Ah. No flying from NYC to Vegas first, then driving through Zion and Bryce via Grand Canyon to LA. Would love to catch some small time shows, or even a Highwayman coverband in some obscure country bar. Anything, really :)
― rizzx, Thursday, 11 May 2017 07:20 (seven years ago) link
bakersfield country music museum And the Buck Owens Crystal Pallace in Bakersfield, Ca
― curmudgeon, Friday, 12 May 2017 02:26 (seven years ago) link
Thanks a lot. Gotta dig into that.Also; any book recommendations about country music are welcome! Is the Waylon bio any good?
― rizzx, Saturday, 13 May 2017 12:54 (seven years ago) link
http://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/entertainment/tn-gnp-et-0611-eli-locke-20160611-story.html
Here's a mostly traditional California country singer who does gigs in Burbank and elsewhere. Eli Locke has Gary Allan's bandleader in his group. The author of the article, Jonny Whiteside has written a book Ramblin' Rose: The Life and Career of Rose Maddox, that I have not read.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 15 May 2017 14:00 (seven years ago) link
Thanks! Have you read the Waylon book per chance?
― rizzx, Monday, 15 May 2017 19:36 (seven years ago) link
Sorry for the double post
Nope
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 13:30 (seven years ago) link
Toby Keith will perform in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Saturday, on a bill with Saudi singer and oud player Rabeh Saqer. That's the weekend when the President is there
― curmudgeon, Friday, 19 May 2017 17:02 (seven years ago) link
The new Shelby Lynne with Alison Moorer album is ok, but did not wow me on first listen.
I went to the Grand Ol Opry for the first time. Saw a bill that included Darius Rucker and Little Big Town and Wynonna. Not bad. Nice harmonies from Little Big Town. Wynonna wore an American flag bandanna, and said "isn't this the greatest country in the world." Not a word from anyone about Charlottesville.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 August 2017 15:12 (seven years ago) link
Plus saw a decent cover band called Nashville Skyine at Robert's Western Wear on Broadway there
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 August 2017 16:37 (seven years ago) link
Skyline
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 August 2017 16:38 (seven years ago) link
good line-up! was it at the Ryman or at Opryland?
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 31 August 2017 20:09 (seven years ago) link
there is no more opryland
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, 1 September 2017 16:06 (seven years ago) link
you know what i mean
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 1 September 2017 16:16 (seven years ago) link
i don't actually! The Ryman is the Ryman, where else are you thinking of?
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, 1 September 2017 16:22 (seven years ago) link
there's a big building in what used to be Opryland where they put on a lot of shows. Church pews set up behind the stage, etc. Scroll down on this page:
https://www.opry.com/planatrip
From looking at the website all the September shows are there instead of at the Ryman. it's fine though! The sound is great!
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 1 September 2017 16:49 (seven years ago) link
oh sorry, you meant the opry house! yeah, okay; that's not a bad place to see music i guess but the ryman is far superior ime
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, 1 September 2017 17:27 (seven years ago) link
The show was at the Gran Ole Opry not the Ryman. The current Opry is out in the burbs near a multiplex movie theatre and a shopping mall and you park in a huge shopping mall parking lot.
The bill also included Jeannie Seely (old-school singer); The Sisterhood (newish female duo with Rod Stewart's daughter); Riders In The Sky; and Charles Esten (from the tv show Nashville).
This (plus seeing the eclipse there) was the start of the wife & I's southern trip-- after Nashville we went to Muscle Shoals, AL; then Clarksdale, MS, and Memphis , TN plus a night at Senatobia , MS for the Barbecued Goat picnic with Sharde Thomas and her blues fife and drum band (the granddaughter of Otha Turner)
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 6 September 2017 05:06 (seven years ago) link
Dude that is one of the best road trip itineraries I've ever read
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 6 September 2017 09:31 (seven years ago) link
It was a great week--wish we had even more time. Although we did get tired a bit of barbecue and fried tomatoes, fried pickles, fried okra, fried everything food-wise near the end. Of course, some of it was also somber and disturbing-- from the Lorraine Motel/Civil Rights Museum in Memphis to the number of boarded up and abandoned buildings near Stax in Memphis, and in Clarksdale; gun shops everywhere, etc.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 6 September 2017 15:46 (seven years ago) link
Oh yeah, was thinking about that kind of local-enough-to-me 'scape while listening to the new Langford we were talking about on the Mekons thread. Heard Sharde and her fife and drum band on Beale Street Caravan (not sure what's happening now with their re-launched site's archives, but think the set was during one of those shows recorded at annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnics).
