Rolling Country 2010

Upcoming Releases (according to Wikipedia):

Best of Chris Cagle Chris Cagle Capitol Nashville February 9
Crows Alison Moorer Rykodisc February 9
Everything Comes and Goes Michelle Branch Warner Bros. Nashville TBA
Get Off on the Pain Gary Allan MCA Nashville March 9
Greatest Hits Gretchen Wilson Columbia Nashville January 19
A Guy Like Me Trent Tomlinson Lyric Street TBA
Haywire Josh Turner MCA Nashville February 9
Hillbilly Bone Blake Shelton Warner Bros. Nashville TBA
I Got Your Country Right Here Gretchen Wilson Redneck Records TBA
I'm Alright Bucky Covington Lyric Street TBA
James Otto James Otto Warner Bros. Nashville TBA
Lifted Off the Ground Chely Wright Vanguard May 4
A Little More Country Than That Easton Corbin Mercury Nashville TBA
My Best Days Danny Gokey RCA Nashville/19 TBA
My Place in Heaven Sara Evans RCA Nashville TBA
Need You Now Lady Antebellum Capitol Nashville January 26
Not Too Bad Blaine Larsen Treehouse TBA
Right Road Now Whitney Duncan Warner Bros. Nashville TBA
Sarah Buxton Sarah Buxton Lyric Street February 23
Somewhere in Time Reckless Kelly Yep Roc February 9
A Story to Tell SHeDAISY Lyric Street TBA
Valentine's Day (soundtrack) Various Artists Big Machine February 9
Way Out Here Josh Thompson Columbia Nashville February 23
A Woman Needs Jessica Harp Warner Bros. Nashville February 16

Have heard the Gary Allan and Lady Antebellum, but have no opinion about them yet.

Favorite country album of the year so far: Ray Wylie Hubbard A. Enlightenment B. Endarkment (Hint: There Is No C) (Thirty Tigers/Bordello.) I've never paid any attention to the guy before.

Link to last year's thread, which may come in handy at times:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

Btw, we ended that thread discussing '80s and '90s country, and I hope that discussion can continue on this thread this year. I was kind of snotty to 1994's The Blackwell Guide To Country Music, edited by Bob Allen, but the more I look at it (it's been my bathroom book of choice the past few days), the more useful it seems like it might be.

One thing it reminds me is how confusing country radio (which I wasn't listening to at all at the time) must have sounded in the late'80s and early '90s, when bohemian types like k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett and K.T Oslin and Mary Chapin-Carpenter and Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam were scoring actual hits, along with scores of now-forgotten pop hacks, apparently. I'm only fans of a couple of those artists, and I'm on record as actively disliking a few of them, but that's an odd list, no?

Anyway, here are some albums that Bob Allen recommends in the back of his '80s chapter that I may pick up if I see cheap copies somewhere:

Earl Thomas Conley - Yours Truly
Sammy Kershaw - Haunted Heart
Lee Roy Parnell - Lee Roy Parnell (didn't he have a couple hits, too?)
Mike Reid - Turning For Home (former Cincinnati Bengal, I believe)
Hal Ketchum - Past The Point Of Rescue (with spooky title track hit)
The Desert Rose Band - The Desert Rose Band (feat. Chris Hillman)

Happy New Year. Here's my '09 list of Top 35 country singles.

Not sure that even I'd call Mary Chapin Carpenter a bohemian, and I tend to stretch that category all different ways beyond any recognizability. Sure, she's coffee house, but the coffee house is Starbucks. Left of the basic country market, for sure, but then so are most singer songwriters. Not an easy fit in the genre, I suppose. (I like her voice, by the way, warm and smooth, though her songs tended too often towards blah; at least that's the way I remember them.) I think Rosanne Cash and the Dixie Chicks are as bohemian as she is, if not more so. And so's Willie Nelson.

Any thoughts about Holly Williams? She grazed the country top 60 a couple of times last year; she's also fundamentally a singer songwriter, even if her granddad did die in a Cadillac. The single, "Keep The Change," feels a bit like Christine McVie singing Van Morrison's "Wild Night," though not very wild. But good.

Ray Wylie Hubbard's MySpace page looks more gothic than I was expecting. A darkneck mother.

His music (voice included) is more rock than I was expecting. But I need to spend more time with the CD before I attempting explaining why, and why I think (some of?) the songs are good.

And Frank, you are right about Mary Chapin-Carpenter. Actually I'd say she (and K.T. Oslin too -- and maybe some of the others; Starbucks would certainly seem hospitable to k.d.'s and Lyle's music) are maybe more Bobos (in the David Brooks sense) than Bohos. I was sleepy when I wrote that above; was going to say something like "urbanites and bohemians," then just wrote that not-totally-accurate word for shorthand. And I agree about the Dixie Chicks and of course Willie (and other outlaws, I'm sure.) But there still does seem somehing uniquely, uh, alternative about that early '00s country chart period to me.

Rosanne Cash maybe a Bobo, too, in the long run (though I don't doubt she's had Boho moments.) (And obviously, these categories are always shorthand, and never precise. If they mean anything at all.)

"...uniquely, uh, alternative about that early '90s country chart period..." I obviously meant.

Though meanwhile, speaking of country in the '00s, here's Jon Caramanica in this morning's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/arts/music/03nashville.html

Btw, we ended that thread discussing '80s and '90s country, and I hope that discussion can continue on this thread this year. I was kind of snotty to 1994's The Blackwell Guide To Country Music, edited by Bob Allen, but the more I look at it (it's been my bathroom book of choice the past few days), the more useful it seems like it might be.

So, in the end would you recommend this book? It can be had for real cheap at Amazon.
Also, Lee Roy Parnell did indeed have a few Country hits. He had 12 Top 40 songs, 3 songs went to #2 and 2 went to #3. I have a compilation on him, and do remember buying that self-titled album (and also the Hal Ketchum one). The Ketchum is worth picking up, can't say I remember much about the Parnell one, though. But the last time Parnell was on the Country charts was in 2004.
Also, I liked the Holly Williams album that came out last year. Thought it would do better, but it was missing a big hit to put it over.

I'd say, if you can get the book for real real cheap, it's definitely worth it. (Not sure where I got mine, but the sticker on the cover still says $2.98, marked down from an earlier $4.98.)

So...has anybody heard any of these songs? (From Billboard's current country chart. I'm guessing the Gretchen one is probably the highest charting Billboard song ever with a land mammal so large in its title, unless there have been any with elephants, which there probably have):

31 31 39 4 Camouflage And Christmas Lights, Rodney Carrington
S.Dorff (A.Dorff,M.Logen ) Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 31

42 41 43 5 Dancing In Circles, Love And Theft
J.Coplan,R.E.Orrall (S.B.Liles,R.E.Orrall,R.Springer ) Lyric Street DIGITAL | 41

47 54 2 I Want A Hippopotamas For Christmas, Gretchen Wilson
G.Wilson (J.Rox ) Redneck DIGITAL | CO5 | 47

52 51 51 3 Rockin' The Beer Gut (Holla Day Version), Trailer Choir
T.Keith,Butter (Butter ) Show Dog Nashville DIGITAL | 51

Jon Caramanica on the new Phil Vassar LP. (Scroll down a little.) He's right in observing (as I have repeatedly before) that Vassar is basically a good soft-rock singer-songwriter. But claiming "Bobbi With An I" is the worst song on the album is as perplexing to me as, say, claiming "Then" is the best song on the current Brad Paisley album (which several critics out there do inexplicably believe, apparently):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/arts/music/04choice.html

And speaking of Paisley, Frank wrote on his livejournal blog a few days ago that "'Welcome To The Future' has a much richer sense of color than I'd ever heard from Brad Paisley, feels like something new in country; thick, bright paint." Which makes sense to me, but is also funny, given that Brad is actually seen painting on the CD cover (something else I've never seen on a country album, though when Big N Rich came out in 2004 they employed a woman painter with an easel set up on the side of the stage, to paint her visual impressions as they played their songs).

Reading the first Caramanica piece... Well, what struck me about Reba isn't that Nashville has an "enduring pension plan for its cherished acts," but that Reba is pretty much the only country woman in her 50s to still be on a major label. Am I right about that? (Her label is associated with Big Machine, which is a small operation with big sales and calls itself an indie, but I'm pretty sure its stuff is distributed by Universal, which makes the product not indie.) I think what happened to Deana Carter is more typical; in 2003 on her fourth studio album she scored a number 14 country hit with "No Limit" and the album got into the country top 10, but after that she ended up on Vanguard rather than a major, her being in her late 30s likely having something to do with it. (But I haven't researched this; on her next album she sang, "Some music man didn't give a damn what I had to say," which I took to be some guy from a label, but I might be wrong; you know, maybe she chose to go to an indie, for the freedom.)

Hmmm, checking this out a little bit, Tanya Tucker and Patty Loveless, both in their early 50s, are on Saguaro Records, which is distributed by Warners, Rosanne Cash in her mid 50s is on Manhattan which is distributed by EMI, Wynonna in her mid 40s is on Curb, which I think is an indie but gets some product distributed by majors, Trisha Yearwood in her mid 40s is on Big Machine, Martina McBride in her early 40s is on RCA, Terri Clark in her early 40s is on Capitol Nashville (though most of her hits are coming in Canada), Faith Hill in her early 40s is on Warners. So the situation isn't as dire as I thought (and probably compares favorably with the plight of non-country women over 40). Also, women hit in country much less than men, which is too bad because on average they're better. (I haven't actually checked if that remark about their being better is true. They tend to cluster atop my Country Critics ballots. Maybe if more hit the average would go down.)

I'm still unhappy about Ashley Monroe and Caitlin & Will getting dropped, which had nothing to do with age; I assume it has more to do with major labels not feeling they can invest in someone for the long haul. The labels themselves might not have a long haul.

(Info in this post is mostly drawn from Wikipedia, which is not always reliable.)

Really excited about an album by Easton Corbin. Has anyone heard anything other than the single from last year, A Little More Country Than That?

I haven't, but I heard that single for the first time over Xmas, down in central Missouri, which has MUCH better country radio than Chicago. I liked it, it was witty like a showtune, the kind of thing I could feel good about learning and singing in the shower, but the business about him being faithful to his woman because he's so country troubled me. Like, since when has country music been this monolithic paean to fidelity?

as perplexing to me as, say, claiming "Then" is the best song on the current Brad Paisley album

Xhuxk, I can see you really wanna get to the bottom of this, so I've prepared a handy list of pros and cons. I was gonna do all three singles, but "American Saturday Night" is nowhere near being in the running for me, even though it's fine and all.

"Then" PRO:
nice piano
most natural-sounding, unforced melody
perfect classical structure--you can admire it like a vase or something
somewhat related to the last one: arrives at the final title word with the inevitability of a stage play, sort of like "The Dance" by Garth Brooks
I relate and can imagine slow dancing to it at a wedding
my Mom likes it, and we like so few of the same songs
good guitar solo

"Then" CON:
like, maybe too slow and normal or something? What don't you like about it again?

"Welcome to the Future" PRO:
the drums kicking in
good guitar fills and solo
soaring chorus
nice progression from mundanity to profundity
gang shouted "Hey"s
first half of verse 3 is really affecting
song makes my wife dance like she's in the '80s, apparently

"Welcome to the Future" CON:
the tune sounds a little constructed and forced
"Wake up Martin Luther"
second half of third verse is awkward

So they're pretty close. I actually realized I like "WTTF" more than I thought I did. (Ooh, I just realized it has good initials, too. Another tick in the PRO column!) But I still like "Then" more. Less labored, more perfect, like it's springing from Brad's mind as he sings. I hope this clears things up.

maybe too slow and normal or something? What don't you like about it again?

Replace "normal" with "utterly average" and you're getting there. I dunno, maybe I'm just not a big fan of vases. It just strikes me as one of the most run-of-the-mill and humorless things on an otherwise often really fun album. But then, Paisley's ballads have almost never held my attention; he's never been a better than average singer, and they tend to strike me as completely irreplaceable with lots of other people's ballads. (Also, you left out that "WTTF" sounds so colorful, as Frank said, and new, and energetic, and is super catchy on a car radio, and has several more clever words than "Like a river meets the sea, stronger than it's ever been.") Still, thanks -- honest! And who knows, maybe "Then" will sneak up on me sometime, when my back is turned.

So far, I find that Easton Corbin song really irritating. (But who knows there, too.)

Yeah, forget I said vases. I don't admire vases either. Replace "vase" with "really good Gary Giddins review," or other classically structured artwork that you like.

"...completely replaceable with lots of other people's ballads...," I meant. (Which is one of things that bugs me about all the top ten lists I'm seeing "Then" on. For instance, here's Jody Rosen, in Slate's year-end music thing: "The hit was the ballad 'Then,' which I half-think Paisley wrote just to school Rascal Flatts, Nashville's slow-dance schlock-specialists." School them on what exactly? Rascal Flatts already know how to make boring ballads. And their "Summer Nights" was as good a 2009 single as any that Brad did.) (Actually, Rosen said it was to school them on prom songs, fwiw.)

I voted for Paisley's album in Pazz & Jop, and it was my #2 in the Nashville Scene poll, but it's still getting on my nerves how (just like Miranda Lambert) he's increasingly "the country singer it's okay for critics to like." Honestly, that's a good reason to be skeptical.

A link to Rosen's thing:

http://www.slate.com/id/2237677/entry/2237678/

Guess it's okay to like Taylor Swift these days, too. And Jamey Johnson. And the Dixie Chicks, if they're still around. All of whom I basically like myself. Not sure why it bugs me, except that there are country artists this decade who I've liked more. (Probably just a kneejerk reflex, part of my chemical makeup from way way back.)

Maybe it relates to Frank's idea of rendering music lame through our own appreciation. If not, I'm sure he'll pop up here sooner or later to correct me.

I kind of know what Jody meant--probably to his ears, like mine, "Then" fits the mold of a thousand boring songs by Rascal Flatts or whoever, but it's just tons better. And I think it mostly has to do with the verse melody. The refrain could be anybody's anthem, but the verse tune just sounds so spontaneous, and the fact that it's minor in the context of a happy song adds to the song's depth. Sort of like "The Glow of Love" by Change. In fact, the piano riffs start with the same three notes. Hmmm.

(I don't like "Summer Nights" as much as you, partly because when that dude sings "Everybody's gettin' sexy," I have trouble thinking of anyone LESS sexy. Not that I should treat him like a piece of meat.) (But he'd be a really BIG piece of meat.)

xpost

Yikes, I've got an affinity of four with Rosen ("Boom Boom Pow," American Saturday Night, Love Vs. Money, and Rated R). I hope somebody beats that.

I basically hate overview writing (though I guess my talking about women on or not on major labels is an overview-type assessment as well). But, like, yes, women are the stars that matter (except in country, where a few matter, but where the men tend to dominate), but, like... so what? What specifically are they doing? --To be fair to Rosen, he's trying to set up a subsequent back-and-forth, which I've not yet read. But Rosen seems to be using his affability to put the subject matter at arm's length.

Phew, I've got an affinity of five with Xhuxk: "Runaway," "Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell," Under The Radar Over The Top, Troubadour, American Saturday Night.

I dismissed "Then" at first but now like it. For me it pretty much comes down to that one part giving me goose bumps, the part where he sings "but I've said that before" with an upturn in his voice and kind of lets it hang in the air before singing the chorus again. It's about the piano probably but it has to be something more. It isn't that the sentiment or the form of the song is unique, so it's that something else... The way that part builds with feeling, I guess. Still, I didn't put the song in my top 10, and did put "Welcome to the Future" (on both the Nashville Scene one and the Village Voice one, I think). Part of me wanted to switch them out but I could argue for "WTTF" more logically, not just with goosebumps. That's the trap I fell into I suppose.

I listened to Paisley's CD extra loads over the holiday to see if I'd over reacted
to his phony glory of consumer society shtick. He's one of a few to be a public fool, singint tunes which sound like comical super hackwork in the context of 2009.

He was so busy enjoying his consumer electronics boons and custom made Vox repro amps, he
had to let us all know that it he thought it might have been like if the shining city on the hill from the Reagan years came true for him, or something like that. And that he liked water.

"Welcome to the Future" PRO:
the drums kicking in
good guitar fills and solo
soaring chorus
nice progression from mundanity to profundity
gang shouted "Hey"s
first half of verse 3 is really affecting
song makes my wife dance like she's in the '80s, apparently

Damned by faint praise. The best part is its in a major key, is anthemic and copies from Tom Petty and Mike Campbell.

"Welcome to the Future" CON:
the tune sounds a little constructed and forced
"Wake up Martin Luther"
second half of third verse is awkward

I think it's kind of like the quote from the semi-actor Criswell who was in Plan 9 From Outer
Space. The one that simpletons now think is profound.

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the
future."

Cue the video parts with the Jap dancing robot and the guys maimed in the Iraq war running
stiffly along on their new titanium alloy spring feet.

Boy, Brad can watch TV on his gadget. And the bad Japanese-land mimic band can sing his songs and wear cowboy hats through the miracle of global communication and the shipping of all clothing manufacturing to China.

If you still have your cellphone billed to your credit card, you can watch TV on it too while your buying your shit with foodstamps at the supermarket.

He needs a self esteem brushback. Shame journalism won't give it to him.

I take those first two verses of "Welcome to the Future" to be kind of a ruse, actually, to get to the main point of the third verse. The first time I heard it, when listening to the album upon its release, I didn't know anything about the song or album except it being Paisley's new one. Without knowing he was leading up to an Obama punchline, so to speak, the first couple verses almost seemed sarcastic on first listen, in his usual way. Or at least the 'glory glory hallelujah' part does. I think it's smart songwriting for that reason, the way the third verse adds new implications to that phrase, and more meaning to the song as a whole.

The 2009 Nashville Scene Poll results:

http://www.nashvillescene.com/2010-01-07/news/country-music-critics-poll-the-results/

Probably good that they kicked me out of the poll, as I heard ZERO PERCENT of the albums listed. Some of the songs though. I probably would have voted for Los Tigres del Norte and Melinda Doolittle anyway.

In the comments, Chris Neal sez:

Last year, too much loudness (that is, an excess of volume and dynamic-range compression in the mix and/or mastering) did unforgivable damage to what should have been my favorite rock album of the year, Metallica's Death Magnetic. This year it did the same for what should have been my favorite country album of the year, Miranda Lambert's Revolution. Here is an album filled with wonderful songs and terrific performances, neither of which I can stand to listen to because the sound has been so distorted by loudness and flattened by compression that it breaks my heart.

I haven't heard Revolution, but I definitely noticed this about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I wanted to listen to it, but after awhile I noticed my ears hurt. So then I'd turn it down, but I couldn't hear it properly. (Still voted for it.) Same deal with Revolution?

Also, erasingclouds, I heard WTTF the same way. Only the third verse doesn't accomplish its job as effortlessly as I'd like.

Gorge, what's your opinion of "Then"?

The big news was that Brad Paisley and Miranda Lambert, famous enough to follow the Garth Brooks Model, followed the Willie Nelson Model instead. They bet their reputations on edgier songwriting and edgier performances, trying to fix something that wasn't even broken. They gambled and won. -Geoff Himes

Did I miss something this year--did Brad and Miranda release weird reggae albums like Willie once did? Not clear how much "edgier" their latest releases were, although I guess Paisley's Obama-friendly lyrics must count as edgy in a Nashville world.

I think the pandering went over the top on Paisley's album. The first thing that brought me to it was the vid for "Welcome to the Future" which has no perceptible undercurrents in it at all. He made it, right? So he must have had something to do with its role as a vehicle for consumer electronics and the corny phonus-balonus of amputees running along on their alloy springs and the kid in the wheelchair aspiring to be an explorer. An explorer of what? Which business establishments have proper handicapped access?

I liked the two albums before it -- didn't get the instro one. "Future" instrumentally sounds great but so did a bunch of things on 5th Gear without being so annoying. He definitely has the cater to the
myths of the country in 'im. He's called himself an observational humorist but he's not Mark Twain.

I think he actually believes 99 percent of the crap in the song. If there's any subtlety to it, I'm missing it. Perhaps because it really rubbed me the wrong way from the very start.

I guess I wouldn't say he doesn't BELIEVE the crap in his song, but that he's also mocking himself for being such a happy consumer. But yeah, the title song definitely establishes the character of Brad the Happy Consumer.

In re Garth Brooks not being edgy, the first song I think of whenever people discuss Brad's politix in Nashville is Garth's "We Shall Be Free."

(I don't know whether that song's "edgy" or not--just that Garth and Brad seem to have the same amount of edge.)

I predict this will be Himes's most controversial statement:

Swift is already further along than Parton or Cash were at the same age and seems to possess many of the same qualities. But she's at a crucial transition period where the guidance of a Porter Wagoner, a Johnny Cash or the like could make all the difference. She needs to tap into the subsoil of country-music history or else she will easily be toppled by the changing winds and trends of pop. And that would be a shame.

This seems excessive and unfounded. Why can't she just keep putting out Taylor Swift albums? Taylor Swift Turns 20. Taylor Swift Has Kids. The possibilities are endless. I would enjoy seeing nominations for who her Porter Wagoner should be, though. Jamey Johnson?

That seems a case of 'what she needs to do' is whatever matches his own personal taste. She better watch out, or else those mysterious 'changing winds' will get her.

Maybe Himes just means that country stars are guaranteed longer, more secure careers than pop stars (as in Caramanica's essay a few days ago)? Though that in itself is probably a debatable claim, and I have a feeling I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt by even suggesting it.

Lots to disagree with in that Scene section obviously. I'll have to wrap my head around it more before I even start (assuming I ever do.)

I'm on Himes' e-mail list and received his list of his 100 fave 2009 albums with his little blurbs on them, plus I've been reading his writing in DC and Baltimore publications and New Orleans' Offbeat magazine for a long while. I think he writes well but his taste has always been more 'roots' than pop. He has always been a musical traditionalist (albeit allowing a certain degree of envelope pushing) so his advice to Taylor Swift is not surprising, and I guess his thinking that Brad is "edgy" is not surprising either (I do not think Himes was referring to the consumerism lyrics that bug Gorge but to the vaguely political ones).

I'm not going to debate the merits of Taylor Swift; she's a songwriter and a figure and a successful one. And I usually don't exactly agree with Himes on much. He sends out a list of his 100 best records of the year and I generally find his jazz selections all right and the other stuff, ecch. (Don't get Buddy and Julie Miller or Justin T. Earle [wish he would change his name to that as it evokes a cornier era in country I'd like to see come back, fat chance of that] or Daddy Earle's snooze-fest a la Townes V.Z.) And I think that Himes has probably, like many another critic (I had a very very amusing meeting with one of 'em this summer; she kept telling me she was really a writer but had gone over to the "other side of the fence" but had come back; meanwhile, she dropped every possible name she could, including those of the Artists she's been involved with career-wise), perhaps bought into the whole shebang here a little too much. Maybe. What Himes thinks is that there's a continuum of "country music" and that Taylor Swift has something to do with that. I mean who does he think she is, Melba Montgomery or Connie Smith?? She's a songwriter who lives in Nashville because that's where songwriters live. And I for one think that country music is more or less an idiom; anyone can live in Nashville and write songs, right? So the idea that she's gonna dip into the George Jones catalog or even be as "country" as Reba, who I've never been able to stomach (do like the sitcom in a way), seems to me just way beside the point of who she is. One thing that Nashville is very good at is paying lip service to "country" (as a marketing tool, as a reference point, but certainly not as an idiom), and Taylor Swift benefits from this. I said at the beginning I wasn't gonna debate the merits of Swift and I won't, but I simply find it incredible that anyone thinks she has anything to do with country music--as an idiom, may I repeat. Lots of songs "tell stories," I mean fuck, back in the olden days did anyone think Gordon Lightfoot had that much to do with "country music"? Would anyone disagree that he has a lot more to do with it that Swift on almost any level you could choose? (Saw a great SCTV thing from '81 in which they were hawking a collection of Lightfoot "singing every song ever written.") All this has happened before in a different guise, cf. Olivia Newton-John and the flap over that, only back then Nashville was far more a hick town and there was actual outrage that Newton-John's shit was labeled and marketed "country." And I'll point out that this year I interviewed Norbert Putnam, who was the dude who made Joan Baez a pop star with her terrible version of "Night They Drove Old Dixie" and who recorded "Please Come Back to Boston" or whatever that is, Dave Loggins, not to mention Eric Anderson or the dreaded Dan Fogelberg. (But Norbert did a lot of other good stuff, too; and his importance is probably not the in the records he made but in the technical side of it all, the studiocraft which led to the big crossover. This was almost 40 fucking years ago, and no one advised Dan Fogelberg to study up on Lefty Frizzell or Diana Trask albums.) So maybe the whole thing comes down to a lack of historical awareness; what's relevant about Swift is that she came up as a songwriter but not as a musician who, like, went on the road or had to play some honky-tonk in Oklahoma to make it; probably even Garth Brooks had to endure some of those gigs. Frank says she can do stuff with her voice in the studio and I guess that's true. More power to her.

Paisley has become the Beck of country, everyone likes him and thinks he "transcends" the genre. I like him fine. Has he dipped into the past of country? I dunno. I hear him as a kind of white Johnny Guitar Watson or one of those guys, a guitarist-singer. This summer, Caroline and I saw Robben Ford play Nashville. Ford is a super-guitarist and does this kinda dull but not bad blues thing these days, it's competent, depends on whether you like blues. Well, he's playing away, all those fluent jazzy things, just great. And brings out some country guests: Paisley first, with his cap turned backwards. They jam. Paisley sorta keeps up, but compared to Ford it's Blues 101 licks, hardly sophisticated in this context. He hadn't been studying them chords and stuff. But cool, whatever, I like Brad and he can certainly play. Then Vince Gill comes out, looking as though he had come from the golf course, very well-fed. He can play, but he plugs in and it's even more Blues 101, kinda stiff. So we're in the old Belcourt in Nashville and lo and behold, there are actual black people in the audience! Like the Apollo! And they start heckling Gill: "Hey man, you can't play! Let's see you cut it up there! Let's see if the man can play!" and so forth. Very familiar from my Memphis days when there were real audiences and not, you know, a bunch of Nashville, er, enthusiasts...so Gill soldiers on, actually he can't really play what the demands of Ford's jazz vocab, not at all. Kinda like page 2 of the B.B. King Book of Licks for tenth graders in Alabama. So Gill has enough and actually told the folks to "fuck off!"; they just laughed and so did I, but of course, the audience was appalled. I guess they hadn't even read about Kansas City or Uptown Charlie Parker or Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, cuttin' heads in the old days. See, it's all about the idiom. Good to see all you guys, I promise to not be a stranger any more, sincerely, Edd Hurt.

Not sure where to place this, or if anyone read it, but here's the decade in country according to Stylus.

Hey, Edd, great to see you posting. Yeah, and don't be a stranger.

And you too, Alfred. Haven't perused the Stylus decade section yet because I was so pissed that Dave Moore wasn't invited to contribute, though I realize that that's a dumb attitude on my part. It's not the fault of the writers, just of whoever chose and botched the invitees list. In any event, I'll definitely give that country thing by Inskeep and Love a look. And I'll give Edd's idiom thing some thought.

Brief shot about Geoff's writeup: I'm positive I could learn a lot from a list of 100 records provided by Taylor Swift. So could Geoff Himes, I bet, and Jamey Johnson. Geoff is making Jamey seem narrow by suggesting that Jamey couldn't learn from someone else's list.

And, by the way, as someone who was automatically given my First Wednesday Of The Month Senior Discount at Albertson's this week without the cashier even asking if I was eligible, I'll point out that Taylor Swift does have a country vet who's nearly as old as I am as a collaborator and one might presume as something of a mentor as well, though I don't know anything about how they work.

Also, Taylor made absolutely zero effort to pander to the country audience's need for reassurance, and that audience bought her records anyway. I wish Adkins and Atkins et al. would follow her example. (Not that such pandering can't result in great art - my favorite country album of the decade, Montgomery Gentry's Carrying On, is swamped in such attempts at reassurance - but the pandering has become so accepted and rote, and vague and boring. Seems to hurt Atkins in particular as a lyricist.)(Maybe the problem is that I'm pissed at myself for loving that Alabama fight song by Trace Adkins.)

I posted my ballot on last year's thread, but here are my comments:

Geoff - You'll notice that I stuck Taylor Swift up top of my ballot for the "Platinum Edition" of Fearless, and I can rationalize this because three of the six new tracks are significantly great - even if one of those three has been floating around the Web for a couple of years and another is an alternate version of a song that's already on the album. But honestly, I'm putting the album on my list because I missed the boat on it last year, ranked it number three but hadn't truly digested it yet, how good it was or what it was doing. But also I want to argue against your zero-sum dichotomy that implies that the "suburban" Taylors aren't leaving room for the "small town" Jameys. I don't see this happening - if "High Cost Of Living" doesn't get radio play, that's hardly because "You Belong With Me" does - but also I don't accept your suburban-rural mapping of this. My mapping would be more like: What's going on is that country is absorbing both male folkie romanticism and feminine folkie romanticism, but the latter is harder for you to swallow.

There's a line that runs from Dylan to Springsteen to Mellencamp to a whole shitload of country, and that's pretty well accepted, or anyway I don't see vast ire at the Eric Church types who rock like mothers even while pledging allegiance to the Hag, or at Brooks & Dunn for wallowing in Stones and Skynyrd. And folk-rock that goes Dylan-James Taylor-Garth is pretty much accepted too. But there's a line that goes from Dylan and Joan Baez to Judy Collins to Joni Mitchell to Stevie Nicks to Tori Amos to Alanis Morissette, a feminine line that becomes more and more singer-songwriter and that comes from a girly-girlie world of English-class poetry and teen diary self-expression; and it jumped to teenpop in the '00s via Nelly Furtado and Michelle Branch and Pink and a slew of others, but it also has worked its way into country, in Deana Carter and Natalie Maines and SheDaisy, and then Michelle Branch and Jewel moved it explicitly into country from teenpop and pop respectively. (Not that anyone I mention comes from a single line of music. Everyone's a mongrel here.)

So, here's Taylor Swift, who draws on the female singer-songwriter insistence that the story of her music be very much her story, her sensibility, her voice finding itself and finding its way, while her character develops by way of romantic relationships recounted in song. What I'm seeing is that bohemian romanticism has long since rolled into country in male rambler garb (and male drug fuckup garb), but meanwhile it's also rolling into country by way of female self-expression, the rambling being frankly psychological and emotional rather than taking place only in bars and motels or wearing a cowboy hat in honor of a lost prairie, but it's still roaming the range anyway, even if it's shepherding thoughts rather than herding cattle.

Taylor is pretty much her own genre at this point, and she's the greatest singer within my earshot, using the wavers and quavers of her voice for whipsaw effect as much as for vulnerability. From the YouTube evidence it's something of a crap shoot whether she'll be on pitch live, and award shows cause her to stumble, so maybe Taylor doesn't happen without the modern recording studio. So hurrah for the modern recording studio.

Taylor's sensibility isn't necessarily mine; take the excellently written line, "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind; we both cried." Well, when I was fifteen there were U.S. soldiers who really gave everything they had, for a country that was changing its mind, and I was helping the country change its mind by way of antiwar activities. (And I hear that some Vietnamese died too.) Taylor's actual fifteen surely contained thoughts about wars and global warming etc., such thoughts not making it into her songs, this absence maybe being timidity or may just indicate what works for her as a songwriter. But within her chosen topics she never cheats. E.g., compare to Brad Paisley's pretty good "Anything Like Me," which is full of standard events, boy climbing tree that's too tall, and so on, an implied, "You know what this is like, you know what childhood is like, you know what we're like." Well, Taylor doesn't assume that you know what it's like, so she's going to tell you, whether it's a day in school or a day with her dad. And if the country genre does accept her - which it sure seems to, and she's now its biggest seller - that means she's part of a process where country rewrites what life is like, doesn't take its sharing of experience for granted.

* * *

Quick thoughts going back to what you wrote in your essay two years ago; I don't accept that my liking Miranda Lambert is a sign of my willingness to challenge my own assumptions or to hear something I don't already know. There's a line of music that goes from Dylan and the Stones and the Yardbirds to the Velvet Underground to the Stooges to the Dolls to the Sex Pistols, and that's the music I lived and breathed for years. So my voting for Miranda Lambert is my chance to vote for the home team, or at least for the closest that Nashville will come to giving me one. So Miranda's great expressive hyperbolized rage and vengeance don't challenge me in the least. Whereas what does challenge me is Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel." I identified hard with the narrator in that one, the sense that I don't have control over my own spinouts, the song challenging me to reach outside myself for help and direction and getting my shit together. That the word "Jesus" doesn't contain an answer for atheist me doesn't change my situation or my need in the slightest.

Also, for what it's worth, the anger in Taylor songs such as "Cold As You" and "You're Not Sorry" and "Forever & Always" gutslugs me even harder than the anger in Miranda's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Revolution. "It rains when you're here and it rains when you're gone." What a fierce, vulnerable line!

Hey, welcome back, Edd!! Great to see you on here. This thread is cooking already -- lots of different people posting. Bodes well, even if I'm going through a period now where I'm not sure how much I care about current current music (and/or country radio) anymore. We'll see.

Predictably, I was going to say I can't imagine anymore why anybody would claim that Taylor Swift isn't country; when she gets played all the time country radio, I don't have to make the decision with my own ears. Her genre's been decided for me, and Olivia Newton-John was country, by defintion, in the '70s, too, for exactly the same reason. Also, who the heck cares about musicians paying dues on a live stage, anyway? I don't even go see shows anymore, and I'm in fucking Austin. But I know that's not Edd's point, with his "idiom" stipulation (which I have to ponder more too; honestly not really sure what that means.) And I really don't know whether I'd consider Taylor country if she didn't come up through country radio, or if I will if country radio stops playing her. (Well, I probably will, when it comes to country music polls which is the only place it matters much anyway, since I usually tend to give genres the broadest definitions possible.) That said, I kind of like the idea of country music being some secret society with a secret handshake and all (especially because I just saw Brad Paisley listed in a NY Times editorial this morning among celebrities who have been Freemasons. Did all those older New Kung Pao Buckaroos teach him the oath? Speaking of paying dues.)

Oddly, I was actually listening to Gordon Lightfoot's Complete Greatest Hits (Rhino, 2002) yesterday morning, before I read Edd's post, wondering where he might fit into Frank's story of confessional songwriters evolving through the post-Dylan/Joni ages. Which means I somehow made the Taylor connection, inadvertently, in my head. If he put out a great album this year, I can't imagine I wouldn't consider it eligible for a Nashville Scene ballot. But deep down, I guess I'd still consider him more a "folk" than country guy (even though I always thought Sawyer Brown's singer Mark Miller sort of sounded like him, vocally, at least on the ballads.) (Hey, there's another '90s country band with enough decent hits for a best-of CD.)

