he does Dow)

would've voted sturgill

Tonight on Music City Roots' live stream (and soon in the archive), 7 to 9:30 or so Central:
BR5-49, Chris Smither, Ruthie Foster, The Duhks (Americana Music Showcase, duh--and if you think the following is rah-rah, you should see what all I cut)
Co-host Craig Havighurst does backstory/intros:

I moved to Nashville in the fall of 1996 and on the Sunday that I drove here to close on my cute old East Nashville house, the New York Times Magazine ran a big feature about Music City’s renaissance (yep, even then). It was quite exciting to read it aloud to my traveling companion as we drove. My new neighborhood was said to be a hive of musical revivalism. Dead Reckoning Records was putting out quality, progressive music with deep roots. And Lower Broadway was humming, thanks to a renovated Ryman Auditorium and the nightly performances at Robert’s Western World by a classic country band with the quirky name BR5-49.

...The original lineup of BR5-49 has reunited. It’s not clear how many shows they might do, but it’s clear it won’t be a lot, so to have them on our stage is very special indeed...And they’re also a cracking band that knows how to write, play, sing and ultimately present real-deal country music with the bluesy pathos and vivacious fun of the music’s golden age.

BR5-49 embraced the campy corny side of 1960s and 70s country music when it pulled its name from a Junior Samples sketch on Hee-Haw. But the committed performances, the deep knowledge of the classic country catalog and its influence on their original songwriting left no doubt that they took hillbilly music seriously. And with that, they won over thousands of converts. After nearly two years of Robert’s shows, the industry and media caught on and the band got to release major label albums and tour the world. Their ascendancy helped fuel and compliment the growth of the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and many others as Americana grew into a viable, vibrant sector of art, commerce and culture. Band members Chuck Mead, Gary Bennett, Don Heron, Jay McDowell and Shaw Wilson are each doing their own things these days, but these rare reunion shows are a chance to celebrate all that’s transpired in Nashville since those heady days on Lower Broad.

The rest of this year’s AMA Showcase lineup is every bit as exciting. I fell for the music of Chris Smither in the early 90s as my passion for the blues and songwriting sent me hunting through the layers to some of the hidden gems of acoustic music.Turns out he wasn’t hidden to (friend from way back) Bonnie Raitt, who recorded his songs, including hits “Love Me Like A Man” and “I Feel The Same.” The album that hooked me was 1991’s Another Way To Find You, which was a no-retakes studio album before a small audience. It was riveting for both his fine singing and elegant, elaborate guitar playing. Turns out he’d already been recording for 20 years by that point! And he’d keep going for the next 20, adding all kinds of laurels to his bio – songs for films, the Monsters of Folk tour with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Folk Alliance awards and Americana charting records. Just now, he’s celebrating the release of a 24-song retrospective and a book of his lyrics going back to 1966. This is a veteran song master, and we are lucky to have him.

In more blues news, we are thrilled to welcome Ruthie Foster, a guitarist and singer who’s been honored multiple times in recent yearsby the Austin Music Awards as the city’s finest vocalist. With a varied background and just the right amount of schooling, she brings a fusion of precision and passion to her music. For her very new album Promise of a Brand New Day, her eighth overall, she enlisted Meshell Ndegeocello as producer. It’s quite a distance from her coffeehouse folk origins, characterized by a nicely orchestrated, jazz-inflected sophistication. She told CMT Edge that she sought a new degree of social relevance and point of view on the project.

And just as BR5-49 reunites the core duo of Chuck Mead and Gary Bennett, The Duhks return with the core musicians who brought such a fresh, global and funky sound down from Winnipeg, Canada upon the band’s formation in 2002. Back then we were astonished by the vocals (and tattoos) of powerhouse Jessee Havey and the neo-trad banjo and band-leading of Leonard Podolak. The band swapped Havey for Sarah Dugas for a while and then went on hiatus. Now Havey is back and the band has issued its beautiful and typically eclectic new Beyond The Blue album on Compass Records. With fiddling from Rosie Newton andpercussion by Kevin Garcia, plus guitarist/bouzouki player Colin Savoie-Levac, the reconfigured Duhks seem ready to fly through some new chapters of global folk fusion.

"The cover art is typically lame."

It's working the risque theme he's had going for over a decade now

"I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?"

:D

So the Womack seems too plain at first, kind of bread-and-water penance, but gets much riper: with songs from various writers, she's made a mini-series about somebody who keeps getting flashbacks to a relationship with a bad man, and she can't be satisfied with the love of a good man (or two or three), or a one-night stand (or five or six or). Also a good plot twist toward the end, which I won't spoil. Will say that we do get a track with a hip-hop-ish pop beat, around a robust steel guitar. would like to have heard more like that 'un, but most of the arrangements are good, once the album gets going (guess the early tracks might be where she's just emerging from emotional roadkill).

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81AH-9uJk%2BL._SL1500_.jpg

Can you believe it's been 15 years since the release I Am Shelby Lynne?

To celebrate, we are putting out a deluxe reissue on CD, which will feature six never-before-released bonus tracks, PLUS
a full concert DVD, Shelby Lynne: Live at the House of Blues, which was filmed in Los Angeles in 2000.

We are also proud to be putting out the original album, remastered on 180-gram vinyl, for the very first time.

Both will be released on October 7th.

Watch Shelby perform bonus track "Should Have Been Better" from Shelby Lynne: Live at the House of Blues:
http://youtu.be/ZOikrKRWTTs

Shelby will also be performing I Am Shelby Lynne at two very special shows:

October 2nd in New York, NY at City Winery
October 8th in Los Angeles, CA at Largo at the Coronet

.

Pretty good, if brief, country edition of xgau's recently re-revived Expert Witness (AKA Consumer Guide), now posted every Friday: https://medium.com/cuepoint/robert-christgau-expert-witness-6c4d404c51a9

My response to that XGAU EW CG (prev. posted on fb):

I like the Willie way more than I usually like Willies! Put that Shaver best-of on my Nashville Scene country poll reissue ballot last year (fifth spot out of 5), but mostly for lack of competition -- The CD's been in my car ever since but I'm sad to report I only got all the way through it one time. (Love "Georgia On A Fast Train" to death, but after that he has a hard time holding my attention.) Which is more or less as many times as I made it through Hard Working Americans CD too, come to think of it. (Hung onto that one because it's an advance promo.) Well meaning, passable guitars, and songs way better than the singing, but I still have low tolerance for music that stodgy.

As for John Hiatt, I haven't cared about an album by him since *Warming Up To The Ice Age* in 1985 -- and in fact stopped even trying to at some point, though I'm pretty sure I skimmed through the new one unless it was the one before -- but I suppose I'll check out that old people song.

I wonder if John Hiatt has a single fan under the age of 50.

Well, things could be worse, and as a matter of fact they are. I've liked all the Justin Townes Earle albums I've heard, which is most of 'em, and the more recent poetics of weariness were the more amazing for being any good at all, in terms of something I (def not his sponsor) could actually listen to, much less enjoy (shadow imagery of exhaustion countered by engaging arrangements, pretty often). But Single Mothers sounds like a man with no arms or legs in a shoebox in the middle of the road, not one with a lot of traffic, either, so no suspense there. No insult meant to actual men with no arma or legs; no doubt they're more resourceful. Nice drumming, though. (And a few tracks on this 29 minute-and-change specimen sound okay individually, but overall context, yuck.)

