Rolling Country 2010

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?

Also, fwiw, Old Crow Medicine Show also did a "Methamphetamine" song on their '08 album Tennessee Pusher. Only Drive By Truckers one I know offhand is "You And Your Crystal Meth"; no doubt I'd know more if I always listened closely to their words (which aren't always delivered in a manner that inspires me to do so.) Which other DBT songs qualify?

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.

The one album from her "classic" period I don't own, although I do know "I Wonder." Nice review.

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?

Well, I am old enough to remember Moby Grape's great 20 Granite Creek and Skip Spence's Oar and McGuinness Flint--which "California Days" reminds me of. And yeah, the singing is sorta light, altho the guy sounds sorta like Brian Wilson or Mike Love in the intro of the good-timey bluesy Norman Greenbaum thing of "Eagle." I mean OK, McGuinness Flint even did "International" better than Mary Hopkin did and Megafaun has the same kinda ricky-ticky feel. Or "Eagle" is also like Nilsson or today's youth's version of early-'70s AM pop a la "Spaceman" or "Coconut." And I hear some prog in there--the whole way they go from vocal section to instrumental section and try to layer it over the drums (which could be better) as about 3:35 into "Eagle" is in that vein. I mean a lot of this is kind of stretched thin, but they at least are trying to do something different, not that the sax solo in "Eagle" is actually something I would recommend.

But what makes me like the record is just that, they'll try anything. I spent a lot of time over the last year going back and really trying to listen to a lot of similar music from the late '60s and early '70s, I mean all the Family albums (can we draw a line from Traffic and Family to Beck to the Megafaun EP?), McGuinness Flint (already a big fan of Coulson, Dean, McGuinness Flint's Lo and Behold and Ashton, Gardner and Dyke and the Incredible String Band...and Bob Mosley's solo album from '72, all that slightly hairy music from that era. And all groups who would try anything. So I would say I prefer the more compressed pop aesthetic of "Volunteers" with its banjo and all to the more overtly bluegrass-based stuff we've been discussing above. But yeah, vocals are a problem, but I like the overall musical effort here--this is pretty commercial, too. I think they do what Deer Tick and the Avetts, maybe, try to do, but more genially and perhaps more stoned. The electronics seem grafted on but again, so what. Going back to the old stuff I checked out over the last year or so, not as good as the Insect Trust, those guys had a really cool female vocalist...

for that matter, I even like the instrumental on the Megafaun EP. Nothing too fancy but it's kinda sweet.

I mean too--Norman Greenbaum is due a reappraisal any day. He was as good as Billy Swan, I think. Petaluma is a masterpiece.

Oh yeah, always meant to check out more of his, other than "Spirit In The Sky." Apparently he was usually more in the Hurley/Rounders etc. groove, with members of Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks, Sopwith Camel etc playing on some tracks too. Running the Velvet Acres goat milk farm his royalities (he was also Dr. West, of "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago"), but apparently not all business. Petaluma seems to be cut out, dang. Very appealing decription of Megafaun too Speaking of Todd Snider Have you heard the Shel trib Twistable Turnable Man, Ebb? Some dud bait from alt rockers like Jim James and Black Francis, but mostly pretty credible; well hep spread the word anyway.

Yow, typos! Speaking of Family and Deer Tick, McAuley's voice reminds me of Roger Chapman's, called up for country duty, re pushing through country fatalism--but the word seems to be that album three isn't quite up to the first two? We'll see.

Also, fwiw, Old Crow Medicine Show also did a "Methamphetamine" song on their '08 album Tennessee Pusher. Only Drive By Truckers one I know offhand is "You And Your Crystal Meth"; no doubt I'd know more if I always listened closely to their words (which aren't always delivered in a manner that inspires me to do so.) Which other DBT songs qualify?

I tend to prefer OCMS's couple of cocaine songs to that one.

As for the Truckers: In addition to "You and Your Crystal Meth," "Outfit," from Decoration Day, includes the line, "Have fun but stay clear of the needle," in its chorus, and "Aftermath, USA" from A Blessing & A Curse, details a line about a bathtub full of crystal meth and a blood-spattered sink ("It's all worse than you think").

I think they do what Deer Tick and the Avetts, maybe, try to do, but more genially and perhaps more stoned. The electronics seem grafted on but again, so what.

I'll second all of that. Thought that Megafaun was a solid record, though I can easily see why it might not play to everyone's tastes.