The one comment I should have made about what-counts-as-country in my Scene ballot was why I decided the Southern /Chitlin Circuit soul singles I liked last year -- Larry Shannon Hargrove “I Need A Bailout”, Mel Waiters “Everything Is Going Up (But My Paycheck)," Floyd Taylor “Southern Soul Party” -- weren't eligible for my country list. Also "Fallin' Faster" by Hope Partlow's band, the Love Willows. Since it's stuff I actually left out, it's a more interesting question for me, somehow, since it would've explored my own line of thinking. (Though honestly, I probably just left them out since there were too many undenibaly country singles I thought were good enough to list.)

who the heck cares about musicians paying dues on a live stage, anyway?

Well, I do, at least indirectly, because often as not that kind of seasoning helps makes the playing on their albums more compelling -- one reason I infinitely prefer, say, '70s hard rock to '00s indie rock where bands together for mere weeks get famous just from a webpage. (Also, I have to say, that story about Vince Gill is totally hilarious.)

Just saw this Ricky Skaggs q and a interview at the Washington City Paper blog:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/01/08/the-arts-desk-interview-ricky-skaggs/
Here's an excerpt:

Can country music outlast the genre mixing and mashing that “the kids” insist upon today? Or will it be absorbed into something else?

If (country) stays on the American Idol scene where its videos want to look like VH1 and the sound wants to be so far away from country and be more pop and be more absorbed by the pop listener where someone buys a John Mayer CD and a hip-hop CD and a Taylor Swift CD—there’s hardly any differentiation anymore. It’s like country music doesn’t have a sound. When “Sweet Home Alabama” sounds country…[Skaggs, contemplating a world in which Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" sets the standard for country, seems to shudder.]

["Sweet Home Alabama"] sounds like everything that’s coming out of Nashville. We’ve really gone in a different direction. But that’s one of the things that sparked me to go back and discover that deep well of water that’s still there. There’s still a pure taste in this old music. There’s things to discover. There’s new music there…

I don’t care if it’s 2010. You can go there and be back in the ’30s and ’40s and thank God that we’ve got recordings from back then. Raccoon and I has this discussion here not long ago. [The author isn't sure whether "Raccoon" is Skaggs brother, bandmate, attorney, doctor, or dentist, and, though he could probably find out with a quick Google Search, prefers the presence of an unidentified man (or woman!) named "Raccoon" in this interview.] There’s so much. Why would we wanna fight and fuss over this new music that’s being played these days when we can go back and glean from all these great old players?

x-post. Wow, Chuck, I would not expect you to say that. But what about jam bands? I assume they practice a ton and play out alot and does that make their albums sound compelling?

On American Saturday Night, he defies his own formula more than ever—and without guests to
lean on.

<sarcasm>Brad Paisley as 'defiant' on his album -- now there's an assessment brooking no room for doubt.
Yeah, he's certainly self-defiant from top to bottom.</sarcasm>

Nah, curmudgeon, I didn't mean to imply that live dues-paying makes everybody more interesting on record. Obviously there are thousands of exceptions where it does just the opposite. Which was kinda my point.

And see, one thing I don't get about Taylor Swift "not sounding country," meaning "she doesn't sound like old country music" is, goddamit, NEITHER DOES ANYBODY ELSE. George Strait, who can be really good sometimes, doesn't sound like Merle Haggard, and his Western Swing stuff doesn't sound like Bob Wills. (It's nowhere near funky or jazzy enough, for one thing.) Those Darlins, who I really want to like, don't half match the energy of the '80s cowpunk they're aping or the '20s/'30s White Country blues they're aping. Miranda Lambert and Brad Paisley have rock music in their sounds that country wouldn't have touched just a couple decades ago. And right, I can't think of many old country albums that are as deadassed as what I've heard from either Dad or Son Earle lately. This is neither good nor bad. Everything changes. But if Taylor isn't country, I'd really love to know who is.

I dunno, maybe Ricky Skaggs genuinely is a purist now. He's been a student of the stuff long enough that maybe he really can convincingly replicate the sound of the '30s and '40s. But I'm skeptical. And truth is, his best albums from the '80s (Highways And Heartaches, for instance) had great studio pop hooks of their own. Hell, he even put Ed Koch and subway breakdancers in a video once, and I loved it. Hypocrite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0crpP7l8VJw

Or I dunno, undoubtedly there are artists whose sounds maintain more stylistic reference points to country of distant previous decades than Taylor's sound does, even if the ultimate result doesn't sound exactly like old country in their cases. I suppose that's people's point. It's just that, to me, acting like pop crossover is some new thing in hit country music, when really it's been going on longer than the almost half-century I've been alive, is really willful. (But I'm obviously not saying anything here that I haven't said a zillion time before.)

Oddly, I was actually listening to Gordon Lightfoot's Complete Greatest Hits (Rhino, 2002) yesterday morning, before I read Edd's post, wondering where he might fit into Frank's story of confessional songwriters evolving through the post-Dylan/Joni ages.

He probably fits in around '68 or '69; '67 or '68 is when my brother gets Judy Collins' Wildflowers and then we go backwards and forward from there, to Judy Collins' Fifth Album, In My Life, and Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, which for me and a lot of music listeners is the first we hear songs written by Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell (though Noel Harrison has a minor hit with Cohen's Suzanne before I heard Collins' version). Who Knows Where The Time Goes is the first I hear a song written by Sandy Denny. Collins' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" may be the first time I hear that song as well, since I hadn't been listening to top 40 radio in '65. I have no idea why or how - I don't think it was through my brother, who'd now gone off to college - I hear of Gordon Lightfoot and buy his second or third album, the one with "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" on it. Some of that album feels beautiful and moving, at least for several months - I remember getting into a fight with my parents, and afterwards stomping off to my bedroom and putting my head between the speakers and listening to the album and thinking, "Well, here, this guy is doing something beautiful," which contrasts with whatever I feel my parents have just done to me. But eventually I decide that Lightfoot is simply too weak and soft-headed (though that might mean he ought to be now ripe for re-evaluation).

Oddly, the only thing I now remember from the record is "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," which I recall as being more rousing than pretty. The songs that come to mind from the guy don't strike me as confessional (and I'm sure I wasn't using the word "confessional" then in regard to music). But then, the only ones I remember other than "Trilogy" are "That's What You Get For Loving Me," which is a young-man-as-charming-rake genre exercise, and pretty funny, "Black Day In July," about the Detroit riots ("It wasn't just the temperature/And it wasn't just the season"), was dramatic and really good, I thought, and then "Sundown," whenever that hit, which again isn't him opening his heart, particularly; when I think about it "Sundown" might be the character in "That's What You Get For Loving Me" but addressed in the second-person by a rival. Doesn't it go "Sundown you better beware/If I find you creepin' 'round my back stair"? (I feel it would be cheating for me to Google or Wiki for this info, since I'm trying to say what my memory is telling me.) In any event, I didn't keep up with Lightfoot but my impression is that he evolved from "folkie" to "folkie for smoochers" or something, and I imagine him playing supper clubs with rustic fireplaces, though I'm sure he actually played regular old folk clubs.

In the post-Garth world there's no reason to assume that a latter-day Lightfoot might not cross to country, if he had decent enough songs, but I think the reason country radio is so comfortable with Taylor is that she feels like the heartland in a way that folkies don't, even if her chords and riffs don't flaunt antiquity. As for those chords and riffs, they actually don't scream Sugar Pop* in the way that, say, Lady GaGa and Britney Spears songs do, and Taylor doesn't come across as crossover diva in the way that LeAnn Rimes and Faith Hill sometimes do; I think the country listener is pretty used to women singers with one foot in adult contemporary, and vice versa; I'd say AC's been a part of the language of country radio for the last couple of decades, though you guys know more about those previous decades than I do.

*Well, "You Belong With Me" does, somewhat, and more power to it.

my impression is that he evolved from "folkie" to "folkie for smoochers"

This might be true, especially if you're trying to smooch widows of guys who died in Edmund Fitzgerald. (Actually, Gordon may well have smoochier material later in career; I've just never heard it. "Sundown" is clearly about smooching a wayward prostitute, however, and "Go-Go Round" about smooching a go-go dancer. "If I Could Read Your Mind" maybe about smooching a ghost from the wishing well in a castle dark or a fortress strong with chains upon your feet; "Early Morning Rain" about the memory of smooching fast women and drinking liquor the night before but now you're smooching wet grass out on runway number nine. Why the hell is here, anyway? I've never figured that out. He's only got a dollar, and he knows you can't jump a plane like freight train.)

Meant "If You Could Ready My Mind," obviously. (And "died on the Edmund Fitzgerald." You know, on that big lake they called Gitchie Goomie. Doubt any better geography lesson about the Great Lakes has ever hit the pop chart. Still waiting for somebody to do a doom-metal version.)

I never even noticed the words to "Go Go Round" before yesterday, fwiw.

And come to think of it, why have I always "clearly" thought the hard lovin' woman in "Sundown" is a prostitute, anyway? (Just because she's lying back in her satin dress in a room where you do what ya don't confess? Or because she looks like a queen from a sailor's dream?? Not nearly enough to go on!)

Neat trick, for a confessional singer-songwriter: He does what you don't confess, then he indirectly confesses it to us anyway!

xpost (Yeah, come to think of it I don't remember the lyrics to "Sundown" at all, other than that one line, so what I said about it might have been pretty stupid.)

These days country tends to define itself sonically more by instrumentation and accent than by notes and chord progressions; at least that's how I hear it. A difference between Taylor Swift and Fearless is that on the latter Taylor decided to forgo the twang and the blatant mandolins and fiddles (though they appear; as do violins), probably said, "Fuck it, I'll sing in my own voice."

On the other hand, I do think that the melody and chords to "Our Song" and the chorus to "Teardrops On My Guitar" sound more country - in a way that I can't put my finger on - than anything on Fearless, but those more typically country notes make those two songs worse than they'd be without them. (I suspect that Xhuxk'll disagree. Isn't "Our Song" one of your favorite Taylor songs?) But as I've been saying, what I think gets her across to country fans - beyond the fact that she's really good - is that people in the mainstream of country listening* are willing to attune themselves to her sensibility, and therefore even willing to let her take them to new places.

*I'm using that awkward phrase to differentiate them from someone like me, who listens to mainstream country radio and is a fan of the music but isn't in the mainstream of such listeners; "primary audience" might be another term. But "mainstream of such listeners/primary audience" doesn't denote a single type, either; just doesn't include me. (Of course, she's crossing big to noncountry fans as well.)

Meant "If You Could Ready My Mind," obviously

Uh, obviously not. (At least the "Ready" part.)

why the hell is here, anyway?

why the hell IS HE THERE, anyway? Jeez...

Simon Frith, contrasting Celine Dion to Barbra Streisand:

Dion is, by contrast, a populist. Her voice is as rich in timbre as Streisand's and as flexible, but her approach to balladry draws on different traditions, on soul and country music. From soul she takes a method of direct expression, sound as physical feeling; from country she takes the sense of the everyday, cutting emotions down to size.

This isn't about "idiom," the musical language, so much as about the result, how one uses one's language. I don't think genres are idioms, at least not at the expense of sensibility and results - not just the "vocabulary" you employ, but also what do with it, and people with different vocabularies can find themselves doing similar things. (Not that a genre can be limited to a set of results either.)

I wouldn't say that Taylor cuts emotions down to size, but then I wouldn't necessarily have associated "everyday" and "down to size" anyway. Some people go from drama to drama every day. What Taylor does is to show big emotions arising within the details of everyday life.

In any event, I started off thinking of Taylor as Ashlee South, so it's not my particular issue whether Taylor is or isn't country - though it sure makes country richer and better if she is. But I wonder how much music of the last fifty years or so that has been created by people in or near country is considered "not country" for being too pop, but it isn't that the sound came from somewhere else, The Land Of Pop, but rather it came from these people, who helped create modern country and therefore modern pop. (Again, someone else will have to give this argument flesh, since I don't know the music's past well enough.)

helped create modern country and therefore modern pop

Well, obviously didn't help create all of modern pop, just pieces of it.

Here's a link to Geoffrey Himes' 100 Best Albums of 2009

http://sonicboomers.com/albumreviews-0

Drunk-dialing masterpiece "Need You Now" is number 5 on Billboard's ringtones chart!

Meanwhile Skaggs tells the Washington Post he likes some bluegrass

Ask Ricky Skaggs about his favorite contemporary bluegrass acts and he'll rattle off a mighty list: Cherryholmes, The Infamous Stringdusters, Mountain Heart, Blue Highway, Sierra Hull and many others. But ask him about his favorite new country artists and... crickets. Skaggs thinks the genre has "lost its way."

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/clicktrack/2010/01/be_specific_bluegrass_great_ri.html

Caramanica on banda singer Jenni Rivera (whose new album is said to be an all-mariachi affair on which she covers country singer Freddie Fender's "Before The Next Teardrop Falls"); some indie band called Wild Yaks (who Jon says play "country-rock", though since he said the same about indie band Girls I'm skeptical, and since he calls their country-rock lackadaisical I assume I'd hate anyway); and the Huntsville, Alabama hip-hop scence (featuring the hit "Fresh" by 6 Tre G, which I'm pretty sure I heard on the radio a week or two ago and actually liked):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/arts/music/10play.html

Jenni Rivera has been covering Tex-Mex for years; still prefer her banda version of "I Will Survive" with its wailing clarinets though. She's awesome.

Although in "Ala-Freakin-Bama" Trace Adkins says he grew up on Skynyrd, the song sounds at least as much (or a lot more) like he grew up on Gary Glitter or Joan Jett doing the Standells.

Kara DioGuardi about writing for country artists:

It's lyrically heavy in a way pop music isn't. It's got to be the perfect way to put it, but it's also got to have emotion [that resonates]. It's poetic in a way that pop music isn't. It really tests me. It makes me go back to songwriting 101. It's not just describing an emotion at face value, it's more like, "Here's the emotion -- how do I say it in a way that's interesting, so that someone gets what I'm trying to put across but it's also a twist on it?"

[For instance], "I Hope You Dance"? What an incredible metaphor. I hope you take that risk, I hope you take that chance, I hope you live life to the fullest. The way they paint that picture, when they get to the chorus you know exactly what they're talking about. I'm very drawn to the genre because I feel like I've become a better writer by going down there, and I'm always learning in the sessions.
--Billboard Interview

(I don't think it's such an incredible metaphor, myself.)

You're not terrified of dancing the way some of us are.

Christgau wraps up 2009 (year in music):

http://bit.ly/6wSxv7

Here's a new Voice piece I wrote on the music played at PBR (that's Professional Bull Riders) events.

I'm here to warn people off the new Jason Boesel album, which I'm currently streaming. He's drummed for Rilo Kiley and Conor Oberst, so it's ironic that Hustler's Son is completely devoid of memorable beats. Or memorable tunes, or singing voices, or words... CMT blog says he sounds like Chris Martin, which I don't hear at all. If anything, he's a less-distinctive and sometimes pitchy Jack Johnson. No way is he a hustler's son, unless he's overcompensating. You've been warned.

Also ungood, though still listenable, is Freedy Johnston's Rain On the City. I'll say he counts here since he recorded it in Nashville and "It's Gonna Come Back To You" sounds country. (And the guitar sound on "Livin' Too Close to the Rio Grande" is what I imagine Uncle Tupelo sound like.) I'm sad it's not good because I really like some of his songs, but he seems to have smoothed a lot of the interest out of his voice. There's a point in the second song where he sings "tried and tried and tried and tried" etc., and if you can imagine Freedy Johnston singing that, you can maybe picture the unusual way he used to shape vowels--very round and throaty. Unfortunately, that's almost all gone. Some of the tunes are pleasant, but nothing compelling. So all you've got left is the least interesting part of his arsenal--the Evocative Lyrics. On about half the songs, he tries to amp up the evocativeness by playing slowly, bleh. I may listen again in case I missed anything. Got an alarmingly high score from Ann Powers.

Nice article, unperson--real colorful.

OK, Freedy Johnston sounds better today. It's still not setting the world on fire and I still miss his idiosyncrasies, but the tunes have grown on me. He's rhythmically competent enough that most of the songs hit some sort of relaxed groove, and his drummer knows how to work with his melodies. Best song probably "The Other Side of Love," which has a BeMyBaby beat. "Don't Fall In Love With a Lonely Girl" (the "tried and tried and..." song) is also good. Worst may be the bossa nova exercise "The Kind of Love We're In." Still borderline overall.

My five favorite country singles of 2010 so far; order very fluid:

1. Jason Aldean – The Truth
2. Trace Adkins – Ala Freakin Bama
3. Martina McBride – Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong
4. Brian Burns – Rattlesnake Tequila
5. Colt Ford featuring Jamey Johnson – Cold Beer

Weirdest 2010 country album I've heard so far: Shooter Jennings & Hierophant, Black Ribbons (due out March 2 on Rocket Science Ventures), which has very little or no country music on it whatsoever (well, maybe some very occasional very sublimated melodic twang in the guitars), but it does have a whole bunch of doomsday recitations by Stephen King as a radio announcer calling himself Will O' the Wisp, plus theoretically apocalyptic songs somewhere in the general vicinity of Alice In Chains/Queensryche/Soundgarden/'90s Metallica/Use Your Illusion/Buckcherry. Not sure yet if any of them are remotely worth a shit, but at least the concept seems boderline audacious on paper.

Still didn't get even halfway through the new Lady Antebellum album.

Another constipated and leaden new country-goes-off-the-grunge-deep-end record: 7DayBinge, Muzik Mafioso Jon Nicholson's eight-songer (last song 10+ minutes long, and most others in the four-to-five-minute range, so an album not an EP) with assorted Twisted Brown Trucker (a/k/a Kid Rock's backing band) and 3 Doors Down dorks. Maybe a little rustic blues rock in something like "I'm No Good" or "Cold Dark Grave," but mostly it sounds like bad Nickelback (or Creed, or whatever) to me.

Stephen King as a radio announcer calling himself Will O' the Wisp, plus theoretically apocalyptic songs

End of the world/apocalypse stuff is the new emo mall punk. One new movie a week now, sometimes more on apocalypse, particularly if you get extended cable.

In the meantime, we'll always have Haiti.

End of the world/apocalypse stuff is the new emo mall punk.

Yeah, the new Ray Wylie Hubbard LP (which has been getting lots of press around these parts, and which I actually like, though it sure does plod a lot) definitely fits in the 2010 doomsday country category, too. Probably also the Legendary Shack Shakers' Agridustrial, due out c. Income Tax Day, which I've been liking even more even though Hubbard's abum is probably more immediately comprehensible, vocal/song-wise. Shack Shakers have more energy, more humor, more hooks, probably more variety. Both have some tough blues riffs and touches of gospel.

Good time for me to mention Shooter's excellent duet with Ike Reilly on the latter's Hard Luck Stories (digitally 2009, "real" disc 2010, has a shot at being my favorite album of two straight years). Song is a funny country blues song about the awesomeness of smalltown girls with daddy issues, until it takes a characteristic Ike turn into lyricism. Shooter ain't got no voice at all but he can sing all right.

Ray Wylie Hubbard album gets especially doomsday-dirgy toward its tail-end (titles "Every Day Is The Day Of The Dead"/"Opium"/"The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse" an obvious clue -- more or less metal, delta blues, and Celtic sluggish drones respectively.), and I actually like those, so far, more than most of the other trudging before them. Favorite track so far though is probably the relatively upbeat (well, at least midtempo) "Drunken Poet's Dream," which talks about mescaline, gasoline, naked women, and Judgement Day (and which I just realized was also the lead cut on the last Hayes Carll CD, where both Texans got co-writes). Also liking "Loose," which notably rhymes with Bruce, though I haven't decided yet if it's trying to sound like early or recent Bruce.

Well, this thread was cooking. Where'd everybody go?

Anyway, finally made it through the new Lady Antebellum -- albeit in the background, while reading the morning papers. Not sure what it will take for me to determine whether there's another ballad anywhere near the level of "Need You Now", which I'm ashamed to say made me shrug in the first place itself. Ballads often aren't immediate impact for me. Right now I'd say the closer, "Ready To Love Again," has the best shot, but that's just a wild guess, and overall I'd say the boring-ballad ratio here is even higher than on, uh, the new Vampire Weekend album (which still has nothing nearly as great as "Need You Now" fwiw.) Second favorite song on Need You Now so far would be "Stars Tonight," an insistent two-chord pop-rocker about joining a rock band because rock people dress really cool. At least, that's what I think it's about. "Perfect Day" has a bit of bounce to it, too. But mostly the album's making me shrug (and I liked their first one, by the way. Liked Vampire Weekend's first one too, but liked Antebellum's more.)

Best country album I've heard in the past couple months, maybe in the past couple years, heck maybe ever almost, is a 20-song 1981 Warner Special Products vinyl mailaway compilation called Motels And Memories that I got for a $1 in San Marcos last month. All cheating songs, only a few I was familiar with before (John Anderson "She Just Started Liking Cheating Songs," John Conlee "Friday Night Blues," Gary Stewart "She's Acting Single [I'm Drinkin' Doubles]," Barbara Mandrell's "Married But Not To Each Other" which is basically an r&b song I swear, maybe Crystal Gayle "Talking In Your Sleep" which I really love), and a lot by artists I've barely ever listened to before, often to my shame (Conway Twitty, Stella Parton, Vern Gosdin, Jeanne Pruitt, Earl Thomas Conley, Carmoll Taylor, Bill Anderson, Margo Smith, Mel Street, etc.) Tails off slightly toward the very end, maybe, but still makes me wonder why, if cheating (and even more, being cheated on) was such a major obsession of country singers for so long, when and why did that change? Or did it? Only really great one I can think of in the past year would be "Even Now" by Caitlin & Will (cheating both ways), and that didn't hit big at all. Probably there's some I'm not thinking of. Anyway, did the moral majority's influence over country ensure at some point that songwriters would stop dealing with the topic? Or were the '70s really just one big Ice Storm key party? Or what? (Also been listening to Billie Jo Spears' 1975 Blanket On The Ground, another $1 find, which just strikes me as way more sexy than country nowadays, even though Paisley also sang about doing it outside in "Ticks" couple years back I guess. Getting the idea country lost something along the way, and maybe it's worth talking about here.)

And oh yeah, played the Mavericks' 1999 CD Super Collosal Smash Hits Of The '90s: The Best Of The Mavericks yesterday, and can I just say that, despite the frequent warm mariachi lilts and Raul Malo's equally warm and very smooth singing, those guys were kinda booooring. Lacking almost any memorable songs probably had something to do with it.

And remembered yet another '90s country star with a seemingly good best-of on my shelf, which might have had good '90s albums I've never heard backing it up: Pam Tillis (Greatest Hits, Arista 1997.)

The track listing on that Mavericks comp looks boring but they weren't quite that boring; "Pretend" off What a Crying Shame is a pretty memorable honky-tonk with Latin-flavored vocals as their hype promised (but often did not deliver; "Dance the Night Away" a nice exception); and their cover of "All That Heaven Will Allow" is excellent and better than the already great original. So all in all, a very minor band but you could make a better comp than the one you got.

Played the new Easton Corbin (his debut) and Gary Allan albums. The Corbin was pleasant at best; nothing really jumped out at me. But I'm liking at least four songs on the Allan -- masochism metaphor "Get Off On The Pain" and "That Ain't Gonna Fly" for their toughness; "We Fly By Night" and mercy fuck/breakup sex number "Kiss Me When I'm Down" for the specificity of their lyrics. Like this line in the latter, listing stuff she left behind at his place when she dumped him: "A stack of mail/a tube of toothpaste/An empty Zeppelin III CD case."

x-post. Yea, I think there are some memorable Mavericks songs and would not dismiss the group. I never saw them live, but I saw Raul Malo solo and with a band live several times and recall some of the Mavericks songs working. Xhuck, he's got quite a voice as you acknowledge. For some fans that's enough (also noticed that women were especially charmed by him live).

Regarding cheating songs, that's interesting that country has largely abandoned them (if that's true). They still dominate Southern (Chitlin Circuit) soul to the point that they are formulaic and predictable and I am sick of them. Actually I never liked that lyrical theme much to begin with.

Surely "White Liar" is a cheating song, and quite good. Not definite on what counts as a cheating song; is it only a cheating song when the protagonist cheats (which might disqualify great tracks about a lover's cheating like John Conlee's "She Can't Say That Anymore," since it seems to be through the guy's eyes, but is really about the gal)? In any event, Taylor Swift's "Should've Said No" is about not forgiving a cheater, and if you take account of the video, so is "White Horse." Doesn't Gretchen Wilson have a few? (Well, maybe I'm thinking of the one on the Barbara Mandrell tribute album, which would only confirm your point.) From a few years ago we've got Toby's excellent "Stays In Mexico" and Lee Ann Womack's excellent "There's More Where That Came From."

Yeah, "Stays In Mexico" occurred to me, and most of those others make sense -- duh. Not sure why it seems like there's fewer now; maybe just because I don't have them all compiled in one place. (Most obvious one we haven't mentioned: Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats"! So yeah, cheated-on songs, as I suggested above, definitely count; "She Can't Say That Anymore" is even more blatant about that than "Friday Night Blues," which only implies Conlee's a cuckold but was included on that cheating song compilation regardless.)

Of the songs I listed above, maybe most of them -- definitely "She Just Started Liking Cheating Songs and "She's Acting Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)" -- obviously revolve around the protagonist's spouse cheating.

Xhuxk you know how much I love Gary Allan. Can't wait to hear it...although no chance I'm gonna get a promo, I'm deader in Nashville than Charlie Robison or Robbie Fulks.

Miranda Lambert & Brad Paisley place in Top 40 in 2009 Pazz & Jop.

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/

Lots of country in Jane Dark's top 25 singles of 2009:

http://janedark.com/2010/01/top_25_songs_of_2009_in_a_sing.html

Sarah Buxton to open for Martina McBride and Trace Adkins on the Shine All Night tour, so possibly she won't disappear commercially in the way that Ashley Monroe disappeared.

I bumped into a few interesting websites and thought I'd share the links.

This guy comes to country from an alt perspective, but he's clearly got a lot of curiosity about Nashville proper. Impossible to search but fun to browse, with tons of album reviews from all eras of country.

http://www.slipcue.com/music/country/countryindex.html

This one's got to be the definitive David Allan Coe review page.

http://www.roctober.com/roctober/greatness/coe.html

Just heard "Ala Freakin Bama"

Wow.

They call it the crimson tide!

Hey everyone. Just catching up with this thread. RE the Brad Paisley discussion above from a few weeks back, some of which mentioned me explicitly: it's possible to love Paisley (and Taylor and Miranda and Jamey Johnson and other critical darlings) *and* to love country that's not on the mainstream rock-crit radar. Not all Paisley lovers are by definition idiot arrivistes. The know-it-all territorialism around country that rears its head on ILX and elsewhere is embarrassing. There are certain critics who want own the genre, and reflexively lash out at anyone who dares venture on their "turf." Sorry--you have to share.

Also, for the record: I do love "Then," but it's not my favorite song on ASN. (That'd be "Anything Like Me." I'm soft like that.) "Then" is my favorite of the singles released so far.

That said: I love the country talk on ILX generally. I come here every once in a while just to read and always learn a lot. FWIW totally co-sign on "The Truth" and I think the new Gary Allan is a grower. All his records have taken a while to open up for me...

Hey Jody, great to see you here. And point well taken on the guarding country-critic turf issue, though I'm fairly sure you overstate the extent to which it occurs here -- Only once, to my knowledge, by me, and I was pretty self-critical about it, to wit: "...increasingly 'the country singer it's okay for critics to like.' Honestly, that's a good reason to be skeptical...Not sure why it bugs me, except that there are country artists this decade who I've liked more. (Probably just a kneejerk reflex, part of my chemical makeup from way way back.)"

That said, I've been surprising myself this week by liking "Why Don't We Just Dance" by Josh Turner, who've I never particularly cared about before. Starting to understand, a little, why people might consider his deep voice so sexy. Guess I should listen to the rest of the album...

Also, Lady Antebellum's new album is growing on me. At least a little.

Also kind of like "Hillbilly Bone" by Blake Shelton feat. Trace Adkins, not so much for the song itself, which is neglible as far as I can tell, as for the playing behind the guys, which has to rank among the funkier and more convicing Skynyrd approximations to have hit country radio. (Which means Ricky Skaggs, who believes everything on country radio sounds like "Sweet Home Alabama", probably hates it. Meant to mention up above, though, that probably my favorite Ricky Skaggs song -- "Heartbroke," from 1982 -- has what's sure always sounded to me like a Motown bassline. So again, he hasn't always been the purist he presents himself as.) (Also like that song's high multisyllabic-word quotient. Only competition for favorite Skaggs song, "Highway 40 Blues," came from the same album. But it's not like I've really kept up with him.)

Funny thing, Chuck: I reviewed the Lady Antebellum record and was pretty hard on them...and now I feel a little cruddy about it. They can write tunes, and the new album is definitely better than the last. I saw them play last year, though, and they really bored me silly. I'll take Little Big Town.

Regarding Josh Turner, I've always *loved* his voice, but I wish he had more good material -- more songs as good as "Your Man." Maybe the new album will be decent? What do you think of Chris Young? He's got that nice basso profundo too, and I've liked several of his songs a lot.

Only Chris Young song I've remotely cared about is "I'm Headed Your Way Jose'" from his debut (a more explicit pro-immigration song than "American Saturday Night" if you ask me), but then again, the debut is the only album I've ever played by him all the way through.

Just played Turner's new one all the way through, and he's definitely going for smoldering beefcake romance -- almost all love and lust songs, like the last Keith Urban album. Sounded okay, some of it maybe better than okay, but yeah -- not sure how great the material is. Only song that really jumped out as me like the single did is "Your Smile," which has some real warm Hoagy Carmichael Mint Julep jazz to it (maybe somewhere between what Alan Jackson was doing on Like Red On A Rose a couple years ago, and what Toby Keith was doing on White Tra$h With Money, kind of), complete with a nice sunny-afternoon whistling break. And "Lovin' You On My Mind" seems a decent quiet-storm makeout session. Last song, "Answer," is gratuitous put-your-faith-in-Jesus bullshit; when did the tradition of country albums ending with Jesus start, anyway? I've noticed that a few times, the last few years.

I almost definitely don't like the new Lady Antebellum album as much as the first one -- as I said above, too many ballads (see also: Vampire Weekend.) But then, I don't know anybody else who liked the first one as much as I did. And right, they're not near Little Big Town's level.

Turner album also has an at least fair-to-middling, maybe better, just-got-paid number, in "Friday Paycheck," complete with the take-this-job-and-shove-it references its title would lead you to expect. (I didn't like "Your Man" when it was a hit, btw, though I may have underrated it. I remember Anthony Easton being a big Turner supporter around here.)

One song from last year in that jazz vein you were talking about is Joe Nichols' "This Bed's Too Big", one of the few songs I really liked on his most recent album.

Interesting Chris Young and Josh Turner were mentioned together - That Turner song about dancing sort of reminds me of Young's song about getting dressed up mostly to get undressed, "Getting You Home", which is one of the only songs I really remember from his album last year, which overall was decent but didn't make that strong of an impression, though there is something I like about his singing.

I somewhat facetiously raised the idea of C.B. Radio songs on last year's Rolling Country thread, halfway figuring -- without much evidence -- that they might've been a breif fad in the late '70s:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

Well, now I have evidence -- A compilation, released on Realistic Records and sold exclusively through Radio Shack according to its cover, called All Ears: 10 New And Original Songs With a CB Theme; found it for $2 (a real splurge for me!) at a vintage store in Houston last month. No copyright year anywhere on the cover, but I assume not long post-"Convoy" (which topped the pop chart in early 1976). Best cuts, like "Convoy," are basically talking blues: "The Handles Hall of Fame" by Johnny Hemphill (a list of creative nicknames that makes me think of the one in Kool Moe Dee's "Wild West West") and "Listenin' CB Blues" by Mac Wiseman (about trying to get used to all this newfangled technology.) "Everybody's Somebody (in Our CB World)" by Ed Bernet is the most American songpoem like in its cluelessness, but also the post proto-Internet in concept -- namely, the idea that, no matter how you look or whether you're a young girl or an old man, you can create a persona and make friends to talk to via the network. "L.J.'s CB Radio" by Oscar Rey is a cornball Hee Haw standup comedy routine; "The Night I Talked To The Lord" (...on my CB Radio) has the same concept as Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel," seeing how God saves the driver from a devastating crash. Other songs show an obvious Ray Stevens and David Seville influence, and a recurring theme is trying to make sense of all this brand new slang. Most of it is pretty bad, I guess, but I'm still really glad to own it.

Also definitely not hating, if not quite know if I'm liking enough to keep yet, two new folk albums: Ike Reilly's Hard Luck Stories (verbosity in an early Dylan/early Springsteen style, definitely witty but so far too plain and detached to really grab me -- Cibula's a big fan) and Sparrow and the Workshop's In The Wild (Chicago girl whose voice triangulates somewhere between Janis Joplin, Kate Bush, and Polly Harvey leading an I guess post-post-post-Fairport Convention folk band from Glasgow -- 25-minute EP/mini-LP, the brevity of which helps, but I don't know whether any individual songs will sink in beyond the likably lush and dusky drone -- actually came out last July, as far as I can tell from the web, but only just showed up in my mail this week.)

If somebody can sell me on Sparrow And The Workshop, especially, please do so. I want to like them. Here's a link to their Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/sparrowandtheworkshop

Aw man, no love for the Ike Reilly/Shooter Jennings duet?

Laff riot FRONTPAGE story in the LA Times today by Geoff Boucher on ... wait for it ... how rock bands don't get in the charts or get to do the major label album thing as in days of yore. Focus on some marginal indie band playing the Troubador called The Afternoons.

Earth to Geoff Boucher and the LA Times, all d' rock bands like you talk about went to de Nashville where they're doin' just fine, K? THX. Jason Aldean sells more, rocks harder, than The Afternoons.

Who the fuck are The Afternoons, anyway?

"The Afternoons have also sought out public radio ... "

Brilliancy prize subhed: Rock is a hard place

Flea interviewed for bits of received wisdom. "It ain't like it used to be in the ol' days when I ... "

no love for the Ike Reilly/Shooter Jennings duet

"The War On The Terror And The Drugs"? It's okay, I guess. There's some camaraderie there, at least. Song doesn't really grab me, though; title has potential, but I don't hear them doing much with it. And actually, I think the album gets a little better after that one, when Reilly starts doing what seems more like shaddy dog stories and stops coming off like he's so impressed by his own cleverness, even though his apparent punchlines never really make me laugh. Think my favorite track on the album might be "Sheet Metal Moon" -- kind of like that image, for some reason. "Ballad Of Jack & Haley" kind of jumped out for me, too. And "Good Work" convinces me he's been watching Friday Night Lights. But with such a mediocre voice (no less mediocre than Shooter's), I really wish Reilly would get a solid band to help put these songs over. As is, like lots of other okay alt-country, the album just really feels to me like a promising songwriter's demo tape.

"shaggy dog stories," I meant

i know this is really old

but I just recently heard Jamey Johnson & I really liked what I heard

which surprised me because he co-wrote some of those goofy Trace Adkins singles I didn't dig

I've also had "White Liar" by Miranda Lambert stuck in my head for days for some reason

maybe 2010 will be the year I open my mind to Nashville stuff, who knows

xp btw, Matt, there's a good chance I still prefer the Reilly duet to anything on Shooter's own new album. (And I know I'm getting to sound like a broken record with the alt-country folkies = demo-tape singers formulation. Should really retire that by now. But there have been guys from that world in the past few years who've at least halfway overcome their vocal limitations, and accentuated their songwriting skills, by hiring reasonably rocking musicians -- James McMurtry, Hayes Carrl, Chris Knight, now Ray Wylie Hubbard if he counts. All I'm saying is Ike Reilly's songs would probably reach me more if he did the same.)