― dow, Monday, September 8, 2014 4:05 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But don't sleep on JTE's non-weary The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.

― dow, Monday, September 8, 2014 4:09 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Midnight at the Movies is one of my favorites of the last oh-so-many years. The Good Life is not far behind, and Harlem River Blues was a solid if uneven effort.

But the last record, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, was a total head-scratcher. A guy who once captured the simple joy of a Woody Guthrie or Lightnin' Hopkins was now leaning on horn arrangements to prop up much weaker melodies. The mixing did him no favors, but it was not half as bad as his singing. There was some talk about his substance abuse affecting his vocals, and when I saw him on tour that year, it was akin to seeing the plastic-y version of John Travolta at the Oscars.

I spun the new one last week, and while it seemed an improvement on the last effort, it certainly did not hook me the way his first few did.

When I turn on country radio in the car and/or a video station at home I keep hearing this (and kinda like it. Yep, it's poppy bro-country)

"Hope You Get Lonely Tonight" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Cole Swindell. It was released on March 24, 2014 as the second single from Swindell's self-titled debut album.[1] Swindell wrote the song with Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line and Michael Carter.

only halfway through but this lee ann womack album has floored me pretty much

In a good way, I hope (like a gas pedal).
No doubt aided by the coincidence of reading Indexed's post just before cautiously checking out the new Lucinda, I'm floored by a heretofore unglimpsed compatibility of my two somewhut erractic old faves: though I've never thought "rock 'n' roll!" when listening to Justin (well, maybe the attitude of "Harlem River Blues," and the atypically speedy way he enjoys his girl driving him around on that new track), still, dang if otherwise he doesn't fit under the wing of LW's Memphis denim jacket blues-soul-gospel-rock-country (not country rock), with haggard vocals centering the daily struggle, with the patched-up rehab home truths, street sermons, and rebel rhetoric are fuel, along with rusty iron in the blood from bass, drums, and guitars (which also provide some rude punctuation at times, lest this Memphis stuff get too tasteful). The I'm down/gotta-get-up alternation does get familiar, but the groove won't let me go--until, of all things, the J.J. Cale track at the end. Could live without "Burning Bridges," maybe the opener, maybe the other, but no double album has ever grabbed me like this, not right off. (Well, maybe Beatles' white album).
Anyway, she's the Queen of Americana, so who knows if she'll 'llow this on Spotify---listen free while you can:
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/21/348713419/first-listen-lucinda-williams-down-where-the-spirit-meets-the-bone

I already regret the A-word; please listen without prejudice (also sorry for caffeinated typos).

(More first impressions: details of performance, especially guitar notes, sweet and nasty, stand out more than imagery, though points she makes, in conversation etc., are not vague)(vocals center the songs/performances, as I said, but music isn't just setting or highlight for words)

I'm excited to see that the Lee Ann Womack LP has a cut of "Sleeping With The Devil", my favourite song from the Brennen Leigh LP I really liked a couple of years back (and which I'm sure I mentioned somewhere on here).

Wondering whether any shops in London are likely to have a copy in stock so I can get my hands on it today. Can't think of any that will, sadly (unless you know better, The Lex?)

haven't set foot in a record shop in about a decade, sorry!

only halfway through but this lee ann womack album has floored me pretty much

^^^listening to it for the first time right now and, yes, this exactly.

Tim, it's still streaming here for the moment (hopefully added to Spotify)
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/09/17/lee-ann-womack-makes-music-she-wants-to-hear-on-the-way-im-livin-exclusive-premiere/ Bonus tracks on the Wal-Mart edition; dunno about any vinyl

couldn't get past the first few songs in the lucinda williams record but dow makes me want to believe

Could do without the first and last one and "Burning Bridges" in between, but momentum keeps building--kind of a Petty thing early on, but she keeps customizing it (thank god, since I'm not big on Petty)

omg the lee ann womack record

so tasteful and so haunted

Much appreciated, dow.

the last Womack record had such wonderful singles

That Lucinda Williams one starts off badly and I haven't gotten the energy yet to keep working all through the rest.

Need to get to that latest Lee Ann

Oh Shakey started his own thread for this guy:

the Sturgill Simpson c/d

listened to the lucinda deep enough to catch the marquee moon reference (2nd song -- "darkness doubled").

http://m.cmt.com/news/1731318/

So Lee Ann Womack did a CMT special singing with John Legend

Pretty good amount of country and compatibles in this Friday's Austin City Limits 40th Anniversary show:

Join us as we celebrate four decades as a music institution with Austin City Limits Celebrates 40 Years, a primetime special airing Friday, October 3rd, 9-11pm ET on PBS Arts Fall Festival. With guest hosts Jeff Bridges, Sheryl Crow and Matthew McConaughey, the two-hour broadcast features memorable moments from the trailblazing show’s remarkable run, while the brightest stars in the series’ history return to the ACL stage for dream duets and choice collaborations.

An all-star lineup of ACL royalty pays tribute to the show’s enduring legacy with unforgettable music performances. Highlights of the special include the show opener as Bonnie Raitt, Alabama Shakes‘ Brittany Howard, Jimmie Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr. team up for the Sam & Dave classic “Wrap It Up.” Incredible pairings include ACL Hall of Fame legend Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris on the Nelson-penned classic “Crazy” and Kris Kristofferson and Sheryl Crow’s moving take on his signature “Me and Bobby McGee.” The Foo Fighters honor ACL with a wild rendition of Texas cult hero Roky Erickson‘s “Two Headed Dog,” recorded at the show’s original television studio especially for the occasion. Host Jeff Bridges performs the late singer-songwriter Stephen Bruton’s song “What A Little Bit of Love Can Do” as a tribute to the influential Austin musician who inspired Bridges’ Oscar-winning portrayal in Crazy Heart. Local legends Joe Ely and Robert Earl Keen showcase their troubadour roots and significance to the Austin music scene. Breakout artists and ACL alumni Alabama Shakes and Gary Clark Jr. give blistering performances that forecast the future of the series. Blues titan Buddy Guy brings it all home with an electrifying take on his “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” The special comes to a close with an all-star reading of two Lone Star classics—a stellar lineup of guitar slingers blaze through the Stevie Ray Vaughan standard “Texas Flood” and the biggest names in music trade verses on the Buddy Holly classic “Not Fade Away,” as ACL embraces its past and hints at what is to come. Haven't gotten the hint yet, but haven't seen the show yet.

Marty Stuart's Saturday Night & Sunday Morning: Sunday morning's actually more fun, and not just cos Saturday's so bad. Although, of these 22 tracks, the ones to ditch are all from the night out or in, often pretty humdrum, and begging comparison to actual or ersatz (catchier either way) jukebox chestnuts, with no drink-my-wife/life-away implosions or abandon, much less sheer YEEHAW--exceptions to the former: good cover of Charlie and Margaret Ann Rich's "Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs" (here as "Life's Ups and Downs"); veering toward look-out-now in "Look At That Girl", which jangles that mid-60s Bakersfield-to-British Invasion connection, Yoakam-style. "Streamline" is okay too--but "Uncloudy Day," with Mavis Staples, is where we step up into the tremolo shadow of Pop Staples, with shards of light from sharp notes, and richer, more fluid singing, often enough, even from Marty, who tends to be too mild in the secular settings (been strictly committed to the life sanitary for quite a while now)
"Boogie Woogie Down The Jerico Road" maybe winks at own selling the roots to Starbucks generations: good job both ways, here and elsewhere; we even encounter some organic Bo Diddly tendencies later on, and "Good News" is a Link Wray-worthy instrumental, at least re the elder and elderly (well-preserved) Brother Link. "Cathedral" is more of that affectionately serious fun. Still here, if you don't believe in Spotify: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=0"> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=0

meant to say: Charlie and Margaret Ann Rich's great"Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs."

