Rolling Country 2010

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.