Rolling Country 2015

Speaking of Sam Hunt lyrics, he comes off like something of a campus creep on Montevallo, named for a small town Alabama liberal arts college. Good music program, but doesn't sound like his main interest.

It's worth hearing at least once, though---for forensic purposes, if nothing else---and actually made several Top Tens.

Its catchy

I've flipped on "Take Your Time." I thought it was lame loverboy drool when I wanted Loverboy drool. now when it comes on the radio I don't change it, especially when preceded or followed by Dierks Bentley 's "Say You Do."

Country Music Critics poll editor Geoff Himes likes Sam Hunt:

Hunt wrote most of the songs with his producers, Zach Crowell and Shane McAnally, the latter famous for helping Kacey Musgraves get smart songwriting on country radio. The music uses the same mix of pop, rock, country and hip-hop elements that all the big country stars use these days, but Hunt never lets them fall into a predictable pattern. He’s constantly moving from quiet to loud, from spoken recitation to smooth crooning, from minimalist synths to maximalist guitars. And if the Country Music Association had an award for best pun — and it should — Hunt would have to win it for the line about a girl using him to make someone else jealous: “You don’t want me; you just want your ex to see.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2015/02/12/this-weeks-best-concerts-sam-hunt-and-emmy-the-great/

A double header of Music City Roots shows this week: Tues. is mostly pickers, although Hot Club of Nashville incl. vocal stylist Anne Sellick. the regular Wed. set is headlined by Pam Tillis, and also features Caroline Spence (heard intriguing tracks from new album, must check whole thing). Both shows start 7 Central, go on for a couple hours or so. Livestream or scroll to bottom of this page for the link to Nashville's Hippie Radio. More show details here:
http://musiccityroots.com/blog/lets-play-two-a-roots-double-header/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vfvIwK9iE

Alfred and other Jukeboxers discuss discuss Ashley Monroe's "The Blade":
http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=17202

watching xpost livestream of Music City Roots, Caroline Spence's set: dandy lil band,and the female upright bassist's occasional vocal harmony brings sweet relief. Seems like the songs *might* be good, but Spence's voice keeps dropping the well-known ball. Hope it's fixed in the mix (will still check album).
Pam Tillis interview starting now! Her set will be later though, judging by the way MCR usually does thangs.

Sad that usually astute interviewer confused It's All Relative(Pam sings Mel) with PT's sufficiently cosmic Rhinestoned.

Pam Tillis set now, swinging the honky tonk blues, then something spooky under the Cali sun, with a bit of "Take Five" in its wake (mostly new songs tonight). Will be archived, if you can't be arsed to livestream.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122266/its-not-easy-being-guy-country-song-either

Political mag writer sneers at bro-country male values

Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free: doesn't travel with the more sustained undertone of excitement found in Southeastern---recorded sober, apparently!---but "Are you takin' the grown-up dose?" is still the question, or one of 'em, and it's often remarkable what can sprout from dry, quiet starting over, especially when the past gets out of bed and comes cruising through one's present-day/night of carefully worked out details, brushing them just a hair or three from conventional alignment. Or not, in which case it's conspicuous by etc., but always the singer's cue.
"Children of Children" and "24 Frames" will be the relatively big (npr) radio cuts, if any are, but most tunes as well as words tend to take fetching turns.
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/08/420588068/first-listen-jason-isbell-something-more-than-free

Not to say this 'un doesn't *also* sound like it was written and recorded sober---it does, and it also sounds like that's what it's about: dealing with the unfiltered, or differently filtered---but Southeastern seemed like more of an adventure.

Alan Jackson, Angels and Alcohol: Starts with less than half-hearted best wishes/empathy for one leaving the nest---"verybody's gotta live a little, before they die," and he can barely get the words out---then wheels around into a hearty chorus of reassurance, 'bout how you can always come home to big ol' generic slabs of bacon and gravy or whutever.
However, the overall theme of this set, convincingly expressed (tastefully, incl. with tasty details) is a healthy hats-off-and-on to the Uncertainty Principle and our need for same. Incl. in the title track, when it comes to "sooner or later you got to face what's hidin' in your mind", and the randy honky tonk encounters of "You Never Know," fender bender cum two daiquiri hookups and all. He and hitchhiking Jack Kerouac salute each other (along the alternative-lifestyles interstate of dreams, but still). They aren't too far apart in some ways: stay-at-home AJ finally gets a bellyful of his wife with the flattening iron and the curlers and that little dog and "that damn perfume"--she's sick of his shit too, so good riddance, he'll just keep partying with "Jim and Jack and Hank"--which rhymes with "So take your black Mercedes, full of stuff for ladies, to me you're just a total blank"---damn, that's pretty hardcore, especially for Mr. Mellow Melancholy Blond Mustache. Spoiler: he doesn't cave! Thought surely he would, what with the cartoon-country-Stones tone of the thing, and he does eventually have misgivings, by the end is invoking more and more of his male musical inspirations, "cleanin' out my closet."
And this right after a pensive sensitive cocktail reverie, but he's not just flipping scripts, because he's still competing with, while trying to imagine, "The One You're Waiting On": must be an awesome guy, considering this awesome woman, who keeps drinking and waving guys away, checking her phone...wtf, darlin...
He also celebrates "Flaws": "Everybody's got 'em/The ones you came with and you caused/Scars and tattoos gone rotten...all the little things that make her unique...the pieces of the puzzle that is me."
I'm hardly an Alan Jackson expert, but, while this set doesn't have any tracks with the downer power of "Monday Morning Church" or "The Little Man," it sort of doesn't need them: they've been done, and this hasn't, not by him, not this consistently (as far as I know).
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/08/420832163/first-listen-alan-jackson-angels-and-alcohol
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/08/420832163/first-listen-alan-jackson-angels-and-alcohol