22 tracks, 15 keepers so far--not bad atall.

Commander Cody And His Last Planet Airmen spent the 60s in Ann Arbor, as and professional students and bar band mainstays, then moved to a house in Berkeley and were soon opening for the Dead, apparently because they didn't jam (refreshing, and maybe Garcia was seeing how they were received by his picky audiences, before trying out GD's own country etc sets, then Old And In The Way and New Riders) This show, one of the few good 'uns still unreleased, does have their definitive original trad country-style crossover, "Down To Seeds and Stems (Again)" and bippity revival of "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette," plus 14 others, but not their first and prob biggest hit, "Hot Rod Lincoln," or "Don't Let Go" either---it's not the whole show, but will def give the idear of where they are comin' from (for inst, "Mama Tried" is followed by "Mama Hated Diesels," as well it might).
Also check Geoffery Stokes' Star-Making Machinery, a great book about a lost world, incl. attempt to make these guys into Superstars (seemed like a good idea at the time, to a few)
Oh yeah, the show: http://bbchron.blogspot.com/2014/10/commander-cody-and-his-lost-planet.html

‏

A. Presley's solo CD can b reductive, and lacks vocal interest for the long haul, but several Pistol Annies-worthy powder burns: "busy as a saddle in a one-hoss town," ouch.

so far it's sepia-brown like the Brandy Clark album

I've played the Lee Ann Womack record two-dozen times in the last three days; it ends, and I just want to hit play again. Such a confident, thoughtful, well made album. It may not be exciting in the same way as last year's standout efforts from newcomers Ashley Monroe, Brandy Clark, and Kacey Musgraves, but I'd echo Lex's "floored" comment.

Thank God for Frank Liddell.

Oh I prefer it to any of those, mainly because she's so much more of a singer---and if she ever covers any of their songs, *that* could truly be something. Here's hoping she teams up w Pistol Annies (check her on Buddy Miller's Majesty of the Silver Strings, despite all the geetar filigree)

By "singer," I mean not just the pipes, but the way she delivers--"confident," "thoughtful," and not too less-is-more.

I'm thinking the Lee Ann Womack and the Miranda Lambert are 2 of the top releases for this year.

But they don't have lyrics like these:

Jason Aldean’s latest steamy single, “Burnin’ It Down” (on his new album out Tuesday), talks about how much he loves being naked in bed with his lady friend. Florida Georgia Line, the popular duo that accompanied Aldean on a stadium tour this year, has a similarly frank new song on their upcoming album (which drops next week) called “Sun Daze.”

...“If I’m lucky, yeah, I might get laid,” lead vocalist Tyler Hubbard sings, describing the perfect Sunday that includes getting stoned. The song takes things a step further in talking about ideal afternoon activities with a girl, including quite the double entendre: “I’ll sit you up on a kitchen sink/And stick a pink umbrella in your drink.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/10/06/jason-aldean-florida-georgia-line-and-the-evolution-of-sex-songs-in-country-music/?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop

XTC wouldn't let him cover "Pink Thing"?

I guess not. Could they have made it bro-ish

And stick a pink umbrella in your drink

good lord

mainly because she's so much more of a singer

she is hella a singer

i must admit i always thought that lee ann womack was lee ann rimes who got married

Came across this interview with Frank Liddell (Womack's husband and producer; also produced all of Miranda's albums):

http://www.rama-info.com/home/producers/13/bio1_text.html

Has some really great little nuggets, including:

"I love records. Going to a live event doesn’t speak to me the way a record does. I never got to see the Beatles live, but I’ve seen footage and it’s not Rubber Sole (sic) and it’s not Revolver."

"If somebody who is good enough to write Crazy can cut an outside song, then don’t walk into this town and say; “I’m too good for outside songs.” "

^ fuck yeah ppl this shit is so good, god bless ilm

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-CX113_womack_E_20140521230540.jpg

I like the Womack a great deal but the songs aren't as memorable as There's More Where That Came From's, in the middle stretch particularly.

and that album was one of the best of the '00s

welp i don't need them to be as memorable as that because i don't remember that, i only need to play the record

you haven't heard There's More...? Oh man -- you're lucky. Get to it!

well now it sounds like you're advising me to ruin the joy of a new record by listening to an older one!

Call it a complementary listening experience.

well i'm sold on this record. btw beyond miranda lambert and this, which are the best country albums of the year? because i haven't grasped what i should be seeking out yet.

The Angaleena Presley does hold up. Platinum looks like my album of the year. I wasn't crazy about Brantley Gilbert's album but when it shows up on my phone I'll play it. I've got more singles I love than albums.

The Willie Nelson ain't bad either

brantley gilbert was tolerable a few years ago but i can't stand listening to his steroidal frat bro shtick or fake accent anymore

well i'm sold on this record. btw beyond miranda lambert and this, which are the best country albums of the year? because i haven't grasped what i should be seeking out yet.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Wednesday, October 8, 2014 4:24 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cream of the crop:
Lee Ann Womack
Lydia Loveless
Jason Eady
Miranda Lambert

Others worth a listen:
Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison
Sturgill Simpson
Sunny Sweeney
Cody Johnson
Andrew Bird (Handsome Family covers record that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention)

oh yes on Lydia Loveless and Willis-Robison

Agree on Loveless, Lambert & Womack (now there's a trio), Simpson & Sturgill about half-good so far, though I'll listen more to both, ditto Angeleeana or however the fuck you spell it: she's kinda the George Harrison of Pistol Annies: religious, though non-charismatic, then again vocals are also n-c, and not as much a guitarist as George, though both have seen some shit and have senses of humor--but "Dry County Blues" and "Pain Pills" could sound so much better on Pistol Annies (or Womack, or Loveless, or) albums; here, with slightly generic vocals, kinda like Justified outtakes. Still, these, and "Life of the Party," and several others may well grown on me; can't dismiss her.
Nelson album's got a few good songs, but their charm is affected by the querulous ol' context (c'mon Willie, you're gonna give us geezers an even worse name).
Crowell, Carlene, Delines, Amy LaVere sets I mentioned up thread still good; need to check Eady, Cody Johnson, Lydia's recent tourmate Cody Branan (thumbs up from Hoos), Willis & Robison. And Tim McGraw. Others??

I should also listen again to Eric Church. And Lady Antebellum. Best new artist I've heard: Elise Davis, also mentioned upthread.

Ha, Simpson & Sturgill, meant Sweeney & Simpson.

eric paslay's album is nice

it's on spotify

"less than whole" is my fave. it is gloriously dramatic, as is "deep as it is wide"
and "friday night" is so much fun. those banjos and fiddles at the beginning <3

GO ON FORGIVE YOURSELF
GO ON FORGIVE YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed that "Less Than Whole" is really well done. I actually preferred the original version of "Friday Night" that Lady Antebellum did, but the song is undeniable. Paslay has the unfortunate tendency to remind of Josh Groban, but some of his stuff just works.