Does that CB comp have Merle Haggard/Leona Williams's "Bull and the Beaver"? I heard that on Rick Jackson's Country Hall of Fame a couple weeks ago, and it's my new favorite CB song, maybe after "Convoy." It took me a while to figure out what it was about, actually, but it's pretty sexy, given lines like:

Well it won't be hard to back it
Now babe I'm right behind you
Just put them air brakes on and let 'er slide

Rick Jackson could barely say anything about it, he was cracking up so much.

Also, still need to listen to Lady Antebellum's album more, but it struck me as OK, though the singles are growing on me. I determined last night that "Need You Now"'s sleekness reminds me of "Hysteria," and heard "American Honey" on the radio this morning and really liked the kick drum. It was a cool beat for a jangly folk type song.

Nah, Dr. Phil, that C&W CB song comp I got is 100% unknowns -- maybe Radio Shack had a contest and sorted through demo tapes, or something.

"That's How Country Boys Roll" by Billy Currington has some palpable gimme-three-steps Skynyrd boogie-woogie to its rhythm track too, I just remembered when hearing it on the car radio this morning (not unlike Shelton/Adkins' aforementioned "Hillbilly Bone" -- too bad both songs have lyrics so much dumber than Skynyrd ever would've done in the '70s.)

Lady Antebellum at number one.

Okay, weird -- Somebody just mentioned Shirley & Squirelly's "Hey Shirley (This Is Squirrely)," which leads off the Radio Shack CB comp, on the "Word(s) that only ever appeared in one (hit) song, ever" thread (answering a post about Merle Haggard, oddly enough.) I assumed they were unknowns, since I'd never heard of the song before, but turns out it went to #48 on the pop chart in 1976. (Joel Whitburn says "see also The Nutty Squirrels," so I did: Their "Uh Oh Part 2" and "Uh Oh Part 1" went to #14 and #45, respectively, in 1959. But Whitburn lists different people for them; perhaps only the squirrels were in common.)

Couple notes on Josh Turner's new album, which I like: (1) "Your Smile" is not as Hoagy Carmichael as I thought -- more old-timey country if anything -- but you sense Mint Juleps anyway, maybe because real old country and Dixie riverboat jazz were not so far apart (actually, some of Mac McAnally's '09 album had a sound like that too -- a couple songs reminded me of old Randy Newman before his voice was shot); (2) "Lovin' You On My Mind" has an even more blatant classic soul ballad sound than I thought; (3) closing Jesus number is not as noxious as I suggested -- I like the Muscle Shoals style church organ and gospel backup, and even the message (basically, I guess, that there's somebody you can lean on if things are going lousy for you) doesn't seem particularly offensive.

Shirley & Squirrely NOT as sexy as Williams & Haggard. (Unless squirrels are your thing.)

My review of Patty Griffin's future-Nashville-Scene-critics-poll-placing Downtown Church is up here. Buddy Miller produced, he and Raul Malo and Julie Miller and Emmylou Harris and a bunch of other people duet. It's mostly gospel covers; the most Country songs are Hank's "House of Gold" and Traditional's "Never Grow Old," which Johnny Cash probably covered. But, despite good singing and playing and arranging, the whole thing struck me as too tentative and tasteful. Best song is the cover of "If I Had My Way" (aka "Samson & Delilah"), which is groovy with a great, round lead guitar tone. New Griffin original keeper that'll probably pop up on a major label country album in the next couple years: "Coming Home to Me." But as good an idea as it was to sing "Virgen de Guadalupe" with Raul Malo, the song put me to sleep.

The know-it-all territorialism around country that rears its head on ILX and elsewhere is embarrassing.

Well, I guess Jody Rosen's gone, but I'd say the know-it-all territorialism around country gets challenged on ILX more than anywhere else in the world that I know of, so it's not like Jody's making a particularly strong point or telling us something we'd not have known if he hadn't said it, or saying anything about the territorialism; but he might have been referring to Edd's or George's takes on Paisley and Swift (if he was misreading George, since George's dislike has nothing to do with country territorialism) and not noticing everyone else's. (To be fair to Jody, maybe he did notice everyone else's and just didn't think he needed to mention it. He wasn't venturing an opinion as to whether or not the territorialism dominates ILX. Still, why is that what he chooses to remark on, given what's actually written in the Rolling Country threads.)

By the way, I have nothing in principle against territorialism, especially when it's thoughtful and makes an effort to put into words what's at stake and what's in danger of getting overridden or lost, which is exactly what Edd's does. Genres are shifting territories and associations, but that doesn't mean that we just ignore the territory and association. I'm as territorial as anybody alive, I'm just not static or conventional in my sense of territory, usually (at least I hope I'm not).

OK, my bad; I just checked back to Xhuxk's mention of Jody, and I realize it's Jody responding to Xhuxk's calling Paisley, "the country singer it's okay for critics to like," which I guess Jody took to imply that generalist critics like Jody tend only to like country singers it's OK for critics to like. But country critics are just as capable as generalists of only liking country singers it's OK for critics to like, so I think Jody's misinterpreting Xhuxk's comment as about defending a territory (country) when it's actually about respectability (which is a different territory).

(And Xhuxk and I are as much generalists as Jody is, of course.)

Any thoughts about Holly Williams? She grazed the country top 60 a couple of times last year; she's also fundamentally a singer songwriter, even if her granddad did die in a Cadillac. The single, "Keep The Change," feels a bit like Christine McVie singing Van Morrison's "Wild Night," though not very wild. But good.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, January 3, 2010 6:26 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sorry to respond to a post from more than a month ago, but I gotta say that Holly Williams' record floored me last year. Would have never guessed she could do something that good. The whole thing is solid, but my favorites are "Keep the Change" and her duet with Chris Janson, "A Love I Think Could Last."

My dislike of Brad Paisley -- which starts at the recent album -- is because he's now the million dollar video goof, a teller of too many intelligence-insulting fairy tales. Generally, I like lots of fairy tales. Just not his on this record where he makes out to be drily humorous, warm and wise.

I'm all for class war. And Paisley's now part and mythologizer for a class I'd like to see suffer from it. Not that I have any illusion it'll happen. But I can have my dreams, can't I?

Sorry to gloat about this to anybody stuck in that horrible Middle Atlantic snowstorm, but it was super sunny and in the '60s in Austin this afternoon, excellent weather for driving around with the car window down, and it was pretty thrilling when the DJ on the country station segued from Lady Antebellum's "American Honey" ("nothing's sweeter than summertime") to Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" (music from Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama") to Billy Currington's "That's How Country Boys Roll" (music from Skynyrd's "What's Your Name") Somehow doubt that was an accident, and all three songs benefitted from it.

I noticed this comment on the stupid fruity crazy swag thread:

i think the idea of having a monthly ILM digest with peeps from the Metal/Swag/D-Bag/Rolling Country/Indie/Electrobobbins donating their MUST LISTEN tracks/links/sites of the month would be totally next level

I normally wouldn't figure that more than 1% of ILM proper would care about a country link, but then again Taylor Swift won the trax poll...so I'll throw up a few Youtube's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLjLy51AsMc

Radney Foster- A Little Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_11y-Ot3Y

Zane Williams- Pablo & Maria

Uh, best not to let the get the thread get all youtubed out, though (not that I haven't been guilty of putting videos up too, on occasion.) Some of our browsers don't take kindly to that sort of overloading...

(i think the idea of having a monthly ILM digest with peeps from the Metal/Swag/D-Bag/Rolling Country/Indie/Electrobobbins donating their MUST LISTEN tracks/links/sites of the month would be totally next level

I like this idea. I think it would be more successful if the person starting it would be a popularity contest winning ILMer.)

Uh, best not to let the get the thread get all youtubed out, though (not that I haven't been guilty of putting videos up too, on occasion.) Some of our browsers don't take kindly to that sort of
overloading...

Make that more than 'some'.

(i think the idea of having a monthly ILM digest with peeps from the Metal/Swag/D-Bag/Rolling Country/Indie/Electrobobbins donating their MUST LISTEN tracks/links/sites of the month would be totally next level

--
I like this idea. I think it would be more successful if the person starting it would be a popularity contest winning ILMer.)

Good sarcasm. Definitely need more cheerleading by student council members and lists.

Actually, I didn't even mean it sarcastically. It's just realistic that some posters have more "authority" (via popularity) to successfully pull something like that off.

I like the rough bash of this indie-incompetent blues-country Sandwitches track; checked their MySpace and heard too much art-haze recessiveness on some of the other tracks, and the indie lose-by-losing tendency wears itself out, though I presume the Sandwitches don't conceive of it as recessiveness but as a strategy to produce beauty. Think there's potential here, and that the beauty is within reach but more likely to be achieved when aligned with bash. "Fire" and "Kiss Your Feet" have nice moments.

Some of our browsers don't take kindly to that sort of overloading...

Yeah, my cheap-jack EarthLink DSL modem balks when I try to load the mammoth ILM 2009 poll thread. (Actually, not being technically savvy, don't know if it's the modem or the CPU or insufficient RAM or what.) I've managed to get halfway into it: some interesting stuff there if you can manage to load it, especially from Tim Finney on Taylor.

Speaking of Taylor, her Better Than Ezra cover for Haiti relief is painfully out-of-tune (at least painful for me), though I think the pitch problem is the musicians' too, not just hers; I seem to be erratic as to when this sort of thing bothers me. And Taylor herself seems to be erratic, in that Cis reported Taylor completely in tune when she played London, and Himes wrote in his year-end essay that he'd seen her being pitch perfect. Maybe for all her apparent poise, she actually chokes in the face of a TV audience. (But my own pitch problems never have anything to do with choking or not, from what I can tell.)

Like, the Sandwitches didn't tune up too strenuously on "Back To The Sea" and the sound works fine within their basic clatter, and the bad drumming has force, etc. They may have musical smarts that compensate for their lack of chops. Inspired amateurism can take as much savvy and effort as professional precision, though a different kind of effort.

I like the powerful competence of the Radney Foster "A Little Revival," definitely hits me though the impact fades over its four minutes - too many happy chords, and the lyrics are a string of meaningful thoughts from the Meaningful Thought Cheese Food Machine, an unintentional parody of significance. Nice and meta, about standing up for people who stand up, while the song doesn't actually stand up for anything.

I hung onto every word of Zane Williams' "Pablo & Maria," though I wish the plot had some surprise rather than Maria doing what you'd expect. I like that Williams didn't over-explain the story, didn't give you the background of who the characters were or why they'd gotten into their predicament. (Unless the characters are well-known in Texas lore of which I am ignorant.) I like the man's voice; another performer I'd affix the phrase "has potential" to. On the first song on his Webpage, "The Right Place," his voice is way less emphatic and distinctive, for some reason.

Did a skim of the other tracks on the Zane Williams site, and unfortunately ended up thinking "singer who sounds like that sort of singer" (folkie-honky-tonk, perhaps). Of course, on first listen to someone new that's usually how you hear it. "Six Steel Strings" and "The Cowboy And the Clown" and "Live To Love Again" all had force though I didn't hear anything distinctively Zane Williams in them. - the last of those sounding the most commercial and radio ready and stronger for it, but needs another singer to have a chance. Maybe a bigger recording budget would give Williams a bigger voice. "Pablo and Maria" stands out from everything else, jumps to the foreground from the first note, and it's the least "orchestrated" song here, mostly accompanied only by guitar, lets the melody and story take charge.

So, to sum up my Frank's Day On Rolling Country: indie incompetence is better than both Taylor incompetence and folkytonk competence. This is a rare result.

Hey Frank, while you're on your indie/alt country kick, you should really check out that Sparrow and the Workshop band whose page I linked to a few posts up. Still not sure what to think about them, but I definitely get the idea there's something interesting going on there. (Though also, fwiw, there are at least three incompetent indie-rock LPs and EPS I've liked more than their one so far this year -- by bands named Screaming Females, Art Museums, and Blessure Grave. None of which sound especially country, but it seems fun to mention their names regardless.) (Oh yeah, Legendary Shack Shakers too. If they count.)

Tried the Sparrow link several days ago and for some reason couldn't get the tracks on their MySpace to play.

I'd considered Th' Legendary Shack Shakers borderline eligible for my country ballot in the past, voted 'em number ten in 2004. Or does your "if they count" mean "if they count as incompetent indie-rock"?

Finally got around to listening to Jason Aldean's "The Truth" on that promo CD you sent last year, as that song's now bothering the pop charts. It's a wasted opportunity from a couple of good writers (Ashley Monroe, who's written plenty of songs for herself; and Brett James, who's got scores of credits including "Jesus Take The Wheel"), wasted 'cause, though Aldean's got a good basic twang, he's never evoked a damn thing in me; and because the lyrics botch what's actually a great idea: lovesick narrator drops out of sight, asks the object of his thwarted affections to come up with lies rather than tell the world he's still hung up on her, and the cover stories he suggests get progressively less and less respectable. "Tell 'em I went to visit friends" gives way to "tell 'em I'm out in Vegas, blowing every dollar I ever made." But they should have really gone somewhere with it, made the stories ever more outlandish and disreputable to show that virtually anything is better than admitting he's still in love. In place of that lame Vegas cliché, why not say he's out roaming the boonies with some traveling rep theater playing the lead role in an all male staging of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles?

Has a fairly gorgeous melody, though -- really feels to me like the big sky country he's apparently pretending to have run off to. And yeah, no doubt his lies could be way more specific and absurd, but I still think "tell 'em that I must be into somethin' bad for me/'Cause I sure lost a lot of weight," the way he drawls it, has a real pang to it -- And I kind of like him leaving what that somethin' bad might be to the imagination. Grabs me every time on the car radio, haven't tired of it yet (can't think of a song I like more on the radio now, on any format), and Aldean's never done much for me emotionwise before, either.

And yeah, I meant I wasn't sure whether Th' Shack Shakers count as incompetent indie-rock; they definitely count as country in my book, and if I decide in the long run their 2010 album is good enough, I'd have no qualms whatsoever putting it on a Nashville Scene ballot.

can't think of a song I like more on the radio now

Well, that's partly because I've never heard Martina McBride's "Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong" or (this being Austin) Trace Adkins' "Ala Freakin Bama" on the radio, admittedly. But as of now, I like "The Truth" as much or more than those anyway. ("American Honey" has a definite possibility of growing on me, though. Maybe also "That's How Country Boys Roll," if I wind up more tolerant of its words; we'll see. Uh, there's also an outside chance I should tune into other formats more -- I have nothing against "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha, if that helps.)

Tried the Sparrow link several days ago and for some reason couldn't get the tracks on their MySpace to play.

Eh, actually, the more I listen to their EP (put it on again this morning), the more I figure you're not really missing much. The songs never really kick in, and the sound's not that interesting on its own.

Singles Jukebox review roundup on Lady Antebellum's "American Honey" (which I'm starting to think I may have actually underrated slightly):

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1912

Also think I may have been overstating things by calling Aldean's "The Truth" gorgeous. What it is, is world-weary. Not unlike, say, an early '70s Glen Campbell hit or something. Feels that way to me, anyway.

Am starting to be obsessed with an old song by Don Williams, "Good Ole Boys Like Me," which I'd never heard before I moved to Texas but which I hear on the radio at least once every couple months now. A #2 country single in 1980, apparently. Might well be the most literary-minded country hit I've ever heard, too, since it mentions both Thomas Wolfe (read in bed as a kid while listening to the Wolfman) and Tennessee Williams ("those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me -- Hank and Tennessee"). Not sure who "John R" in the song (same line as the Wolfman) is, though. Anyway, this song is gorgeous. And I really know nothing else about Don Williams, embarrassing as that may be to admit. How typical is this of his material? Picked up his 2nd Greatest Hits LP for $1 over the weekend, so I guess I'll start to find out soon. (Saw some review of an earlier Josh Turner album where his singing was compared to Williams, which may or may not be a good sign.)

I know shamefully little about him too, but "I Believe in Love" is really pretty and sometimes refreshing, if mostly dumb. It's sort of like Savage Garden's "Affirmation," where they list all the things they believe in, and some of those things are dumb, but they're heartwarming nonetheless. Only Don's is mostly a litany of disbelief. So he believes in babies and old folks, unfortunately, but he DOESN'T believe virginity is as common as it used to be, and he doesn't believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate. Those make sense. Of course, he also doesn't believe in organic food or foreign cars. What, like they don't exist? I'm on board with about half of his theology.

This one song I know doesn't remind me of Josh Turner much--they're both smooth, but Williams seems like he's close to nodding off, which I don't get from Turner. How's the Greatest Hits? I might try to track down more myself.

I assume John R is this guy, another southern DJ.

How's the Greatest Hits?

Well, especially for a singer this subtle, one listen obviously isn't gonna be enough to go on. But I will definitely say that I didn't like it anywhere near as much as the Merle Haggard (late '70s/early '80s best of), David Allan Coe (Rides Again), or Charlie Rich (Big Boss Man/My Mountain Dew -- holy shit, now I understand why people call him a jazz singer!) LPs I played right before it, or the Barbara Mandrell best-of LP I played right after it. And oddly, both Christgau and Thom Jurek at AMG agree that Volume II, the Williams best-of I got, is better than its predecessor. Anyway, it's cycle-of-romance ballads, pretty much 100%. "She Never Knew Me," the one where she walks out the door and he tracks what she'll be doing by the time she gets to Phoenix or wherever, was my favorite on first listen; had definitely also heard "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend," "You're My Best Friend," and (at least in Clapton's version) "Tulsa Time" before. And it was all pleasant, but also really really MOR/Adult Contemporary, as far as I could tell. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it means the songs are likely to take some time to sink in. And I'm stumped, but also kind of intrigued, by Jurek admitting Williams's influence on the crossover leanings of '80s Nashville, but then claiming "cats like Johnny Lee, David Frizell, Ronnie McDowell, and countless others ended up sounding like crummy pop singers while Williams never sounded like anything but a country singer." Not that he has to be pure country to win me over, obviously, but that sounds to me like, say, somebody making excuses for Eddie Vedder after he's spawned Scott Stapp and Chad Kroeger. But like I said, maybe there are subtleties I just haven't detected yet. And actually, the MOR quotient makes Williams seem more interesting, since '70s/'80s MOR country is a mostly unexplored foreign land for me.

Anyway, here's Christgau; I really like the Johnny Cash line, actually, even though I often hear more monotony than majesty in Cash himself:

Greatest Hits [ABC/Dot, 1975]
In which this new country honcho--who as a founder of the Pozo-Seco Singers competed in the '60s downhome sweepstakes with the likes of Jim McGuinn--casts about for a style of gentleness that suits him. At its worst his torpid singing has all of Johnny Cash's monotonousness and none of his majesty. But he does reject the ranker strains of corn. B

The Best of Don Williams Volume II [MCA, 1979]
Because I can't get behind him as a role model for Eric Clapton, and because he's at least as shrewd as Tammy Wynette, I've resisted Williams's mild vogue, but this collection can't be denied. He may not be the modest homebody he pretends to be, but he sure does project a convincing image of romantic-domestic contentment, complete with separation, sex, and second thoughts. Both the care of the songwriting and the assured, conversational lilt of the vocals divide the sentimentality from the sentiment. Unsinging heroes: composers Bob McDill and Wayland Holyfield. A-

Also looked up Xgau's Barbara Mandrell reviews, just for kicks. He likes her '70s soul-crossover hits a whole lot less than I do:

The Best of Barbara Mandrell [Columbia, 1977]
These minor early-'70s hits aren't what her admirers consider the best (that's coming out right now on Dot), but they do foreshadow her concept, in which she applies her limpid center and soft edges to such soul classics as "Show Me" and "Do Right Woman" and then sells them to the country audience--by upping the tempos, oddly enough. Hard to figure what's so innovative--didn't that Presley guy do something similar? And when he went to Vegas, he went on his own terms. C+

The Best of Barbara Mandrell [ABC, 1979]
Barbara's real secret isn't that she's a country singer who listens to Shirley Brown. It's that she's a country singer who reads Helen Gurley Brown. C+

Rolling Stone Record Guide says Williams's songs were covered in the '70s by not just Clapton, but also Pete Townshend. (Doesn't say which songs.) And clearly what Williams and Josh Turner are supposed to have in common is that they both have really deep singing voices. Though I'm already getting the idea that Williams's was more graceful. (I'm also thinking less of Turner's one "jazzy" cut, at least today, after hearing what Charlie Rich could do with "Ol' Man River" and "I've Got You Under My Skin." Hell, maybe somebody should even lock Toby Keith or Alan Jackson in a room with just those two songs for a week.)

"Good Ole Boys Like Me"

Xhuxk, I'm pretty sure either you or a publicist at your instigation sent me a Don Williams LP in '04 at more or less the same time as Gene Watson ...Sings and T. Graham Brown's The Next Right Thing. All three albums were on Compendia. In any event, those two albums stuck and the Williams didn't, and if it's still in my apartment somewhere I can't find it.

Unsurprisingly, I am in love with the new Allison Moorer album. It's a little too floaty sometimes, but overall she's really finding a new voice and the song about her mother (set before all the tragedy) is kinda fucking awesome. Pretty sure she's not country anymore, but still. Also really like the countrified waltz on the Sade album!

When I was listening to that Sade album, I thought, "Hmmm, this one kind of sounds like Cowboy Junkies." Unfortunately, I never wanna listen to Cowboy Junkies.

tonight I went to Mother Maybelle Carter tribute show here in Nashville

saw the Carter Family Fold, John & Laura Cash, Del McCoury, The Whites, Tom T. Hall & others

surprise appearance: Earl Scruggs appeared & played guitar & banjo!!

ok back to Sade & whatnot

Not sure who "John R" in the song (same line as the Wolfman) is, though.

"John R. was an American radio disc jockey who attained fame in the 1950s and 1960s for playing rhythm and blues music on Nashville radio station WLAC. Later rock music disc jockeys such as Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, and others mimicked Richbourg's practice of using speech that simulated African-American street language of the mid-twentieth century."

So, apparently Don Williams grew up listening to Wolfman Jack / John R. Nashville R&B shows
& read Thomas Wolfe novels?

he sounds pretty hip

Maybe -- Did he actually write that song, though? I haven't checked, but on the best-of I got (which isn't in front of me), I'm pretty sure he didn't write any. As Xgau said above, most songs are credited to Bob McDill and Wayland Holyfield. So I wouldn't be sure that "Good Ole Boys" (which I'm guessing is atypical of his work) is autobiographical.

Btw, the one Don Williams LP recommended in The Blackwell Guide To Country Music is also the one I bought, Best Of Vol. II. But in Heartaches By The Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles, Cantwell and Friksics-Warren list just "I Believe In You" at #417. They like lines about inflation, gas shortages, and closeminded churches, and one they quote as saying "I don't believe...that right is right and left is wrong." (Writers were Roger Cook and Sam Hogin.)

Barbara Mandrell gets zero mentions in the index of that singles book, fwiw. And also fwiw, I haven't decided yet how much I like her, though as I said it's definitely more than Christgau does. On the Best Of from 1979 I've got, as far as I can tell, turns out that only a few songs -- definitely "Woman To Woman," maybe "After The Lovin" or "Love Is Thin Ice" -- actually evince much r&b influence. And what surprised me just now, looking at Joel Whitburn, is that this was her first album to chart in the Billboard 200, and it only got to #170; I think of her as being this big '70s crossover star, but I've been wrong, obviously, and her TV show didn't go on the air until 1980. "If Lovin' You Is Wrong (I Don't Wanna Be Right)," previously done by Luther Ingram in 1972 and Millie Jackson in 1975 (and a #31 pop hit for Mandrell, her only Top 40), charted in March 1979, a month after the Best Of (which it's not on) came out. So it's not clear how much soul was in her sound, before and after the songs on the best-of.

John Morthland lists two Don Williams albums:

Don Williams: Greatest Hits (MCA). As a collection of 1972-75 songs, this is a staggering album. But somehow, it doesn't quite hold up; emotions that are supposed to be standing naked sound like posturing - or reverse posturing, to be more precise. But those are minor quibbles when the songs in question are along the lines of "Amanda," "She's in Love with a Rodeo Man," "The Ties That Bind," "I Recall a Gypsy Woman," and other early hits.

Don Williams: The Best of Don Williams, Vol. II (MCA). Williams keeps everything so low-key that he makes you concentrate on his music, the way someone who speaks very softly makes you listen more closely. For that reason, he can also wear thin; after the initial glow wore off his sound, his albums became less rewarding. But this volume covers his peak years of 1975-78, when Wayland Holyfield and Bob McDill were giving him songs like "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend," "(Turn Out the Light and) Love Me Tonight," "'Til All the Rivers Run Dry," "Rake and Rambling Man," and "You're My Best Friends." These are all direct sentiments, expressed simply, and the intimate backing of the band, complete with strings, combines with Williams' muffled baritone to create warmth and empathy. Williams' recurring suggestion that the emotional problems men and women struggle through are not all that different is a shocking admission coming from a male country singer.

A 12-second sound clip of John R. (either from his radio show or from a later re-enactment). According to Wikipedia and other online sources he played almost nothing that wasn't r&b. He was Caucasian, but in the early years most listeners assumed he was black. Went from the mid 1940s to the early '70s.

"After retiring, Richbourg produced cassette tapes featuring reconstructions of his shows, together with the music. Some of these still circulate among traders, as do 'bootleg' recordings from the radio broadcasts."

and a #31 pop hit for Mandrell, her only Top 40

Really? Wasn't she country before country was cool? That wasn't Top 40?

Nope. Just checked her Wiki discography, too -- it went #1 country, but didn't chart pop at all. Looks like her cover of Aretha's "Do Right Woman Do Right Man" went #128 pop in 1970, and after that she didn't chart pop again until "Woman To Woman," #98 in 1977. Six more singles charted #105 or better between then and 1980, but of those, only "If Loving You Is Wrong" went higher than #89. Which again, really surprises to me, too -- especially for somebody who seemingly had some mass-culture presence (thanks to network TV) during the Urban Cowboy era, when I get the idea country pop crossovers were hardly uncommon.

George Smith on Little Jimmy Dickens (goes for a few posts):

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Taxonomic inquiry: Kat asks over on the poptimists' Best Song Of 2005 Heat One thread whether "Hotel Yorba" counts as country (she's thinking of doing a special country compilation post for 2000-2004). See my answer there, and add your own, if you're so inclined.

Anybody else but me see Gretchen Wilson with an electric guitarist do the national anthem at the NBA Allstar game in Dallas the other night? Not bad. Usher did a mini-concert pre-game show.

hey, chuck, how's the Haggard album?

Really good, and a lot better than I expected -- honestly, on initial perusal, it's easily among the one or two best albums of new music (any genre) I've heard so far this year. That could change, obviously, as I listen more. But it has jazz and blues and a duet, and a good song about the world changing beneath his feet and a song about Mexican music (that incorporates some) and a song about staying a couple after your kids are grown and one about sticking to his guns. (Title: I Am What I Am.) His voice definitely sounds older (even compared to the couple good albums he put out in the '00s), which I would expect to bug me. But he's carrying his, uh, haggardness surprisingly well.

Definitely better than the new Jason and the Scorchers (which has at least one song I like -- the one at the beginning about a moonshine guy living in a six-pack world wherein he loves the Stones and hates the Doors and thinks the Beatles are for girls -- but soon after starts to drag and just keeps dragging) and new Chely Wright (which has a song or two that might conceivably kick in, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.)

So, here's the MySpace page for the Austin alt-country band that mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore Joe Stack apparently played bass in, before flying his plane into an IRS office building here this morning:

http://www.myspace.com/billyeli

music is influenced by the Byrds, Rolling Stones, Gram Parsons, Buck Owens, George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, and all the underground cosmic cowboy bands of the early 70's

I just heard a newish Toby Keith single called "Cryin' For Me (Wayman's Song)" . It's a very odd song for Toby, featuring a extended saxaphone solo, that wouldn't be out of place on a 70's soft rock song. Actually the sax part kind of reminds me of a Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band song called 'Coming Home' off The Distance. Maybe it's not too odd, but it's very smooth for a country boy like him.

Well, Toby's definitely done smooth songs before. But that one's a eulogy for his friend Wayman Tisdale; hence, the smooth jazz parts.

And speaking of smooth, turns out my wife's parents are huge fans of Don Williams. I had no idea. They pulled out my copy of the LP I bought when I was upstairs, and started singing along to the songs, calling it real cry in your beer Texas country, proclaiming the classic status of "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend," and trying to figure out whether Don ever did any happy ones. They decided, yeah -- a couple. And they were amazed that I'd never really known anything about him until a couple weeks ago. Anyway, they're selling me, I think. He's clearly a romantic soundtrack to what it means to be together for the long haul, even if lots of his songs are about how that's not so easy.

Listened today to Old Familiar Feeling by the Whites, who lukevalentine mentioned here seeing live a couple weeks ago -- their Ricky Skaggs-produced album from 1983. AMG says it's their debut record, but Wiki lists a few before it that AMG says were actually released under a different group name, the Down Home Folks. A couple years later, they apparently went gospel and switched to Christian label Word; Buck White, the trio's patriarch, had had a career that dated back to the late '40s, when he was doing Western Swing -- which is probably why his one real solo turn, "Pipeliner Blues," sounds like such an authentic distillation of old white country blues and hillbilly boogie-woogie. It's also pretty raunchy tomcat stuff -- he's gonna lay his pipe on you, and he always sees some gal walking the street like she's a policeman on the beat. Which makes it a real anamoly on what's primarily an album of pristine squeaky-clean bluegrass harmonies from his daughters Sharon and Cheryl. Apparently they got a couple top ten country hits out of it too, and a few more through the '80s, and were later on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. Anyway, the daughters are fine here, but I don't know how much more I care about hearing by them. Am curious, though, about Buck's own early stuff -- he was apparently born in 1930, and I get the idea he'd lived a little.

So, here's the MySpace page for the Austin alt-country band that mad-as-hell-and-not-gonna-take-it-anymore Joe Stack apparently played bass in, before flying his plane into an IRS office building here this morning:

Something of a career-ender. Time to sack pathetic MySpace webpage, change name, etc.

Yeah, more messages to come like this, meanwhile, I'm sure:

green bracelet
Feb 18 2010 6:37 PM
Dude. I met you in Austin thru Kenneth when we played SXSW. What a tragedy about Joseph Stack. It has been all over the news today.

Let the record show that they also claim to have been influenced by David Allan Coe, the Gin Blossoms, Jackson Browne, Gary Stewart, and Jason and the Scorchers. (And that the plane crashed just up Research Boulevard North of Mopac, just a couple miles from where I live.)

I'd never thought of this (though also never saw the De Palma movie, nor read the King novel): Over in Heat One of the poptimists Best Of 2005 competition, Meserach calls Carrie Underwood "the appropriately monikered psychotically wronged Carrie," for the relish with which she performs "Before He Cheats."

Joe Stack's other band, apparently. (Name: Last Straw. Album title: Over The Edge):

http://www.myspace.com/laststrawmusic

Explanation of what Southern Soul singer J. Blackfoot and Ricky Skaggs have in common, followed by investigation into recent soul-blues songs about fishing holes:

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

Discussion of Dion DiMucci's vocal influences, and related questions. (He was a Hank Williams and blues fan, and may have in turn influenced some country singers, so tangentially related to this thread):

Dion and the Belmonts- classic or dud?

When I saw that about Carrie Underwood being "appropriately monikered," I started wondering "What does she have in common with deviled ham?" And then I remembered, "Oh yeah, she has a first name, too." (You should rent Carrie, Frank. Haven't watched it in years myself, but it always seemed pretty archetypal as far as teenage social outcast revenge flicks go. Then again, I was in high school myself at the time.)

Jeezus, this is awful even without knowing who's playing jazzy keyboard. Went to HACC in Harrisburg, never graduated. Milton Hershey student. In SoCal where the Franchise Tax Board was after him although people reading the stories may not understand that if the IRS audits and finds unreported income it automatically sends that to the FTB which inexorably bills for that, so you can't have the latter without the
former. And if you don't pay fines or bills to the government in California it eventually sanctions you anyway.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/laststraw/from/payplay

Didn't hear the Billy Eli stuff -- the page immediately locked up my browser. But for all the rage bottled inside him, he couldn't express it in the music at all.

I guess he could be the subject of a song. How the American crackpot rails against the evil greed of the corporations and government, draws his plans, and upon carrying them out only manages to take down people in his own class or family.

The weekly example are guys who send powders in envelopes to government buildings around the country, sometimes with threatening letters, where they are always opened by secretaries.

I blog about Josh Turner's "Why Don't We Just Dance?" (am borderline on it; that track is a tad too comfortable with what ought to be an easy-flying "Your Mama Don't Dance" groove). And if you scroll up on that page you'll see me being awestruck over how on "We Are The World 15: For Haiti" everyone from Bieber to T-Pain fits in seamlessly except for Miley Cyrus, who sounds raw and off and out of place in group contexts no matter what.

So....first off I should note that I am a late convert to David Nail's "Red Light." I really like the details about what's going on in all the other cars surrounding him in the sunny Sunday afternoon traffic jam, while his girl is dumping him before the light changes.

Found a copy of the Desert Rose Band's Curb/MCA debut from 1987 for $1, and have since absorbed it. Went #24 on the country chart, with singles going #1, #2, #6, and #26; they had a few more top tens over the next couple years, then did a slow radio fade through the early '90s. Chris Hillman, the Byrds/Burritos guy, is on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, along with two other main guys and assorted helper-outers. Longest liner notes I've ever seen on a non-reissue / regular-issue mainstream country album, I think, by one Paul Clois Stone, apparently a historian and musician from Texas; he devotes a whole paragraph, even, to analyzing the LP's cover artwork, "discerningly linked to contemporary Western art through the lens of noted landscape and portrait photgrapher Jay Dusard." Music is jangly non-hard country-rock with moments of light Nick Lowe (post-sense-of-humor era) powerpop ("One Step Forward," the #2 hit) and Ricky Skaggs crossover bluegrass ("Time Between," apparently re-recorded from the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday.) "Glass Hearts" quotes Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways" and sounds very very slightly Tex-Mex maybe. A few pretty good broken heart songs ("He's Back And I'm Blue," the #1, and "One That Got Away," a cheating song I think, and "Leave This Town"); one sunny one about having fun in a bad economy ("Hard Times".") It all sounds nice enough, but it's not sung or played with tons of urgency or passion, so none of it totally kills me -- If you're talking '80s proto-alt-country guys reviving the Bakersfield sound, Dwight Yoakam probably did it better.

