Rolling Country 2015

OK, from Post-Dylan Nashville Part 2, had not heard these particular tracks, from artists I was otherwise somewhut familiar with---ones listed by: Earl Richards, Paul Kelly. Jack Nitzche, Larry Jon Wilson, Mac Gayden, Cowboy Jack Clement, Swamp Dogg, Joe Simon, White Animals.

Oh yeah, and I def need to give xpost Hosford another shot. I long ago tracked down this LP, after reading what xgau wrote in his 70s Record Guide, currently archived on his site:

Larry Hosford: Cross Words [Shelter, 1976]
A funny country singer-songwriter with complicated emotions and an elusive, strangely ageless vocal persona--mellowed-out Homer and/or Jethro, perhaps, or comic-relief L.A. cowboy gone crackerbarrel, or crackers. His wife calls him Daddy, calls his bluff, and then just calls a cab, but don't worry--here's a man who don't worry--here's a man who knows that love gets easier when you own a blanket with a switch on it. B+

Uh-oh, didn't sound like I somehow thought it would--too soft, mebbe? Don't really remember, but I'm sure I didn't give it a chance to grow on me.

about 30 of those 50 were on spotify; should leaven that country playlist quite a bit

enjoyed Kacey Musgrave and band live last night in DC. Mentioned it on her thread, including the covers she did.

recently heard this brothers osborne song for the first time and am quite enjoying it: http://youtu.be/zY6cMMtLCcQ

A-List Nashville studio & stage cats, "oldfangled" but also backing younger stars like Lambert and Musgraves---didn't know 'til I read this that they have couple of their own albums---anybody heard 'em?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/arts/music/the-time-jumpers-country-swing-standard-bearers-thrive-in-nashville.html?ref=music

o forks, please be sure to add Whitney Rose, Heartbreaker of the Year to RC Spotify list thanks. As with xpost Lindi Ortega, it's rec to those pining for the late great Amy Farris, also for Roy Orbison and good David Lynch movies. Cool intensity, no spookier than true romance, and not too reliant on atmosphere: some architecture in there (love the mini-bridge of "Only Just A Dream," also the guitars there and elsewhere, reg'lar and steel, hovering, prowling, serenading, warning, also various uses of drums and, occasionally, keys, organ and piano (the latter somewhut Floyd Crameresque on the rocks in "The Last Party, " but it's not a lift of his "Last Date"). "Be My Baby" is an on-the-nose choice in this context, but it works esp. with producer Raul Malo's non-showboat, non-wallflower vocal turn.
Still, despite the breathing room, 10 tracks and 37 minutes seem like a little too much of a good thing, like a bottle of wine at one sitting, 'til the finale, a metamorphic reworking of "A Tear In My Beer" adds just enough variety.
Also intrigued by another Spotify offering, Cam's Welcome To Cam CountryEP---debut album out Dec. 11.

Ortega and Nikki Lane are a bit more down-to-earth, or down-to-firescape. Rose isn't pretentious, but stays closer to her Senior Prom dress, o yes. A princess who knows how to get past the guards.

x-post -- have not heard Time Jumpers albums. Recall I think Roseanne Cash mentioning them when I saw her with Vince Gill (most recent and famous member of that project).

Speaking of Vince, when I saw Ashley Monroe perform last night, she said she liked to go over to Vince's house and just sit there until he said, hey lets work on a song and would pick up his guitar.

Still haven't made up my mind re Chris Stapleton. I see he's gonna be on the CMA Awards Wednesday night the 4th

Chris Stapleton will be joined by award-winning musician and actor Justin Timberlake for a special performance on “The 49th Annual CMA Awards.”