Have you guys heard Emily West's "Made for the Radio"? Pretty incredible take on the industry/labels. Here's the chorus:

"I don’t sing my songs/ in hundred story buildings/ for dying men in business suits/ with vacant black hole hearts/ fucking the next star/ cause I won’t go on stage/ lit up on amphetamines/ singing ripped off melodies/ while I fall apart/ I’m a one woman show/ and I wasn’t made for the radio."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FecMalBNq8

Must check her, thanks! "Go on, forgive yourself" hopefully heard/sung by Nashville series' closeted Hat star, someday, some way.
Oh yeah, Top Ten prospects also include:
Finally got to Mary Gauthier's Trouble and Love: breakup and recovery and then some--though she claims (in interviews) to be through with romantic love, realizing she just wasn't made for it, and maybe vice versa, and though (in song) she does demonstrate "How You Learn To Live Alone," that's a co-write with Gretchen Peters (perfectly placed on Nashville the TV series to boot):another example of how she's regrouping, realigning her musical and emotional resources, into sweet unpretentious forging on, with "Worthy" the tiny turning point on a dime: "ashes into flame"--sure, why not, rewind is no great leap of imagination---once *something* provides the key, but then, you've already got to be unlocked, for creativity to do its mysterious thing, whatever the process (obviously she's a vet, a pro, almost slipping into solemn folk-country soap opera at times, but usually not: "Oh Soul" does have a choked-up male vocal shadow, and yeah she's at the crossroads and ready for repentence, but does she have to "pray at the grave of Robert Johnson"? Maybe so, considering the better lines). One of the year's best.

― dow, Tuesday, June 24, 2014 11:02 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as put it on Twitter:

@0wlred
Nville contributor Mary Gauthier's new CD barely allows me to multitask--amazing (she sounds amazed too)

@‏0wlred

@brohamand @leeannwomack @notFrankLiddell And y not, say, Womack w Pistol Annies, showing Travellng Wilburys how 2 do it, sons....?

Speaking of Nashville series, been thinking that on some level the show itself, the runners maybe, seemed hype-resistant, like most of the characters are, so there can be a sense of strain, of overtaxed will power in the ooowee sensationalism. Just now saw this: T-Bone B. on leaving as music director (and his wife is the creator and runner, at least officially): http://vult.re/1sm5jZS

One more probly for Top Ten:

The aforementioned Nikki Lane's current album, All Or Nothin' is about a rowdy gal who sometimes quietly busts her partner in luv crime---gotta keep honor among thieves, after all. Pretty confident, though not invulnerable, either way, and suggests (what may have actually happened, for all I know) Wanda Jackson keeping her 50s edge and losing the hopefully imposed late tearjerkers in the mid-60s, demonstrating, as Buck Owens did, how country could adapt to the Beatles, (and vice versa, via covers, the influence of Everlys harmonies, and even L-McC's "I've Just Seen A Face"). Which of course is something Dwight Yoakam's returned to over the years, incl Three Pears, but it seems more of a female tradition, thinking of, say, Those Darlins, Holly Golightly, or that album of Elizabeth McQueen pub-rock covers(yeah, but sounded mid-60s too, as pub-rock could in the mid=70s), discussed several Rolling Countrys ago.
Though the closest comparison might be to the late great Amy Farris's Anyway, with a twangy slender voice unfazed by sometimes flamboyant production. Whether it'll keep seeming like more than a stylistic excercise remains to be seen, but it's good exercise at least. Go Babe!

― dow, Tuesday, August 12, 2014 8:54 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
And before that:

I like this song from Nikki Lane's new album, answering the musical question: "Nikki, when is the right time to do the wrong thing?" https://soundcloud.com/newwestrecords/nikki-lane-all-or-nothin-right/s-l71iv
Also digging the title song from her 2011 EP, which I was totally ignorant of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwzdQRfM-4

Just now saw this: T-Bone B. on leaving as music director (and his wife is the creator and runner, at least officially): http://vult.re/1sm5jZS

yeah, t-bone left after the first season. and the show is, as he says, a soap opera. actually, he suggests it's half soap opera, half serious drama about musicians' lives, but that's being way generous. it's full-on soap opera, with all the pointlessness and WTF-ness that that implies. but i still enjoy the show quite a bit, because it's a soap opera about a world i care about, because a few of the characters are well-drawn (and well-acted), and the songwriting is consistently great, and has remained great even in t-bone's absence. buddy miller replaced him.

I share yr. perspective, except sense of strain sometimes, soap-opera stuff can seem awkward--ratings falling while they have to compete with Scandal supernatural soaps, reality shows etc even on networks, much less cable, online---and not much music in this season's initial eps, so can't really compare Burnett's direction to Miller's yet. Hayden P. and Stella sisters (Rayna's daughters) are always good, with or without music, but others can get a bit tiresome when too much talk time.

i really love the angaleena presley album on two listens. somehow hadn't realised just how smooth her voice is but i think it really fits the songs

Hoos pick Cory Branan + 9 more countryoid comers--good?
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/new-country-artists-2014-20141010/cory-branan-20141010

and not much music in this season's initial eps, so can't really compare Burnett's direction to Miller's yet.

miller did all of last season. burnett quit at the end of season one.

Ah, OK then! Last season was pretty good musically, so maybe this will make a little more room for performances. Another Cody show posted on bbchron, and this set does have "Hot Rod Lincoln" etc. (only two songs repeated from prev.; they knew a lotta songs):
http://bbchron.blogspot.com/2014/10/commander-cody-and-his-lost-planet_8.html

Good Lee Ann interview:
http://www.cmtedge.com/2014/10/08/lee-ann-womack-wants-to-make-you-feel-something/

She's had a great second act, hasn't she?

Whatever happened to Patty Loveless?

No relation to Lydia, Patty according to wiki :

Over the past several years Loveless has made annual appearances in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry (last appearance in March 2014) and goes on an annual country music cruise.[21] She no longer performs on a regular basis, spending her time with her husband and family at their home near Dallas, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta.

Angaleena Presley live show covers:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/at-hill-country-angaleena-presley-seems-set-for-post-supergroup-success/2014/10/13/d40632b6-52e5-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html

Before calling it a night, Presley turned her band loose for fabulous reworkings of Neil Young’s “Love Is a Rose” and Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues,” though the latter was done as ZZ Top might render a Haggard song.

Hopefully not totally "post"--need more Pistol Annies!

growing to really love the angaleena presley album. i love how the solo annies are so different from both each other and pistol annies.

been hearing eric church's "talladega" on the radio lately. i was getting kind of sick of his rock rebel posturing and/or shameless rewrites of his previous hits so i am pleased. still haven't bothered listening to the outsiders though.

Laura Cantrell's newest record was really underwhelming on first listen earlier this year, but I heard a radio interview with her this weekend that prompted a revisit, and boy am I glad. Nothing earth shattering, but a really lovely album in the vein of Tift Merritt, Zoe Muth, or even Aimee Mann. Read: inoffensive, pretty, adult contemporary country/folk rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ejDvenTsdk

Fell in love with this song/video last night. Her album from this year, The Avenues (which this song isn't on), is likewise pretty nice.