Some of it makes me think "the country side of pub-rock," but that might just be because Brinsley Schwarz wanted to be the Burrito Brothers themselves. I played Desert Rose back to back with ex-Schwarzer Ian Gomm's Gomm With The Wind from 1979, possibly the most easy listening notable pub-related album this side of Ace (of "How Long" fame), and Gomm actually sounded edgier to me (in "Chicken Run," especially, and maybe "24 Hour Service" and his cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On.") Also didn't think Desert Rose had any songs as memorable as Gomm's "Hold On," which went Top 20 pop in the U.S. in 1979 and tracked so close to "Baker Street" that I doubt anybody who didn't know Gomm used to Lowe's bandmate considered it new wave at all.

Country-rock album I've really been obsessing on in the past 24 hours though is a new one, albeit recorded in 2000 to 2001 -- Buried Behind the Barn by Slim Cessna's Auto Club on Alternative Tentacles, apparently early previously unreleased (except on CD-R) versions of eight songs (totaling a half hour, good length) they later released on subsequent albums, none of which I've ever heard. Sound is somewhere in the gothic uptempo rustic hoedown territory of Red Swan and Woodbox Gang, two bands I liked a lot in the '00s without anybody else paying attention to them. (Woodbox also on Alternative Tentacles, which makes Cessna etc. only the latest evidence of a disconcerning realization I've had in recent years that Jello Biafra and I apparently have really similar tastes -- weird.) Lyrics frequently concern ghosts and dead bodies and people getting shot in the head and alcoholic mineworking in-laws falling off the wagon, not necessarily in that order. "Angel" takes the melody of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love," and my wife commented that another song sounded to her like something off of Hole's Celebrity Skin. In one of the catchiest songs (though they're almost all pretty catchy), somebody wants to blame something on the Port Authority Band, though I haven't figured out what yet, and I never knew the Port Authority had a band in the first place.

Here's how their Wiki page describes Slim Cessna et. al: "a country music band formed in 1993 in Denver, Colorado. The constant in the band has been Slim Cessna, formerly a member of The Denver Gentlemen along with David Eugene Edwards and Jeffery-Paul of 16 Horsepower. Their music includes elements of country blues, Southern gospel, gothabilly and other forms loosely grouped as Americana or alternative country. The Auto Club is sometimes labeled 'country gothic' due to the juxtaposition of apocalyptic religious imagery with stories of alcohol, violence, and relationships gone awry." (I also liked the 16 Horsepower archival set that Alternative Tentacles sent out last year, though not as much as I like this Slim Cessna one.) Here's their myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/slimcessnasautoclub

Playing Elizabeth Cook's new album (not due out til May, on 31 Tigers); sounding surprisingly good to me so far, considering her previous album really bored me. (Though I did like the album that her husband, Tim Carroll, formerly of Indiana punk band the Gizmos, put out last year. And he's credited with guitar, slide, bango, harmonica, etc., here.)

http://www.myspace.com/elizabethcook

Speaking of the Belmonts (whom Xhuxk alluded to upthread), any thoughts about B.J. Thomas, who did the original - or at least the hit version of - "Rock And Roll Lullaby" which made it a year later onto the Belmonts Cigars, Acapella, Candy? Don't know much about Thomas, except that in its day "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" was the sort of thing that would make me throw bricks at people's heads. I'm sure I'd have a more benign attitude now. I'm streaming one of his hits collections <a href="http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.artistalbums&artistid=17988937&ap=0&albumid=10416969";>on MySpace</a> right now, though haven't gotten to "Raindrops" - I started in the middle with "Rock And Roll Lullaby." His version isn't as exquisite as the Belmonts' but it's just as good: starts with guitar twang, rolls along as a deep AC track but gets ever more doo-wop as it continues. The song was written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, and not surprisingly there's a bit of class awareness in it: the woman who's singing the rock and roll lullabies to the narrator back when he was a tyke is a struggling, unwed teen mother.

Thomas started with one foot in country, his first hit being "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Then he veered adult contemporary. A couple more strong, rich songs follow "Rock And Roll Lullaby" ("Back Against The Wall," "No Other Baby") then we're stuck with treacle like "You Can Call That A Mountain" and "What's Forever For." But the man's got a nice MOR voice, a lot less pushy than Neil Diamond's, say, and more flexible than Gordon Lightfoot's. "Ballyhoo Days" is a gentle track where he's a former star ("Once my name had swept the nation/Now my job is sweeping cafes").

Hadn't realized he'd done the original "Hooked On A Feeling," though I realize I've heard his version plenty, thought I'd forgotten the totally incongruous sitar. The track is built on soul, for all the weirdness, could be the Four Tops bass player. "Raindrops" is inoffensive, not bad. (Fast Forward.) "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" has a rigidly clipped rhythm, very strange, and an organ halfway between church and skating rink. He's smoother than the percussion, that's for sure.

Anyway, in the '80s he ends up back in country, according to Wikipedia, though I don't know that period of his at all.

Grumble grumble format conversion grumble grumble Hooked On A Feeling um um etc.

I do have some thoughts about B.J. Thomas (or I have before, anyway, possibly even on some previous Rolling Country thread), but I'm not sure I can precisely conjure them from memory, beyond the fact that his adult-contemporary clearly had both country and soul in it. (I also have two LPs by him on my shelf, purchased cheaply of course in recent years, both released in 1970: Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head and Everybody's Out Of Town. Not to mention his own "Rock And Roll Lullaby" 45 from 1972, which Joel Whitburn informs me has Dave Somerville from doo-wop strollers the Diamonds singing backup and Duane Eddy playing guitar on it, which might partly explain why Greil Marcus listed it in the discography in the back of Stranded. Anyway, I will hereby move the two LPs back into the waiting-to-be-played pile.)

Also. "Today" by Gary Allan (#18 country hit now) = Girl-who-got-away-married-somebody-else-today country, like Toby Keith's "She Never Cried In Front Of Me" or Billy Ray Cyrus's "Could've Been Me" (or Brooklyn Bridge's "Worst Thing That Could Happen" or Nick Lowe's "I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock'n'Roll" or the Fools' "Dressed In White," minus the "country" part.) Except it's way less good than any of those.

Rest of Gary Allan's new album isn't killing me either. I like the two tough rockers near the beginning, "Get Off On The Pain" and "That Ain't Gonna Fly." "Kiss Me When I'm Down" has some clever lyrics (which I quoted up above), and beyond that there's some high lonesome singing and high lonesome guitar parts now and then. Closer "No Regrets" is a longish waltzy thing about how Gary wouldn't trade away the past he had with his ex, and sounds like something that might eventually kick in, though probably not. But little of the set is grabbing me now.

Speaking of currently charting singles, anybody know if any of these are any good (or bad)?

47 52 56 4 Free, Jack Ingram
J.Joyce (J.Knowles,T.Summar ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 47
48 53 2 Blue Sky, Emily West Featuring Keith Urban
M.Bright (E.West,G.Burr ) Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 48
52 59 2 Bring On The Love, Coldwater Jane
W.Kirkpatrick,K.Kadish (K.Kadish,B.Jane,L.Crutchfield,W.Kirkpatrick ) Mercury DIGITAL | 52
53 60 2 Giddy On Up, Laura Bell Bundy
M.Shimshack (L.B.Bundy,J. Cohen,M.Shimshack ) Mercury DIGITAL | 53
55 58 59 10 Over The Next Hill, Brooks & Dunn & Mac Powell
T.Brown,J.Carter Cash (J.R.Cash ) Essential DIGITAL | Arista Nashville | 55
57 NEW 1 Kiss Me Now, Katie Armiger
B.Daly (K.Armiger,S.Buxton,B.Daly ) Cold River DIGITAL | 57
58 NEW 1 A Woman Needs, Jessica Harp
J.Flowers (J.Harp,J.Flowers,J.Mowery ) Warner Bros. DIGITAL | WRN | 58

Fast, or what?

BJ Thomas, "Little Green Apples": White soul-country guy deftly covers huge hit by black soul-country guy, making what I assume must be the most minstrel-music-worthy line in any chart-topping hit in the past several decades ("when myself iz feelin low") seem even more blackface. Still sounds great regardless, of course. (He also does "This Guy's in Love With You," "Suspicious Minds," "Guess I'll Pack My Things" [who made that one famous? I was thinking it must be Charlie Rich; it's somebody I was listening to recently, but it's not on Rich's reissue CD, hmmm..], assorted Jimmy Webb and Joe South numbers whose titles don't look familiar, and of course "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head," which is pretty great even though as a kid I may well have hated it as much as "Candy Man" by Sammy Davis Jr [which may have had minstrel leanings of its own, come to think of it.]) (And I just now realized that I don't know if I've ever heard BJ's "Rock and Roll Lullabye," which critics have forever sworn is genius. Is that possible? Or maybe I've heard it and I just forget what it's like?)
― xhuxk, Sunday, April 8, 2007

listened to a five-song sampler from the new BJ Thomas album. Best song is a hard rockabilly cover of Travis Tritt's cover of Elvis's (apparently, though I can't remember ever actually hearing Elvis's version) "Trouble" (you know: "There goes T-R-O-U-B-L-E"), but the rest is a lot schlockier, theoretically interesting when BJ goes into Luther Vandross mode, less so when he goes into Tom Jones mode, but not enough to hold my attention either way.
― xhuxk, Saturday, September 8, 2007

bj thomas - everybody's out of town LP - 75 cents

the bj thomas album has a bacharach-david number called "send my picture to scranton, PA"! best song, though, is the title track, about gentrification. cool LP cover. he covers nillson and simon and garfunkel and soul songs, and bacharach/david also produced it. better than the used raindrops keep fallin' on my head i bought by him last year.
-- xhuxk, Sunday, April 27, 2008

Now I think BJ Thomas's "Everybody's Out Of Town" is neither about gentrification nor suburbanization, but more about everybody leaving the city for the weekend, like a long holiday weekend in the summer. Still a good song, though. And the Scranton, PA, song is sung from the point of view of somebody who grew up an outcast there and wants everybody back home to know he's made it big elsewhere. They really should play it on The Office sometime I think.
― xhuxk, Tuesday, April 29, 2008

new Chely Wright...has a song or two that might conceivably kick in, but I'm not gonna hold my breath

Maybe I should have. Couple listens in, a few tracks started to kick in bigtime, turns out: "Notes To The Coroner" (most hookful song about imagining one's one death I've heard in a while); "Snowglobe" and maybe "Heavenly Days" ('60s pop meets modern country confections Deana Carter might approve of, the latter with a sweet windmills-of-your-mind swirl); "That Train" (acclerating train song with train rhythm since said train is what Chely says she wants to be, with cascading acoustic guitar parts); "Damn Liar" and "Object Of Your Rejection" (revenge songs seemingly directed at the same guy who maybe dumped her and she sounds very pissed about it, the former a simple primal perhaps Miranda Lambert-inspired stomp, the latter more shimmering Suzanne Vega/Amy Grant '90s pop sung in a little voice since Chely's "that little voice inside your head" reminding you "you can get away with treating people like shit" -- direct and unguarded emotion, these two); maybe "Shadows Of Your Doubt" (soft-spoken six-minute closer, pretty gondola lullaby possibly addressed to same guy she still wants back --actually not sure I'm following that one yet, so don't quote me on it.) The press release says Chely wrote all the songs, except one Rodney Crowell co-write.

Actually, "Snowglobe" is the windmill-swirl one, not so much "Heavenly Days." And Crowell also produced the album, fwiw. And I'm pretty sure I heard at least one other rare-for-country swear word (besides "shit") on the record; just didn't take note of where. (Release date is May 4.)

Okay, found it -- toward the tail end of "Damn Liar" (which actually starts out more a drone before evolving into a stomp while building in intensity) she switches to "fucking liar" once. So much for radio play.

imagining one's one death

One's own death: "I hope I haven't been lying here long/I'd say I told you so but I'm long gone." Hopes it wasn't her sister who found the corpse. If you start reading the details of her demise she wrote back in December, you'll learn the cause of death. Which turns out to be variations on a broken heart, but still -- Kind of morbid and funny.

"Giddy On Up" by Laura Bell Bundy = modern-day jig-pop with soul horns and Rednexy fiddle breaks and a readymade silly title chorus and a cowboy whorehouse saloon floor-show video, plus cute drawling turning into deep growling and spoken verses that flirt with rapping. Recalls Dolly Parton in dance mode. Thumbs up.

"Bring On The Love" by Coldwater Jane = One each long-haired blonde and brunette Sheryl Crow impersonator drive from California to Virginia, assisted by Petty/Adams powerchords, and apparently experience some car troubles which aren't terribly hard to fix. Another thumbs up, I think, though needs more hearing to figure out what's going on in the lyrics.

Getting the idea that the best (or least worst?) songs on that ambitious, interminable, completely ridiculous new Shooter Jennings album are toward the end: "Summer Of Rage" (1990 collage-metal-style political centerpiece about wearing gas masks in a police state -- only song that explicitly coincides with all of Stephen King's silly apocalpyse rant interludes, as far as I can tell); "California Vs. Tennessee" (probably the most pumping and melodic hard rock on the album, about traveling cross country to get away from some girl); "The Illumninated" (thickest nuclear winter Sabbath doomsday trudge attempt on the thing); "When The Radio Goes Dead" (okay that goes along with King's concept too obviously, but mainly it just has a pleasant guitar cascade to it.) Whole record's a mess, but I'm starting to feel a small affection for it -- As conceptual age-of-darkness bullshit goes, it's certainly no less coherent than, say, the new Gil Scott-Heron. (Though that one's about half as long as this, which does work in its favor.)

Also should mention that that Slim Cessna's Auto Show CD I mentioned above does have a couple fairly depressive, downtempo tracks -- maybe three or so, out of eight. (For goth-country, not a bad percentage!)

Actually, I'm guessing that some of Jennings's other songs on the album are maybe meant to deal with the apocalypse concept; but if so, I'm just not picking up on their words through all of the grunge murk.

Because there was a discussion about him, here's some Don Williams news regarding him being a new member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Other 2010 inductees: Jimmy Dean, Ferlin Husky and Billy Sherrill.

http://www.pollstar.com/blogs/news/archive/2010/02/23/710775.aspx

"Snowglobe" is the windmill-swirl one

And the psychedelic pop one, apparently. Chely takes a pill she shouldn't have but says she doesn't regret it; talks to her mom about the planets; watches circles and squares fade in and out; floats in a snowglobe and watches apostrophes and commas in space; wonders if it's a dream. Or at least that's what it sounds like she's saying.

The next song “Like Me”, is sung to someone who likes the color green, but doesn't like tomatoes, and is close to his or her maternal grandma, and can count all the time he or she's lied on one hand, and drinks beer after gardening, and isn't sure whether he or she will end up holding the hand of a tall handsome man or a beautiful woman. Thought it might be Chely herself, but she says the person's closet is filled with Levi's and dress pants, so conceivably it's a guy, maybe the same guy she’s split up with in other songs. Unless it isn't.

Starting to think she's a pretty interesting songwriter – or at least she seems willing to take some risks not many other country-pop songwriters are taking. (She also apparently has a biography coming out, for what that’s worth.) The only other album I have by her, Single White Female from 1999, which I mainly kept for its excellent title track, credits only one and a half songs to her. ("Single White Female" itself was written by Carolyn Dawn Johnson and Shaye Smith. But she did apparently write “The Bumper Of My S.U.V.,” her song that pissed me off in 2005 where a liberal soccer mom in a mini-van flips the bird at her for her U.S. Marines bumper sticker.)

Singles Jukeboxers consider Trace Adkins' "Ala-Freakin'-Bama":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1974

Heard Josh Turner's "Me And God" from a couple years back on the radio this afternoon, and remembered one reason he used to bug me so much. I swear, every time I hear that, here's what it sounds like he's singing:

There ain't nothing that can't be done
By Mean God
Ain't nobody gonna come in between Mean God
One day we'll live together
Where the angels trod
Mean God...

He rules the world
With a staff and rod
We're a team
Mean God

So hey, where'd everybody go?? This place was totally hopping just a few weeks ago. Weird.

Anyway, heard an amazing song from I don't think I ever heard before on the radio over the weekend -- "Kay" by John Wesley Ryles, which is sung from the point of view of a guy who sells all his stuff so his girlfriend can try to make it in Music City, and she becomes a big star and tours the country and (I think) dumps him, and he winds up driving a Nashville cab. Apparently went #83 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1968, then #50 in a different version on the country chart 10 years later. Not sure which version I heard; in fact, since the DJ didn't announce it and I had to Google it when I got home, it's also possible I heard Daryl Singletary's 2002 cover. (I heard an all-covers album by him a couple years ago; "Kay" wasn't on it, though it did apparently have a version of Don Williams's "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend.") Anyway, Joel Whitburn says John Ryles came from Lousiana and later worked in Dallas and Fort Worth. And Wiki lists him as having lots of mostly low-level country hits between 1968 and 1988 (including one that went #14 in 1979 called "Liberated Woman"), but his name is completely new to me.

Jon Caramanica on Danny Gokey (who I'm clueless about) and Ben Ratliff on new Shooter Jennings album, in the NY Times. Latter review made me chuckle. Ratliff compares the music to Ministry and Pink Floyd. Also says Shooter samples conspiracy theorist Myron Fagan, which I wasn't aware of (uh, maybe I should've read the press release.) I also hadn't connected "The Illuminated" with The Illuminati til now, duh...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/arts/music/01choice.html?sq=&st=cse&%2334;shooter%20jennings=&%2334;=&scp=1&pagewanted=all

Legendary Shack Shakers actually have more Ministry-reminiscent clanking on Agridustrial, if you ask me, and at least they go Shooter one better by trying to cross Ministry with ZZ Top, in "Sin Eater" for instance. Definitely a few good hearty backwoods-barbecue slide-boogie riffs on the record -- "Greasy Creek" might be the thickest. Favorite track so far, though, is "Dump Road Yodel," which is also as close as they get to Woodbox Gang or Red Swan (see Slim Cessna notes above), with old timey banjo-jig picking and yodelling parts -- probably the least ugly thing on the album, too. Wish I could hear its words better though; seems to have a intriguing yarn about what happens down said road attached, but the singer's murk forces you to strain to hear the words, and that's the biggest barrier to the album as a whole in fact. His spoken part at the beginning of "The Hills Of Hell" about women being crucified in Kentucky in the late 1800s connects better than most of his singing. They do a right sprightly version of "Sugar Baby" by Dock Boggs, though. (The only cover song on it, far as I know.)

"Sin Eater" is probably a ZZ Top tune. At least my memory says ZZ renamed "Pin Cushion" as that.

"Kiss Me Now" by Katie Armiger = More Bryan Adams/Tommy Tutone-style-powerchord country powerpop, from a girl begging for affection. Probably just generic, but too catchy to hold that against it too much.

"Over The Next Hill" by Brooks & Dunn & Mac Powell = Ronnie Dunn end-times-are-near country gospel duet with the apparent lead singer of apparent Christian fake grunge act Third Day, though actually at least a little more uplifting and less dreary than that description implies.

Now on Billboard's country singles chart (though from '09 albums):

39 51 2 The House That Built Me, Miranda Lambert
F.Liddell,M.Wrucke (T.Douglas,A.Shamblin ) Columbia DIGITAL | 39
47 RE-ENTRY 3 Every Dog Has Its Day, Toby Keith
T.Keith (T.Keith,B.Pinson,J.Waples ) Show Dog-Universal DIGITAL | 47

Haven't heard these (which may or may not be worth hearing):

50 54 2 Chillin', Blaine Larsen
J.Ritchey (B.Larsen,E.M.Hill,P.O'Donnell ) Treehouse PROMO SINGLE | 50
51 1
Tell Your Sister I'm Single, Tyler Dickerson
J.Rich,C. Pennachio (J.I. Rich,A.Williams,T. Rosen ) Lyric Street PROMO SINGLE | 51
52 53 2 Ain't No Stopping Her Now, Ash Bowers
New Voice Entertainment (A.Bowers,K.Jacobs ) Stoney Creek PROMO SINGLE | 52
59 NEW 1 Just Knowing You Love Me, Jimmy Wayne With Whitney Ducan
D.Huff (J.Wayne,B.Beavers,T.Martin ) Valory DIGITAL | 59
60 NEW 1 Blossom In The Dust, Mallary Hope
D.Bason,M.Bright (M.Hope,J.Henderson,J.Doyle ) MCA Nashville DIGITAL

"Blossom In The Dust" by Mallary Hope = Girl named Rose in tattered dress born in weed-strewn trailer park to teenage Mom with a presumably drug-related "habit", winds up with a "real nice" and presumably higher class couple "across the county line" who haven't had much luck coming up with offspring of their own; blossoms like a rose growing through the concrete in Spanish Harlem except this is the white trash version, not to mention a do-gooder adoption (hence implicitly anti-abortion) P.S.A. that Martina McBride could be proud of. Given all that, I like it - has a pretty upswoop; one of 2010's better country singles so far.

"Tell Your Sister I'm Single" by Tyler Dickerson = John Rich writing in man-slut mode. Girl tells boyfriend she wants to see other people; guy says "I'll trade you tit for tat, I like the sound of that," tells her he's open to her Mama too. "Let's keep it in the family, yeah you can call me Daddy" -- huh?? Yuck. Sounds like: John Rich in hackwork mode.

"Chillin'" by Blaine Larsen = Hazy lazy summer cliches, lazily sung, but Blaine's pretty decent at that; makes a halfway decent surrogate Kenny Chesney. He's out by the lake, I think, "singing Seger, Cash, Bo Diddley, and Bob Dylan." Interesting list. Kinda boring song regardless.

Okay so the funniest thing about the new Rosanne Cash is that when Rufus Wainwright starts up his backing vocals on Silver Wings, I totally thought it was Michael Mcdonald.

Singles Jukebox jury on:

Brad Paisley "American Saturday Night"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1990

Josh Turner, "Why Don't We Just Dance"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1995

Martina McBride, "Wrong Baby Wrong"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2018

10 '80s Country hit artists who fell through the cracks, from the 9513 blog (including sometime disco singer Deborah Allen, Baille And The Boys, blind country blues woman Terri Gibbs, Becky Hobbs who sounds interesting, and Barbara Mandrell's younger sister Louise):

http://www.the9513.com/forgotten-artists-ten-from-the-80s-pt-1/

Also, a 9513 discussion on whether EPs (like the new one Blake Shelton just put out last week) are a good idea. (I think they're cute, myself):

http://www.the9513.com/your-take-to-ep-or-not-to-ep/

Roughstock blog on University of Rochester a capella group making a same-sex crush Taylor Swift parody video:

http://www.roughstock.com/blog/a-cappella-group-from-university-of-rochester-parody-taylor-swift

Kevin Coyne* from Country Universe on Little Big Town's "Little White Church," which I haven't heard yet ("A few more records like Laura Bell Bundy’s and this one, and country radio just might get interesting again.") He also has a piece on there called "The Success of Taylor Swift is Not a Moral Issue," which isn't as entertaining as its title:

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2010/02/25/single-review-little-big-town-little-white-church/

* -- Not to be confused with eccentric British singer Kevin Coyne, recently discussed on the Rolling Hard Rock Thread

Okay, no idea why I'm even still bothering with this thread anymore (just obsessive compulsive I guess), but Frank asked about B.J. Thomas up above, so I pulled out Everybody's Out Of Town again, and B.J.'s still standing all alone on the cover like me on this thread most of the time, and by far the most uncompromised soul track is his cover of Jr. Walker and the All Stars' "What Does It Take." Don't hear any tracks having more than a tinge of country; you'd think that might not've mattered in the age of Glen Campbell, but apparently B.J. didn't chart country until 1975, when "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" went #1. This album was just '70. Fave tracks are "What Does It Take," and the first two, Nilsson's (actually Fred Neil's) "Everybody's Talkin'" and the comparably existential Bacharach-David title cut. He also does one Mann-Weil (plus "Bridge Over Troubled Water," who cares.) Best song title is "Send My Picture To Scranton, PA," another Bacharach/David, which is really ornate and almost show-tuney -- seemingly with some fancy time signatures that'd put over the revenge of the former class geek returning to Scranton to show all his old classmates he's a big deal now story better if they were less fancy.

Okay, no idea why I'm even still bothering with this thread anymore

Don't give up! I'm still enjoying reading your posts, though I haven't had the time to offer any thoughts of my own lately.

ditto.

At any rate, don't give up while you're talking about B.J. Thomas, because I'm kind of interested in B.J. Thomas talk and you have me curious about "Send My Picture to Scranton, PA" now; plus I didn't know specifically that he was the one who did some of those songs. I can be very hazy about 70s pop artist IDs since it was all just a transistor radio blur at the time.

maybe everyone else already knows this, but i just learned today that ke$ha's mom, pebe sebert, is a nashville songwriter of some renown (and an ex-punk singer). her biggest claim to fame, besides the three songs she co-wrote on her daughter's album, is "old flames can't hold a candle to you," a kinda sorta country version of "in my life" that dolly parton took to #1 country in 1980 and that has also been done by johnny and june carter cash and merle haggard among many others. i'm liking it quite a bit, particularly the johnny & june version.

Re: Brooks & Dunn collabo w/ Third Day

I'm not surprised at this, something like "I Believe" by B & D could easily be played on christian hit radio, I think, and a lot of christian rock bands seem to play a mix of 80's AOR & post-grunge

And judging by a performance by some american idol finalist I heard on the last Grand Ole Opry show, Creed is being metastasized into the country sound

Also related: Emerson Drive & Wynona covering the christian power ballad "I Can Only Imagine"

My short Rhapsody review of the new Drive-By Truckers album:

http://www.rhapsody.com/thedrivebytruckers/the-big-to-do#albumreview

Some other points of interest about the record: (1) Patterson's "The Fourth Night of My Drinking" is partially similar to America's "Horse With No Name" (the line "first night of my drinking" sounds like "first part of the journey"); (2) second DBTs album in a row with a sad Cooley song about a birthday; (3) Patterson's song about a guy with a shitty job is followed immediately by Cooley's song about a guy with no job; (4) Patterson has called it the band's most rocking album since the second disc of Southern Rock Opera, which I'm not sure I agree with for reasons explained in that review, but I like it more than any album they've done in a long while regardless; (5) still wish their definition of "rocking" hadn't shifted so decisively from "Skynyrd" to "Crazy Horse" along the way; (6) Shonna's two songs -- a draggy Lucinda-style codeine-country lament and a way lighter thing possibly aiming for Motown pop -- are easily the two least lyrically specific and most expendable tracks; (7) I didn't mention "After The Scene Dies" in that review partly because I couldn't think of a word or two that means "the time of the night when the club shuts down and everybody goes home and the equipment gets packed up and the lights get turned off." Best I could come up with was "loudout," like in the Jackson Browne song. But does anybody ever actually call it that in real life?

No idea why I just called Patterson and Shonna by first names and Cooley (who I actually did a short interview with yesterday) by his last.

In other country news, Blaine Larsen's "Chillin'" sounded better over the car radio (just felt basically...very chill) on a lovely spring Austin SXSW evening than I'd have guessed. (Probably helps that country radio sounds so bleh lately, which makes it stick out more.)

And I noticed a song or two on the Dropkick Murphys' latest live St. Patrick's Day album where the guitars almost actually struck me as more "American country" than "Irish folk," if that interests anybody.

I just listened to my old man's copy of "Flowers On the Wall: The Essential Statler Brothers"

They've always been his favorite group, I've always dismissed them as cornpone & maudlin

but, I gotta say I'm been pleasantly surprised. The arrangement of "I Still Miss Someone" is better than Johnny's, "Shenandoah" is really pretty, "Flowers on the Wall" is a classic country tune

Good harmonies too, I think they must have really changed after the 60's when their lead singer died of Crohn's disease & they sang corny songs about 50's nostalgia

Cum On Feel The Texas Two-Step

Found this from Marcello Carlin on a Popular thread from '07:

Noddy talked about the rhythmic "innovations" on the Radcliffe show a while back; he ascribed Slade's "shuffle" to blurred childhood memories of Bob Wills' Texas two-step, halved in speed and right-angled in pronunciation (or something like that; basically Slade's beats are accentuated differently – I think on every third bar as opposed to to the 1-3 of reggae or the 2-4 of rock – and the triplets themselves are divided up erratically JUST LIKE TONY OXLEY), and the Military Two-Step.

First charting version of "Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You," by Joe Sun. According to BMI it's been done by the Staples Singers, but in a quick Websearch I couldn't find a stream. Also couldn't find a stream of the version by Hugh Moffat, co-writer, formerly married to Pebe. (According to Wikip he's co-written an opera.) Good song, anyway. Here's a live version by Brenda Doiron, whom I've never heard of, done as an old-style wailer.

John Morthland, in his essential Best of Country Music, mentions a Joe Sun Best of on Warner Brothers. Gives it a good nod, but I've never been able to find much of his stuff. Used to have the 45 of "Old Flames" but can't seem to find it.

Statlers are pretty dope.

Have myself barely even dabbled in Joe South (who I suspect I'd like, given his soul-country reputation) or the Statler Brothers (have a best-of LP around here somewhere -- almost definitely purchased after loving "Flowers On The Wall" on 1994's Pulp Fiction soundtrack.) I'll shift the latter to the play pile, and it'll come up eventually.

Did put on B.J. Thomas's Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head today, though, and I'd say it has an even more pronounced soul vocal influence than Everybody's Out Of Town, which charted just four months later (May to January 1970) but 60 spaces lower (#72 to #12) on Billboard's pop album chart. I'd say Raindrops is at least the marginally more consistently playable of the two albums, too, and maybe shows slightly more country influence as well, though only at the point (i.e., opener "Little Green Apples" and closer "Suspicious Minds") where country and soul merge. Still didn't hit the country chart, though; seems odd they wouldn't at least attempt to market him that way, given that Glen Campbell had had seven #1 country albums in the previous three years, and B.J. doesn't sound all that far from him to me. Maybe he just didn't have the right look. (The LP cover photos, all three of which of which picture him with some long-haired brunette, almost look like a kind of ironic bohemian nostalgia for the Gay '90s or thereabouts. Which I gather may have been a popular look for hipster college boys at the time, at least in popular culture if not on actual campuses; '60s pop-rock bands frequently did something similar right?)

Playing Barbara Mandrell's 1977 Best Of on Columbia right now; earlier and maybe less r&b-infused stuff than on the later best-of LP I talked about upthread, though she does cover "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" on it. Also Roy Head's 1965 Texas boogie-woogie rock smash "Treat Her Right," redone as "Treat Him Right," which makes less sense addressed to a woman (as Mandrell does) than to a man. You can hear why hip people probably thought of Mandrell's covers as square variety-show-type whitewashes; she definitely Pat Boones them, to a certain extent.

LP still has a few great cuts, though -- "The Midnight Oil" is even kind of filthy: She stays after work at the office to give the boss "a helping hand," and later she'll feel "kinda dirty 'cause I'll have that midnight oil all over me," wtf? If Peter Garrett knew what the midnight oil was, would he have named his band that? Anyway, that's the start of Side Two; Side One starts with a great doomed end-of-the-affair cheating song called "Scarlet Water," where they're gonna "sip the scarlet water one more time." Which water may be midnight oil, too.

Hank Thompson Smoky The Bar from 1969 -- okay, this is a great album. Mostly honky tonk more than the after-the-fact Western Swing/ boogie-woogie people say he was known for, though there are definitely more than hints of the latter (especially in "Let's Get Drunk And Be Somebody," which title he beat Toby Keith to by several decades and which has a nifty alliterative part about "a gushing goblet goads my ghostly gloom", and "Cocaine Blues," where he shoots his philandering woman down then goes fugitive after snorting some snow). Some of the drinking songs -- "Pop A Top," "What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)," "Bright Lights And Blonde Haired Women," Jimmie Rodgers's "My Rough And Rowdy Ways" -- are probably more famous by other people, though I'm usually not sure who; "Drunkard's Blues" updates (and quotes) "St . James' Infirmary" and sounds like a goth jazz dirge. "Smoky The Bar" is a joke pun about smokey bars; "I See Them Everywhere" is a joke about seeing pink elephants and other crazy creatures crawling up the walls; "Girl In The Night" is about a sad beauty who soaks in the nightlife every night to kill some past pain the singer hasn't yet figured out (popular theme in glam rock songs a few years later seems to me); "New Records On The Jukebox" hopes somebody will play them because all the old ones choke him up too much.

Weirdest (and maybe the dumbest) song is probably "Ace In The Hole," which is done as a corny showtune cabaret music-hallish number (if that's not a contradiction) and concerns how hippies are lazy and unclean and have friends on the welfare line. (Maybe it's a parody? I get the idea there's some older "Ace In The Hole" song it's based on, but not sure I've ever heard the original tune.) Most of the songs are tragic, but hardly any of them are slow, and most have a beat. Also, Hank's voice sounds surprisingly gentle, somehow, even when he's rowdy.

Followed it up with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos' I've Got A Tiger By The Tail from 1965, which might have as much energy, at least when the tempos pick up, and definitely has a sense of humor (it's right there in Buck's chuckle and drawl obviously, but also all through songs like the title track and "Wham Bam," where he promises not to stick around and get sucked in by some girl -- wish he was comical more and sappy less, actually.) Plus he covers "Streets Of Laredo" and Chuck Berry's "Memphis." But I think Hank Thompson still puts over way more personality, somehow, and I like his album a lot more. The Buck is still real good, though. A dozen songs, all but one under 3 minutes, and two under two, like a hardcore punk LP; might actually qualify as an EP, Pazz-and-Jop-wise. (Question for future research: What was the relationship between the Bakersfield sound and rockabilly, exactly?)

Both albums have long liner notes, too; when did that tradition end, anyway? (Thompson's call him "the Poet Laurette of Beer Drinkers"!)

Actually I think Thompson's gentleness amid the rowdiness might be part of his Western Swing legacy -- I've often found the sweetness of Tommy Duncan's vocals on Bob Wills & Texas Playboys records disconcerting, since it seems to cut into the energy, somehow; it's blasphemy, but I think they might have been even better with somebody rougher sounding on the mic. But Thompson somehow manages to sound sweet and rowdy at the same time, which is a neat trick. (Actually, a trick that Toby Keith can pull off himself pretty well at times; maybe he's a fan.) Or at least Thompson does it on this LP; by the one I got from just five years later, Movin' On, he seems to have lost a lot of his oomph.

Gotta say though, between the two albums I mention above, Thompson is way funnier than Buck Owens, too. But I got three mid '60s Buck LPs for 25 cents each at a garage sale last month, so maybe listening to the other two will change my mind. (Btw, was Buck the first current country guy it was considered cool for hip rock kids to like? Evidence being: the Beatles covering his song and Creedence dropping his name.)

Speaking of the Statlers--there's a new Dailey & Vincent album of Statler Brothers covers.