Celebrating his first artist nominations, Stapleton is a contender in three CMA Awards categories: “Album of the Year” for his acclaimed debut album, Traveller, which he co-produced with Dave Cobb, “Male Vocalist of the Year” and “New Artist of the Year

the one stapleton song i heard sounded like a led zep 'levee breaks' homage iirc.

yep

i'm just getting into the carrie underwood album and it's really good! i hadn't really been into her as an albums artist before but this is probably her best yet. "church bells" and "choctaw county affair" are particularly great, she really suits those bolshy/gothic narratives

I haven't listened to it (yet). Jon Caramanica was very negative in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/arts/music/review-carrie-underwoods-storyteller-values-power-over-finesse.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FUnderwood%2C%20Carrie&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

“Storyteller” is her fifth album, and even though a decade has passed since her debut, Ms. Underwood is still preoccupied with power, not texture or finesse. She largely picks songs that serve as launch platforms for her ballistic-missile voice, but they don’t cohere into a whole identity. Her voice is pure, lean, potent — it doesn’t have multiple settings. By tone alone, it can be difficult to divine when she’s ecstatic, or aggrieved, or wretched.

That means Ms. Underwood sings with equal intensity on the insipid “Heartbeat” and “The Girl You Think I Am,” an unrelentingly treacly song about being daddy’s little girl, as on the breathy, sly “Relapse,” about falling back into old habits. She calls her lover, in quick succession, “time that I’m wasting,” “some wine that I’m tasting” and “a high that I’m chasing,” in a voice that recalls Lita Ford more than any country singer.

psssh Caramanica, never put stock in his opinions

Maura, Jewly Hight and S. Erlewine all reviewed it well

it can be difficult to divine when she's ecstatic, or aggrieved, or wretched: maybe, but that's what cues are for, pop-settings-wise. Never heard a whole Underwood album albums, will try to listen without prejudice.

Also without typos, unusually enough.

As though sounding like Lita Ford is a bad thing...

Interesting; Eric Church just physically mailed a new album, Mr. Misunderstood, to select fans.

Maybe I'm overrating this, after being bored shitless by several albums in a row, but at the moment totes infatuated w Ryan Culwell's Flatlands: immediately takes the rein with nervous energy willed into focus (minus strain or excess melodrama)on tensile Texastenial tunes. He's young, he's spooked, but he's determined to "find my mountains in the flatlands, hallelujah!"--followed immediately by "I Think I'll Be Their God." Where he sounds like he's acquainted with the megaphone tape legacy of the Rev. Jim Jones. Yes, he's wary of hope, even self-mocking at times---"Ah am just a young man, with piss down in mah bones"---but he's tasted more than the grape Koolaid, tracks different flavors of hope and hopelessness. I'm also influenced by first hearing this while first reading Winesburg, Ohio: both consider the flavors of twisted roots, with spare but never bare presentation (12 songs, 40 minutes here, and, as in the book, weaker or slighter tracks are carried by the overall momentum). Especially like when sustain and a little bit of distortion appear on the horizon behind battered acoustic rhythm, and there's the occasional desert siren (of the female persuasion).
Rec also to selective fans of Townes Van Zandt, esp. "Red River" ("She's cleaning the red dirt off the life he give her...he ain't my uncle no more") and "Horses" ("Sometimes tough ain't enough/Bow down the head that Jesus raised"---addressed to a woman, not a horse, I think).

"Texastential," of course!

Eric Church is gonna be on that country awards program tonight too. With Hank Williams Jr ....

"Mr Misunderstood" sounds good.

Little Big Town just won CMA single of the year for "Girl Crush"....Plus host Brad Paisley said "cray" cray" and Carrie Underwood did the "nae nae"....The fun will be continuing for a few more hours.

Kacey Musgraves is playing her hokey, obvious song.

eric church's new song sounded fantastic. kacey musgraves sounded not only hokey, but really ... off. ashley monroe got three or four seconds of airtime in the audience early in the show. chris stapleton seemed truly unaware that he was going to keep winning. brad paisley played acoustic guitar without a strap. keith urban played bass. very very happy for little big town.

the crazy sparkly chris stapleton t-shirt that miranda wore while accepting her female vocalist award was kind of fantastic.

CMAs sending message to bros, I guess.

So do I need to hear Chris Stapleton's album?

You might like it? Rorschach test album -- some hear impressive rocking country while others hear barband cliches

The AMG review makes him sound like Jamey Johnson without the showy moroseness, and I could go for that.

I didn't like it, and last night's performance with Boy Wonder was still leaden.

that little big town album is great imo, though most of the album tracks are better than the singles.

this npr tiny desk concert is my favorite chris stapleton thing.