It is! Though subtle-arty in unexpected ways; will take a little more getting used to (she's so confident though, she must be doing it right,eh?) Meanwhile,
@leeannwomack
Quebe Sisters @CityWineryNSH singin CindyWalkers Going Away Party..dont worry it wont be a loud party, dreams dont make noise when they die"
Oh yeah. Willie Nelson's Cindy Walker collection is mighty fine too.
Uh-oh, almost time for "Nashville" again.

sam hunt's album just came out, is he any good? he has written some songs i like but i am still unsure what kind of artist he is trying to be

Chris Richards was just drooling over Sam Hunt in the Washington Post, so I am curious as well.

In the case of country music’s hot new thing, his hotness and newness are self-evident. But this thing he’s got going — this hybridization of country and hip-hop that’s so elegant against all odds — is deceptively phenomenal. Hunt’s major label debut is a lean 10 songs, each one of them fantastic, all of them poised to raise Nashville’s temperature more than just a few degrees.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/10/28/the-months-best-music-sam-hunt-dej-loaf-ex-hex-tinashe-and-more/

It's on Spotify. "Lean": 10 songs in 38 minutes, and I 'ppreciate that, but still some of 'em are too long, like, of all things "Cop Car," where he's really sweating what her Daddy's gonna say, but still,"Somethin' in the blue lights' flashin'/Brought out the freedom in your eyes....I fell in love in the back of a cop car." Great first epiphany (and good build up to it),but, though he's always as earnest as Luke Bryant and Lee Brice, he lacks their corny flair, and this gets real solemn (and like Ah said, long).
He's also trying to be real tasteful, and not disturb the vibe, but this does lead to some interesting speculation, like right off in "Take Your Time," he "doesn't wanta go home with you," whom he's just met; he just wants to do it right here, right now, or maybe over there in the shrubbery, going by his down-low manner. "Single For The Summer" has a nice hazy loose-ends atmosphere, and he's very broad-minded: likes him some "debutantes...and small-town runaways," better than collecting sea shells. Could see this as a radio hit and subject of creeped-out tweets/Slate articles.
"Ex To See": realizes he's being used as the tool of her revenge, but, though he's dismayed, is still riding around with her as song ends (not real safe, maybe, but understandable; I've been there). Turnaround, maybe on the same lady, in "Make You Miss Me," where earnestness is now butthurt and truly poignant, even got an actual girl singing along a little bit; he gets my sympathy, and could see this as another hit, with no tweetplaints maybe.
Attempts at straight-up hick hop partying are even more generic than necessary (shoulda got one of the Lees in there), but I'll sure take him over Florida-Georgia, whose sprained twang, with or without autotune, is pretty painful.

Montevallo: name of a town and college in the town, where he's been doing all this studying, maybe.

"Fantastic"? "Elegant"? No.

interesting thoughts! i'll have to give it a listen

I've been to Montevallo and have friends who went to school there. It's in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Alabama.

hmmm i listened to the album and it's pretty boring front-to-back. :\ i wanted to like it b/c i love some of the songs he cowrote that other artists recorded.

actually the opening track is slightly interesting

Caramanica in the NY Times is excited by this tune from the latest Little Big Town album Pain Killer:

Finally, in “Girl Crush” — by the songwriting power threesome of Liz Rose, Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey — Little Big Town delivers one of the most devastating country songs in recent memory, a scorching and pained meditation on jealousy delivered with heavy resignation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/arts/music/music-from-little-big-town-mila-j-oc-maco-and-ex-hex.html?ref=music

gorgeous song. i had no interest in hearing the album after "day drinking" which is such a terrible and shameless "pontoon" retread

Country Music Association Awards are on ABC tv now. Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood are hosting and have already started with bad jokes and Paisley strumming a fake song about George Strait, last year's entertainer of the year

They just gave out single of the year already--Miranda Lambert "Automatic"

The Paisley & Underwood ebola quarantine and leaked selfie joke songs were forgettable of course

Rather watch this, also live (incl. commercials): http://musiccityroots.com/roots-tv/

Yea maybe. But Kacey Musgraves just won "song of the year" (as oppose to single of the year) for "Follow Your Arrow"

Lady Antebellum's performance was ok

There's Dierks Bentley doing "Drunk on a Plane" . I like that song. Its catchy.

Miranda Lambert and 2 guys she writes songs with just accepted her/their award for something...

Checking out that Roots tv thing. Its on every Wednesday I see

Back to the CMAs. Miranda won for best album. She justt did a nice version of "Smokin' and Drinkin" with Little Big Town accompanying her

Vince Gill just got all choked up watching the video endorsement of him from Merle Haggard as part of the video tribute to him. He just got the Irving Waugh Award of Excellence

George Strait's baritone still sounds good. He dueted with Eric Church. Luke Bryan won entertainer of the year. But now they're letting the Doobie Brothers close out the night with "Takin' it to the Streets" with Brad Paisley on guitar. Oh country, you love those old pop folks. Michael McDonald is getting gospelly now with all of the backing singers...

I missed a couple of the other veteran with younger act duets--saw in the paper that Loretta Lynn did one.

A picture from life's other side (so this 'un ain't fair neither, butt its funny):
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2014/11/06/48th-annual-cma-music-awards-fest-oh-balls-2014

Oh, I see on the Paisley thread some discussion of one of host Paisley's "jokes".

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/06/showbiz/cmas-highlights-brad-paisley/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Nikki Lane: still good. Prob in my Scene ballot Top Ten Albums.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B14AX6UCEAA348p.png:large

She's on a US tour now. Gonna be away tho and will miss my East coast gig

Also touring: Wine Women & Song, AKA Matraca Berg, Suzy Bogguss, and Gretchen Peters. Covered a WWS show in Columbus OH years ago. Purty cool: seasoned personal hits and more recent, well-placed co-writes, plus covers of Stones, Parsons, etc. What's that curled around Matraca's elbow? I asked but haven't heard back from her yet.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2GyNhNCUAEHukb.jpg

Tonight on Music City Roots, from 7 til some time prob a bit before 10 Central, Angeleena Presley and Mary Gauthier will be among the performers, with sets prob 25-27 minutes long, plus brief interviews. Scroll to the bottom of this page for livestream video and live radio links. For archived shows (back to 2010), click media, audio, downloads. http://musiccityroots.com/events/

Nikki Lane ‏@nikkilanemusic 2h2 hours ago

I literally just pissed all over myself in a traffic jam in Boston while trying to pee out of the side… http://instagram.com/p/vUYIbKOVC-/
0 replies 2 retweets 5 favorites

Really liked Holly Williams' 2013 The Highway and some earlier music.

Holly WilliamsVerified account ‏@hollywilliams1

Mama, Daddy, Waylon, Jessie-all legends in their own right ❤️❤️ #1979 #weddingday

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2XRNtzCMAAOKkz.jpg:large

Fine presentation: life & music of the late great Gary Stewart, country-rocker like no other---thx to @rekkidoftheday Phillip Overeem 4 alert http://bit.ly/1sW1bMU

He's *kind of* like if Jerry Lee Lewis had first emerged in the 70s, having to deal with all that and vice versa, but some wild desolate Hank Williams in there too, what if Hank had made it to middle age---here's my take, written right before/after his death, a decade ago: http://bit.ly/1uC1dh6

Minton Sparks is a story-telling poet with an ear for the music in spoken words. She's often held forth with guitarist John Jackson, who toured with Dylan long enough to be prepared at all times, so Live At Station Inn is a good place to start.
Studio arrangements ride along nicely too, and she's sure got a way with a beat. This fall's Gold Digger delivers more downhome truths in itchy empathy: "Every line is written on the body," and how. (If had to pick one for a comp, might possibly be "Tennessee Prison For Women," which is like a slice of Orange Is The New Black, although seems even more like based on her teaching there, or is that just a illusion of her deft realness)

That is, I don't know if she actually has taught there (could read the bio, but the music's the thing).

