Rolling Country 2014

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.