Good music and conversations, incl. with listeners calling in, from a studio in Austin to this show in Boston: Rick Trevino, with recent songs re his (third-generation, gradually re-emerging, inescapable)Chicano background and situations of immigrants, also personal chestnuts like "Bobbie Ann Mason"-- I must check his new album, old ones too:http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/09/08/country-music-rick-trevino-lati
― dow, Friday, 8 September 2017 22:38 (seven years ago) link
not exactly country, but rootsy, and fans of Jenny Lewis and Neko Case may enjoy Valley Queen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMp_dAG0PsQ
― niels, Tuesday, 12 September 2017 08:40 (seven years ago) link
Thanks, will check out the album. Coming up next on FarmAid: Willie Nelson & Family (hope Neil will show up again, mebbe for a sing-along of "Homegrown", as sometimes happens)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg6-hljSb9E
― dow, Sunday, 17 September 2017 02:34 (seven years ago) link
Evocative slide show of farm scenes now, incl. all those cute critters raised for slaughter
― dow, Sunday, 17 September 2017 02:36 (seven years ago) link
That American Music Fest finished up yesterday in Nashville. Lots of alt-country, with some token others
― curmudgeon, Monday, 18 September 2017 13:59 (seven years ago) link
Americana I mean
Drag City prose ahead, adjust your shades:
AT THE HOUSE OF CASH Now, we'll admit, there's no colon and additional writing there in the title to help you understand the vintage propers of this release, so you'll have to listen closely for just a minute here: this is a previously-unreleased album made by Nashville singer-songwriter Chris Gantry at Johnny Cash's home studio in 1973. Chris has been working for over a decade in Nashville, and along with buddies like Kris Kristofferson, Shel Silverstein, Eddie Rabbit and other young outlaws-in-the-making, Chris's wild times had led to new directions in songwriting. After scoring a hit for Glen Campbell with "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife", Chris signed with Monument and made a couple albums, the second of which, 1970's Motor Mouth, was tinged with acid-rock leads and surreal lyrics. By '73, Chris was getting pretty far-out, and At the House of Cash finds him in a Casteneda-styled impasse, making sweetly melodic folk tunes with raw edges that absolutely nobody else could touch! The Man in Black himself apparently told Chris that he didn't think even the drug people would get it. This of course only pleased Chris, who took it as a sign of transformation - and of course it was! Chris went on to write many more songs for other folks, and make more albums on his own, but At the House of Cash has sat on the shelf until now. Hearing the sound of a man shedding his own skin in an often-hectic, hypnotic, quixotic, and ultimately harmonious process, backed by top Nashville cats every step of the way, is a thrilling encounter...this is the kind of thing that makes archival releases so essential - hearing something that was not in the narrative until now that nonetheless is part of an evolution, a secret step that was felt more than heard, and was a part of everything. Chris Gantry had it going on back in '73, and that we're only hearing it now makes it all the more special. Viva la reissue-stance!Chris GantryAt the House of CashLP/CD/MP3/FLACDrag City To Be Released 2017-11-17 Catalog # DC686
― dow, Sunday, 24 September 2017 16:36 (six years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/arts/music/country-gentleman-thomas-rhett.html?mcubz=0&_r=0
Caramanica on Gentle-bros
...the country gentleman. And so Nashville’s bro tide is now receding, supplanted by a kindlier new generation of male country singers. They focus on uncomplicated, deeply dedicated love or, alternately, being hopeless on the receiving end of heartbreak. They sing with voices light on drawl. They ooze respect, charm and, occasionally, dullness. At times they recall George Strait, the restrained cowboy superstar; at others, Earl Thomas Conley, the emotional ballad specialist of the 1980s.
Visually, they have a similar aesthetic: white men with dark hair cut short and often pointed skyward. (A halfhearted beard is optional.) More often than not, they have sturdy, approachable, single-syllable last names: Thomas Rhett, Brett Young, Chris Lane, Michael Ray....
At the same time, female singers have been getting squeezed ever more tightly. ...These are systematic issues — to fix them would require coordinated response from record labels, publishing companies, radio and video outlets, and more. But the rise of the gentleman — the gentlebro? — is a reluctant, #NotAllMen solution. It dilutes the toxic levels of masculinity in the genre without offering women songs of their own to sing, instead plying them with ones that place them on a pedestal.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 25 September 2017 14:24 (six years ago) link
I didn't know Rhett was a bro 'til I read about it, but if so, he was the only bro I heard who was good for a whole album, Tangled Up, which made my Scene ballot Top Ten, So far, the new one mostly seems like wet nerf, especially in stark-as-nerf-can-get contrast to lead-off "Craving", the duet with Maren Morris---hey, there's a female newcomer whose debut album established her own compelling stance and standard (despite the problematic single).Not totally unfamiliar problems/responses, but/and quite the radio-ready arts & entertainment onslaught. And there must be others, but I don't keep up with newcomers as well as I should (though Ashley Monroe, for instance, is a twenty-something veteran who keeps getting better).
― dow, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:31 (six years ago) link
Keeps getting better whole-album-wise, that is; she's always made some good tracks, solo and with the Annies.