Cool convergence at the CMAa

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B25oAC3IQAAC-cF.png

Make a note

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B25tXTvCQAE8Jyx.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3PwD3pIYAAxvbc.jpg:large
Starting a new series of Xmas EPs:
"I wanted to do an EP and spread it around over the next three years. I love it. I miss making Christmas music, so I'm happy."

Rimes says she felt very free to experiment with her sound on the release. "There's a little bit of dirty south kind of sound, but it's also very intimate. It was nice to do some songs that haven't been covered as much, so it was nice to set the tone with something a little different than what normal Christmas records have been." Nuthin too weird tho:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-615/6327687/leann-rimes-one-christmas-ep-interview?utm_source=twitter

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81v8plqSy8L._SY355_.jpg

Yep, Willie's Stash, a mixed bag which actually continues the zigzag grooving of most albums he's released in this century. But these 18 tracks, new recordings of vintage covers and (mostly) originals, from "Alexander's Ragtime Band to "Ou-es Tu, Mon Amour/I Never Cared For You," lyrical and blunt, well-remembered and impulsive.
He seems a little short-winded at first, but vocal levels shift as needed: he's scrawny, full-bodied, nasal, well-rounded, etc. Ivories are also flexible, while the geetar darts, jabs, practices Djangology (he said recently he'd been taking lessons in that, but sounds the same). She contours and solos too, given more space than usual (though also check last year's Let's Face The Music and Dance).
Each song lives in its own story, its own moment, streaming here for now http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=0

https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/fit/c/750/750/1*ixxCAKwejlS38CY4ek3ajA.jpeg

Pretty and spooky without being Southern Gothic, the current Cantrell vibe is "that's just how it is," cos love & music will only take you so far, no matter through what and for what (incl "Turn Down For What," not stylistically, but this music's into pleasure too). Sounds she knows she's on a roll, so why stop now, pick up some more sorrow and happiness on the way. Also sounds like She might be mildly surprised that I'm surprised at her unpretentious mastery and ambition (no dis on Brandy Clark, but those who think she's the best should hear the way Cantrell does less-is-more, vocally: "I'm gonna get these ol' clothes clean, do you know what I mean?")

Xgau pretty much nails it (think by "helpmeet" he means "co-writer"):

Laura Cantrell: No Way There From Here
(Thrift Shop)

Now in her mid forties, Nashville-born, New York-based Columbia grad Cantrell has always been one of those intensely likable, not necessarily female Nashville helpmeets whose own music is a quantum too mild to break out of their circle. But on her first album of new songs since she stepped back to have a kid, two cowrites with the darker and sharper Amy Allison are intensely flavorful: the pan-feminist “All the Girls Are Complicated” and the pining-for-my-guy “Can’t Wait.” Great melodies too from Jennifer O’Connor on the songwriter-centric “Beg or Borrow Days” and Franklin Bruno on the dislocated “No Way There From Here” and, hey, Laura Cantrell acting alone on the calmly bereft “Letter She Sent.” That’s a lot. Welcome outside the circle, ma’am. A MINUS

Also, despite the shifting songwriting credits (which I haven't checked), it's seamless, without being too smooth. A touch of the old Hoboken denim lilt in there too, so one for us Amy Rigby fans (first track even has a dbs feel).

Not that this is, eh, jangle-country.

Not pandering to her fellow fortysomethings' hip nostalgia, that is.

At long last I was able to put the dreaded Crowell/ Willoughby sense of shame and disentitlement to proper use. Recent adventures of Rodney C. (Lon Chaney Williams?)
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1siqmba

Chris Richards end of the year list in Washington Post has Sam Hunt, Miranda Lambert, sturgill Simpson, plus Lori McKenna and Hiss Golden Messenger

Methinks that Sam Hunt one is kinda uneven

i wanted to like it/him but i thought it was pretty boring throughout. i actually love "cop car" but somehow found the version on his album fairly dull.

Yeah, that track started well, but petered out. Overall---mehhh---anyway, note to self: get the following

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B34l8xUCQAAXE0M.jpg:large

Have they done one for Oklahoma yet?

Thanx to all-weather publicist Cary Baker for pic of his new copy.

Country album noms at the Grammys:

Dierks Bentley - Riser
Eric Church - The Outsiders
Brandy Clark - 12 Stories
Miranda Lambert - Platinum
Lee Ann Womack - The Way I'm Livin'

brandy, miranda and lee ann :D :D :D

so happy that brandy's gotten some recognition

Best New Artist noms:

Bastille
Iggy Azalea
Brandy Clark
HAIM
Sam Smith

!

whoa that is pretty big especially given that her album wasn't exactly a hit. SO DESERVING! so unusual to be excited about grammy nominations!

!!!

only grammy noms to make me happy so far

The chronology of these ballot choices always weirds me out: voted (see way upthread) for Clark in Nashville Scene poll re alb was released---last year. Na ga vote for anything twice, wouldn't be prudent.
Best recap & comments in the history of time:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/countrylife/archives/2014/12/04/nashville-recap-two-sides-to-every-story

It is great to see Brandy Clark getting the exposure that her talent deserves. I was wondering, because i have no idea, do Grammy nominations actually make a difference to record sales?

if the the category is shown on the television broadcast, it usually provides a quick but significant upsurge in sales for the nominated artists (esp. if they win)

Thanks dyl,

I was wondering about the importance of the nomination. In Britain or Ireland, being nominated or winning a high profile award, such as the Mercury Prize, can have a very positive effect, but it can also be seen as an albatross around the neck of the winner. A case in point is Speech Debelle, who never really recovered from being perceived as an undeserving winner of the award, and her win certainly didn't translate into record sales.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/40-best-country-albums-of-2014-20141210

Whiney and other RS contributors weigh in with selections from big names and others

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/12/10/girl-in-a-country-song-hits-no-1-by-mocking-bro-country-the-bros-arent-laughing/?hpid=z4

But the guys in question have been pretty humorless. When the song dropped, the bros were tellingly silent amid the waves of hype, if not downright annoyed. Asked about the song by the Chicago Tribune, Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley claimed he didn’t know what the interviewer was talking about. When asked further, he got snippy. “All I’m gonna say about that is, I don’t know one girl who doesn’t want to be a girl in a country song,” Kelley said. “That’s all I’m gonna say to you. That’s it.”