3 relevant Singles Jukeboxings:

Laura Bell Bundy "Giddy On Up"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2505

Little Big Town, "Little White Church"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2507

Train, "Hey Soul Sister" (since it's now officially a minor country hit)

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2027

Sony blocked the video at singlesjukebox, at least in my country, so went to Train's website. Wonder if anyone's playing the 6:45 version of "Hey, Soul Sister." I had to sit through the goddam vamping to hear this guy intone "tonight" and "one of my kind." I can hear why it's a hit, it's catchy bubblegum and it's funny--the line about chest hair and in general, the whole fucking thing is funny. I actually like "Save Me San Francisco" a lot better--great glam in the British tradition, kind of a slight late Move/ELO feel (note the pianos flourishing at the end). "Rock and roll and disco/Save me S.F." and they mention making coin or something in the Tenderloin. I mean shit, it's a great song. Guy got his gig because he can sing high and loud, so I'd guess he learned his shit in disco cover bands. He can sing.

Uh, Laura Bell Bundy, I hate her immediately, and I hate "Giddy on Up" and never want to hear that shit again. Not that I have anything against country-disco-funk, in the abstract it's kind of a cool track, but the minds of people who'd make such an inane video...terrible video, she's too old to dance around like that and I guess somebody somewhere sorta conflated some bad neo-westerns and Tarantino dance sequences...Laura Bell doesn't interest me at all as a sex object. I hate people who sit around and construct these kind of stupid video ideas for themselves and then dance around. She knows what cowboys smell like 'cause she goes thru their shirts, she's gonna fuck the one who isn't impressed by her or her stupid video, see what I mean? But sure, interesting enough as a track. And I guess Trace can do this kinda funk thing so she can too, I guess I'd like Laura Bell better if she were more like Lizzy Mercier Descloux or dressed in a robot suit or something.

I wrote about Ronnie Milsap recently, I missed the thing with him and Trace and Capitol, this single Milsap made to benefit EMTs and firefighters and Trace apparently had Capitol's approval to sing on it, but then they wanted a piece of it after the single hit and Trace left Capitol...

Found a copy of Freddie North's 1975 Cuss the Wind, which everyone else may know about. Really taut, incisive, varied arrangements in a very well-thought-out soul/country mode with blues guitar, strings, horns--and North's sorta Joe Simon wail over it all, and just amazing songs. Every track somewhat unexpected, every track great, including one about rural poverty in which the guy's wife falls into the river she's so worn out from working the fields, and an awesome cover of Tony Joe's "Rainy Night in Georgia" that if anything is better than Brook Benton's. A really great record, a Jerry Williams production so the arrangements are settings--never one knocked-off or slack moment, and his voice really cuts. He did the orig. version of "She's All I Got" that lotsa people did, and Cuss the Wind may be the great country-soul masterpiece of all time, runs about 29 minutes flat.

Cut-and-pasted Edd's Laura Bell Bundy graph over on the Jukebox, where it's now being agreed and disagreed with. Definitely think Laura Bell Bundy is way funnier (and way more catchy bubblegum) than Train myself (at least the Train I've listened to, which admittedly isn't a lot.)

Also, already posted this on Rolling Hard Rock, but it sort of fits here too, inasmuch as fiddles and '70s cornbelt boogie-rock connect to country. "Prog On The Prairie: Midwestern Bands Roll Over Beethoven":

http://www.emusic.com/features/spotlight/2010_201007-essay-prog.html

I wrote a long-ish review of the single and video for "Giddy On Up" a couple of months back (I'm surprised the single just now turned up on the Jukebox, since it officially dropped out of the country chart last week and "Drop On By" has been announced as the second single). I'm with Chuck on considering it one of my favorite singles of the year thus far-- though it's probably only my 3rd or 4th favorite song from the Shakin' half of Bundy's terrific album-- but I said that the video does the song a serious disservice, as Edd's response bears out.

Edd, what did you have to say about Ronnie Milsap? I've been picking up a few of his LPs lately, but haven't gone far into the 80s, or later.

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.

It's more merengue than reggaeton anyway. It's okay, but there are dozens of merengue songs from the last decade that I like more, not that I usually know their names, because those details tend to wash over me when it comes to merengue. (The way it used to work when I was still dancing regularly is that I'd become familiar a merengue song from hearing it in a club and then maybe if I were lucky I'd find out later who it was by and what the title was.) The harmonies seem kind of 50ish/early 60sish (in an early rock or maybe R&B way). Possibly that is what you are hearing as country?

Tim, this was a good recent thread:

Ronnie Milsap