Rolling Country 2015

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

speaking of the new Iris Dement album (out today), it's also a new approach for her:
http://nodepression.com/article/anna-akhmatova-beckons-iris-dement-toward-%E2%80%98-trackless-woods%E2%80%99

“So that was just a blessing to have this – these beautiful poems complete, in and of themselves. And to be able to just work with them, and try to weave this melody around them. It was just a really joyful thing. I never, ever, ever felt frustrated. It never felt like work. I mean, it took me four years,

Russian poetry with Iris Dement vocal melodies. Could be good, but it all depends on those melodies.

Either way, I'm glad she's working with somebody else's words, since she indicates in the feature that lyric-writing has become a problem (and she doesn't seem to think enough of her melodic chops to try an album of instrumentals).

RIP Wayne Carson (w Thompson tacked on for a while): knew he wrote Box Tops hits ("The Letter," "Neon Rainbow," "Soul Deep"), and most of "Always On My Mind," but did not realize until now that he provided awes fuel for Gary Stewart's heyday---such as (if the link doesn't show the title, it's "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh-KEYAN9dg

Also wrote what could have been Stewart's theme, alas:
("I've Got This Drinkin' Thing")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5-Y3UXEY7M

And!
("I See The Want To In Your Eyes")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09zorXQpfRo

One of his all-time best LPs, Out of Hand, shown there (if 'twere at hand, would check for more Wayne credits)

His last album was weird, but appropriately so---wrote briefly about it, and his prime time appeal, here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/out-of-hand-6408550

I had no idea Gary Stewart had killed himself, don't know how that slipped by me. I saw him with my parents when I was 9 at Jones Country in Colmesneil, TX.

http://www.bigthicketdirectory.com/articles/articles1.html

Big Thicket! Thanks, Jacob. Reminds me, I need to check out some early George Jones, country and rockabilly sides. The only one I know is "White Lightnin'." What's a good collection (or two)?

not sure if it's still in print or not, but the 2-cd set cup of loneliness: the classic mercury years is (or was) the definitive early george jones collection.

Thanks cuz---not seeing that, but Spotify has The Definitive Collection (1955-1962): 22 songs in 55 minutes (not counting the grayed-out "I'm Ragged But I'm Right"). Even at that, some of the tracks seem too drawn-out, but plenty are amazing. The earliest seem like the next step after Hank Williams, what Hank himself would have had to do, for a comeback: keeping the tensile, high lonesome reach, but also getting to something just a bit lower, a bit smoother in the shadows, easing up and drawing back, just at the right seconds---one ear out for the rise of Sinatra's Adult Pop, the other ready for rockin' upstarts, and the new gospel, even---"Cup of Loneliness" is drive-by living, in its unrelenting, anguished eloquence. Some twisted romantic situations as the 60s appear, duh. Think he taught Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender, Gary Stewart a thing or two. Whew! Looks like Spotify has a fair amount of early stuff on other collections.

From a freelancer's review of Zac Brown at Nationals Park in DC

Brown seemed particularly invested in his cover of Americana darling Jason Isbell’s “Dress Blues,” a crushing tune about a young American killed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Two men in Marine dress uniforms marched onstage as Brown sang with apparent anger about a “godawful war.” At the end of the peacenik ode, a chant of “USA! USA! USA!” broke out in the upper deck and spread throughout the stadium. Now that’s country.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/at-nats-park-zac-browns-multiple-musical-personalities-on-display/2015/08/16/80d45d40-4428-11e5-9f53-d1e3ddfd0cda_story.html

Pissiness: it's not a "peacenik ode," it's about a guy killed in war, as he said in front, and the way any funeral can be something of a torturous experience, but especially the more formal ones, especially when the ritual comes damn near to saluting its own tradition, itself, more than the one being buried. Anybody, regardless of politics, could think it "a godawful war," considering the loss; after he left office, I think, Bush said the casualties kept him awake in the White House...
Yeah, hawks are getting cranked up again, but, even when the Dixie Chicks were banished, some Southern DJs substituted Bruce Robison's original version of "Travellin' Soldier" for the DC's, and got no complaints, far as I know; country listeners were ready for that song.

For that matter, chanting "USA! USA!" isn't necessarily a retort; could be "Yes, War is Hell, but the good guys will prevail," or something like that.

From Rolling Reissues: audio as well as more info via link:
My friend Jason has compiled a beautiful set of 14 country songs, all taken from 45's and all custom releases, or private press. I can not recommend this enough!
http://lightintheattic.net/releases/1946-small-town-country-vol-1

― JacobSanders, Monday, August 17, 2015 9:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Thanks, Jacob!

Some other good collections of country etc rarities also on that page.

x-post -re Zac Brown, knew he likes to please all, but did not realize that meant 8 covers in his set including from Beatles, Queen, Charlie Daniels, Dave Matthews,Led Zepp, Marshall Tucker...