Here's one to which I contributed: http://www.spin.com/articles/40-best-country-songs-2014/

Nikki Lane: still good. Prob in my Scene ballot Top Ten Albums.

i like this pretty ok so far but i can't stop hearing her accent as claire bowen's fake-ass 'scarlett' accent on nashville

Thanks, Alfred. I've been way behind on singles for the Scene ballot, will check those.
Tulare Dust, good Merle trib, now reissued with an added disc:
http://shop.fronterarecords.com/Tulare-Dust-2-CD-expanded-edition-ROC-3273.htm

http://shop.fronterarecords.com/images/TulareDust600.jpg

tulare dust is one of the only tribute albums i've ever truly loved.

i think "girl in a country song" and especially the way it's been promoted have been overly acquiescent to the 'bro' side of the industry but it is amusing to see that the florida georgia line guy is actually annoyed by it

Iris DeMent's cover of Big City on Tulare Dust. Just killer.

Amen. Come to think of it, during one of her long spells between albums, she also toured as keyboard player with Merle and the Strangers. Sure would like them to duet.
xpost yeah and he shoulda pointed out to his interviewer that they put themselves in a country song, that answer songs are another way of riding a trend by counter-balance, that answer songs are another biz family tradition. Alas, Weird Al probably won't be back 'til way after this whole thing is too passe for him.

Another excellent Ashley Spurgeon recap of Nashville (mid-season finale!), with some points I hadn't thought of, so obv. brilliant. Good comments again too:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/countrylife/archives/2014/12/11/nashville-recap-first-to-have-a-second-chance

Also speaking of Nashville, I don't hear a connection between Nikki Lane and Claire Bowman's fake accent, which always reminded me of a Loretta Lynn imitation (or Sissy Spacek as Loretta in Coal Miner's Daughter) Maybe Bowman noticed that she looks like young Loretta might now, with a salon tan and mermaid waves of platinum extensions.

extensions, even (but the original LL would prob be pale brunette on Bloodshot w Lydia Loveless, at least initially)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/40-best-country-albums-of-2014-20141210

Whiney and other RS contributors weigh in with selections from big names and others

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, December 10, 2014 1:11 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really like this list, though Lydia Loveless is an unforgivable exclusion. Is that Little Big Town record the real deal? I can barely remember it, though I'm certain I gave it a couple spins.

Also, I feel like I'm the only guy that doesn't get Shovels and Rope. They're fine, but come off a bit gimmicky to me.

That Nashville Sound's EOY lists:

Top 35 Albums:
http://thatnashvillesound.blogspot.com/2014/12/that-nashville-sounds-top-35-albums-of.html

Top Ten Unexpected Country Duets and Music Collaborations of 2014:
http://thatnashvillesound.blogspot.com/2014/12/that-nashville-sounds-top-ten.html

Nice to see Jason Eady get some love. Critics seem to have totally slept on that record.

Yeah, I still need to check that for the last round-up, re the Scene ballot. Maybe check Shovels and Rope's O' Be Joyful, which I get into more than the latest alb. They've got a Deluxe Edition of it out now or coming up, with "songs from our previous records," meaning from before they teamed up, apparently, but reworked for their current shows.

May not have time for singles though. Right now I'm just blanking on any ten, much less ten best.

Okay, listened to the current xpost Jason Eady, Daylight and Dark: a mild-mannered, reflective, sometimes rueful voice, usually late night for him. between 9 and 10.Although "Temptation" seems to be out in the great wide open, an eerie gray today, with no distractions, while he thinks about his thoughts, about being tempted. He invites us to lean in, just a bit. So far, the title track and about half the others, ones that sound a bit more lived-in, pull me along. Background and duet assistants assist, also when the tempo gets picked up, just a tad. Don Williams, George Strait appeal.

Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, Our Year: Was she this strong on her solo albums? Must check. Seems like she should always sing lead. On "Lonely For You," she even sounds like a (vocally, not emotionally) self-sustained Everly, no need for overdubs. He's crisp, but there's a subliminal ebb and flow on a couple tracks, like he's pausing the take, "Lemme come back to that line": the writer as vocal stylist, whoopee. Still, it mostly works out, especially when I play it louder, and the sequence of tracks is good, like even "Harper Valley PTA" takes on a claustrophobic quality here, as Willis relentlessly busts the endless, obsessive rounds of musical beds in this itchy niche, this teeming Valley. Fine finale, "This Will Be Our Year," doesn't seem ironic, though lyrics x context of sequence show they know they got a lot to hope for, def. incl. change, but they've sure worked for it, earned it. Good, but if you haven't heard them before, check 2013 Cheater's Game first.

http://www.spin.com/articles/40-best-country-songs-2014/?page=3

Here are some singles,a mixture of pop and Americana and Jon Langford (I guess he counts as roots/Americana now).

I wrote some of those blurbs -- thanks!

Re: Willis, I'd say she's even stronger on her solo albums (though I like both of the duets albums with Robison quite a bit, as well). Of her early 90s albums for MCA, her self-titled release was my favorite, though all three were solid. Since signing with independent labels, I'd say <i>What I Deserve</i> is her strongest album, but I really don't think she's ever released a bad album. She plays to more of an Americana audience, but I think her song choices and feistiness avoid a lot of the stuffier trappings of so many other acts in that corner of the genre.

Both the Willis & Robison and Jason Eady albums made my Nashville Scene ballot. I liked Eady's previous album a bit better than this one, fwiw.

Ah cool, will check all those too, thanks Jon!
Also, I got Rosanne Cash's The River & The Thread pretty early, but after a few spins, quickly dismissed it as too arty. But as I start listening again, and this time to the Deluxe Edition, it's growing on me. The bonus tracks---Townes Van Zandt's "Two Girls" (vibe/strategy cousin to the most truly artful, if also arty original here, fabulous "Night School"), Jesse Winchester's sensuous blue "Biloxi," and "Your Southern Heart," (apparently Cash-Leventhal, like all of 'em if not otherwise specified)---def. tip the scales in favor of artisanal pleasure: conceptualism gets carried along, as she increasingly seems to enjoy making dark, rich, fluid,lustrous stuff, suitable for some thoughtful listening and a discreet buzz.
But c'mon: this is post-country. This is Rosanne Cash. Yes, it's about a narrator, maybe a woman (gonna wear a dress, anyway), references to tape and other music gear stashed, coming back to places like Memphis, and RC was born there, but mostly grew up in Southern California, in a house JC bought from Johnny Carson, she's said she was never at ease as a young female radio star in Nsshville, and she moved to NYC 25 years ago. Writes and edits books, etc. Probably owns every issue of Oxford American ever, and has appeared in the pages of several.
So we get empathetic or anyway increasingly sympathetic takes on a returned native's approaches to local residents, mostly with sensibilties skewed and possibly screwed, in the best tracks. But no mention of, say, Wal-Mart vs. Mom 'n' Pops (check Alan Jackson's "The Little Man" for good bits on that, despite the title), or meth, booze-running (yep, she's making me re-think A. Presley's album, despite finding its topicality a bit schematic at first), no open carry laws, no clampdown on birth control and abortion, etc. Tuning into the electric church, "50, 000 watts of common prayer," at one point, but no common speech, not when river bottoms can be "The Sunken Lands." No slang, no inverse condescension, Ah reckon.(Common prayer? Well, we do still have some Episcopals, way back there and on that NPR.)
But hey, "Open up that window, and pass the baby through/Take her to the ghost bridge, and she'll know what to do." Sounds like she's with us, folks! (And she's still studying, judging by "Night School" and some others, still learning from covering Townes & Jesse, from "Ode To Billy Joe," which she specifically references in passing once here and covers live, and from the expansion-compression cycles of 90s-now Dylan, I think, I hope...)