Well, I tried Traveller on Spotify, and the first four songs I clicked on were boring dirges, so I'm done.

About a mnute too long but it sounds fine, a non-soppy "American Pie":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOuF3k_-asA

A mildly interesting Awl piece on Keith Urban and Toby Keith and country music masculinity as drag.

Anyone already listened Mr Misunderstood? I mostly liked it, it's a real departure from The Outsiders and I think I prefer this one. The first half holds it up better than the second one but it didn't seem to drag. "Knives of New Orleans" sounds like a highlight.

The Outsiders was a sodden mess but whose singles were delights on the radio or in isolation.

Yeah, I can't really pinpoint where "The Outsiders" exactly goes wrong, I like songs individually but there's something about the pacing of that album that's really weird. I feel this one's turning out to be better in that aspect.

I did a brief obit on '70s proto-bro singer (and conceptual master) Tommy Overstreet, whose hits were masterminded by a team comprising Ricci Mareno, Charlie Black and Jerry Gillespie.

Thanks! Speaking of bro, if anything, yall may have underpraised xpost Thomas Rhett's Tangled Up. Really like the horns x beats behind his swaggering presentation of "South Side," the suggestions of Van Morrison (maybe "Crazy Love" in particular, but not too close) in the guitar etc. of "Die A Happy Man," the Pink ("Get This Party Started") in "Vacation," the cold bones country in "The Day You Stop Lookin' Back," also there in (but getting warmed up by)"Playing With Fire," the duet with Jordan Sparks, the modern sounds all around but never oversold, although lyrics of "I Listen To The Radio," have the r. telling him things he never ever thought of before, like he should go and kiss that girl.

Old Dominion's Meat and Candy is okay as office/traffic music, mainly because it's not very distracting. The drunk dialing one did grab my attention though, because that's an extreme example of their consideration of women (previous track gently submits for approval the idea of rollin' with you like a beercan in the back of a truck). Drunk Dialer says you should go with him, thus breaking up with the other guy implicitly, instantly, just "rip the Band-Aid off---you know I'm right, or you woulda hung up by now." He still sounds more hopeful than bold, as ever.

Also "Said Nobody," with Weekend Update punchline chorus.

"adding all that in, i happened upon a new album, 'Momentarily Yours', from Larry Hosford that is worth a peek."

yes this is a fun little album!

I didn't know Keith Urban was Australian.

Rolling Country regulars, should I watch the 1980 film Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta?

really love "record year" off the new eric church

Never saw xpost Urban Cowboy, but, despite a few duds, the soundtrack still seemed pretty decent the last time I heard it (not recently). Think they got all the songs in there; most soundtracks leave some off, for financial reasons, I guess. But this double-LP had several radio hits, and may have been a hit its own self.

Gretchen Peters, Blackbirds[:
Maybe especially this time of year, some days are just naturally darker than others, and this album can help them slide in there a little darker still, without overdoing it. Although the title track comes a little close, with violence getting more physical "I stink of kerosene" etc---in a way the other songs don't seem to bother with (although it's more about the immediate overall effect, so who knows yet), as they usually track bad (self- and other) love through the woods, and "that green suburban plain" at least one citizen is zoning on. Not country- or folk-rock, although there's usually an electric guitar and/or drums among the otherwise acoustic combo, usually with medium-to-brisk tempos, not much decoration, and steady rhythms building nicely, like on "Black Ribbons," co-written and background sung by Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss, her fellow members of Wine Women & Song.
Ballad-wise, sounds like she's been listening to Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, but not too much; for instance, I've never heard anything quite like the beautiful death spiral skywriting of "Pretty Things"---heard the musical pattern before, maybe, occasionally, but not with this kind of storyline.
Good duet with Jimmy LaFave, too, and the only cover, "Nashville"--as written and performed, a cogent swirl of memory, anticipation and apprehension---makes me want to check out the writer, David Mead, and has me thinking even more that several of these would fit Nashville, as did Season 2's "How You Learn To Live Alone," the one she wrote with Mary Gauthier.

I guess there's a *bit* of folk- and/or country rock in there sometimes, when the electric guitar takes a solo.