Got Ricky Skaggs's Don't Cheat In Our Hometown, from 1983, in that same batch of 25-cent garage sale country LPs. Supposed to be one of Skaggs's worthy albums of his post-indie-folk-label-purist '80s Nashville sellout period (or at least one of four Christgau gave a B+ too); doesn't have anything that grabs me as immediately as "Highway 40 Blues" or "Heatbroke" from '82's Highways And Heartaches, but it's still solid. Favorite track might be "She's More To Be Pitied," another one of those sad women wasting her life away in beer halls songs (see Hank Thompson's "Girl In The Night"), except Skaggs makes it more like a church sermon than Thompson would. He's pretty much a goody-goody in general -- doesn't do his women wrong, but they do him wrong, and when they do he just begs that they don't do it in his hometown, apparently since then his neighbors will realize he's a cuckold. That's actually a really good song, too. He's not raunchy enough for Mel Tillis's "Honey (Open That Door)" (which I think was a hit), but it's catchy. Best other stuff is reborn old songs -- traditional gospel bible-story-counting hymn "Children Go"; Bill Monroe's "Uncle Pen"; Stanley Brothers' "Vision of Mother," gloom about Mama's ghost sung as a duet with Dolly Parton. She's on another track, too; Albert Lee plays guitar on a bunch; and Skaggs knows how to shape his own acoustic and fiddle and mandolin chops into hooky hitbound tunes in general, which as far as I can tell is an extreme rarity for a bluegrass guy -- in fact, give or take the Dixie Chicks if they count, has anybody done it better over the past three decades? This album and Highways And Heartaches never stumble into mere show-off crap. But there's still a bluegrassish squeaky-clean-ness that I have trouble getting behind.

saw jamey johnson last night, it was an interesting show. he's weird onstage, sort of diffident except that he's the guy with the microphone. played 2 1/2 hours straight, no breaks or encores. his choice of covers was reverential (jennings and jones, obv, along with keith whitley) and a little combative ("long-haired country boy," hank jr's "dinosaur"). like he's not quite sure what ground there is for outlaw country these days. there were lots of cheers and yee-haws whenever he mentioned pot (or "cocaine and a whore"), but i had the feeling he could've gotten the same response if he'd decided to call obama a socialist or something. not that i think he wants to do that, i sort of doubt it, but that was definitely the crowd.

(it was a sold-out show, fwiw. the men were all bald pates, buzzcuts or ballcaps. women were suburban shag-cut and corn-fed.)

Over on poptimists I'm talking to Jeff about Lady Antebellum if anyone wants to join in and speak more knowledgeably than I can of the last forty years of country-MOR-AC interplay. (I tap Air Supply as a Lady Antebellum touchstone, but no doubt there are country bands that are at least as relevant.)

I said this on my own lj about my disappointment with "American Honey":

Lady Antebellum "American Honey": Nostalgia for childhood, lost promise, a lost country, a lost world. Should be better (Miranda Lambert would give this bite, and smarter words), but is passable; I'd like it more if it didn't shrink next to the great Antebellum weeper that's still riding high. BORDERLINE NONTICK.

Xhuxk, Gretchen Wilson's version of "The Midnight Oil" was easily my favorite thing on the Mandrell tribute LP from a couple of years ago. I like that Gretchen did it without bawling or wailing, is matter of fact and lets words and steel guitars do the crying. I was dumb not to hunt down the Mandrell version, so maybe I'll try.

You've definitely got me interested in Hank Thompson.

And this is what I said about "Hillbilly Bone":

Blake Shelton ft. Trace Adkins "Hillbilly Bone": The rhythm section gives us good bubbling soul-funk, with Blake and Trace up top with a deep reduced drawl that highlights the groove but is a waste of two fine singers, and of the groove. NO TICK.

Definitely meant to blurb it (and Love And Theft's "Dancing In Circles" and Gary Allan's "Today") for the Singles Jukebox, which included it today in its country Monday, but I fell asleep last night instead. I'd have brought down the average; I like Xhuxk pointing out the Bubbah buh-buh-buh stuff, and I hear how they're having fun, but it's tired fun by the time it hits my ears (and though I was just as pissed with "Ala-Freakin-Bama," it grabbed me and tickled me despite my pissy mood).

Here's an alternate take of Elvis's "T.R.O.U.B.L.E.," which is the only stream of it I could quickly find online (Google unfortunately isn't distinguishing between this and the Lieber-Stoller "Trouble" that Elvis did in '58 and then again in '68 for his comeback special).

Gonna link to these Singles Jukebox reviews directly, since Frank only linked to the site itself (which already isn't country at the top.)

Blake Shelton & Trace Adkins "Hillbilly Bone"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2085

Gary Allan "Today"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2087

Love & Theft "Dancing In Circles

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2086

As for Frank's Lady Antebellum/Air Supply connection, I'm not sure how much I hear that, though then again I've never listened to Air Supply all that much, so I wouldn't necessarily know. Need to give it more thought. To me, they're as much rooted in recent commercial rock of, say, the Matchbox 20 school as in any Adult Contemporary of three or four decades ago. Or at least they were on their debut; haven't really gotten a bead on the new album (though radio play on sunny days had defnitely led me to grow to like "American Honey" way more than Frank does, and by now I'm pretty burnt out on "Need You Now" -- still agree it's better than the current single, but not that much better.) Anyway, here's what I wrote about their first album a couple years ago:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/lady-antebellum-helps-country-get-its-grunge-on.html

More on the country EP front (see Blake Shelton's one a few weeks ago), via email:

Multi-platinum and Grammy-nominated Country singer/songwriter JO DEE MESSINA will release her first new material in six years on April 27 with the first in a trilogy of EPs to be issued throughout the year. The initial installment, “Unmistakable: Love”--a nine-track release comprising seven new songs and two live acoustic cuts--will be followed later this year by “Unmistakable: Drive” and “Unmistakable: Inspiration.”

Also, Laura Bell Bundy's debut album, due out April 13 on Mercury, is basically two EPs (which as far as I know aren't being released separately, though it would make a lot of sense if they were). Whole thing is called Achin' & Shakin', "Achin'" being the six slow emotional ballads it starts with (none of which have much hit me yet, though "Curse The Bed" and "Homecoming Queen" have promising titles) and "Shakin'" being the six fast dance songs it ends with (which almost definitely qualify as my favorite half album of new music so far this year; I might like "Rebound," "Boyfriend?," and "If You Want My Love" even more than the single, "Giddy On Up," which I like a lot.)

Actually, maybe this isn't news to some people, but I just noticed that Blake Shelton's Hillbilly Bone EP is presently at #10 on The Billboard 200 album chart, after entering at #3 next week. Also, Justin Bieber's My World EP is at #11. Wondering now if that makes Blake's thing the highest charting EP in Billboard history. Bieber's apparently peaked at #6; Honeydrippers' Volume One got to #4 in 1984; David Lee Roth's Crazy From The Heat to #15 in 1985; U2's Under A Blood Red Sky just to #28 in 1983; Ugly Kid Joe's As Ugly As They Wanna Be (supposedly the first EP ever certified multi-platinum) to #4 in 1992...oh wait, Mariah Carey's MTV Unplugged EP got to #3 in 1992, so Blake ties that one. Anything obvious I'm not thinking of? (Of course, whether these are technically all EPs by Pazz & Jop standards -- i.e., under 25 minutes -- is another question. And no doubt some '60s albums that are that short yet were never called EPs at the time charted higher.) (Billboard is saying Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster EP got to #5 last fall, but I'm skeptical, given that her double album containing the album + the EP has the same name.) (Oops, apparently a Miley Cyrus EP I never heard of called The Time Of Our Lives -- digital only maybe?? -- got to #2. So never mind. Reminds me that Taylor Swift has had a few too; not gonna check those.)

"...entered at #3 last week...", I meant about Shelton, obv.

Three more charting country songs I should try to hear (been totally negligent on still not checking out the first one yet):

40 48 2 Little White Church, Little Big Town
W.Kirkpatrick,Little Big Town (K.Fairchild,W.Kirkpatrick,K.Schalpman,P.Sweet,J.Westbrook )
Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 40

53 54 2 Jenny, The Harters
K.Stegall (M.Harter,L.Harter,S.Harter,D.Malloy,B.Irby )
Bigger Picture DIGITAL | 53

54 1 Groovy Little Summer Song, James Otto
J.Otto,P.Worley (J.Otto,A.Anderson,C.Chamberlain )
Warner Bros. DIGITAL | WMN | 54

This is the most bizarre thing I've read in a good long while. But I haven't watched country videos regularly in a few months so I don't know if something has changed. However, I don't recall pedal-pumping or anything remotely associated with it ever in all the country videos with trucks in them, or sexy girls doing something. Maybe I just filtered it out.

Anyway, I just thought Jesse James was a shithead biker from reality TV, not some average example:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-21/the-red-state-sex-fetish/

Note it's written by the equiv of a coke-bottle glasses-wearing blue state nerd girl with bad hair. And no tattoos on her forehead. I couldn't quite make it to page 2, the first was all I needed.

xp "Little White Church" by Little Big Town = handclapping holy-roller gospel stomp with blues-rock guitars ensuring power then jolting you awake, minor keys and whispered asides about silver-tongued devils adding drama, words demanding if you like it you better put a ring on it (no huggin no kissin -- well no having his baby, actually, which is weird -- til she gets a wedding ring), all in three minutes. Very nice.

Jenny" by The Harters = Opening guitar chords are straight out of Collective Soul's "Shine". And I keep thinking the band is called the Haters; harmonizing two-boy/one-girl (so, post-Antebellum) trio from Arizona. Lyrics concern a rebel boy in trouble with the law and a good girl (how come it's never the other way around? good boys never meet bad girls?) taking the open road against her Sheriff Daddy's wishes, and the harmonies get the open road feeling right, not too unlike Love & Theft in "Runaway" last year. Though I keep expecting them to rob a Texaco clean outside of Abeline, or Billie Joe (not his real name) to shoot a man while robbing his castle, or something, and they never do.

"Groovy Little Summer Song" by James Otto -- heartily deep-sung blue-eyed-soul yacht-rock country for shagging at the clambake. At least as summery as Blaine Larsen's groovy little summer "Chillin'" song, and I like the vocal here better. What Uncle Kracker wishes he sounded like.

Also (after looking at George's link), I should note that the Harters song does not stipulate whether Jenny is driving, and if so, whether her six-inch sequinned white-satin stiletto sandals are flooring the gas pedal. In a video on youtube, though (can't tell if it's official), the girl in the group does have long legs and cowboy boots, however.

Still trying to investigate Mac McAnally, whose album on Toby Keith's Show Dog label was one of my preferred country records last year, and who I talked about otherwise on Rolling Country 2009. Have picked up three old used records for a $1 each or so in the past year. Newest one I have is Finish Lines from 1988, clearly his attempt at an '80s AC/AOR move, seemingly inspired by Don Henley solo LPs like End of The Innocence (except that didn't come out until '89, so who else, David & David maybe?), with a similar slickly produced straining toward making cloudy but cynical statements about Reagonomics and whatnot. Basically, I'm on the fence about it. Favorite track is probably "Hush Money", I guess for its Zevon/Stan Ridgway-style private investigator intrigue. "Remote Control" has a good Diddley beat. Other songs about feeling like an alien and noting how America forces competition on us, plus history and science metaphors for, uh, something. (Not sure what pill "Little Blue Pill" is supposed to be about; did that even exist yet in 1988? Not gonna Google it to try to find out, that's for sure.)

i can never not read his name the way you imagine I'm reading it

Is it apropos to mention a 2009 comp of stuff recorded between 1967 and 1976 here? I picked up Plantation Gold: The Mad Genius of Shelby S. Singleton Jr. and PLantation/SSS Records about a month ago and just put it on. It's pretty cool: story songs very much in the style of "Harper Valley PTA," included of course. They have a gimmicky side but I'm really enjoying the sound of it: comfortable playing, roomy-enough production that's very of its time, a hint of reverb on the vocals, and sometimes Tijuana-ish brass. (And the truly unfortunate "Harper Valley CIA" by Ray "Wong" Riley.) I have to imagine the folks who review country reissues regularly know this already.

Let me ask: how is this stuff considered among country cognescenti? I'm leaning toward a mix of "slight but enjoyable" and "snapshot of era," myself.

Ah, OK, a bit more into this and yeah, it's a ton of soundalikes and gimmicks and novelty. Still interesting as a funhouse view of its period, though.

We write about old records and reissues all the time, so there's no reason you shouldn't. Stick around.

Got back from a Seder too late to review Kenny Chesney's "Ain't Back Yet" for Rolling Country. Would've given it an 8 or so, kicks hard while still treading lightly.

Poptimists is starting theme orgafuns, the first one being "Best Songs About Women Getting Violent And/Or Creative Revenge On Men!." You only get one nominee but you can list and link all you want. So far country is dominating the show.

On a related note, I'm in an interesting convo over on one of Tom's Tumblrs with a woman named Petra on the subject of how angry songs by women are perceived and not perceived (convo inspired by a horrendously bad trend piece in the Guardian). (I suppose that "horrendously bad trend piece" is a redundancy.)

Also, if I understood correctly, there's going to be a country poll tomorrow at Poptimists. (That's the general site link; I'll post a specific one when it appears.)

Frank likes that new Chesney single way more than I do (though it's conceivable I've been underrating it.) Some Jukebox review roundups:

Kenny Chesney "Ain't Back Yet"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2134

Tim McGraw "Still"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2135

Miranda Lambert "The House That Built Me"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2111

still unhappy i didn't post my blurb for the lambert; really like that song a lot.

Here's that Poptimists country poll I was telling you about.

Been liking (not loving, but liking enough to play it a bunch of times) this new white blues album on Alligator, The Devil Is An Angel Too, by Janiva Magness, who I never heard of before. Includes covers of songs by Ann Peebles ("I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down," which I've always thought of as Graham Parker though apparently Paul Young did it too), Joe Tex ("I Want To Do Everything For You"), Nick Lowe ("Homewrecker," never heard it before), Tift Merritt ("Your Love Made a U-Turn," written by a McClinton who may or may not be Delbert), Strong-Whitfield-Penzabene ("End Of Our Road," apparently previously done by Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight), and Jeff Barry ("Walkin' In The Sun," apparently previously done by Glen Campbell), so maybe what I'm liking is that it's as much a soul (or soul-country) album as a blues album. Maybe somebody else can figure out where the other songs came from; lots of different credits. Some warm melodic guitar parts too, and she saves the one torch/lounge schlocker 'til the end, so I don't mind much.

http://www.myspace.com/janivamagness

http://www.janivamagness.com/

Caramanica calls Gary Allan's Get Off On The Pain "the best country album of the year so far" in the NYTimes. I disagree - I'd definitely take Chely Wright, Laura Bell Bundy, and Merle Haggard over it (and Legendary Shack Shakers and Drive By-Truckers, if those count as country, and Slim Cessna's Auto Club, if it counts as country and doesn't count as a reissue); almost definitely prefer Ray Wylie Hubbard and Josh Turner, too, and maybe Willie Nelson, Elizabeth Cook, Lady Antebellum, and even uh Shooter Jennings -- none of which I'd even much recommend, at least so far -- as well.) (Some of which are admittedly not out yet, so maybe they don't fit under the category "so far.") But his blurb will probably inspire me to give Gary Allan one more chance:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/arts/music/04play.html

He makes me curious about Marvin Sapp, too; been on a bit of a gospel kick lately, since Spin asked me to do an Essentials column on the genre, but I know even less about recent gospel than I do about old gospel. Have been liking the three-disc late '09 archival compilation Fire In My Bones: Raw + Rare + Otherworldly African-American Gospel (1944-2007) (Tompkins Square) a whole lot this month, though.

along those lines:
what would you guys say are the best country releases of Q1 2010?

I like the Easton Corbin debut a lot. It's pretty much a top notch George Strait album--you can take that as a criticism or a recommendation depending on taste.

My favorite so far this year is the new Alan Jackson. There's a simplicity to it, a reining-in after his more sprawling, showy last album, that I enjoy a lot.

I didn't hear too much country while lying low for Lent, but I did enjoy Blake Shelton's EP and Josh Turner's concept album about what an awesome husband and father he is.

Also good is the Carolina Chocolate Drops' Genuine Negro Jig, which is getting love over on the "What's Worth Listening To in 2010?" thread. It got reviewed on the 9513, so it counts here. I hadn't heard of them before. They're a black Appalachian string trio on Nonesuch, and the first six songs are fast and fun. They can play, but they're not bloodlessly virtuosic like some bluegrass. They all three sing and trade off on banjos, fiddles, jugs, bones, and whatnot. They also cover "Hit 'Em Up Style," which totally fits in the context of all the old-timey stuff. Second half isn't as interesting, but there's still a couple good barn dance numbers, enough to recommend it overall. The liner notes, like the music, are cheerfully low-key re the impressive amount of research that must have gone into this. Seems more like fun than school.

Also, re this upthread: saw jamey johnson last night, it was an interesting show. he's weird onstage, sort of diffident except that he's the guy with the microphone. Totally--I saw him last summer at the fair, and I think his only onstage patter was the spoken sections of "Give It Away." At one point he raised a cup of beer to the audience, who cheered. His show wasn't that long because he was the opening act, and his only cover was "The Door Is Always Open," but the crowd loved him and man, his band is great. (The sound was great too.) On those slow waltzes, it sounded like he and the drummer were daring one another to see who could go slower, and the pedal steel player generally got to space out at the end of every song.

I reviewed the Carolina Chocolate Drops awhile back live for the Washington Post. They did a fun show, but I haven't heard the newish cd yet. And yes they have researched the history of black banjo and fiddle players thoroughly and have gone and met and played with surviving old-timers, while still staying aware of current music in other genres.

i interviewed them all a time or two; they're real bright people. New disc is great, the title song is awesome. They were obscenely well received in NYC at Bowery; the crowd was crazy into it.

Easton Corbin album left me cold; haven't heard the new Alan Jackson but I'm thinking I usually prefer him when he's less simple (unless Alison Krauss helping him get jazzy counts as simple, which I doubt) so I'm kinda skeptical; listening to Carolina Chocolate Drops on Rhapsody now (lined up in front of new Ted Leo and Titus Andronicus, neither of which I expect to like but I'm going to give them the old college rock try) and thinking they pull off the energy of Mississippi Shieks (or whoever) rhythm more than the energy of Mississippi Shieks or whoever vocals -- overall they sound, well, schooled, yeah.

There's something lackadaisical about the singing that's not grabbing me -- in Depression years, this music had a lot more wildass in it.
Bet they were Arrested Development fans, once upon a time (if they're old enough.) But that doesn't mean I won't like the album. Heard their Blu Cantrell cover; thinking it comes off more adult-alternative Middle Eastern worldbeat than any era of string-band. Not that that's a horrible thing; just not convinced that the song melds with their sound in any way. Some of the more instrumental passages ("Snowden's Jig" on now for instance) strike me arty chamber group that might, say, play in the foyer of your local suburban library; something Penguin Cafe Orchestra about that one. Which again, isn't awful. My wife heard them on NPR and said they reminded her of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, though, ick. "Why Don't You Do Right" now; tasteful torch nostalgia, not buying the schtick but I can't say the girl's voice is entirely devoid of warmth. Might like them more if they just schtuck to their main style. (Actually, you know who their eclecticism reminds me of? The Duhks.)

Matt Cibula listed these '09 albums he's liked on another thread last night; sounds like at least a couple might have some country in them. (Okay, maybe not the Czech guys; I wouldn't know, but I'm intrigued. I think Don Allred -- where is he lately anyway? -- tried to make a case once for Gogol Bordello counting as country, and their new album is starting to grow on me, though at first I thought it was just more of the same -- in the second half, they get into Latin rhythms, cool):

Traband, Domasa (Venerable Czech nutjobs, rollicking Romany rockin')
Brandon Wright, Boiling Point (fun & funky jazz, post-boppery but with an edge)
Big Light, Animals in Bloom (file under power-pop alt.country new wave jam band, but better than that sounds)
Anne McCue, Broken Promise Land (Aussie blues singer/guitarist, compare to Wilson sisters)
Pie Eyed Pete, Lake County All Star (I think he's like Ike Reilly's next door neighbor, good Midwestern songs)

"strike me as an arty chamber group that might..." etc. (Guess the operable adjective for Chocolate Drops is "middlebrow." Not a word I'd apply to, say, the Memphis Jug Band. Definitely prefer the fast songs to the slow ones, either way. "Kissin' And Cussin'" on now, its chorus inexplicably reminding me of "Muskrat Love" by America/Captain and Tenille, except the Chocolate Drops are trying in vain to make it feel "dark." Now "Sandy Boys" -- a cover, I'm betting? How many of their songs are public domain? -- where at least they're kind of doing the vocals as rhythm to go along with the strings. Has a decent bounce to it; think I wrote in my Duhks/Donna The Buffalo/Old Crow Medicine Show roundup in the Voice that these sorts of quasi old-timey bands should do that more often. And now "Reynadine," which takes us to the Renaissance Faire, but the girl's voice isn't quite lovely enough.)

No problem at all calling them "country," though -- they're as country as the Duhks etc. are country.

And oops, meant those albums Cibula listed are '10, not '09. (He should post more about them here!)

re: drops - Dom is more a showman than a singer and Justin is only a bit better but Rhiannon is operatically trained and fully capable of carrying any of these. Her inflection is, I grant you, very specific and may not be for everyone.
The only song on the new album that anyone on the band wrote (as opposed to arranged) is Kissin' and Cussin'.

xp Also didn't mean to disparge Ted Leo & Titus Andronicus (neither of whom might have any country in their music, being from New Jersey, but whatever); if I had something against them, I wouldn't be trying out their albums. And actually, I don't expect to dislike them as much as I expect to find them both potentially interesting but not compelling enough that I'll want to expend much more energy trying to figure then out. (Which is pretty much being confirmed with Leo's album, which is on right now. I know he's supposed to be very political and all, but I can almost never understand why while actually listening to him. For such an intense and committed guy, he's quite the mushmouth. And he never sounds half as much like Thin Lizzy or Joe Jackson as I wish. I really liked "Timorous Me" back on The Tyranny of Distance nine years ago, though. And on the new album, "Bottled In Cork" seems to be an okay touring song and there was one goofy part in an earlier song where Ted yelled out that the means of production are now in the hands of the workers; wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny or not. And the guitars work up a decent jangle now and then. But nothing's making me feel I need to hear it again, and on track #10 out of 13 I'm getting impatient. At least there are a couple fast songs. Maybe I'd like him more if I liked the Jam more. But they were better than him, too.)

Okay, track #11, "Tuberculoids Arrive At the Hop" -- this one has some British folk to its acoustic guitars (which I like -- song itself is pretty dull, but the guitars are really good). Not country, but close. (Just didn't want everybody to think I totally derailed the thread.) (Cut after that, "Gimme The Wire," Ted's rhythm section finally wakes up! And they stay awake for the last song, "Last Days," which seems to have something to do with people claiming the end is near. It's hard to figure out what, but I don't mind much thanks to the "My Sharona" riff.)

The Drops are so NPR it's not even funny. But hey, I gave money to NPR. I forget what the "R" stands for in Jody Rosen's DORF matrix, but they definitely qualify for the "Dead" and "Old" quadrants. Based on their repertoire, of course, not their actual status as human beings. (The DORF matrix explains which black musicians get NPR play.)

Does anyone else subscribe to Josh Turner's theory that homosexuals are loveless aliens?
I wouldn't be a man if I didn't feel like this
I wouldn't be a man if a woman like you
Was anything I could resist
I'd have to be from another planet
Where love doesn't exist

He's like a scientist!

My 600-character Rhapsody mini-reviews of new albums by Laura Bell Bundy:

http://www.rhapsody.com/laura-bell-bundy/achin-and-shakin#albumreview

And Peter Wolf (which has a lot of alt-ish country on it, though not much in the songs I actually like):

http://www.rhapsody.com/peter-wolf/midnight-souvenirs#albumreview

Second heat of the Poptimists 2000-2005 country poll has now started. "Portland Oregon" is leading "Kerosene" by two ticks, which pisses me off, but I ticked both so I shouldn't gripe. "Before He Cheats" won heat one, and "Goodbye Earl," "I Love This Bar," "Alcohol," and "Hotel Yorba" all qualified.

John, I don't have anything to strongly recommend that you don't know about through Jukebox except that I second Xhuxk's thumbs up for Laura Bell Bundy's "Giddy On Up"; and Jaron And The Long Road To Love's "Pray For You" made me laugh out loud as a send-up of pious forgive-your-enemies sentiments. Jaron has the right reedy voice for it, and I think he might have potential even when he's not joking (assuming that's ever; I've only heard this track).

On the basis of "Bring On The Love," I think Coldwater Jane is worth exploring more; song is a good half-rocker, and the women sing with half-husky voices, will have you rocking in your seat though you'll probably forget about it as soon as it's over. Jason Sturgeon sounds like a poor man's Eric Church on "Simple Life"; the song is no great shakes as a vaguely Mellencampish semi-rocker, but he was strong enough to pique my interest. The tune to Brandi Carlile's "Dying Day" reminds me a bit of "Wild World," which is a compliment, though it would be more of a compliment if the tune reminded me more of "Wild World" and if she didn't fall so heavily into her rich voice. Worth following up to find what else she does with that voice; she's been singing folk and alt country for years with respectable reviews without my hearing her, or, if I have heard her, without my remembering. Interesting that I heard this on a country radio promo compilation, since I can't imagine her ever actually crossing to country radio.

Taylor Swift and Mallary Hope sing a karaoke "Gunpowder And Lead" at a Nashville Christmas party. Taylor sounds totally natural with it, Mallary not bad but trying to figure out which chops to apply, while Taylor just lets the Miranda style take her. Makes hand motions to illustrate the lyrics. Is wearing a black glitter dress.

In-studio vid for Little Big Town's "Little White Church." Good stompin' little stomp. I'd categorize it as Willingly Abstaining From Sex Until The Guy Marries Her Already, which means it's not really eligible for the latest poptimists orgafunnery, which calls for songs on the theme of Willingly Abstaining From Sex And/Or Relationships Until You Find True Love Or A Decent Man/Woman Or Somesuch. (Surprisingly, I could only think of one, "Past, Present and Future" by the Shangri-Las. Surely there must be country songs that qualify.)

Intocable's latest, "Estamos en Algo," moves from dramatic accordion flourishes, to what I'll inadequately call "soul," to something resembling ska with gang shouts in the background, to a groovy beat that resembles "Ode to Billy Joe", I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJF3g4M7IXc

But that's not why I bring it up here. No, I mention it because my mother-in-law, a wonderful woman who's fluent in Spanish but not a native speaker, said it was "too country" for her, and she prefers her Spanish music to come from Spain. Plus, hasn't Cibula made the case for Intocable as a country band before?

Anyway, the lyrics are weird. "Estamos en algo" strictly translates as "we are in something," which is either an idiom I don't know or Cartesian poetry. Here's the verse:

Si no estas
Pensando en mí
No estas en nada
Pero yo
Pensando estoy
En tu mirada

Y si estas
Pensando en mí
Estas en algo
Yo por verte
Este día
Se me hace largo

Doesn't it just LOOK beautiful on the page? I think the gist is that our existence is proven when we think of one another, maybe because thinking leads to longing, and longing lets us know we're alive. But I could be reading too much into it.

(Sorry, I meant to just post the link.)

i will hunt those down Frank, thx.

I forget what the "R" stands for in Jody Rosen's DORF matrix,

Retro I think...NPR likes Black musicians that are Dead, Old, Retro, or Foreign

Josh, I love that Intocable song. I'll need to listen to more.

Yeah, me too. And Matt Cibula definitely has called Intocable country before. (Speaking of Cibula, he may be happy to know that my new favorite new non-reissue album of 2010 is Domasa by the Czech prog/goof/rock band Traband, which he recommended -- and not only for the blatant Dylan and Neil Diamond steals, though that's part of it.)

Also loving Intocable's "Hay Ojitos," which I heard on the radio over the weekend. (Finally settled on a Regional Mexican station to pre-set in the car. Not sure why it took me over a year in Texas to do that.) Youtube posting dates suggest the song's from late last year, though I could be wrong about that. Be sure to check out the highly entertaining video, which features skimpily dressed women, guns, and a cock fight.

Caramanica on Laura Bell Bundy's album (scroll down). He prefers the slow half, which is nuts, but at least we agree "Curse The Bed" is the best slow song. Was not aware that the ballads were "produced and written in large part by Nathan Chapman, the behind-the-scenes architect of Taylor Swift’s sound."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/arts/music/12choi.html

My haiku-length Rhapsody reviews of new Colt Ford (liked this a lot more than I expected, btw, but have still yet to determine how much):

http://www.rhapsody.com/colt-ford/chicken-and-biscuits#albumreview

And new Legendary Shack Shakers:

http://www.rhapsody.com/legendary-shack-shakers/agridustrial#albumreview

By the way, Wiki writes this about Colt Ford's debut album, which I still haven't heard and never heard of until a few days ago, but which actually apparently went to #24 on the country chart two years ago: "Ford's debut album also has guest appearances from country singer Jamey Johnson, as well as Bone Crusher and Jermaine Dupri, and Jeremy Popoff of Lit." Bone Crusher behind a 300-pound crunk rapper from Atlanta, for those unaware. A guy at roughstock.com compared the album to Bubba Sparxxx. Also from Wiki: "He also appeared on a rap remix of Montgomery Gentry's late-2008 Number One single 'Roll with Me.'"

And speaking of previous albums that I never knew existed, I also learned recently that, on Laura Bell Bundy's self-released debut album a couple years ago, she covered "Dancing With Myself" by Generation X/Billy Idol. (There are videos of her doing the song live on youtube.)

"Bone Crusher being...," I meant. (I thought Colt Ford's new album was closer to Cowboy Troy than to Bubba Sparxxx, for what it's worth, but maybe with Kid Rock's taste for hard rock riffs -- or okay, Jason Aldean's taste for hard rock riffs, at least -- and maybe a little rapping that hip-hop fans might not dismiss as completely corny.)

rap remix of Montgomery Gentry's late-2008 Number One single 'Roll with Me.'"

This is hearable on youtube, too, and Colt's flow is more like Bubba than Troy in the remix, so I'm guessing they consciously tried to make him more "country" and less "rap" -- hence, less threatening to country fans -- on the new album (his fourth, technically -- second studio one and a live one both charted in the 40s on the country chart last year.) He also does "Roll With Me" live with MG on a couple videos on youtube, but the sound's not good on either. He's definitely a big boy, though.

Aspiring country singer-songwriter and tenth-place Nashville Star finisher Justin Gaston attempts "If I Can Dream" as a guest on American Idol (to help promote some other Simon Fuller-produced reality show he's on). He's anonymous but nicely gentle on the soft bits at the start, is inadequate to the strong emoting he tries for later, achieves some sparks in the last minute in back and forth with his duet partner, who's effectively emotional as always and is the reason I listened.

Colt Ford had a brief guest spot on Bone Crusher's funk-rap "Round" three years ago (shows up about 3 minutes in). Here are "Mr. Goodtime," "Ain't No Trash In My Trailer," "Ride Through The Country, and "Cold Beer," the four singles from his first album Ride Through The Country. I think he's best when the arrangements don't overrun his voice (so "Mr. Goodtime" and "Ride Through The Country"). Xhuxk's right about the Bubba Sparxxx drawl. Album rose higher on the rap chart (#12) than the country (#24), though those two charts probably aren't analogous (rap being much more a specialty chart, as opposed to "r&b/hip-hop").

Jon Caramanica (who I got the opportunity to debate Laura Bell Bundy sides with in Seattle this weeked) on the new Merle Haggard album (which he underrates) and new Willie Nelson album (which I haven't decided what I think of yet -- leaning toward well sung, well selected old songs, but otherwise just another pointless album add to the Willie pile who cares, but I may be wrong about "pointless" and "who cares"):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/arts/music/19choi.html

My own Haggard review is written but not on line yet.

Also got to spend some time over the weekend talking to University of Wisconsin PhD in history candidate Charles Hughes (who is doing is dissertation on the relationship between country and soul music in the '60s and '70s, and who did a super informative EMP presentation about how FDR's Rural Electrification Act changed music in the '30s) and Kansas City English professor and Heartaches By Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles co-author David Cantwell (whose presentation on log cabin songs of the '20s was also excellent) -- two really nice guys who I'd never met before. Here's the blog they share:

http://livinginstereo.com/

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/04/18/academy-of-country-music-awards-2010-carrie-underwood-wins-entertainer-of-the-year/

Here’s a complete list of the winners at the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR: Carrie Underwood

TOP MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR: Brad Paisley

TOP FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR: Miranda Lambert

TOP VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR: Lady Antebellum

TOP VOCAL DUO OF THE YEAR: Brooks & Dunn

TOP NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR: Luke Bryan

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: “Revolution” - Miranda Lambert

SINGLE RECORD OF THE YEAR “Need You Now”- Lady Antebellum

SONG OF THE YEAR: “Need You Now” - Lady Antebellum

VIDEO OF THE YEAR: “White Liar”– Miranda Lambert

TRIPLE CROWN AWARD: Carrie Underwood

HUMANITARIAN AWARD: Montgomery Gentry

The show kicked off with a performance by Miranda Lambert and Underwood in which the women were joined by fiddler Charlie Daniels, Brad Paisley and John Fogerty. “That’s how you start a television show, son,” Daniels said at the end of the number.

HUMANITARIAN AWARD: Montgomery Gentry

This is pretty funny. Maybe they got it for not killing any more domesticated black bears this year?

HEY! Some people change.

Incidentally, Mom-in-Law checked with an ESL student and reported back on "Estamos en Algo":

"Estamos en algo" means there is a connection between us. And "Se me hace largo" means that it seams like a long time (since we were together). Makes more sense.

Just to recap: "we are in something" = "there is a connection between us". I love that. Just got the CD from the library, so I'll report back at some point.

now get me a confirm on watagatapitusberry

I'm a little more country than THAT.

(consults urbandictionary, throws drink in forksclovetofu's face, eagerly looks up song on youtube)

kekekeke

My emusic Merle Haggard review (scroll down):

http://www.emusic.com/album/Merle-Haggard-I-Am-What-I-Am-MP3-Download/11911349.html

Listened to the imminent Dierks Bentley album Up On The Ridge this morning and...I dunno. trad bluegrass move, feels kind of clinical and stiff but then most trad bluegrass moves do, to me. Guests: Alison Krauss, Chris Thile (of Nickel Creek), Vince Gill, Del McCoury, Kris Kristofferson, plus Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson on the same song, which didn't jump out at me the first time. Dierks covers "Pride (In The Name Of Love)," interesting because I've definitely heard U2 in his guitar sound before and because it's about MLK, maybe a mildly brave statement in the Obama age (at least people thought so when Brad Paisley made his MLK statement), but I'm skeptical. Also covers a Buddy & Julie Miler song, plus Dylan's "Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" (from Street Legal, an album I've never actually heard); potential sympathy-with-immigrants/anti-globalism statement maybe? Though I'm conjecturing that just from its title, no idea about the song itself.

Leaning toward deciding the new Elizabeth Cook album only has one song I really care about ("El Camino"). New Bill Kirchen album has less.

Water vs Rain neck-and-neck on Country Songs chart this week:

19 24 25 14 Water, Brad Paisley
F.Rogers (B.Paisley,C.DuBois,K.Lovelace )
Arista Nashville DIGITAL | 19
20 22 23 15 Rain Is A Good Thing, Luke Bryan
J.Stevens (L.Bryan,D.Davidson )
Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 20

Vaguely curious about these, for their song titles mainly:

50 46 41 16 Jackson Hole, James Wesley
D.Frizsell,R.Clawson (R.Clawson,M.Criswell )
Broken Bow DIGITAL | 41
52 NEW 1 Pound Sign (#?*!), Kevin Fowler
D.L.Murphy (D.L.Murphy,J.Collins,T.Martin )
Lyric Street PROMO SINGLE | 52
57 NEW 1 Hard Hat And A Hammer, Alan Jackson
K.Stegall (A.Jackson )
Arista Nashville DIGITAL | 57

Me on the new Shelby Lynne album (which I liked more than I would have guessed, though I doubt I'll be returning to it much):

http://www.emusic.com/album/Shelby-Lynne-Tears-Lies-And-Alibis-MP3-Download/11900277.html

Hmmm...(No idea what this single is, but still).