Listened to this a half-dozen times today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXRrySTujn8#t=128

that's not really country is it?

"Jim and Jack and Hank" sounds like Jackson's attempt to get the Dierks Bentley dough, but he and his guitarists sound convincing.

xpost - probably more for the singer/songwriter thread

I've only heard the title track from Angels and Alcohol but I really like it.

The first track is a stunner.

This Zane Campbell album from February is becoming one of my favorites of the year. Reminds me of Billy Joe Shaver or maybe Fred Eaglesmith.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7dKo63nBxey77KzkhktAD4

http://www.usatoday.com/story/experience/weekend/lifestyle/2015/07/20/blake-shelton-miranda-lambert-divorcing/30418429/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R2qMLeKFwg

Indeed. Lots of discontent on that album.

A recent discussion of The Blade, from the Like A Rose Poll thread (Alfred's Spin review, linked toward the end, is very postive, except for pickin' on those two tracks)

"From Time to Time" and "Bombshell" are the duds imo.

no no NO these are not duds!

― lex pretend, Thursday, July 16, 2015 1:19 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes yes yes!

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 16, 2015 1:22 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They are so not duds---"Bombshell" is where she shifts from an initial impression of a tendency to stasis---where you get it all, and maybe get hooked, in the first verse and chorus, then stick around, to increasingly, if vaguely, diminishing returns, as the mind starts to wander---shifts to a more dynamic, moody yet sufficiently gravitational speculation: drop it on him now? How, "It's never a good time for a bombshell," but she's still checking her options...haven't heard a song about this situation, so in that respect, as well as the actual sound, I make a mental note for my future mix, The Great Lost Pistol Annies Album.
"From Time To Time" (like several on here)might be another one for the same destination, although in this case, the multiple Monroes have more of a post-Beatles/Fleetwood Mac/Dixie Chickc/Courtyard Hounds/multiple solo Maines/Mona Lisa: real friendly and slightly exotic (which is a friendly warning not to take friendliness for granted).
Despite her turning the pages in the stylebook--without trying to hide it---this set is more emotionally and/or sensually involving than Like A Rose.
Her debut, Satisfied, is also engaging---it's uneven, but the best tracks, written when she was a teen and maybe even a tween, are adolescent adventures in the best sense.

― dow, Thursday, July 16, 2015 2:31 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stasis creeps back in on "If The Devil Don't Want Me," maybe some of the other second-half tracks too, but they (and the better ones nearby) are still strong enough to keep me hangin' around, if not on.

― dow, Thursday, July 16, 2015 2:33 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"bombshell" is a great concept executed really well, dow nails it. and it fits in really well with the overarching themes.

"from time to time" i find really powerful, as much for what's not in the song (that i've heard yet) as what's in it...there are secrets and darknesses beneath its tenderness. and as brad says it's just a straight-up gorgeous melody.

Despite her turning the pages in the stylebook--without trying to hide it---this set is more emotionally and/or sensually involving than Like A Rose.

agree with this too; it builds on like a rose so well, takes its strengths and fleshes them out, pushes them in multiple unexpected directions

― lex pretend, Thursday, July 16, 2015 2:38 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And again, with the Pistol Annies-associated knack for fresh topics: considering that your love was (def past tense) "heaven," then, if the devil don't want her, where can she go? Purgatory? Celibacy? Just everyday numbnuts office bus station cafeteria reality? It's a good question, long as she can keep asking it, and putting off the answers.

― dow, Thursday, July 16, 2015 2:40 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.spin.com/2015/07/review-ashley-monroe-the-blade/

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 20, 2015 10:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm seeing her live tonight at an NPR first listen show; looking forward to it obviously

― you are extreme, Patti LuPone. (forksclovetofu), Monday, July 20, 2015 11:25 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hope it doesn't bury your love alive

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 20, 2015 11:26 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm planning on catching it by the handle.