So I'm gonna make up another category for the Scene ballot, incl post-country (her) country punk (Lydia Loveless) cowpunk (prev unleased This Is Lone Justice, and some other tags/stuff.

Not to get purist! Just to have another Top Ten (which won't get counted in the poll, but neither would they as Hon. Mentions, my ongoing catchall category.)

This new category may be called Countryoid.

I wish I liked the Cash album as much as her Civil War ballad and as much as I love "Little Man."

Me too (though my wife likes it). We saw Rosanne Cash live around this time last year and I liked the songs better(they seemed to have more energy and life and less formula)

Yeah, works better live, esp. when she also includes "Ode To Billy Joe" and includes some of her older songs with the new ones

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses. Like-tolove the writing (for the latter, line about the girl who's compared to "a saddle in a one-hoss town," ouch!)and performance of "Ain't No Way," but the understated, breathy drawl can let me drift away when she doesn't let the instruments do enough of the dirty work, and seems willfully simple when the writing does. She and I come from similar backgrounds, and I'm still there, incl. financially, so obviously not smarter or for that matter better (or worse) off with the out-of-town book learnin' either, but I know she knows there's more to it than the title track rants about---oh wait, she'd be "Better Off Red," if all those things that she learned when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon could just fall out of her head.

But of course, she's just giving us the unflattering truth of what she thinks sometimes, including the easy connection to "American Middle Class," and "Knocked Up" too, after spilling the beans in "Dry County Blues" (which drifts away a bit toward the end, but that's part of the point about that way of life)(ditto [a day in the]"Life of the Party," kinda generic but again context y'all, and nice picking), and especially "Pain Pills" (my fave, with the "backup singer" caught in echolalia and bouncing off the particle board, times the monster guitar she finally lets off its leash---although it's real good on and important to "Grocery Store" as well). After all that, "Knocked Up" 's wry delivery understates & underlines the notion that she hasn't really turned up her nose at *all* the secular local customs. Still, gets a little tedious, but maybe that's part of just movin' right along folks, life and life only. Fine line between the mundane and quotidian, yep.
"Drunk" okay set piece, you know the plot from first couple lines, didn't Brandy Clark do this? "BLessing and A Curse" is better, with bracing music, even though no hairy solos, good she can do it this way too; "Surrender" is even better with the candor again, though not quite spelling out what she's surrendering too, except it's not a sense of (ultimate) defeat, just "I can't do it alone," which I hope means she's realizing she can't rely too much on vocal power/distinction, and that she will also be a Pistol Annie as long as that works.
Hon. Mention, I guess. End of another minority report.

"if all those things that she learned, when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon *entered her*, could just fall out of her head," I meant (still not that good, but a little clearer).

Should have just quoted the line instead of parodically paraphrasing it, but anyway.

Oh yeah, staying in Pistol Annies might help w writing as well, at least re feedback, also trying different co-writers beyond PA.

Eric Church, The Outsiders
First track has me thinking this is hick hop in black, with a touch of metal, ready to square off in the parking lot with rich yearbook pix/cheerleader hawgs of bro country--like Metallica presented as a dark alternative to gaudy Hollywood hair metal and Van Halen pop "metal." Also, as later songs elaborate on, it's for older bros, or bros who have been around long enough to have relationships to negotiate, and other long and winding roads, sometimes with twists which have barely turned (don't ask, just---don't...). Not serenading gals when not serenading selves and each other, in instant selfie nostalgia for the present nights, "Beer In The Headlights" and all that bro-mance.
But some people liked Metallica and hair metal and pop metal, and some of this is mainly nostalgic, like Chesney remembering race tracks more than pickup tracks, and the older bro is grateful to the lady who pulled the iron thorn from his paw, put a pin back in his grenade, and maybe introduced him to the band who pace his "Wrecking Ball" before it can explode beyond some kind of luric macho as written, mellow as murmured customary boudoir code.
Oh yeah, the band! Always on point, and if if this okay (studio) character actor & storyteller (effectively low-key and informative when guiding us around the "fer-tile loins" of Nashville Babylonia, although it doesn't work as well when he turns on Her mate, the Devil), much more Chuck Norris than James Hetfield after all---which really is okay, at this point!----but if he ever managed to give his Nashville Cats in black more than Music Row's latest angles, arcs and novelty songs--sure would be good to hear them rise to the occasion, rather than have to hold back just a little too obviously, by sounding so ferocious so on cue----so as not to upstage the guy up front.
That can happen live, when everything isn't mixed beyond perfectly, but go for whatever you go for, and be prepared to stay for the band (do brace yourself for the worst-"sung" version of "Talladega" you can imagine, and then some). Still, considering the heavy, agile, always attentive playing, and the clever gimmicks of most songs, and of course Church's adequate studio delivery, overall it's an Hon. Mention (much more consistently listenable than Florida-Georgia, for inst.)

"Talladega" seems to be nostalgic for bros drinking and driving, on some occasions, so touching all bases---and most songs address how "you" make him feel, much more than touching on whoever, whatever you may be otherwise (whereever? Mostly real close, or real gone, to/from vicinity of the monologue). Not even any "By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be risin'", no wondering what Bro's doin' now, or would be if he hadn't crashed, no "I drive his truck"---no trucks, as prev. mentioned. And no blood relatives, other than a son you thugs, mugs, dealers of drugs better not touch, or "(little smirk)I'll let the Dark Side out to play..." (darkwing music in background)
So it's all at least as self-involved as a lot of male-sung mainstream pop country, which is to say, as a lot of country, whatever the special sauce.

Merry Country Christmas and adios for a while.

After the Christmas basket, before the turkey & dressing, a palate cleanser:
Terri Clark, Some Songs: "Some songs/Need air/Some songs/Need a girl." Yep,'n' some need the return of the No-BS Canadian Queen of Hat Country, with just enough of ye olde rodeo/hangar clangor, Chris LeDoux's pioneer prescription of "Aerosmith in a cowboy hat," balanced by her own, sometimes romantic, often dry POV: you gave her your word, darlin---riiight, she heard that, "So I took it down town and I cheated on you," how do like them onions? She's been around, and is still ready get some messy details on the fresh white T; more where that came from. And her new theme song is the typically forthright "Better With My Boots On." Others incl. "Here Comes Crazy," "Don't Start," "Wheels Down," "Bad Car," "Just Add Water," and "Feelin' Pretty Good Right Now." If you need some car music for holiday travel (to see The Interview, to buy the new Garth at Wal-Mart, etc.), try this, and her Greatest Hits 1994-2004, whether or not you can find that "worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux" (Hi Garth, who is not on $P0T1fy, so won't get considerd by me in this poll, unless I find a nice-priced used CD).

Rosanne getting really hearty w the arty re The River & The Thread, also slinging hot chestnuts from The List, on latest Beale Street Caravan. Listen local, or here---although, unlike most of their archived shows, you gotta join to listen---but you also get backstory of The Gentrys' Memphis garagemark "Keep On Dancin'":http://bit.ly/1CNZPg4

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses.

― dow, Wednesday, December 24, 2014 6:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, this was one of the more disappointing releases of the year for me. Gave it the benefit of the doubt and returned a number of times, but nothing grabbed me quite like her best work for the Annies. Sadly, the best of the bunch for me are the ones with serious talent co-writing (“Grocery Store” and “Surrender”).