― dow, Monday, 25 September 2017 19:34 (six years ago) link
http://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/midland-on-bar-band-roots-new-album-on-the-rocks-w504844
These guys are getting a lot of attention too.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 28 September 2017 20:38 (six years ago) link
http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/how-midland-epitomize-the-authenticity-debate-in-country-w505854
Apparently Midland are not "authentic" enough for some
― curmudgeon, Friday, 29 September 2017 14:57 (six years ago) link
well they are reaching especially hard for that 70s Nashville outlaw look and there is something slightly... desperate and pathetic about that? on the other hand they are v good looking and their music rocks, so
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 29 September 2017 15:06 (six years ago) link
I Love Music Question Title: is Midland the Strokes of country music?
finger hovers over Submit Post
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 29 September 2017 15:08 (six years ago) link
So that country music "salad" that the one industry exec was talking about is now--Gentle-bros, a band w/ a long-haired one-time model bringing 70s & current styles together, plus a few women....
― curmudgeon, Friday, 29 September 2017 15:15 (six years ago) link
Ha... x-post
― curmudgeon, Friday, 29 September 2017 15:16 (six years ago) link
'drinking problem' is nice enough.
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Friday, 29 September 2017 18:05 (six years ago) link
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/05/las-vegas-shooting-gun-rights-country-music-215684
One sign that things might be changing: Three mainstream country acts, including the popular Florida-Georgia Line, have quietly canceled their NRA Country partnerships in the wake of the Vegas shooting, and only one would confirm to Rolling Stone that they were still partnered with the organization.
http://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/nra-country-music-alliances-weakening-after-las-vegas-shooting-w507289
― curmudgeon, Friday, 6 October 2017 16:11 (six years ago) link
xposts, Midland look like idiots
― Erotic Wolf (crüt), Friday, 6 October 2017 16:15 (six years ago) link
Not nec. "desperate", though: in my experience, it's just what happens if you let it grow, let it flow.
Looks like I might have to pick from my usual gratuitously hacked-in Countryoid/Americana/Related category, for a legit Top Ten on the next Nashville Scene ballot: all I got so far among even the probs is Willie Nelson's God's Problem Child (vibe established by title track [feat. Jamey Johnson and Tony Joe White], not unlike "The Thrill Is Gone", thus especially appropriate this year) Lynne & Moorer (commanding voices, just settling in for a moment, that genetic country harmony, the most consistent work Moorer has ever done), Mellencamp frequently feat. Carlene Carter (special guests Martina McBride and Kenny Aronoff! He's pulling prev. unreleased charging them up, new ones sound refreshed too, overall effect almost happy), maybe Stapleton's Songs From A Room Vol. 1, although it seems a little skimpy, and not just because 9 tracks (c'mon with Vol. 2 already).
Womack will have a new one out later this month, but still seems like I'll have to pull some in from Americana etc. Prob the prev. mentioned Langford, and Lucinda's This Sweet Old World, which is a re-recording of her early SOW and of prev. unreleased from same sessions.
Haven't done comparative listening yet---this one may be more mannered, with that sound like she's rolling pills around in her mouth---but so far it stand on its own: she gets just enough of the right-enough details into the blue-gray clouds, which also incl. her cogent current core band (plus, as with early sessions for the original album, Greg Leisz on steel guitar) ripe and tensile, so ready for anything that the overall effect is almost subliminally happy, as with the Mellen. Good bonus tracks too; "Wild and Blue" will never die!
― dow, Friday, 6 October 2017 17:11 (six years ago) link
But I still haven't heard Sweeney's latest, or the full-length Whitney Rose (or the Womack).
― dow, Friday, 6 October 2017 17:18 (six years ago) link
Oh yeah, Rimes! Need to listen more, but a trip right off.
― dow, Friday, 6 October 2017 17:19 (six years ago) link
And the Crowell's pretty intense, especially the song about Susanna Clark.
― dow, Friday, 6 October 2017 17:24 (six years ago) link
I need to listen to Sweeney too.
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 7 October 2017 21:18 (six years ago) link
Her previous albums have been imperfect, but effective overall, sometimes in unusual ways (Provoked incl. the one about moving through a party where everyone's staring at her, spooky). Trophystarts with "Pass The Pain", and gets some more mileage out of etc. by pulling rank on, then apologetically appealing to/explaining herself to a bartender, in a way a guy would be less likely to; we're not trained like that. But so far seems like this this set makes room for too many crisply boring duds, disappointingly written with the usually cogent Lori McKenna, whose terse, subtle vocal approach doesn't always work for the previously bolder Sweeney. But co-writing and vocal influence def effective in the eerie low-key layers of the title track, which seems ready for ID---Investigative Discovery, the semi-true crime channel. Also, she lets her guard down on the venerable, Jerry Jeff-associated (Chris Wall-written) "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight": "I play jazz when I am confused, I play country, whenever I lose...When I'm high I play rock and roll, country when I lose control..." Cuts loose on the finale too, but on first listen the album seems about half good. (I'll listen more, but she usually puts 'em right over the plate.)
― dow, Monday, 9 October 2017 16:50 (six years ago) link
it's def better than half good, keep at it dow
― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, 9 October 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
I will. I want to believe!
― dow, Monday, 9 October 2017 17:03 (six years ago) link
"too many crisply boring duds" is an apt description of McKenna's last good one.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 October 2017 17:06 (six years ago) link
*uh last one