60 NEW 1 Here Comes Summer, LoCash Cowboys
J.Steele (J.Steele,S.Minor,C.Lucas,P.Brust )
Stroudavarious PROMO SINGLE | 60

Country album chart this week is more interesting, though:

8 NEW 1 Chicken & Biscuits, Colt Ford
Average Joe's 216 | 14.98 8
62 53 67 20 Live From The Suwannee River Jam, Colt Ford
Average Joe's 214 | 14.98 45
67 56 63 26 Country Is As Country Does, Colt Ford
Average Joe's 212 | 13.98 CD/DVD 41

Rap album chart, meanwhile:

4 NEW 1 Chicken & Biscuits, Colt Ford
Average Joe's 216 | 14.98 4

Working on something longer about the guy; stay tuned.

Liking this album too, actually:

27 NEW 1 High In The Rockies: A Live Album, Jason Boland & The Stragglers
Proud Souls/Apex 7060385 | ThirtyTigers | 12.98 27

Chuck wrote upthread:

revenge songs seemingly directed at the same guy who maybe dumped her and she sounds very pissed about it, the former a simple primal perhaps Miranda Lambert-inspired stomp, the latter more shimmering Suzanne Vega/Amy Grant '90s pop sung in a little voice since Chely's "that little voice inside your head" reminding you "you can get away with treating people like shit" -- direct and unguarded emotion, these two

Was the song gender-specific about who was dumping her? According to TMZ, Chely comes out as a lesbian (or as the TMZ URL says, a "gay lesbian country singer") this Wednesday in People.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/05/02/chely-wright-gay-lesbian-country-singer-coming-out-people-magazine-today-show

Jennifer Knapp, a singer-songwriter who was big in Contemporary Christian Music in the late '90s/early '00s and then abruptly walked away from her career, came out early this year and will resume performing. I'd never heard of her until two weeks ago, when Anthony Easton brought her up on my livejournal. I like the one song I've heard by her, her CCM hit "Undo Me." She's got an Alanis gargle, but without Alanis's gratingness. I should listen to more. Should also listen to more Chely Wright for that matter, since I only really know "Single White Female" and "Bumper Of My SUV" and the two or three tracks by her that were on her MySpace when we were talking about her last year (or was it the year before?). I quite like "Single White Female."

My not-well-informed impression is that evangelical Christianity is a lot less united on this issue than it'd been a couple of decades ago, younger evangelicals less likely to understand why Jesus would want them not to be gay or would want them to discriminate against gays.

(This takes us even further from country music, but I highly recommend Jonathan Bogart's long Tumblr post regarding his Christian rock childhood. While I'm on the subject, my current favorite teengothpop Contemporary Christian Music singer is Krystal Meyers, my favorite song of hers being "Beautiful Tonight.)

Hey Frank, I was just reading *Real Punks...* just like five minutes ago and noticed you posted to this thread. So I thought I'd say hello!

Was the song gender-specific about who was dumping her?

"Damn Liar" no; "Object Of Your Rejection" no. (Just checked the lyric sheet.) So I may well have been presumptuous about their being directed at "some guy." Think I do note some gender-confusion in regards to the song "Like Me" upthread, but I stupidly figured the conflicted person she was singing about was male, not female: "Who's gonna end up holding your hand? A beautiful woman or a tall handsome man?" At any rate, I like how she timed her coming-out to coincide with the album release.

Btw, if anybody's interested, I've played the new Mindy McCready album (I'm Still Here on indie Iconic Records) and new Joe Dee Messina EP (Unmistakable: Love on Curb) one time each, and nothing much has hit me, although a couple of Joe Dee's songs seemed catchy. (Hers mostly seem to be long-successful-marriage songs, as far as I can tell.)

Wright is the first major country artist ever to come out.

What, k.d. lang doesn't count? Though I have no idea when her coming-out happened in relation to her temporary country stardom. Or maybe she doesn't count as "major," though it's not like Chely Wright has had a ton of huge hits herself.

This is a big deal in the country world. Chely is rolling the dice on her career ... it's unclear how traditionally-conservative country fans will react.

Well, given that she hasn't had a single hit the country Top 40 since 2004 or the country top 20 since 1999, it's unlikely that country fans, conservative or otherwise, would've been racing to stores to buy her new album anyway. Maybe now more will. (Maybe the book will help, too.)

Anyway, I've been listening to lots of old albums this weekend. To wit:

Statler Brothers The Best Of (Mercury 1975): Lukevalentine brought them up upthread, and I was curious so I pulled this off. Great album, really interesting. I should probably read more about them one of these days, but I get the idea that their harmonies often shake out somewhere in between gospel jubilee and barbershop (Four Freshmen? how would I know?), maybe with occasional hints of doo-wop; they switch voices line-by-line/pitch-to-pitch alot, like doo-woppers (and, later, old-school rappers) did; the bassman voice often hits me as ridiculous, which might be intentional (were bassmen supposed to be funny, by definition?), or may be a generational thing. What's definitely a generational thing is that four songs out of 11 are list songs, all wondering or bemoaning lost days of yore -- movie stars in "Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott," early baby-boom/post-war/mostly-early-'50s pop-culture fads in "Do You Remember These" (kinda reminds of of Robert Klein's 1973 comedy album Child Of The '50s, especially since there's nothing especially rural about what the Statlers are remembering); classmates who went on to do all sorts of things (including one who kills himself and one who winds up in a mental hospital) in "The Class of '57"; a couple's old photo-album pictures (hence sort of a precursor to Jamey Jonhnson's "In Color") in "Pictures" -- and, especially in the movie star song (which actually calls Hollywood "the industry") and the pop fad song, there are tons of references I don't get at all, and not only because these guys race through their lists really fast. Those kind of songs are clearly precursors to the Bellamy Brothers too (think their "Old Hippie" songs), as probably are the Statlers' humor, and their harmonies. Favorite two other songs are "New York City" (the woman a guy got pregnant goes to NYC and has her baby who the guy apparently never meets and the kid grows up thinking the dad's a real louse and the guy doesn't seem to argue the issue) and, of course, "Flowers On The Wall," which I still can't tell whether it's sung form the point of view of a guy who's cracking up or just a really lonely slacker in denial. (For people who don't know it, he stays up all night playing solitaire with a incomplete deck, and smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo and counting flowers on the wall.) The rest of the songs are mostly good, too; "Susan When She Tried" is kind of weird, because you never quite figure out "when she tried" what -- to leave the singer heartbroken, I guess. Also, 10 of 11 songs -- all but "Flowers" -- are either credited or co-credited to one "D. Reid."

Hank Thompson A Six Pack To Go (Capitol 1966) Another really good one by this guy, maybe not quite up there with Smoky The Bar, but close. On the cover he's pictured six times, on six cans of beer; album subtitle is "...and the Brazos Valley Boys with a program of their beer-drinkin' hits." So that's pretty much what the songs are about obviously, though each side has an instumental polka in the middle ("Beer Barrel" and "Bartenders.") Two songs, "The Wild Side Of Life" and "Anybody's Girl," like "Girls In The Night" on that other album, are about women who make the sad decision to live their lives in bars, often leaving a better life behind. As do the guys, but they usually get funnier songs. Though Hank does do his "St. James Infimary"-styled "Drunkard's Blues" here again. And there's maybe a Western Swingish tint fairly often, but nothing I'd call Western Swing per se'.

Buck Owens The Best Of (Capitol 1964) Has "Act Naturally," which is immortal, but otherwise I'm still not getting what's supposed to be so awesome about him. He always sounds okay, a real distinctive singer, but he always sings more or less the same, and rarely excites me or pulls me in. Part of me thinks he just didn't have Grade A material; or maybe I'd be less bored if he was more rockabilly. Presents kind of a sad-sack persona, but never makes me laugh much. But maybe somebody else can explain what I'm missing. (I've always liked his '88 "Streets Of Bakersfield" with Dwight Yoakam and Flaco Jiminez, if that helps.)

Also, Sylvia's Just Syliva from 1981; posted some notes on it here yesterday:

(vintage) country-disco

Okay, just checked Wiki; sez the Statler Bros "named themselves after a brand of facial tissue (they have joked that they could have turned out to be the Kleenex Brothers[2]). Don Reid sings lead and is the younger brother of Harold Reid, who sings bass. The other members are baritone Phil Balsley and tenor Jimmy Fortune, who replaced original Statler Lew DeWitt in the early 1980s due to the latter's ill health...The band's style is closely linked to its gospel roots. Harold Reid said of the group's style 'We took gospel harmonies and put them over in country music'." Dewitt is the guy who wrote "Flowers on The Wall," and co-wrote a couple other of the hits on the best-of album, which apparently runs from 1965 to 1974. "Sissy, a #75 hit in '68, didn't make the cut.

Lots of typos in that first long Statlers spiel; still halfway comprehensible regardless, I hope.

Oh yeah, also meant to mention Charlie Rich's Rollin' With The Flow from 1977 -- finally, a Charlie album I don't absolutely love! Do love the title track though, which is amazing -- super easy rolling #1 C&W hit about watching everybody else your age mature while you manage not to, for better or worse. (Apparently Mark Chesnutt covered it a few years ago, though I've never heard his version.) Rest of the Rich album though is mostly string-soaked Billy Sherrill sapsucker-ballad mush that reminds me why so many people hated countrypolitan so much; not unlistenable, just ignorable. Only possible warmblooded exceptions I could pinpoint might be "Somebody Wrote That Song For Me" and "Night Talk," both also on Side One with the title cut, which both remind me that the distance between late '70s/early '80s countrypolitan and smooth jazz and quiet storm r&b probably wasn't always so great. Which is cool, and I'd hang onto the LP for the title song alone, but still.

The Statler Brothers were my dad's favorite group, probably because he had a deep voice and liked to sing the the bassman's lines.

Film review in the NY Times this morning about some documentary about the mountain-dancing, murdering, pill-popping White family of West Virginia; says that, after a TV movie about Jesco White in 1991, lots of country songs were written about him. I remember him being name-dropped in a song on Big N Rich's second album, but that's it. Never heard of him before that; had to look him up. So, what other songs?

Which also makes me wonder whether any great country songs are being written now about Nashville's great devastating flood of 2010. Seems like archetypal country subject matter, and if the Ryman and Dierks Bentley's houses are all wet then it's clearly hitting close to home. Maybe even some good economics puns about houses being underwater are in order. Assuming that's not too depressing a country topic these days.

Meanwhile, Singles Jukebox multi-reviews of songs by...

Drive-By Truckers

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2212

And Mallary Hope

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2254

As far as older Country goes, does anyone know anything about a guy named Lee Clayton? Looks like he played w/ a lot of the Highwaymen and wrote one of my absolute favorite tunes "If You Could Touch Her At All" which was done by both Willie and Waylon. Allmusic says he put out a couple of albums in the early 70's, but all I can find on Youtube are these kind of terrible sounding Dylan ripoffs. Did he do any straight up country albums?

Wright is the first major country artist ever to come out.
What, k.d. lang doesn't count? Though I have no idea when her coming-out happened in relation to her temporary country stardom. Or maybe she doesn't count as "major," though it's not like Chely Wright has had a ton of huge hits herself.

or what about kristen hall, founding member of sugarland? not sure if she ever specifically came out inasmuch as i'm not sure she ever was in the closet in the first place. but does she count?

I just now posted on the comment thread to those Jukebox reviews that Chuck linked of Mallary Hope's "Blossom In The Dust" (which I don't like as much as Martina McBride's "Wild Rebel Rose," speaking of Rose's in the dust). I basically agree with Jonathan Bogart's and Michaelangelo's social critique of the song, it just doesn't make me dislike the song in the way it made them.

Jonathan elaborates on his thoughts over on his Tumblr - says his first impulse had been to give the song a 10.

I rather like it tho' it starts out so much like Fifteen I'm still often confused when it plays.

I still love it, despite almost as many reservations as anybody else. Just added a comment to that thread.

Jon Caramanica on Chely Wright, Mindy McCready, and moonlighting Dixie Chicks the Court Yard Hounds, and what they're all up against:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/arts/music/06country.html

Hi Mordy!

er, you belong to me, not fifteen.

Via email:

KE$HA ANNOUNCES NASHVILLE FLOOD BENEFIT CONCERT ON JUNE 16TH
( New York - NY) - Global pop superstar singer/songwriter and Nashville native and resident Ke$ha has announced a flood benefit concert on June 16th at Limelight in Nashville , which is located at 201 Woodland Street . Tickets go on sale on May 6th at 5pm CST and are available starting at $30 at http://bit.ly/Kesha4Nashville.
Says Ke$ha, “I'm thrilled to announce that I will be playing a show to help benefit Nashville , my hometown. 100% of the profits from ticket sales will go to help the victims of these devastating floods. Nashville helped shape me as an artist and as a person and my love for this city is beyond words. I will continue to do anything I can to help rebuild this city and support the families and animals who have been affected by this tragedy."

I keep forgetting that Ke$ha's from there. Could well bode well for the future of country music. A duet with Colt Ford would be cool. (He's apparently a big fan of his daughter's Lady Gaga album.)

By the way, to answer Moreno's question above, I don't think I've ever heard Lee Clayton. He apparently never put an album on the country chart, and is mentioned only once in Bob Allen's Recorded Country Music, as having written a song (unnamed in the book) for Jerry Jeff Walker. You've apparently checked AMG; I haven't, but I do have the AMG Country print edition, and the entry for him in there seems to suggest that his 1978 album Border Country is more country, less rock than '79's Naked Child. Not sure whether that corresponds with what AMG now has on line or not, though I'm guessing it does. (Also says his most famous song was "Ladies Love Outlaws," for Waylon.)

Haven't mentioned that I've been sort obsessed with C.W. McCall lately, especially now that Colt Ford covered "Convoy." Have a Greatest Hits LP, plus Wilderness from '76, the latter of which went to #9 on the country chart, with two Top 40 country singles ("Crispy Critters" about a town taken over by hippies who look like shaggy dogs and the narrator can't stand #32, "There Won't Be No Country Music {There Won't Be No Rock'n'Roll}" about a country destroyed by polluting corporations #19) even though almost nothing on the album was actually sung -- almost all talk-rhymed like "Convoy" was, though there are movie-music jig instrumentals ("Telluride Breakdown"), a very rap-like but brief 35-second poem about McCall's cat done only to Jews Harp accompaniment ("Roy"), Dylan-like talking blues done in a blackface voice ("Silver Iodine Blues," about fake snow), and enough string bombast for a Meat Loaf LP. Almost all the songs, as the title suggests, are about being in the backwoods, specifically the snowy northern prairie west (also songs called "Jackson Hole," which I like a lot, and "Columbine" {!!} in addition to the Telluride one -- btw, I also like James Wesley's different, currently chart-climbing country ballad "Jackson Hole," about being stood up at a ski resort in the dead of winter.) "Riverside Slide" is another good, gruff one. Makes me wonder whether more "Western" country hit in the '70s, also to what extent ecology was a popular country song subject at the time (John Denver scored on both counts, right? Never liked him much myself); also whether McCall was the most consistently rappy country star ever -- Charlie Daniels talked a lot too, obviously, and there must be other guys I'm not thinking of.

Joel Whitburn: "Born William Fries on 11/15/28. The character 'C.W. McCall' was created for the Mertz Bread Company. Fries was an advertising man. Elected mayor of Ouray, Colorado in the early '80s." In "Crispy Critters," fwiw, "the mayor was a space cadet." Interesting that McCall hated (or pretended to hate?) hippies so much when I always had the idea hippies were at the forefront of the '70s environment movement that McCall clearly latches onto. (John Denver must have had a certain post-hippie following to some extent, right?) Though more likely, especially given the "long-haired friends of Jesus in the chartreuse microbus" in "Convoy," McCall just thought they were funny.

Uh, "backwoods" might be wrong -- maybe I just mean "mountains"? (Upper prairie west is one of the parts of the country that I've barely set foot in, so I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about. My wife said Jackson Hole, Wyoming's the coldest place she's ever been, though.)

And Jerry Reed was definitely another guy who may have talk-rhymed as often as he sang (though I'd guess his balance wasn't tipped as overwhelmingly toward the former as McCall's was.) Commander Cody too, maybe? And obviously they're all part of country tradition that dates back at least to the white country blues of the late '20s/early '30s.

And lots of trucker songs are part of that tradition too, obviously. (I've never heard much Red Sovine -- get the idea he might have talked a lot, too.) AMG seems to suggest that trucker songs are mostly what C.W. McCall did, and there are a few on the albums I have, but I wouldn't say they're the main thing. (Have never heard '75's Wolf Creek Pass, which has "Old Folk Home Filler-Up An' Keep On Truckin' Cafe," which he apparently wrote for the bread company and won a Clio Award with, or '76's Black Bear Road, which has "Convoy.") AMG also says McCall had a fine arts bachelor's degree from University of Iowa, and was a graphic designer who worked as art director for an Omaha ad agency in the early '60s -- so basically, he was a Mad Man, albeit not on Madison Ave. And not surprisingly, the environment was his pet issue when he when he went into small-town Colorado politics.

And btw, also checked out "Here Comes Summer" by LoCash Cowboys (which entered the country chart at #60 last week) a couple days ago; seemed passable, just your usual innocuous and forgettable forced fun, but they looked like they might potentially be interesting, if only because they (they'e a duo) dress pretty goofy (maybe supposed to look like "party guys" or something? hard to tell -- lots of rips in their jeans and weird headwear) and they claim to be influenced in part by Justin Timberlake and '80s r&b as well as c&w; album (not yet out I don't think) is said to have touches of country rap. Of course, all of that stuff could also add up to horribleness; time will tell, I guess.

Uh, "backwoods" might be wrong -- maybe I just mean "mountains"? (Upper prairie west is one of the parts of the country that I've barely set foot in, so I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about. My wife said Jackson Hole, Wyoming's the coldest place she's ever been, though.)

Well, I'd think "upper prairie west" would be defined by the absence of both woods and mountains (with not much in the way of hills, either), though often you'll get some mountains in the background, in case you're wondering what way west is and the sky is overcast so you can't judge by the sun (though allegedly the skies are not cloudy all day, so this may not be a problem).

Oops, good point. I think I meant "Prairie" as a region, or even a time zone, though, not a terrain feature. Which might not make sense, since the time zone is Mountain Standard Time, not Prairie Central Time, but whatever. (McCall doesn't actually use the word himself, I don't think. Definitely seems to spend a good deal of time in high elevations.)

Is it worth spending the eight bucks on the new Hag album? I just heard the title tune on YouTube and it's ehhh.

I need to listen to it again, so take this with a grain of salt, but his voice bothered me on the new one. He sounds like he's been screaming at a football game and has lost both ends of his range. Listening actually caused me some psychosomatic discomfort in my own throat. So if you value his mellifluous sonorities above all, you might be disappointed. Tunes seemed pretty solid, though--like I said, I need to listen again.

And weirdly enough, this scratchy, compressed-range quality has never bothered me with recent Dylan, maybe because I don't have the same expectations with him. And incidentally, Ke$ha says in Rolling Stone that "Nashville Skyline" is her favorite album OF ALL TIME.

Weirdly (and I posted a link to my emusic review on this thread within the past couple weeks), Haggard's newly haggard voice didn't really bother me much, though I tend to find, say, recent Dylan extremely hard to listen to and recent Randy Newman unbearable. I like the album, and like its title track. Wouldn't call it my favorite country album of the year anymore, but it's up in the top four or five at least. But Alfred asked whether it's worth paying $8 for, and truth is I can't remember the last time I paid that much for any album. So I'm probably not the one to ask. At any rate, I'd rank it below Hag's Like Never Before from 2003, but not necessarily below If I Could Only Fly from 2000, which lots of people loved, but I never thought was so amazing beyond "Wishing All These Old Things Were New." Does that help?

The new country album I've been loving this week is Well After Awhile by Shinyribs, the alias of Kevin Russell, who is apparently in the Gourds, who oddly enough never did a thing for me (though I probably only tried a couple of their albums, maybe not the right ones.) At any rate, here he's doing a very funky Leon Russell/Dr. John kinda country soul thing, ten mostly smart songs that stick with me -- my favorites so far being "Country Cool" and "Poor People's Store." Also does okay by a cover of "Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke at album's end Based in Austin; I should probably catch him live sometime. His MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/shinyribs

Also, three newly charting songs maybe worth investigating:

56 59 2 While You're Still Young, Montgomery Gentry
M.Knox (J.Collins,T.Martin,W.Mobley )
Columbia PROMO SINGLE | 56
57 1 Summer Thing, Troy Olsen
T.Olsen (T.Olsen,B.Hayslip,J.Yeary )
EMI Nashville PROMO SINGLE | 57
58 NEW 1 Wildflower, The JaneDear Girls
J.Rich (S.Brown,V.McGehe,J.S.Stover )
Reprise PROMO SINGLE | WMN | 58

Saw the Felice Brothers this weekend and really enjoyed it. Never got into their albums much, but they bring it for the live show. They've got a fiddle/washboard player and a guy on the keyboard and accordian so I feel safe posting this on a Country thread... though they seem closer to Dylan w/ the Band Basement Tapes era. They bring a nice drunken, punk enthusiasm to the songs live that doesn't translate as well on their albums.

Thanks for the response re: Lee Clayton xhuxk. Gonna keep my eyes out for Boarder Country.

Over on poptimists, Mark Sinker asks us which musiccrit-type writers we'd point an intelligent outsider towards. So far I'm the only one who's answered, so you guys might want to add some pointers. Also has a question about music movies, which some people did join me in answering. This Is Spinal Tap seems to be a favorite.

By the way, has anyone heard from Edd? Wondering if the flooding had any impact on him. (I have no idea if he lives near to or far from the water.)

I didn't care much for If I Could Only Fly either (I'll add "Bareback" to the keeper pile, along with "Wishing All These Old Things Were New." But as of yesterday morning I found on used copies of the new one. Thanks, guys.

Re: Merle Haggard's new one. I find it really enjoyable, though at first I was itching to file it in that johnny cash template of aging country singer sings about mortality. Difference is probably that he's still writing solid songs, and his singing is relaxed in a way I enjoy, not overly serious. Still don't love the album as a whole but I do enjoy it.

Actually, here's the piece I wrote about it, for what it's worth - http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/123964-merle-haggard-i-am-what-i-am

And if I'm posting links to my own stuff I figure I'll mention I've starting trading off months with another writer on a country-music column for popmatters. I wrote two so far, one on Toby Keith (on the idea of his 'arrogance' and the way it works within his music) and one that went up today about Taylor Swift, sort of stemming from seeing her live last month, and using that as a jumping off point to write about all sorts of things.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/121185-the-arrogance-of-toby-keith/
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/124985-things-will-change-what-taylor-swift-represents

Nice job, Dave!

I think some of us on a previous year's RC thread agreed that Merle's usually good on every other album, and I don't remember the one just before this, so dunno what to expect (except even approving reviews make it seem pretty run of the mill).Nobody hates it, apparently which might or might not be a good sign (might be just okay for apathetic acceptance, like a lotta) But I'm sure I'll check it out. Meanwhile, somebody enjoyed a Felice Bros show upthread, and here's a a preview I recently wrote, that might indicate some of their appeal (mad telegraphy, but mad word limit too)

The Felice Brothers
Wednesday @ Rumba Café

On Yonder Is the Clock and Mix Tape, the young Felice Brothers follow Dylan and the Band's rural Basement Tapes quest in reverse, back to the city of dinosaur dreams. Echoing through subway hayrides, they cheer trains bound for Heaven and everywhere else, while moodily and shamelessly waltzing around the "Ambulance Man." He's patient, but the Felice Brothers know he doesn't have all day. Equally vivid is "Boy From Lawrence County," whom they know they could track (if they knew you'd pay), because "He's a friend of mine."

From the same column, a Canadian folkie with some coutry appeal, especially in her best material (Also, was Alanis's pre-debut-album voice teacher)

Lynn Miles was recently spotted on YouTube, leafing through lyrics that list all the things she's tired of, ending with "singer/songwriters." Ho-ho, she knows she's in that game for life, as her steady voice gets deeper and darker, especially on full-bodied, country-tinged coffin-thumpers like "I Give Up." On Live at the Chapel, Miles shifts into bruised cruise control for "Night Drive" and "You Don't Love Me Anymore," a wised-up kissin' cousin to the Eagles' best ballads. Meanwhile, "Black Flowers" bloom so beautifully, as coal dust settles on their petals.

Welcome back into the fold, Don! (Now if only somebody could corral Edd.) And Dave, thanks for linking to those posts; they're really good!

Mentioned Jason Boland and the Stragglers' live High In The Rockies on here last week; very useful document by a tireless Texas road band, recorded in the uh, upper mountain west (Colorado and Wyoming) in January. Fell for their "Comal County Blue," about driving into Austin's night to get away from the rural hardscrabble life, in its studio version on the radio here last year. And for almost the first half of the live album, nothing else much comes close to it -- decent sour-grapes opener about how Hank wouldn't be a star in cookie-cutter Nashville now, cover of Don Williams/Clapton's "Tulsa Time," pretty good rejoinder to a girl with her head in the clouds in "Down Here On Earth," alcoholic song Jamey Johnson could cover called "Bottle By My Bed," all likeable but surrounded by fairly pro-forma stuff. But track 11, cover of a great Tom Russell bordertown rooster-fighting song called "Gallo Del Cielo" I'd never heard of before (in fact, I've barely heard Russell period), things finally kick into gear, and for the next three songs you can really tell you're hearing a working band: tornado-attacking-yokels number called "Blowing Through The Hills" that I could imagine the Legendary Shack Shakers doing except Boland can sing and they can't, "Time In Hell" about soldiers overseas waiting to come home, weird existential country thing called "Jesus And Ruger" that says napalm and Islam mean something to somebody. Boland and the band more or less keep it up for the rest of the album, too; they cover Merle's "Rainbow Stew" and end with a jamming "Outlaw Band," cool. Anyway, here are a couple links, for anybody who might be interested:

http://www.myspace.com/jasonbolandthestragglers

http://www.thestragglers.com/

I've also been getting re-obsessed with current Southern Soul these past couple days, including a Mississippi guy named Luther Lackey who's definitely got some country in his sound. Been binging on what I can hear at Rhapsody. And I talk about it a lot, starting right about here:

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

Thanks for the kind words on my articles, I appreciate that. Re: Tom Russell's "Gallo del Cielo" - I'm a big fan of Joe Ely's version of that song, on his Letter to Laredo album (his tex-mex, border-themed album). I like how he sings it better than Russell, though really it's the writing, the story-telling, that makes the song. I'll have to check out the Boland version.

Huh, wasn't aware Ely had done the song; I should check that out. Pretty much stopped paying attention to him after the mid '80s, though I liked last year's Flatlanders album okay, and I posted this about 1984's much-maligned techno-rock move Hi Res a couple months ago:

(vintage) country-disco

Also doesn't surprise me that Ely would sing it better than Russell, going by what little I've heard by Tom (which was, like, one or two albums a long time ago.) He basically has no singing voice at all, right? Which is a shame, because as I recall, he can really write songs.

Anyway, here's me stretching out a little re: Colt Ford, in this week's Voice:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-05-11/music/colt-ford-renaissance-man/

And (scroll down) Caramanica on Colt Ford in the NYT a couple days ago. (I knew the “Heeeeyyyyy, we want some countryyyyyy!” chant came from somewhere, but couldn't place it; Jon says it's from 2 Live Crew):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/arts/music/09play.html

Chuck, don't tell me you're unfamiliar with 2Live's HEYYYYYY WE WANT SOME PUUUUSSSSYYYYY"?

I am! But like I said, I just couldn't place it. (I don't have any 2 Live Crew LPs, though "Banned In The U.S.A." did stupidly make my Pazz & Jop singles list the year it came out. Assume their earlier stuff -- most likely, their earliest stuff -- was a lot better though.)

Also, me stretching out re: Chely Wright, on the Rhapsody blog:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/05/chely-wright-comes-out-fighting.html

And finally, a short review of Elizabeth Cook's new album (which grew on me -- too long, and only one great song, but plenty of good ones):

http://www.rhapsody.com/elizabeth-cook/welder

Did you like [i]Balls[i]? I did. (That's a Cook album yall, in case the italics don't kick in.) Good to know Jason Boland and the Stragglers have a new live album. I'll have to check that and their [i]Live at Billy Bob's[i] (I covered Gary Stewart and Coe's sets in that series--wonder what Smith's Entertainment Group is issuing these days?) Boland and the Stragglers' Somewhere in the Middle was pretty sassy, despite its title; made my 2004 Nashville Scene Top Ten, if they did one.

Oh boy, it's been a lonng time since I did this; left out the backslash. Must practice some more. nah

He basically has no singing voice at all, right? Which is a shame, because as I recall, he can really write songs.

Yeah Tom Russell's not much of a singer, at all. Can be a really interesting songwriter, at least judging by a 2-disc career overview that I wrote something about a year or two ago, plus a couple of his albums I've heard here and there.

Did you like *Balls*? I did. (That's a Cook album yall

Nope, I could never really get into her before, though I've always thought she had potential, as these previous years' posts demonstrate:

Rolling country 2007 thread

Rolling country 2007 thread

Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Though your and Edd's posts about her on those threads definitely suggest you guys were hearing something I wasn't.

Had never heard a Boland album before his new live one.

Posted this in the Hag thread:

Continuing my wade through his catalogue I got the 1999 remastered version of Big City. It's got the title track and "My Favorite Memory," plus you may know Rosanne Cash and George Jones' versions of "You Don't Have Very Far To Go" and George Jones' "I Always Get Lucky With You," respectively. The singing and playing are top-notch, and they do wonders for the reactionary "Are The Good Times Really Over."

And I answered that well, it's not entirely reactionary: "I wish Coke was still cola and a joint was a bad place to be/It was back before Nixon lied to us all on TV." Great song, either way. And my favorite album by him in the past three decades.

New CG, Xgau gives an A to Johnny Cash; B+ to Merle, honorable mentions to Drive-By Truckers, Texas Tornados, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Lyle Lovett, Drakkar Sauna, James Hand, Willie Nelson, Peter Karp & Sue Foley, Easton Corbin, Rev. Horton Heat; duds to Bobby Bare Jr., Blake Shelton.

Yeah, it doesn't sound entirely reactionary because the character sounds genuinely scared about what the future brings (I think "Okie From Muskogee" is a terrific song, btw, and don't have the trouble some critics apparently did at the time with separating Hag from the character -- although who cares if he was the same guy?).

Six listens through Laura Marling's "Rambling Man" and it still sounds like a generic finishing-school Britfolk snoozer, though not bad, and it got high marks and friendly writeups on the Jukebox. Marling's got a good scratch in her voice and better songs than "Rambling Man," and strong good looks. She's three months younger than Taylor Swift and has plenty of potential, though she seems hemmed-in by her style.

"That is a fantastic article. Who is Dave Heaton and how can we rope him into our convos, too?"
--From a comment on my livejournal.

Please come back, people! (Me included.)

52 NEW 1 Pound Sign (#?*!), Kevin Fowler
D.L.Murphy (D.L.Murphy,J.Collins,T.Martin )

Just heard this on the radio, and like it a lot -- punchy popwise country rock novelty song about feeling like shit, probably because he drank too much the night before, except he can't say "shit" on the air so he just lists all the punctuation symbols a la comic book pages.

"That is a fantastic article. Who is Dave Heaton and how can we rope him into our convos, too?"
--From a comment on my livejournal.

Oh wow, nice. I just saw this. Maybe I should figure livejournal out

A couple short reviews I've written in the past couple weeks:

Jace Everett (in the running for my album of the year -- also one of the most rocking albums I've heard this year if you're say a Link Wray fan -- even though it technically apparently first came out last year on an even smaller label; though then again I just heard the due-in-September new Jamey Johnson double CD yesterday, and that will mostly likely give this one a run for the money, at least.) Most garage-punk Everett track is probably "One Of Them," by the way, followed by "Little Black Dress," "What It Is?'," and maybe "Permanent Thing," the latter of which reminds me of the Screaming Blue Messiahs. Least favorite track is "Slip Away," on account of it starting out more like John Mayer than say the Chocolate Watchband or Music Machine, but even that one picks up and gets to soaring after a bit. Anyway, the review:

http://www.rhapsody.com/jace-everett/red-revelations#albumreview

Also, the new (and also good) Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band album:

http://www.rhapsody.com/the-reverend-peytons-big-damn-band/the-wages#albumreview

Some other more or less country-related new albums I've been liking lately, which I may or may get around to talking about in more detail here someday, at least if I'm not the only one posting here again:

John Jackson – Rappahannock Blues (Smithsonian Folkways reissue)
Dierks Bentley – Up On The Ridge (Capitol)
Tim Woods – The Blues Sessions (Earwig)
Stone River Boys – Love On The Dial (Cow Island) *
Intocable – Classic (Sony Music Latin ‘09)
Andy Cohen – Built Right On The Ground (Earwig)

* - New band of Dave Gonzalez, from the Haceinda Brothers

And because I'm such a helpful guy, some Myspace links:

Jace Everett album stream

http://www.myspace.com/jaceeverett/music/albums/red-revelations-15552393

Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band

http://www.myspace.com/therevpeytonsbigdamnband

Stone River Boys

http://www.myspace.com/stoneriverboys

Andy Cohen

http://www.myspace.com/andycohenblues

Not finding one for Tim Woods (who is more a blues-rock guy, actually).

ooohhh i'd love to hear more about this new Jamey Johnson double album.

Ha, think I'll let it sink in and germinate for a month or two first. Just got mastered, apparently. Sounded amazing on first listen, though -- and I'm somebody who didn't think he could follow up his last one.

Btw, another (non-country) reference point I thought of for some of that Jace Everett album might be, say, if Afghan Whigs or Von Bondies or somebody like that had had less stiff singers and catchier knacks for radio hooks. (Though maybe I just think that because one song is subtitled "C'Mon C'Mon," a la Von Bondies' Rescue Me theme.)

So, Christgau gave Elizabeth Cook's new album an A:

Elizabeth Cook: 'Welder' (31 Tigers)
Grade: A

First you tell me the fourth album by a thick-drawling Opry regular from rural Florida assembles 13 pieces of harmonically received verse- chorus-verse, and then I'll tell you they pack more aesthetic power and sophistication than any college-educated art damagee has scared up in a while. Although it helps that she's a college-educated art damagee herself, it helps even more that her bootlegger-turned- welder dad was in a band with her mom. Cook has been perfecting her craft long enough to recognize that her mama's funeral and her heroin addict sister are the stuff of art--those are both exact titles, but capitals and quotation marks would reduce them to mere songs rather than experiences the non-irony-damaged can share. And she's been living her life long enough that she won't let her suffering, to call it by its rightful name, dampen her appetite for good times. Inspirational Verse: "And if I wake up married I'll have to annul it/Right now my hands are in his mullet."