― you are extreme, Patti LuPone. (forksclovetofu), Monday, July 20, 2015 12:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Putting internal quotes in bold because having formatting/computer/nearsightedness probs

she was wonderful live and basically all the new material sounds great; this is gonna be a v v popular album.

Frazey Ford may not be country but god is that record good.

Will check her out, thx. Meanwhile, Miranda and Ashley share "Nashville"-type on-stage refreshment, in a little Nashville club:
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/miranda-lambert-makes-first-public-appearance-post-blake-shelton-split-2015237

Presuming that Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame inductees qualify for this thread, I'm really digging the new Gretchen Peters album, Blackbirds, a dark affair of murder ballads and PTSD stories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5hIn569qMQ

RIP pedal steel wizard, ripple on:
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/30/427800540/buddy-emmons-the-pedal-steel-guitarist-who-taught-everybody-to-play

He did play with lots of folks. RIP

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6648310/jason-isbell-country-albums-chart-alan-jackson-brantley-gilbert

Billboard's take on Isbell selling 46,000 copies of his latest so as to beat out Alan Jackson for #1 selling country album

Billboard also has him #1 on rock albums beating out Tame Impala and Sublime with Rome. Apparently, he didn't make the r'n'b or rap or classical charts though.

http://www.billboard.com/charts/rock-albums

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style-blog/wp/2015/07/30/heres-why-luke-bryan-cant-top-sam-hunts-party-next-door/

Upthread I was touting Sam Hunt's "House Party." It's now being suggested as a song of the summer by the Washington Post's music critic Chris Richards. It's also at #4 on country singles chart.

The album has hung out in the pop top ten without any signs of slowing down.

Doesn't sound any better now than it did in '14 (about 40-45% okay).
If the Nash Scene ballot was due today, I'd prob say: Jackson, Isbell, Monroe, Yoakam, Willie & Merle, Emmylou & Rodney, Shelby Lynne, and uhhhhh---that's almost all the country charting sets I've heard, so far. Seems like a slow year. (I should check Cam, Randy Rogers & that other guy, Rhiannon Giddens, Musgraves, did check Mickey Guyton, Alison Moorer.) Big releases coming up?

(Not counting the Mavericks album, which is really good, but not very country.)

Other albums on the spotify list of note include Caroline Spence, Chris Stapleton, John Moreland, Kentucky Headhunters, Nikki Lane, Willie and Merle and Zane Campbell.

I should have mentioned Stapleton just now, esp. after praising his album upthread. Ditto Kentucky Headhunters, although (assuming you mean the one I mentioned, with Johnnie Johnson), would have to be in the Scene ballot's Reissue category, since it was recorded more than five years ago (despite having been prev. unreleased). I did count Willie & Merle--Nikki Lande doesn't have an album released in 2015, does she?! Hope so, but taking it that you mean the one on my 2014 ballot. Will check the Caroline Spence album (not much vocal presence on the recent Music City Roots livestream, but seemed like her songs might come across with studio assistance). And thanks alsofor reminding me to check Zane Campbell.

I've also been digging albums by Banditos (reminiscent of Alabama Shakes' live shows and not their more affected studio recordings), Humming House (which skews more in the contemporary folk direction, in the vicinity of OCMS or a competent version of The Lumineers), and Big Tobacco & The Pickers (mines camp in a manner similar to Southern Culture On The Skids, but with a more traditional country and less rockabilly bent).

New Iris DeMent is out soonish, though "big" release is relative there. But I'm looking forward to that one.

Nikki Lane's deluxe version of All or Nothin' came out this year, that's what I was looking at.

Yep, "big" just means ones I'm looking fwd to too, and thanks for those (although I enjoy Alabama Shakes' latest album, cutting up familiar elements in unexpected ways). Nikki deluze! Good to know. Also need to check xpost the current Gretchen Peters album. Her new newsletter incl. podcast of recent radio interview x acoustic session:
https://soundcloud.com/music-business-radio/gretchen-peters ("Music business radio"? On a Nashville station...)

Deluxe, but wouldn't mind deluze either

RIP lynn anderson

I'm baffled that tasteofcountry has “Kick the Dust Up” at #2 for july. I really thought it would sink as a single.

‏@0wlred 2h2 hours ago

Zane Campbell, s/t: Bereft vitality (barebones bellow), to dour elegance, to new VDay classic"Bringing The Boys Home" ("NobodywantedtoDOit")
First four tracks are maybe too bare, but once he gets with a group, oh my. "BTBH" kinda Stugill sings Cash, classick

"Sturgill," that is (what's deal w speling lately)

"Potters field" and "fess up" are my two favorite Zane Campbell tracks atm. Got one judge I don't need two

"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy me a boat" Chris Janson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-6k6wPyySc