Rolling Country 2010

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.