Agree it's a a good album, though I'd say more in the B+/A- range.

Also gives a Choice Cut ("Ain't No Sun") to Courtyard Hounds, which I haven't heard, and Duds to Lady Antebellum, Shelby Lynne, and Carrie Underwood, none of which I'd recommend myself (actually still holding out on Antebellum -- another real good radio single could finally win it over for me), but none of which I thought were all that awful. (And also, non-countrywise, gives a B+ to Tin Huey and Honorable Mentions to the Fall and This Moment In Black History, all of which I also like.)

I'd say the Lady A record is pretty dud. Great first single, okay second. I can't even remember what the hell else was on it.

So watching the Brooks & Dunn tribute there were the usual karaoke performances and then Sugarland made "Red Dirt Road" sound like a Springsteen song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0L1dtoztQk

I'm new to big contemporary country music acts that aren't Swift/Lambert/Paisley/Jamey/Underwood, and have only heard a few Sugarland singles. What album would you suggest? Interested in hearing that Elizabeth Cook now too, thanks xhuxk.

The first Sugarland album "Twice the Speed of Life" is probably the best, though the other two have some great songs.

Lady A record is pretty dud. Great first single, okay second. I can't even remember what the hell else was on it.

Yeah, me either, to be honest! Not sure why I think some other song might magically hit me at this point. The CD's in a small limbo pile in the closet, with, like, the latest Gil Scott-Heron, Hold Steady, Mindy McCready, Joe Dee Messina albums, maybe a couple other things -- which is to say that I'm fairly convinced it's not good enough to keep, but I'm also worried that, if I get rid of it, two weeks later I'll somehow wish I didn't. Sounds crazy, but I swear that's happened to me before.

As for Sugarland, I might actually like my favorite songs on Love On The Inside more than my favorites on Twice the Speeed Of Life, but yeah, I guess the debut would get the nod overall. (It's definitely the most ethical one, given Kristen Hall still being on it.)

Then again, without doublechecking by playing them back-to-back, I for sure think of the third album as the more adventurous (and more rock-leaning) of those two, even if it's not as consistent. (And it does have "Take Me As I Am," which I'd probably count as their best song.)

So relistening to Need You Now and it's still pretty unremarkable barring the title track and "American Honey," if you want to be generous. "Hello World" has a nice bombast but the line about little white crosses on the front lawn of a church is sort of jarring, and then the song seems to last forever. And then there's a weird Kurtis Blow shoutout in "Perfect Day" that makes me want to like it more than I actually do.

The "Stars Tonight" riff is sort of a muted "Celebrity Skin," and the rest of the song is way too limp for being a We Are An Awesome Rock Band song. I never heard the debut; were those songs all so mid-tempo and drab?

Thanks for the Sugarland recs.

Antebellum debut was a lot catchier (and less downbeat more often) overall, I thought. Definitely liked it more. Here's what I wrote about it at the time, though I probably overplayed the grunge angle a bit:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/lady-antebellum-helps-country-get-its-grunge-on.html

Speaking of Joe Dee Messina, heard "Bye Bye" (written by Phil Vassar) from 1998 on the radio for the first time in a long long time today, and wow -- forgot what a great pop-rock country song that is. Like, Katrina and the Waves level catchy. (Same album as "I'm Alright"," too -- that was the title track -- another great hit written by Vassar.)

Miranda Lambert's experienced quite a sales spike in the last few weeks, I see (awards, etc).

She's also finally got a #1 song w/ "House That Built Me" (she said her first was "White Liar," but Billboard has that peaking at #2, unless she's talking about some other chart).

I've participated in the last couple of Nashville Scene polls, so I hope it's fair game to jump into the conversation here.

Miranda's "White Liar" hit #1 on the Mediabase chart, which is used for most of the radio countdown shows like American Country Countdown, but not on Billboard. I have no idea why anyone would get caught up in that distinction, but if you're a pyromaniac, you can go to Carrie Underwood's fan forum and ask someone how many #1 hits Underwood has had, and then hold on to your hat.

Singles Jukebox reviews of current singles by...

Josh Turner

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2378

Jason Aldean

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2377

Chris Young

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2379

Lots to say, mostly on some later date maybe, about the CMT Country Video Awards or whatever they're called the other night (actually watched them in a hotel room in San Francisco that had cable!); drunk Kid Rock opening with five or so minutes of hard rock rap was a trip (hey, the song was "Cowboy" -- get it? plus Trace and Bocephus and Martina McBride and Randy Houser helped him out), and seemed to leave almost as many people in the audience confused as when those two stupid "Jersey Shore" kids (who I'd never seen before, and have no interest in seeing again) and Paula Dean (who I'd never even heard of before -- apparently she has a cooking show or something, somebody told me?) came on to present an award. Whole show reminded me how "CMT" is a way different, more wide-rangningly trendy, aesthetic than CMAs or ACMs or whatever; no stodgy old George Straits or Randy Travises hanging around to bore things up, for one thing. But I do think country purists would probably have a point about a lot of the show being aggressively non-country, even if that made it more entertaining, for the most part. Anyway, where that really comes into play for me is that I swear I saw John Anderson on the screen five times at least during the ceremony (including, if I'm not mistaken, playing guitar in the background during LeAnn Rimes's pretty good boogie-woogie-bugle-boy -schticked remake of "Swingin'"), but he was never named -- I think they even just introduced "Swingin'" as an "old country classic" or something like that. There was something really fucked up about that.

"I just recorded a song with Kid Rock for his new album. It seems like an odd pairing, but I love that he sees the real redneck in me," McBride said during Billboard's Country Music Summit this week. "There's a rapper called T.I. who raps the third verse. Kid Rock sings the first verse, I sing the second verse, and T.I. raps the third verse. Crazy, but it's really uplifting and it's a cool melody and it feels good. It makes sense. If I was rapping the third verse, that would not make sense."

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/country-s-martina-mcbride-collaborates-with-1004097478.story

Was flipping channels on Saturday when I went by CMT Top 20 Countdown. Nickelback had something
in it. Can't remember the title, made me laugh, along with Kenny Chesney forsaking his usual summer take on Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville for Jason Aldean's Bad Company imitation in a lighter/higher register. You owe me for that one, Chuck. Actually, I'm giving Chesney too much credit on "Ain't Back Yet," since it's so languid it's almost dead. He makes Bill Shatner/Jim Kirk grimaces and grandiloquent
stage gestures and you keep waiting for the music to kick it up a notch or something like a real thump to creep into it. But it never does. Horns try to add pizzazz, fail. When he sings "I'm gone and I ain't back yet" about one hundred times it's truth in advertising.

Actually, "I was gone and I ain't back yet." Joe Walsh and Sammy Hagar make video appearances.
The Grandpap club, desperate for attention, will get onstage with anyone.

The Chesney single is a complete non-starter. I think it's telling that it's one of just a small handful of singles (just 5 or 6 total, out of more than 20) that he's released since 2000 to miss the top 2 at country radio.

The new Little Big Town album, though? A couple of dud, Starbucksish ballads, including a cover of a song from Julie Roberts' self-titled debut, but most of it is pretty terrific stuff. Granted, it will probably sell a fraction of what the new Lady Antebellum has sold, but it has a much stronger pulse.

Good to hear about LBT. (Though I'm holding out for a physical advance copy before I listen to it, at least for now. Out in September I think.)

The Nickelback song on CMT that George mentioned is presumably "This Afternoon," the relatively (for them) light and bouncy semi-country choogle from their most recent long-shelf-life album. It just entered the Hot 100 this week, I think; mentions CCR and Bob Marley in the lyrics, as I recall. About partying with bros. Haven't seen video yet.

And yep, George definitely deserves credit for my Aldean/Bad Co linkage.

Anyway, a couple reccent reviews. First the new Dierks Bentley, which I didn't expect to like (as I said upthread), but really grew on me:

http://www.rhapsody.com/dierks-bentley/up-on-the-ridge-2#albumreview

Now archived folk bluesman John Jackson, who covers a great country hit:

http://www.rhapsody.com/john-jackson/rappahannock-blues#albumreview

And here's a few hundred words I just did for Rhapsody, on Petty/Mellencamp's influence on current country:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/06/heartland.html

The Nickelback song on CMT that George mentioned is presumably "This Afternoon," the relatively (for them) light and bouncy semi-country choogle from their most recent long-shelf-life album.

plus it has a passing resemblance, musically, to kid rock's "all summer long."

best thing about the video, which is basically a pool party stocked w/bikini babes, is that when the kid running the party finds out nickelback will be the entertainment, he says, "nickelback? you got me nickelback??? alright, fine, they'll do." i can't tell if that's nickelback making light of their critical reputation, or if it's them making light of their considerably large egos, or if they're just being silly. either way, it made me smile.

LBT is out on August 24th, so hopefully the physical promo copies will be going out before too long.

The Petty and Mellencamp influences (and I'd probably throw Bob Seger into that conversation, as well) are definitely felt heavily in many of the men in contemporary country, but I don't know if I would necessarily extend that to the likes of Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift or some of the other women (Miranda Lambert, Kellie Pickler) who have some traction at country radio. The Grammy performance with Swift from back in the winter suggests that Stevie Nicks might be the best analogue for the women, but there's also a whole lot of Pat Benetar in Underwood's uptempo numbers and especially in the last Martina McBride album.

Well, like I said, Swift has covered "American Girl," and "Picture To Burn" has early Cougar in its phrasing. And somebody was saying here a couple years ago that they heard Mike Campbell type guitars in the Dixie Chicks' "Voice Inside My Head," and various Kathleen Edwards songs, if she counts. But yeah, I agree that influence is primarily on the country guys. And sure, there are other influences, too, of course -- I just focused on Petty and Coug there because they have, uh, new product on the shelves. I don't doubt Urban and Paisley are also Lindsey Buckingham fans, and obviously Little Big Town are almost a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. (Kid Rock called Lady Antebellum "the country Fleetwood Mac" at the CMTs, which makes less sense.) Not so sure I hear very much Stevie Nicks in country's females voices, though -- maybe occasionally. Occasional Benatar too. Sugarland's "Take Me As I Am" has a lot of Benatar in it, I think. I hear a lot of '80s Heart in Underwood; maybe some Joan Jett, too, which she never quite pulls off.

As for that Nickelback video, which I agree is funny, maybe the point is just that they want to expand their already huge audience to music fans (e.g., country ones) who are now skeptical about them. So self-deprecation could work in their favor. (Btw, I was way off about "This Afternoon" having just entered the Hot 100; it's actually been on that chart for 10 weeks. Entered the Top 40 just two weeks ago, though.)

And as for the country chart, two new songs I should try to hear:

55 1 Trailerhood, Toby Keith
T.Keith (T.Keith ) Show Dog-Universal PROMO SINGLE | 55
58 NEW 1 From A Table Away, Sunny Sweeney
B.Beavers (S.Sweeney,B.DiPiero,K.Rochelle ) Republic Nashville PROMO SINGLE | 58

Most interesting phenomenon on the country album chart might be this, I think -- which seems to have expanded since I first noticed it here a few months ago; wonder if Billboard's done a story on it yet:

26 28 25 15 Hillbilly Bone (EP), Blake Shelton
Reprise/Warner Bros. 522642 | WMN | 8.98 2

56 56 68 53
Off The Hillbilly Hook (EP), Trailer Choir
Show Dog-Universal 025 | 7.98 30

58 RE-ENTRY 2 She Won't Be Lonely Long (EP), Clay Walker
Curb DIGITAL EX | 4.98 58

60 RE-ENTRY 2 Love Like Crazy (EP), Lee Brice
Curb DIGITAL EX | 4.98 56

75 66 74 7 The Band Perry (EP), The Band Perry
Republic Nashville DIGITAL EX | UMGN | 4.98 42

I know Colt Ford had an EP on the chart a month or so ago, too.

Mellencamp's longtime association with FarmAid, which has always drawn some country headliners, makes him a pretty obvious artist to bear influence on the genre. CMT routinely ran the videos for "Jack & Diane," "Paper in Fire," and even "Key West Intermezzo" during their various alternative-country programming blocks during the mid-90s. I can remember Petty turning up alongside Kelly Willis and Kevin Welch during those blocks every once in a while, as well.

The Toby Keith single is streaming here:
mms://wm1.cesca.com/showdog/TobyKeith/Trailerhood.wma

I've found that the execution on his recent output has been lacking, and I don't hear much life in his performance on this one. Though, if nothing else, it's better than the Josh Turner album track of the same name from a couple of years ago.

55 1 Trailerhood, Toby Keith
T.Keith (T.Keith ) Show Dog-Universal PROMO SINGLE | 55

Josh Turner has a song w/ this title on Everything is Fine.

Pat Benetar in Underwood's uptempo numbers and especially in the last Martina McBride album.

Maybe you didn't see it but country on cable had a "Crossroads" broadcast that teamed Benatar and McBride doing each others tunes. During the course of the thing Martina McBride said she'd been in a cover band named Penetrator or Penetration, I can't recall precisely, and they'd performed some of Benatar's tunes. Much hilarity ensued.

Wouldn't say that the Taylor-Stevie connection is influence (at least not in regard to musical specifics such as pronunciation, arrangement, etc.) so much as that Fearless is marinated in a moody femininity that reminds me of Wild Heart-era Stevie* and that Taylor (and Michelle and Jewel, and the Natalie Dixies before that) is heir to a feminine singer-songwriter sensibility that includes Stevie (is much more its heir than Little Big Town is, even though Little Big Town is so obviously indebted to Fleetwood Mac). That's what I argued in my Country Critics ballot, which I posted upthread.

(I forget if I also linked my decade's end piece here, but that includes a variant of this theory, starting about halfway in.)

*Wild Heart contains a Tom Petty song, not that that's particularly relevant to what I'm saying.

Don't have a strong opinion yet on "Trailerhood"'s sound: I like the Hawaiian slide a lot, the rest is deliberately laid back, and maybe my not having an immediate strong opinion on a Toby sound does constitute an opinion, i.e., I'm leaning "so what?" Lyrics make the trailerhood sound a lot narrower and more ingrown than the world of "I Love This Bar."

Jaron and the Long Road To Love, Singles Jukeboxed (and I'm still wondering about the, er, Jewish question that I raise in the comments):

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2426

Also, John Mayer with a smidgen of Taylor Swift:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2427

Jon Caramanica on Elizabeth Cook, live in NYC's suburbs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/arts/music/23cook.html

...And on the Nashville Rising flood benefit. Is Michael W. Smith always such a Tea Partying asswipe, or was he just having a bad day? (Also, how, quantitatively, does devastation from the Nashville flood compare to Katrina? It's not even close, right?) Also wonder if I'm the only NY Times subscriber who read this piece and knew what by Toby Keith "doing his best Jamey Johnson impersonation," but it made me laugh anyway. Toby looked pretty worn down on the CMT Telecast, I thought, and bored while singing "American Ride"; when asked what he thought of Kid Rock's opening performance, he said he missed it because he was in the bar. (Still haven't checked out his new single myself.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/arts/music/24nashville.html

"what was meant by Toby 'doing...." etc. (Actually, I do wonder whether badasses like Toby might think that Jamey is raising the ante for what they should be doing. Could prove interesting, if so, but I haven't heard it reflected in Toby's -- or Trace's, or Montgomery Gentry's, etc. -- music yet. Though I also wouldn't swear Jamey is that big a leap. He does concentrate more on looking scary on stage, though.)

Finally, Michael Corcoran in this morning's Austin Statesman on the Mother Truckers, whose new album I like, just like I liked their previous two, though I think I agree that their second one was most consistent, and the new one leans slightly more toward blues-based hard rock and less toward country. Also do like "Keep It Simple" too, though I'm not sure I think it's the best track; leaning toward opener "Alien Girl," which just like "Dynamite" last time reminds me as much of Suzi Quatro as anything rural or rootsy. Actually wish they did more songs like that. Still need to catch them live sometime, but they always play below the river, which is a little bit of a trek, and more so, farther away than I'd want to drive home after midnight from after drinking a few beers, which I'm sure would be hard not to do while watching these folks. Lame excuse, I know. Still need to catch Shinyribs sometime, too.

http://www.austin360.com/music/mother-truckers-better-than-the-van-764283.html

Mother Truckers' myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/themothertruckers

Watched the "Dynamite" video on YouTube. Rockabilly, a bit more on the rock boogie with the cool train beat, so I get the Suzi Quatro ref -- with the lady. The guy's nerd rock voice, though -- ehhh. No way I'd last for an album of that. Having read the Austin Statesman piece, not buying the bit about any hit single.

There's an ever more ornate shtick these types of bands mint. Not sure what it's called -- grindhouse movie pseudo white trash baseball capped roller derby for college students in [name the university town].

I guess it was cowpunk when it started three decades ago.

"Hot Legs" recorded & video'd in some dive was entertaining but I'd by fibbing if I said I got the end of these things. Three minutes with one minute of a heavy metal interlude tossed into the Rod Steward tune and the band's real tight but the self-defeating baseball cap look's gotta go and the lady has to get to sing more with a little less from the band.

And is the look taken from Sookie Stackhouse's dim brother in True Blood all the rage now, or?

Reba does Beyonce.

Not as on-point as Sugarland's version of "Irreplaceable," but she and Beyonce both lean heavily on melisma when they sing, so it works pretty well.

Jaron and the Long Road To Love, Singles Jukeboxed (and I'm still wondering about the, er, Jewish question that I raise in the comments)

Juice Newton is the only Jewish performer I can recall who has hit the top 20 on the country charts. Ray Benson, the frontman for Asleep at the Wheel, is also Jewish, but that act has only cracked the top 40 a handful of times. And Kinky Friedman is something of a cult figure, though he never really had any noteworthy chart success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7U-UD766s

is this a good country song? is this a country song? i like it

Did you guys read the Nashville Scene thing I did on Elizabeth Cook (looking back upthread)? It's on the Scene site in case you didn't see it. I would say it's an intermittently brilliant little record, I would give it a A-minus if I gave grades. Songwriting fades halfway thru and musically...well, it has its moments, but it's mainly received wisdom or received harmonic language as Xgau pointed out. Saw Cook at Station Inn for the release party in Nashville--you know, we liked it, she's great and her husband plays nice guitar. But whether or not the voice is compelling enough or rich enough to keep me innerested over the long haul...dunno. However, "Heroin Addict Sister" is mighty good songwritin'.

Let's see, mainly I've been writing about just whatever tickles my fancy and/or comes thru town. Did see Tim O'Brien, also at Station Inn (I like the old dump of a place in the newly gentrified Gulch area of town with its fancy coffee shops and new buildings). You know, the guy's kinda wry and he comes across as another victim/observer, I like him OK. And mainly we've been going out to see stuff, we caught Paul Thorn, who definitely belongs here on this thread, at the Belcourt. Tight little band in a Stones/Attractions vein, a real good drummer and a big, fat keyboard dude, like Thorn from Tupelo. Anyway, his trailer-park song and his one about how he don't like his relatives but he loves them are also good, funny, and he knows how to parlay his plain voice and average-dude looks and Southern bad-boy charm into a very good night out indeed. Caroline just loved him, I liked him a lot, the women in gen'l seemed to love him. The record--Pimps and Preachers--is just OK, though.

And I think I find Deer Tick a bit repetitive, altho the opening Black Dirt track is quite cool. Megafaun's use of electronics 'n such gives them the edge over the Tick. I wrote something about Dierks B. recently--I thought his bluegrass record was mainly a load of shit, just because the songs were such Music Row hackdom and phoned in. The Dylan cover, meh, but one blues by Suzi Ragsdale or someone like that (writer) was kinda good. Just didn't get the frission of bluegrass/country I was supposed to, and I still like his thrown-away road-dog singles from a few years ago, as bluegrass fusionoid thang.

Someone above, Chuck maybe, asked about the Nashville flood. Maybe I should look at the numbers, but I can tell you whole subdivisions (the ones built in bends of the Cumberland River, where of course they shouldn't have been) were wiped out, main roads like Harding Pike there at Belle Meade Blvd. (very tony address) and Charlotte Pike were under water, the interstates were under water. In our little subdivision, the entire row of houses along the Little Harpeth River were flooded with mud up to the windows, and two houses partially burned right down the street. Pretty bad, but the impact of Katrina on a much poorer populace was probably bigger. We didn't get flooded 'cause we up on a hill, but it was freaky: 40 hours of straight rain.

Also saw Neil Young at the Ryman and, you know, he was good and all. But actually I was there to see Bert Jansch, I had been listening to Jansch a lot recently, and also wrote him up in the Scene recently in case you wanna read it. I mean Jansch belongs in this discussion if only for the way he parallels bluegrass and acoustic blooze/roots stuff--the L.A. Turnaround is a decent slice of country-rock but perhaps not him in his most congenial surroundings, and produced by Mike Nesmith with the great Red Rhodes on pedal steel. Speaking of bluegrass, Roland White's I Wasn't Born to Rock 'n' Roll, recently reissued by Tompkins Square, is an uncommonly relaxed and listenable straight bluegrass record from mid '70s.

Hey Edd! (At least I assume you're Edd...) Glad you're okay, and glad you're back, even if we don't see eye to eye about what counts as powerpop. Hope it didn't seem like I was underplaying Nashville's storm damage; didn't mean to. Just thought Michael W. Smith's claim that Katrina got New Orleans more national attention mainly because of all the "looters" was totally offensive bullshit, especially coming from a Christian pop star. Fairly obvious what "looters" there is code for.

I played the new Paul Thorn album a couple times, and nah, it didn't do anything for me, either. Just don't think he's got a compelling voice, at all. (Can say the same for his fellow onetime songwriter for Toby Keith, Fred Eaglesmith, whose new album shot maybe even more of a blank for me.) But the one time I saw Thorn live in NYC, he was indeed fun.

Curious what you think about some of the classic country folks I discuss upthread -- Hank Thompson, Statler Brothers, Buck Owens, etc. Still feeling that Owens's sad-sack schtick is way more limited than he's usually given credit for -- seems odd that the Buckaroos' fast instrumental cuts so often wind up being some of my favorites on his LPs -- but I did wind up liking the 50 cent copy of 1965's Before You Go/No One But You I picked up OK. He even covers the Coasters.

I'll have some more to say about Mother Truckers one of these days -- George is right that they're much better when Teal sings, but I might like the guy's singing at least a little more than George does. Their albums are pretty spotty, either way. Not so sure that their fans are mostly college kids, as George suggests -- do college kids even like bar band roots rock anymore? -- but then, George seems to have watched more live youtube clips than I have. (That usually takes me a while.)

Wrote a bunch about Flynnville Train's new album on Rolling Hard Rock. Normally I'd just post a permalink, but it's spread over a bunch of posts, so for user-friendly reasons I'll just cut and paste instead:

Hardest rocking new track I've heard so far in 2010, I think, might be Flynnville Train's cover of "Sandman" by America, a song I never even liked before. A country band, allegedly, but country in the Kentucky Headhunters sense, and this cut's as loud as that band's "Big Boss Man," at least. Total guitar jam. Rest of the new album is growing on me, but I don't think anything else gets this heavy. (On Evolution Records, whatever that is -- their debut, which made my top 10 a couple years ago, was on Toby Keith's label Show Dog.) Here's their myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/flynnvilletrain

― xhuxk, Monday, 28 June 2010 03:38

Turns out the other 9-or-10 out of 10 track on Flynnville Train's Redemption, besides their America cover, is "Friend Of Sinners," about asking Christ's forgiveness since you've fucked up all the commandments. Might sound cheesy on paper, but a big part of what makes those two cuts rock the hardest is their use of space and quiet to let the rhythm and lead guitars build over the monster drums. They're also the two darkest and most menacing (and maybe the longest -- haven't checked) cuts on the CD. Rest of the album comes as close to Skynyrd as any contemporary country I've heard, with subliminal rockabilly and Chuck Berry parts and really good songwriting; "Preachin' To The Choir" and "On Our Way" (which says the band got their start back in '83 -- not sure if that's to be taken literally or not) being two of the higher highlights. "Turn Left" is the NASCAR song; "Scratch Me When I'm Itchin'" the horndog song; "Alright" the one that sounds like Dave Edmunds in Rockpile; "The One You Love" the token ladies' choice, and at first I thought they mushed out, but its guitars are really purty.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 01:37

And eh...forget I mentioned Skynyrd in re: Flynnville Train. Dumb comparison. Skynyrd had more than rockabilly and Chuck Berry going for them anyway -- for one thing, they were a lot funkier. And Flynnville seem much more inclined to be pandering (sometimes in the usual modern Nashville ways) as songwriters, and also (unlike Skynyrd) they're not geniuses. Guess I just mean that, like with the best Headhunters stuff, you can really tell you're hearing a seasoned, self-contained band, who know how to work and rock as a unit. Which, with Nashville still using session musicians no matter how loud it gets, remains a rarity. The guitars do sometimes sound kind of Skynyrdy, though.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 02:55

...and they still do have a more swinging rhythm section than say Drive By Truckers (or Neil Young, for that matter -- can't think of when he's rocked as hard as Flynnville's "Sandman," which is neat since I've always figured America as the wimp version of Neil in the first place. Still have no idea what the lyrics are supposed to be about, though.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 03:44

You may not believe this but I saw more than one high school band turn "Sandman" into a fuzztone proto-metal dirge around '70-'72. It was basically a simple dirge all along, so you could hammer the shit out of it. Which may or may not be what Flynnville does but thought I'd mention it. There was precedent.

― Gorge, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 12:26 AM

a fuzztone proto-metal dirge around '70-'72. It was basically a simple dirge all along, so you could hammer the shit out of it. Which may or may not be what Flynnville does

It's pretty close! Dirge into raveup, maybe. Wonder if any amateur versions like that from 40 years were actually recorded; if not, it's crazy that it took so long.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 15:30

Starts here (and if anybody's interested, there's talk of Styx, Strawbs, Gaslight Anthem, Savoy Brown, Pat Travers, etc. mixed in):

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Also, Single Jukebox reviews of Carrie Underwood's "Undo It":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2458

Yeah, it is indeed me. I somehow lost my old ilx identity and had to get a new 'un...kind of my tip o' the Hatlo hat to Green Acres...and yeah, had to give you some shit on power pop, Chuck, just funnin' around...feeling good these days, healthier. Been a hell of a year or so...

Buck Owens I really like in small doses, the Don Rich stuff I mean. Someone told me there's a new Buck bio out--maybe it was Yuval Taylor--and apparently, wow, he was one mean son-of-a-bitch. But yep, the uptempos are the only good things.

As for the Statlers--wow again, that is some fucked-up shit. White message sacred music with some very scared moments of nostalgia/tortured liberalism...the CoMuHall of Fame did a thing on them recently and no one from the Statlers would talk to me (Ray Stevens even took my call!), but I wrote this for the Scene on 'em:

Statler Brothers Interview
When: Thu., June 3, 12 p.m. 2010
Many country artists worked the society-is-hypocrisy angle in the '60s and '70s, but The Statler Brothers made music that was concerned with how middle-class Americans thought about class, aspiration and history. A onetime gospel group from Virginia, The Statler Brothers first hit with 1965's “Flowers on the Wall" and went on to record such classics as “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott." Their harmonies were gospel, but their songs married comedy, folk and country to the era's socially conscious pop. On 1970's “New York City," they narrated the tale of a woman who is shamed into having her illegitimate child in an unfriendly metropolis, while the incredible “Junkie's Prayer" added gospel changes to a sordid tale. In short, they're one of country's oddest and most interesting groups. Today's interview session and CoMu's new Statlers exhibit ought to shine some light on the matter.
— Edd Hurt

Fred Eaglesmith! I gotta listen to that new one. I admit, Christgau did a review of one of them...what's the name of it?...and got me into Fred. Pretty interesting cat.

Deaths: Larry Jon Wilson died. I am a fan of his "New Beginnings" LP on Monument, '75, but don't like the one he did on Drag City a couple years ago as much. As far as basso Georgia profundo voices go and rampant regionalism and everything, he's great...also on some of those "Country Got Soul" comps. He had played the Bluebird here and foolishly I didn't see him. Also, speaking of power pop, Tommy Hoehn died, he worked with Chilton and Van Duren in Memphis and had one great cut far as I could tell, included on one of those American Power Pop comps, "Blow Yourself Up." Well, kinda great.

So here's me on Ray Stevens. I got on a Nilsson kick earlier this year--I don't think anyone in pop was better than Nilsson at his best, actually--but I stand by my comparison; the Stevens record I mention is the one to get if you get just one...

Nashville Cats feat. Ray Stevens
When: Sat., April 24, 1:30 p.m. 2010
You could describe Ray Stevens’ classic ’60s and ’70s work as Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson for suburbanites, but Stevens took the novelty song places those artists could only dream of. A Georgia native who cut his teeth as an A&R man for Mercury Records in the early ’60s, Stevens is a schooled musician who — much like Newman — has a genius for arranging. Working in Nashville, he scored big ’60s hits such as “Ahab the Arab” and “Gitarzan.” His 1968 Even Stevens remains a minor classic of unpretentious social commentary, with “Mr. Businessman” and the amazing “Say Cheese” sounding like lighter, less austere variations on Nilsson’s lost-in-the-city fantasias. He continued to score in the ’70s with “Everything Is Beautiful” and another great novelty tune, “The Streak.” Stevens remains topical: His new full-length We the People includes a Sarah Palin tribute, “Caribou Barbie.”
— Edd Hurt

oh yeah, Eaglesmith's "Ralph's Last Show."

Tom Russell, he was mentioned above? He did a show here with Gretchen Peters, they did a record together all about the Wild West. Anyway, that was OK, Peters is might genteel, but Russell's last record, "Blood and Candle Smoke," is a Kamp Klassic. I can't play the thing, I laugh so hard I feel like I'm moving around a kidney stone or something. in fact, here's my American Songwriter review of it, they won't care, they done paid me my $10 for it:

TOM RUSSELL
Blood and Candle Smoke
(SHOUT! FACTORY)
Rating: ★★★★☆

Listeners with a sense of the unintentionally hysterical are in for a treat with Tom Russell’s Blood and Candle Smoke. Calexico backs him in a garish neo-Marty Robbins mode, with lots of south-of-the-border trumpet embellishing Russell’s narratives. What’s fascinating about Candle Smoke is Russell’s obvious passion for his great, big, sentimental continent, from Indiana to Texarkana—every line he delivers screams a kind of virile campiness that he probably didn’t intend. Candle Smoke is a noble experiment and, quite simply, a hoot—Richard Harris is smiling and singing “MacArthur Park” in heaven. Russell conflates Dory Previn and Graham Greene in the record’s opener, while “Criminology” is set in Nigeria and mentions Picasso. “All that real estate and pride/All those Indians that died /While the Spanish priests/Danced the drunk fandango,” he moans in “Santa Ana Wind.” It’s a funny, funny record, and you may just love it.

Ha ha, I might actually even check that Tom Russell album out. Though I'm pretty sure I'd still put him in the Paul Thorn/Fred Eaglesmith category of "more likeable when actual singers are singing his songs."

Somebody started a thread about Ray Stevens here not too long ago. I've only skimmed it myself, though he does seem like a bit of a wingnut now:

Remember when Ray Stevens was on dr. demento and the streak was vaguely funny? Well, now he is shilling himself on Fox News during the glen beck show between vaccum cleaner ads and hannity bullshit.

So Edd, do you have any thoughts about Don Williams (discussed upstream, too)?

is this a good country song? is this a country song?

Definitely country, and yeah, I like the song, too. And the girl is a strong singer. That nerdy guy with her seems weak, though -- at least here. And I hope if/when she records it, she speeds it up some. Does get me curious about Cary Ann Hearst's other stuff. Here's her myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/caryannhearst

Most girl empowerment tunes make me flinch but I just got around to hearing McBride's "Wrong Baby Wrong," mostly liking it for the Keith Richards-type riff underwriting it. Plus the ringing guitars in the ascending change-ups. Anyway, I'm assuming it's old news now and the album
flopped? Because if the rest of the album is a bit commensurate with that tune, then I'd probably like it. But if not, no.

Frank (who put the album in his top 10 last year, and so has probably listened to it more than I have) can correct me if I'm wrong (baby wrong), but I don't think there's anything else along the Stones-guitared lines of that song on Shine. I might like "Wild Rebel Rose" -- which lyrically is basically her "Janie's Got A Gun," except better -- even more than the single. The rest didn't click much for me.

Btw, George mentioned Alejandro Escovedo's new album on Rolling Hard Rock, rightly making fun of rock critics' predictable fauning over it this week. In Austin especially -- the Statesman gave the record an "A," par for the course down here -- he was all over best-Austin-albums-of-the-decades-lists in January. Truth is, it's a really dull record, and I say that as somebody who at least found Real Animal two years ago catchy enough to hang onto. (The only Escovedo album I've ever been able to say that about.) I'm not supposed to slag records at the venue where I reviewed the new one, but I hope that what I did write sounds backhanded enough that people might get the point:

http://www.rhapsody.com/alejandro-escovedo/street-songs-of-love#albumreview

Actually, turns out the Bowery song, according to the Statesman piece, isn't supposed to be about a woman at all, but inspired by his angry, graffiti-loving punk teenage son. Which might be interesting, if there had been even a single clue in the lyrics that that's the case.

Something longer I wrote about his last one, fwiw:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/alejandro-escovedo-has-a-good-time-but-gets-out-alive.html

Just went over to Rhapsody which gives me 20-something free listens every few months as
enticement.

The Escovedo album -- I guess it sounds like rocking to people who don't like rocking much at
all. I gave the first tune, "Anchor," the most time and it reminded me of a very
poor man's Bruce, just like Southside Johnny or Nils Lofgren solo album(s) around Cry Tough or after he joined the E-Street Band.

His voice isn't good enough to support the almost non-existent hooks in the music. Tony Visconti produced Bolan and left when Bolan stopped writing catchy stuff. Here he's slumming.

Some of things sound neo-tough because he pumps them up with quiet-loud-quiet-loud drama. "Street Songs" is one good example, which would be something a fan of Lou Reed might produce.

The only other thing that grabbed me a little was "Tender Heart" -- but it's really still just warmed over Asbury Park. I understand Austin has to root for him but -- y'know -- the new Foghat 2.0 album is better roots rock.

And so is Martina McBride's "Wrong Baby Wrong." Your comment on "Wild Rebel Rose" keeps me thinking about investigating further.

I have to thank Rhapsody. The charity listens convinced me I was right when I disparaged the idea of it after reading Kot's tribune review in the LA Times.

Re Escovedo, or maybe desultory stuff from Graham Parker. Who's every album always seemed to invariably generate more huzzahs than they were worth when you finally got them home and out of the shrinkwrap.

After Squeezing Out Sparks, Parker was basically useless, at least as far as stuff I've actually heard goes. Before that, he was usually a lot spottier than critics at the time gave him credit for. Anyway, I did some excavating in the past year, starting about here:

Graham Parker C/D

wrote something about Dierks B. recently--I thought his bluegrass record was mainly a load of shit, just because the songs were such Music Row hackdom and phoned in....one blues by Suzi Ragsdale or someone like that (writer) was kinda good

That'd be "Bad Angel," I guess, the track with Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson on it -- and, to my ears, one of the duller tracks on what I wound up thinking was a pretty good record. Was skeptical at first, and said so here (bluegrass move -- who cares), but wound up thinking otherwise. (Linked my Rhapsody review up above.) Definitely prefer most of the Jon Randall co-writes to "Bad Angel." And I don't see how all the death and gambling and drug references are typical 2010 Nashville, either (nor is covering U2 and Dylan, both of which I think came out okay.) Favorites are probably "You're Dead To Me" and "Down In The Mine," though it'd take another listen to it to make sure. At any rate, I'd now rate it Dierks's second or third best album, I think.

The album that I do think is really really disappointing, after a couple listens, is the new Little Big Town album (out Aug 24.) First single "Little White Church" still sounds pretty great, but I'm not hearing anything else yet that even comes close -- and I liked both of their last two albums a lot. Maybe the novelty of being a Fleetwood Mac without the songwriting skills or Stevie Nick's singing or Lindsey Buckingham's guitar (couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?) is starting to wear thin, but I honestly think they may just have run out of songs, for the time being.

It's in the last quarter of the CMT Top 20 Countdown either just above or below
"Wrong Baby Wrong." I liked it but it's not spectacular. The entire 20 is pretty lackluster
except for Kellie Pickler's "Makin' Me Fall In Love Again," which is jaunty but not really
country. Neither is Underwood's "Undo It" which is #1. That's arena rock lite.

When Nickelback's "This Afternoon" sounds good in the context of most of them, it's a slow
month.

Two songs on water, Luke Bryan's "Rain is a Good Thing" which has gotta have the worst lyrics I've heard in a long time. Cracked out the rhyming dictionary for whiskey and frisky for that slice of retard rock. And Paisley's thing.

Off thread story, I never listen to Nickelback and I'd e-mailed xhuxk last year trying to identify a song I thought was by some overwraught-sounding girl pop singer because a psychotic guy who lives near me was playing the same chorus of it over and over until the apartment super pulled the power on him.

Turned out it was Nickelback's "I'm Never Gonna Be Alone," which is from the same two year old album as "This Afternoon."

That song is psychotic guy's favorite and it now inspires, figuratively speaking, blinding
headaches in the rest of us who live in his vicinity in a courtyard arrangement. One of the reasons I profoundly detest Nickelback.

Maybe the novelty of being a Fleetwood Mac without the songwriting skills or Stevie Nick's singing or Lindsey Buckingham's guitar (couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?) is starting to wear thin

I bet they're really tired of hearing this and now of mixed opinion on whether being so closely described as a redo of Fleetwood Mac helped or hurt. In the short term, yes. In the long term, no.

And the Crossroads segment linking them with Lindsey Buckingham -- I dunno. Tom Petty always
had the best of that deal with Stevie Nicks.

Anyway, "Little White Church" sounds great but a trifle rote. And they aren't really much like
soCali Fleetwood Mac, not at all on that tune. They don't, for instance, have a husky
singer like Christine McVie. And they don't have a weirdo on guitar(s) like Lindsay
Buckingham, who's greatest licks were in "Go Your Own Way" and that's about it. Live he was
still playin' Peter Green's "Oh Well" at every show, just like Bob Welch had to. Has anyone ever actually bought a Lindsay Buckingham solo album?

So not having Lindsay Buckingham on guitar is not actually a handicap in my book, although the Buckingham-Nicks songwriting pair was great for two albums.

couldn't they hire Urban or Paisley or somebody to pull that off once in a while?)

Well -- no, because Buckingham really never had any licks except the one I mentioned that people gave a shit about. So two songs, one which is folk, "Gold Dust Woman."

And -- yeah, someone who could pull off Paisley's hack Fender Esquire/Tele into a Vox thing with
a Way Huge Aquapuss delay box (it's all over every one of his last four albums) would fit into a few of their things. But Paisley got into using his signature as a money shot and equivalent of a tire squeal/smokey burnout. It often does not add to his songs at all. It just tells you, yeah -- it;s Brad Paisley on guitar. You can't have helped but notice that his second most heard song, or maybe first, "Welcome to the Future," owes everything to Mike Campbell in its best parts, a guitar player who has many signature licks, but not one single trademark he places in every Heartbreakers number.

I think Paisley's high tide was on "Alcohol" which, to me, is conspicuous for the absence for the seasoning he put onto all his later tunes.

And he always does a melodic rhythmic thing with a sequencer -- not gonna bore you with what the device is -- once on every album and that usually works for me.

Paisley's best contribution is his Tele twang when he's doing rhythm and riffs. It's literally perfect.

So if that fits the music, yeah he's great. And now he's proved he can do the big jangle, too, which is always popular.

If I were Little Big Town, though, I'd stick with the unknown hacks or Mike Landau. Someone who you could tell "make it sound like [fill in the blank]" with the former, or make it explode into lyrical and dramatic arena rock, like the latter.

Downloaded McBride's Shine from Amazon last night minus a couple tunes I'd sampled and thought were unneccessary. I like it. "Ride" is second to the lead-off cut in interest. I vaguely remember a video for it, or hearing it somewhere, so apparently it didn't catch on as much as "Wrong Baby Wrong."

She made a Pat Benatar-like record, with a much lighter touch and without the blazing axe of Giraldo and the attack it brings. Fine by me for the tunes.

Didn't know "Wrong Baby Wrong" was written by Robert Ellis Orall, a name I've heard for years but for which I still can't conjure up a picture.

Dierks' bluegrass thing: gamblin' and death are essential Nashville tropes from way back. I wrote something about the record and said the Dylan and U2 covers were honorable enough, far as it goes; and the whole point of Dierks is his road-dog liberal persona--an example of Nashville outreach. Which is also why he made a bluegrass record when the biggest thing around right now IS bluegrass, roots, gypsy fuckin' swing and all the rest. No matter how hard I try, and I do appreciate a lot of bluegrass, love the Stanley Brothers, and even like Ricky Skaggs' band despite Skaggs' know-nothing politics (he has some great hair, too), I can't get with bluegrass' formalism--its cleanliness--for more than about 15 minutes at a pop. Clarence White is perhaps an exception. I went back and listened to Dierks again and the songs are just about nothing--the Dylan isn't, sure--unless you think "goin' up on the ridge" to fuck your girl away from Society is an idea or "achin'" and "heartbreakin'" is a good rhyme, I don't. Or songs about being a "roving gambler." Pure formalism, and sure, there's some fine pickin' in all of it, what Nashville record doesn't have it? And altho I'm not a bluegrasser, I do appreciate stuff like Cadillac Sky a lot--at least song structures are fucked with, solos are edited, and so forth--someone's thinking, but I hear the Dierks as another release from Capitol Nashville, plug in bluegrass formula and collect songs. Enjoyable enough as a diversion but content nil, and the reason I like the blues is that it gives the concept some room to breathe. Dierks is a singles artist--I think his early singles are fairly great but his albums-as-albums are tedious, plus he's a marginal singer at best. I hear more soul in Dave Matthews. The only difference between Dierks and something even less interesting--like the L.A. quintet Rose's Pawn Shop, who are coming to Nashville next week and playing the 45-capacity venue the Basement while Dierks is filling up the stadia--is the marketing clout of Capitol Records. No discernible diff in singing, of course the big-name pickers on Dierks' record are better, but the concept is the same--country rock with banjos and fiddles. For me, "Up on the Ridge" is just fatally simple-minded. I'm sure he fucked her up on the ridge and smoked some very good weed, or is that the other way around, and her daddy never caught on, he's such a nice young man.

Chuck asked about Don Williams. I suppose I like him all right, but never really attended to him beyond the hits. Very lulling singer.

Escovedo isn't as good in my book as Chuck Prophet, with whom Alejandro has worked. And I'm aware that Prophet is kind of a third-hand artiste too, being a typical Chiltonian in the American weirdo vein. But Chuck seems mostly light-hearted even when he's trying hard, whereas Escovedo seems overwrought almost always. For me, the voice just doesn't justify the production or the pretensions, but many people think he's great.

"Lulling" is a perfect description for Don Williams' voice. "If Hollywood Don't Need You (Honey, I Still Do)" is the most interesting of his hits, though it seems like "You Believed in Me" and "Lord I Hope This Day Is Good" are the only singles of his with any recurrent presence, at least on the local classic country station.

Escovedo is fine enough at what he does-- the lack of hooks has always been a problem-- but I agree that Prophet is better in filling that niche. Todd Snider is too hit or miss and is usually too pleased with himself when he hits. For my money, Fred Eaglesmith has the most distinct point of view and most interesting songcraft of that particular demo.

I've cooled somewhat on the LBT record since my initial recommendation upthread, though it's still a sight better than Lady Antebellum or, say, Chatham County Line.

Okay, I clearly need to regroup and recalibrate my Dierks defense. Will hold off on that for now. Again; think it's a good album, not a great one. (And I have tended to find him effective or better as a singer.)

Have never gotten Chuck Prophet, fwiw (at least not his own albums, only two of which I've heard, I believe, and it's possible I didn't give them the time they deserved -- pretty sure he's shown up in the credits of other people's albums that I like more.) (Whose? I dunno.)

Best new country song I heard on the radio this weekend, driving to visit wife's relatives in the east Texas woods and back: Don't think there was one. Best old country song I heard that I didn't know: "CC Waterback," which is apparently by George Jones and Merle Haggard, from 1982. Best Regional Mexican song: something with a chorus that seemed to go "aqui hay amor," which google seems to attribute to either Take That (fairly positive it wasn't them) or a song called "Mi Niña Bonita" by an apparent Venezuelan reggaeton duo called Chio and Nacho, but I'm pretty sure the song I heard had nothing to do with reggaeton, either -- unless reggaeton has changed a lot since I lived in Queens.

Notes on the new Mother Truckers album: "Alien Girl" has a T. Rex riff; "Break-Up Sex" sounds kind of like the Faces; "Keep It Simple" seems to be an attempt at a neo-soul ballad (and it's fine, but I still don't get why anybody would consider it the best track on the album); "Size Of The Sun" reminds me of Meat Puppets in Grateful Dead mode; "Summer Of Love" is an obvious ZZ Top move and simulateneously the most metal and most county song on the album; "Van Tour" is sort of a post-Replacements college rock novelty thing (about being a small time road band, obviously -- a country band, actually) but I like it anyway. Would like it more if Teal Collins sang it rather than her husband Josh Zee. Like George says (and Josh apparently admits), the guy can't sing as good as he plays guitar. His plain voice reminds me of somebody specific in the post-Westerberg college nerd rock realm, but I can't place who -- Dave Pirner, maybe? Probably not, but somebody like that. Album as a whole is vaguely Stonesish, guitar and rhythmwise.

"county" = "country", obv.

Mother Truckers also seem to hint at times at doing the John & Exene/Richard & Linda/Womack & Womack/Ashford & Simpson marriage rock "thing," I think, but not as much as I wish they did.

I really liked Chuck Prophet's Dreaming Waylon's Dream (s?), brought out the spring in Waylon's musical dream, and the rock, though not as heavy as Waylon's collaboration with teenage garage prodigy Shooter--this is the real beardo country power pop. Also a good Austin City Limits several years before that. Never heard enough Green On Red to remember how he was with them; how was he? Hey xhuxk, dug your Rhapsody blog Fourth of July list (and the chance to hear all those firecracker songs back to back). I also like, "I remember the Fourth of July/Runnin' through the backwoods bare--Bawwn on the Baahhhyoo" and maybe Van's "Almost Independence Day", but I don't remember it well enough (early-ish 70s, so I'm guessing either festive or boo-hoo ironic)

Oh, and thanks for Dreaming Waylon's, Ebb! (Made my Top Ten)

Huh, I actually thought my 4th of July thing (especially the intro graph) was fairly perfunctory and uninspired (partly because Rhapspody turns out not to carry Van's 4th song, of either of Springsteen's early ones -- didn't think about "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago 'til too late, and yeah, that Creedence one would've been good had it occured to me), but here's a link if anybody still cares. (Also still clueless about whether most people celebrated the 4th this year on Saturday the 3rd, Sunday the 4th, or when, or if everybody gets Monday off work):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/06/july4.html

And as for new country songs on the radio, I just remembered I heard James Wesley's "Real," which, on one listen, I thought wasn't bad. (Had liked his low-charting "Jackson Hole" earlier this year; seems like somebody to maybe keep an eye on.) Thought Billy Currington's new song about being good at drinking beer wasn't absolutely horrible, despite the repeated Bud Light product placement, but I was more interested to learn that he considers his biggest musical influence Kenny Rogers.

Turns out Chico (oops) and Nacho's "Mi Niña Bonita" is in fact #6 on the Latin Songs chart this week, and nowhere on the Regional Mexican chart -- still need to check it and find out if that's the one I liked.

Meant "or" not "of either of Springteen's..." (which would be "4th Of July, Asbury Park /Sandy/" and his own "Independence Day," fwiw.)

Bottom of Billboard's country songs chart this week. No idea who the first two are. Wonder if Nickelback's jealous the third one made it.

58 NEW 1 Not That Far Away, Jennette McCurdy
P.Worley (B.Daly,R.Proctor,J.McCurdy )
Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 58
59 NEW 1 Makes Me Go (La La), Williams Riley
N.Golden,D.George (D.George,B.Allmand,D.Myrick )
Golden Nashville DIGITAL | Nine North | 59
60 NEW 1 Hey, Soul Sister, Train 2
M.Terefe,Espionage,G.Wattenberg (P.Monahan,E.Lind,A.Bjorklund )
Columbia BNA | 60

we celebrated last nite up in extreme nw Davidson County--grillin' some mighty fine chops and sausage and corn-in-the-shuck. happy holidays!

I think part of my problem with Dierks' record, going back to that, is that I think bluegrass/acoustic/"roots" is and has been a dominant mode in country for a decade...shaggy folk music being part of that equation. I also think it's easy for me and perhaps some other folks to underestimate the crafty way Nashville appropriates "liberalism" in the service of its outreach program, as per Dierks and Dylan and U2. But you know, it's always been good at that kind of outreach. I also am aware that thinking about country requires one to accept them old tropes and conceits, as on the Dierks record. I also think the Zac Brown Band is very important indeed in what I hear as a definitively post-jam band approach to country that Dierks seems to embrace...? Zat seem true?

Todd Snider is mentioned above. I have to say that he does whatever it is wry stoned troubadours do, very well indeed; and I with my admittedly cynical view on such things and the pop-folk readymades those sentiments of dodgin' the law and so forth are expressed in, have to say I think "East Nashville Skyline" is one fine record indeed, and his last one, with Don Was (same dude who produced Elizabeth Cook) is a bit more domesticated and therefore less interesting to me, but still wry, stoned...he could be in Brooklyn but he is here in good old Nashville with its severely underestimated housing stock and proximity to Kitty Wells Blvd. (real street in Madison, Tenn., just east of East Nashville) and should make an album with the Silver Jews' David Berman if he had any sense.

Got a pile of records to go thru, including the new Marty Stuart, Joe Diffie, and this Jerod dude...

Probably didn't make myself totally clear above on Dierks--his publicists here really pushed the bluegrass-fusion angle to us. It is a good and commercial concept, and I got the idea that his people were concerned that mixing bluegrass and country would be a tough sell. Whereas I thought and think it's no big deal--totally commercial. I'd be real interested to peek into some CD collections in trucks and homes all over the heartland of America and see how many country fans have bluegrass records stuck into the side doors of their vehicles. Krauss for sure, but Nickel Creek and all that, would the average country fan be into that? Or Dailey and Vincent? Stuff on Rounder in general?

and have to mention that I was hanging with a friend the other day, this person is not a country fan too much. "You like George Jones?" he asked. Sure. So he pulls out an original 12" of the infamous "Ya Ba Da Ba Do" cut off "One Woman Man" from '88 or so, the song about Elvis and Fred Flintstone. With a picture of George and drawings of F.f. and E.P. This is a fairly rare little item. Had THREE copies of it and gave me one. That's like one of my favorite songs ever. (Went on a big Jones kick this winter/spring, borrowed a bunch of Jones stuff including the Bear Family Musicor box, one of them, anyway) and some other things, and made about 4 discs of prime Jones, mid '60s. "Where Grass Don't Grow" and "Small Town Laboring Man" and others, his best period.

But "The King Is Dead"--they don't write 'em like that no more.

xp Maybe. Thing is, I'm mostly a bluegrass hater myself. I like some of Ricky Skaggs's '80s sellout stuff, and I like an LP by the Whites if that counts (wrote about both of those upthread somewhere), thought one Greencards CD a couple years ago was tolerable, own one 18-song Rhino CD of classics (Appalachian Stomp), but generally I have very little use for the style. So I basically expected the Bentley album to be an absolute snooze. Turned out, though, to be not really all that bluegrass -- it was just a bunch of good tunes, a decent Nashville county album that managed to stretch boundaries a little bit here and there, and yeah, when I head it, Skaggs's best old albums came to mind. If it had been as bluegrass as hyped, pretty sure I would've liked it less. (And right, Dierks is a guy who was more or less mixing bluegrass into his pop country all along, give or take his previous album which I really didn't like much, so what was the big deal? Press release didn't seem to even be able to decide whether the new record was a departure or not. Not sure I can, either.) But yeah, I also definitely made the Zac Brown connection in my head: Hasn't Bentley been booked on summer rock festival bills, like Lollapalooza? And he obviously has no qualms singing about marijuana these days. So "post-jam band" sounds about right. Except jam bands, like bluegrass, usually aren't half so tuneful.

"County" for "country" again! Same typo, third time in 12 hours -- if you count the Skatt Bros discussion linked below, relevant here partly since it features shirtless cowboys. (Also "head" for "heard," oh well.)

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

Btw, been thinking about what George said above about Little Big Town being perceived as a mini-Fleetwood Mac probably not being the best long-term marketing plan, and it makes sense; actually, my wife had made a similar point to me, when we were listening to the new album in the car and I was complaining about it. ("Maybe they don't want to be Fleetwood Mac.") Truth is, only a couple songs on the new album clearly fit the Mac template anyway. Just wish those, and the others, were better (though who knows, maybe a few will grow up me over time.)

Lady Antebellum's "Stars Tonite" went into the CMT Top 20 and seems to have quickly passed
LBT's "Little White Church." It's more arena rock with a big hook and power chords driving it.

One of the papers I write for asked me to do a little tour-preview blurb thing on Brad Paisley, so I checked out four albums - Mud On The Tires, Time Well Wasted, 5th Gear and American Saturday Night - and now I'm kind of a fan. This is the most suburban country music I've ever heard - it's like he wrote these songs for dads in khaki shorts to listen to while mowing the lawn on weekends. I mean, he sings about working at a mall food court as a teenager! I think he's the country equivalent of David Brooks. Plus, I like his voice and his guitar playing. I can easily see myself listening to this stuff again, even though the piece is already finished and submitted.

I still think "Alcohol's" his high point, although I liked Fifth Gear a bit more than Tine Well Wasted for awhile. Don't anymore. I appreciate the craftiness that went into American Saturday Night but everyone here knows I think his pandering and joy of consumer electronics shtick went over the top on it. Probably why I don't like "On-line" much either. "Ticks" and "All I Wanted Was a Car" are repeats, though.

I definitely see the lasting appeal to the umc 4th of July meathead, though, who ae currently making the video for "Water" hot on CMT.

Also, some minus points for Paisley's bonus track pushing of Little Jimmy Dickens. Who's old stuff I found virtually intolerable when curiosity finally drove me to find it.

"concerned that mixing bluegrass and country would be a tough sell"--so the Dixie Chicks reportedly had to fight for the right to banjo and fiddle on major label releases, but sold ninety verzullion of those. The suits may have thought of that, which is why they let him do it, or decided it was cheaper to keep him by indulging him, albeit with some doubts trickling down to the publicists. Will it be controversial for some, like Alan Jackson's primal country onslaught unmanned by Alison Krauss's misty mountain hippie changeling wiles?

So today I subjected Dierks's suddenly controversial new album to the all-important car test, which I probably should have done before, and I decided that Edd's probably more right about it than I thought. Still like a lot of it, but even most of the songs I like do sound more pat than I'd figured, where songwriting and arrangements are concerned -- that's definitely the case with shorter, more upbeat tunes like "Rovin' Gambler," "Foolin' Around," and "Love Grows Wild" (cleverest and catchiest of those three.) And the album actually is a bit more bluegrass than his earlier ones, and hence more polite than it should be, maybe partly because Dierks is such a laid back guy he's not going to exert much effort fighting against the genre's grain (assuming that makes any sense.) "Draw Me A Map" and "You're Dead to Me" (which I still say has a fairly canny revenge lyric) could definitely use more energy, and I don't think I even realized "Bad Angel" (the one with Miranda and Jamey) was supposed to be a blues until Edd called it that; it obviously is one, both structurally and because it's about evil influences at the crossroads, but Dierks doesn't seem capable of getting much blues feel into his singing. Most blatantly bluegrass arrangements, almost a little ornate in spots, are the three tracks with the Punch Brothers -- namely, the two covers and "Rovin' Gambler." And I guess it's possible that I could overrate his version of "Señor," seeing how I've never knowingly heard Street Legal. Two best tracks, perversely, seem to be saved for the very end of the record --"Bottle To The Bottom," a well-written and appropriately coming-down- melodied down-and-outer courtesy Kristofferson, has what's probably Dierk's toughest singing here; the voice has real gravity to it. So too bad Kristofferson eventually chimes in too, and he sings like a guy with a tracheotomy (was always a bad singer, just keeps getting worse) and he's downright painful to listen to. "Dark As a Dungeon"-styled dirge "Down In The Mine" is the album closer and the best song, as far as I'm concerned, and apparently unlike Edd I really think the verse about the hardscrabble boondock economic quandary of either manufacturing drugs or shoveling coal and your own grave is something that's never been sung about much; it'd be better (and darker) if the drug was crystal meth (and I don't think I'm saying that just because I've been reading Nick Reding's Methland: The Death And Life Of An American Small Town -- about Oelwein, Iowa -- and Netflixing Breaking Bad). But Bentley still gets good quivering melody out of "you can grow marijuana way back in the pines/or work for the man down in the mines," so I really don't mind so much. Also possible I'd think less of the record if I listened to more bluegrass in general; hard to say. As is, I keep wishing the speedier, borderline old-timey gambling and fooling-around reels had a fraction of the musical and lyrical wit of something off, say, Have Moicy!. But I still like the album okay -- on par with Josh Turner and Gary Allan's 2010 albums, a marginal keeper, not that I'd recommend folks actually buy the thing.

Turns out the Latin song I heard and liked on the car radio over the weekend was in fact Chino (spelled it right this time!) and Nacho's "Mi Niña Bonita" -- so, nothing to do with Regional Mexican. Still thought I detected something country in its sound, which is not a feeling I've gotten from reggaeton before. But maybe it was just where I was driving.

And yeah, Dixie Chicks another "bluegrass-ish stuff I like" exception.

My favorite Paisley ballad is on 5th Gear: "If Love Was a Plane."

New Reba McEntire single, "Turn On Your Radio," which shipped to radio today.

Offhand, it's the first country single I can recall that specifically name-checks Twitter (and there's also a reference to texting), and it sounds like a Carrie Underwood cast-off.

It's heresy in most country circles, but I've never been all that big on Reba outside of a handful of isolated singles (see also: Strait, George). But how balls-out desperate she's been to remain commercially relevant alongside Underwood, Sugarland, and Taylor Swift over the last few years has at least been interesting to watch, if not anything particularly great to hear.

"Dark As a Dungeon"-styled dirge "Down In The Mine" is the album closer and the best song, as far as I'm concerned, and apparently unlike Edd I really think the verse about the hardscrabble boondock economic quandary of either manufacturing drugs or shoveling coal and your own grave is something that's never been sung about much.

Yeah, I guess that is a subject country hasn't gotten to--so now I have to see what other songs that exhibit this quandry might be out there. And right, this is a good song.

Any of you heard this rather amazing piece of history? Two discs, and note representative song titles (esp. #17, hmm...):

11. Hello, I’m Johnny Credit - Johnny Credit
12. Howard Hughes Is Alive And Well - Sonny Hall
13. I’m The Mail She’s Waiting For - Chuck Wood
14. (I Want To Be) A Truck Driver’s Sweetheart - Marcie Dickerson
15. Mom And Dad’s Waltz - Tokyo Matsu
16. The Baltimore Incident - George Kent
17. D.O.A O.D - Jackie Burns

I mean we got a lot of meth labs around here. Cheatham County. But would the quandary of choosing between being an outlaw (moonshine in olden days) and going straight be an old one--oppression by economic forces? Just saw on the news today that farmers around the Gulf are turning their fields into landing strips for migratory birds, with federal money apparently on its way in return for, one hopes, preventing them from landing in oil-drenched lands...

And right, Have Moicy! is certainly more to the point for me at least--also been listening to the earlier Holy Modal Rounders stuff recently.

I like the idea of Up on the Ridge--I still want to find out how the bluegrass audience overlaps with the straight country audience. A label like Rounder, with its bluegrassy singer-songwriters in the mode of Claire Lynch, is kinda like Reprise Records used to be in the singer-songwriter era; and Alison Krauss seems about as universal a country artist as we're likely to see in this place and time. ?
Personally, I like the idea of Little Jimmy Dickens. Reba is certainly a powerful singer, but I've never cared for her myself.

Edd, I have an old (uk-issue) vinyl comp which has a subset of that Plantation CD - it's great, and it's never easy to find those kinds of country oddities in the UK. I don't know why Phonogram UK would have picked it up - maybe for Jeannie C Riley after Harper Valley PTA was a hit, but I'm glad they did.

There's a storming soul version of "Somebody's Gonna Plow Your Field" (slightly renamed "Somebody Else Is Gonna Plow Your Field") by Margie Hendrix on Sound Stage Seven.

NYT's Ben Ratliff calls the Punch Brothers "acoustic prog-rock," which might explain why the Bentley tracks they're on hit me as ornate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/arts/music/06punch.html

So, anybody out there want to defend Rosanne Cash's Somewhere In The Stars, from 1982? Main revelation about it is that apparently she got boring earlier than I thought. Though I've still never heard her first couple albums, from 1978 and 1980; maybe Seven Year Ache (which I've always liked a lot -- 1981) was the anomaly. '85's Rhythm And Romance had at least a couple good, borderline new wavey poppish singles ("Hold On" and "I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me"), and '87's King's Record Shop, was, as far as I could tell, her last fun one before sinking into adult alternative introversion haze in the '90s....But anyway, Xgau gave Somewhere a B+; said "Third Rate Romance" was its worst track and still pretty good. Sounds more to me like it's the best track, and both the Amazing Rhythm Aces and Sammy Kershaw did it a lot better. Xgau correct in saying it's a hard song to screw up, but Rosanne sings it Ronstadt-style, like she's got no idea what the words are about. (Also, fwiw, Ronstadt's new wave '80 Mad Love is way better.) Besides that, there's a duet with Rosanne's dad on a Tom T. Hall song ("How I Got To Memphis") which was never one of his best, and there are two John Hiatt covers that suggest he was getting boring earlier than I thought, too. ("I Look For Love" even hints that he had an Imperial Bedroom phase, yuck, unless the prissy arrangement was new here.) And Rosanne tries some proto-Norah Jones lounge tedium too. A major lack of hooks, over all.

Also been trying to get into Baille And The Boys' first LP, from 1987. I like the idea of them: Girl lead singer with two harmonizing guys (one her husband), from Newark, New Jersey, of all places. LP went Top 30 country; supposedly they were insprired by the Supremes, Four Tops, and Beatles. (In fact, the non-husband also did Beatlemania on Broadway at some point.) Ken Barnes gave them Single Of The Month in his Creem "45 Revelations" column in January 1988: "The harmony arrangements on the LP are sumptuous, and Kathy Baille's voice is pure liquid heartbreak. It all works to perfection on 'He's Letting Go,' a slow-building, taut and tense tale of disillusion/dissolution...When Baille sings 'The moon is bluer than the midnight sky/He's gonna let me go,' it truly seems like the end of the world." Well, not to me it doesn't, not quite, not yet at least. Whole album, and especially that song, are real pretty though. Maybe I just need to listen to it more.

Oops, not Rosanne's dad on that Tom T. cover -- her (then) husband, Rodney Crowell. Who sounds like he's trying to sing like her dad.

Drive-By Truckers have several songs that address the choice between cooking meth and going straight, so that's a topic that's at least been touched upon. And meth is definitely the bigger industry than marijuana in places like Harlan County, but it's not like Dierks' "Down in the Mine" is really off the mark, either.

I still want to find out how the bluegrass audience overlaps with the straight country audience. A label like Rounder, with its bluegrassy singer-songwriters in the mode of Claire Lynch, is kinda like Reprise Records used to be in the singer-songwriter era; and Alison Krauss seems about as universal a country artist as we're likely to see in this place and time.

From my experiences with attending Bluegrass festivals here in Kentucky, I would say that the overlap between the Bluegrass and contemporary country audiences is negligible. If country is popular music's most aesthetically (and politically) conservative genre, then Bluegrass is its lunatic fringe: Acts like Krauss, Nickel Creek, and Cherryholmes all have a sizable legion of vocal detractors for having moved ever farther away from "pure" Bluegrass music. Generally, the Bluegrass purists who are big on artists like Rhonda Vincent & The Rage (though even she has some people who consider her a sell-out), The Gibson Brothers, or Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver don't have albums by Sugarland or Gary Allan in their trucks. And since Bluegrass is still such a niche genre, I haven't run across a ton of people who are just casual Bluegrass fans, and most of the ones I have met are a younger demo that came to Bluegrass via someone like The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, or Punch Brothers, and they aren't really listening to Dierks Bentley, either.

As for how representative that impression is, I can't say. Kentucky obviously takes its Bluegrass music very, very seriously, so there may be a more casual approach to it elsewhere. But around these parts, saying how much you liked Dierks Bentley's "Bluegrass album" would be a poor life choice in certain company. Though, for the record, I happen to like the album quite a lot.

Yeah, what you say about Kentucky fans seems about right to me. Bluegrass people are as funny and as scruffy as blues fans. Here it's a pretty big hub for bluegrass, obviously, and what you're saying is that younger folks into 'grass aren't into mainstream country so much.

Acts like Krauss, Nickel Creek, and Cherryholmes all have a sizable legion of vocal detractors for having moved ever farther away from "pure" Bluegrass music.

Interesting as well. Of course, I'd argue that the various neo-grass combinations--and there's like a ton of these bands here in town, again obviously, from the Time Jumpers (with a bit of western swing in there) to Old Crow...all sort of this strange combination of "songwriting" a la what I think is behind all this shit, just country-rock, post Progressive Grass textures and sonics added to it. But songful, trying to write original material within the confines of bluegrass.

So I wonder how many new fans Nickel Creek, Cherryholmes or the band I wrote about above, Rose's Pawn Shop (who are kind of interesting but don't offer anything all that new to the equation--mixtures of rockabilly, Django Reinhardt jazzy old-tyme '30s chord progressions, and western swing a.k.a. "jump blues" have been around forever--in fact, that kind of Eklektik NPR shit is the foundation of the modern commercial bluegrass movement, which is why I sorta have to laugh at it sometimes), get by crossing over? Again, RPS are playing the Basement here, a small club. Played here a few years back. So you have to contrast that with Dierks' record, which is actually about exactly the same goddam thing, except it's not so NPR-ready. But Nashville wants any demographic it can get and must've figured, Dierks wants to do this and he's already kinda bluegrassy (actually Byrdsy a la its later phase of Karefully Kalibrated Kountry licks and sonic mystery of a sort), so it'll make a good thing for everyone to talk about. Like I'm doing here.

So plug in songwriters (recall some good ones on Dierks' record, like Shawn Camp, I think) but tailor it to Dierks, is what I think happened. And get some outside material and let's do U2 and Dylan, for the "concept." Nashville has always done weird versions of the classic rock canon. It's totally plugged into the way Nashville does things--all these other neo-progressive 'grass bands are really bands, even if they're just playing country rock with fiddles and banjos and Textures.

Here the bluegrass audience seems fairly across the board but skewing toward around 40 as a median age...

Without having the actual sales stats, I'd hesitate to project as to how many more or how many new fans the "Progressive Grass" bands like Time Jumpers or Nickel Creek or the SteelDrivers gain as compared to the traditional Bluegrass acts. But the fact that acts like Krauss and Carolina Chocolate Drops do fit squarely into the NPR / AAA demo gives them a good deal more exposure than someone like Doyle Lawson or Dailey & Vincent routinely get: I've heard Old Crow Medicine Show's singles played in places like Starbucks and Chipotle, but Rhonda Vincent isn't on those playlists.

I'll check out Rose's Pawn Shop, if only because I'm not familiar with them, and I'm enough of a casual fan of / apologist for both progressive and traditional bluegrass that they might be to my liking.

And I would agree that the median age for most of the Bluegrass festivals I've attended is north of 40, which is yet another reason that I usually feel a bit out-of-place there. The atmosphere can be exclusionary at times.

In my review of the Punch Brothers' album, I said that it seems like they're aiming to be a stringband version of Radiohead, so I can see the "acoustic prog-rock" tag. They really don't scan as a Bluegrass band most of the time, and there's a fussiness and show-offy tendency to what they're doing that might be off-putting to some. It may be my years of classical training rearing their head, but I respect the sophistication of the band's compositions and think the songs are strong enough on their own merits.

I found a copy of Rosanne Cash's Somewhere in the Stars I got cheap. It always struck me as excessively straight--but it's a real good MOR record nonetheless. Nice arrangements like the strings and woodwinds of "I Wonder." She sings quite well too and looks quite good on the cover, maybe never looked better. But the bg vocals and electric piano and freeze-dried licks of "Oh Yes I Can" are kinda banal. But you can hear her debt to commercial soul music I guess, altho I do not believe "I'm a dancer" when she sings it. I also like the way she admits she's getting a bit older and doesn't fit in and sorta flaunts her well-earned wisdom on "Looking for a Corner." Not bad at all, in fact quite good. But then there's some fairly banal yuppie soul altho again I like her line about her man's toupee. I dunno, where's Crystal Gayle when you need her? I like Hall's "Memphis" but she's too genteel for it, and I hear what she's trying to do as a singer to "Third Rate Romance," take it down a notch...fitting into the theme of slightly bemused domesticity here. But maybe too recessive a singer for such material, which really needs to the kick of--you know, rhythm aces or whatever. I hear this as good taste running rampant over what could've been even better, and you know me, I like good taste.

Rose's Pawn Shop (who are kind of interesting... contrast that with Dierks' record, which is actually about exactly the same goddam thing, except it's not so NPR-ready.

Meaning: He doesn't sing as bad? (Actually, I'm not positive about that. But when I gave that Rose's Pawn Shop record a play after it came in the mail a month or so ago, I thought a few songs had enough energy to be potentially good, but just couldn't get pass the lifeless vocals.)

Edd also mentioned Megafaun above; I only got a couple songs into that one before giving up. Any reason I should be spending more time with it?