Rolling country 2007 thread

dang, sorry! a comma instead of a dot, should be http://www.andrewbird.net

My and other people's reviews of Wilco's "What Light" are up at the Jukebox.

Me and Martin talkin' (along w/ Josh and Blood and Jonathan) about Miranda Lambert's "Famous In A Small Town" over in Jukebox.

Okay, back from the road (spent nights in Annapolis MD, Baltimore MD, Shepherdsville WV [Bavarian Inn on the Maryland border overlooking the Potomac!], Harrisonburg VA, Smithfield VA, Chincoteague VA -- more on some of those eventually); here's some real quick shorthand re: country-related stuff and other stuff discussed here listened to on the road, with more on these and more to come later too I'm sure):

Mary Weiss - decided I like the whole album and love none of it, though I do like some of it more than other of it. Most of the criticisms Edd and Frank have stated ring more or less true. Clearly her voice is not what it once was, though it's still....something. Also, she's no longer part of a group, which is probably an issue. And too much of the material tends more toward cabaret torch than girl group, I'd say. And yeah, Reigning Sound were never great to begin with. Though they're not bad.

Martina McBride- I give up on the new one. I called this "interesting" up thread; actually I said even more than that if you want to go back and check. Interesting to think about, I guess I meant. But after I wrote that, no other thoughts came to mind, and no other songs kicked in. Three or four songs are not bad, I guess. The single, "Anyway," is dull. Won't put the album in the sell pile, in case subsequent singles change my mind, but I am not counting it. Until it happens, album is in limbo.

Miranda Lambert -- Favorite song now on new album, which I still love, is "Dry Town," I think. "Guilty in Here" has an outside shot though. Maybe not as rocking nonstop as I thought at first. But close enough. I get Frank's concern about her taking one aspect of her debut and putting conceivably too much emphasis on it. But it was a great aspect! And the new rockers wail all over the new ballads.

Gretchen Wilson - As do hers. I like the new album. Real good rockers and fairly dull ballads, just like on her probably overrated debut and her probably underrated followup album. In 20 years, all three will seem more or less equal, I'm betting.

Neil Sedaka -- New best of drifts into showtune schlock for a couple songs in the middle, otherwise I still love most of it. Laleana said that all her life she'd assumed that a woman was singing "Laughter in the Rain" -- maybe Carole King, who it really sounds like. (Also, who had the hit with "The Immigrant"? It seems quite timely!)

Filthy Thieving Bastards -- "Phony Drunken Poet" is a pretty great opener, but nothing seems to match it after that. Their ominviorousness rhythmwise (blues, funk, swing) is sort of impressive though.

Richard Thompson -- New album has too suprisingly great songs about the war ("Dad's Gonna Kill Me," "Guns Are the Tongues", the latter of which may or may not be about a 19-year-old Iraqi soldider to match the former's possibly 19=year-old U.S. one), plus a surprisingly great song about temptation ("Needle and Thread") and a surprisingly great dear John letter sea shantey about a couple who cheat on each other ("Johnny's Far Away"). Maybe I'd be less surprised if I didn't stop paying attention to the guy two decades ago, though. Am not surprised that there's also lotsa great guitar.

Daniel Lee Martin - Yeah, an outdoorsman, and kinda rugged, but also a sensitive Tim McGraw type. First riff on album is taken from "Freeze Frame" by J Geils. And he covers "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" by Georgia Satellites, as of other country acts before. What is it a country hit when it came out? I know it was a rock hit, but did it cross over?

Jimmie Lee - Okay, I overstated his case a little upthread. But it's still a really fun EP, I swear.

Pete Berwick -- Lacks a voice for slow songs. But his fast ones rock right through their platitudes. Best one is "Ain't No Train Outta Nashville."

Fountains of Wayne -- Never paid attention to them before. Liked them more than I'd have guessed. "I-95" is a pretty great song to drive on I-95 too. If the rest of the new album was as good as that one or "Michael And Heather At the Baggage Claim" or "Seatback And Tray Tables," I probably wouldn't mind that its powerpop lacks the energy of, say, the new Clorox Girls album. I wish they fleshed the sound out more, 10cc or Steely Dan style, like they do in "Strapped For Cash." Still, it's been a long time since I heard a Weezer or Nada Surf album this good. And for all I know, this could be their worst.

Jack Ingram - The adjective I called him before I left was "squirrely," when I compared him to Tom Petty I mean. He's just as often a Sean Mullins type soft rock sap, it turns out, but "Easy as 1, 2, 3" is very 1979 post-pub-rock new wave, and I love "Great Divide" and still love "Love You," and it's not hard to tell why people find "Lips Of An Angel" irresistible, though Ingram sings it lighter and way better than the Hinder dude, who I heard on the radio a couple times and still don't like much. (People at work seem to think Hinder are sleaze-metal throwbacks; is that because of their image or something? They just sound like more cheerless late grungers to me. On the other hand, I actually liked a Nickelback song I heard on the radio! It was called "Animals," I think, and reminded me of one of Stone Temple Pilots faster, catchier hits.)

The new Tim McGraw single about flying -- Still don't have a concrete opinion about this, or about his new album, which I've yet to hear though I hope to, but the one time the song came on the radio I thought whoever mentioned Joe Walshness in relation to it upthread had made a very good point. Which is to say, at least so far, I'd lean toward approval.

(Too sleepy to proofread everything I just typed, which was hardly "quick" I guess. Or "shorthand" either. Feel free to proofread yourself, however.)

Damn, spelled my wife's name wrong! (And wrote "too" when I meant "two," among other gaffes.)

Both Lalena and I liked both of these, though:

Gabe Lopez -- Whole album is bilingual, though the first half leans toward English and second half leans toward Spanish. Both ways, the most blatant tejano/country crossover attempt I've hard in years; if Nashville wants to reach a Hispanic audience, he could very well be the guy, though his sound does tend a bit too much toward '80s countrypolitan, I guess. Two CD covers: One for country record stores and one for Mexican American ones, I guess. I prefer his Spanish singing, since the consonant sounds seem fancier. His post 9-11 song "Evil Wind" is pretty awful in any language, but otherwise, his big idea is on the right track:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/gabelopezmusic

Edible Red -- More new wave than country, I guess, but maybe more country than metal or teen-pop, and at least as country as Holly Beth Vincent I suppose. Either way, new album is solid. (I think I'd heard earlier demos, which didn't impress me as much; I wrote Voice choices about them, maybe, but kinda forgot them afterwards.) "2012" is seemingly an early '80s Rush tribute; that one and "At Hello" and "Better Days" might be my favorites. "Hey Ya" is an Outkast cover, and I'd never have recognized it as a cover of anything if not for the CD booklet:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=22167093

first half leans toward English and second half leans toward Spanish

Oh yeah, I didn't explain this -- First and second halves have the same songs! Just sung in different tongues. So the album's sort of a double EP, maybe.

Possibly semi-country oriented thrift store and junk barn purchases in Maryland and Virginia this week (entire list is on recent purchases thread):

Long John Baldry* - It Ain't Easy LP $0.50
Lindsey Buckingham - Law and Order LP $0.50
Jessi Colter - I'm Jessi Colter LP $1.00
Dave Dudley - Keep On Truckin' LP $0.50
Joe Hinton - Duke/Peacock Remembers LP $0.50
Horslips - The Man Who Built America LP $0.50
Horslips - Short Stories Tall Tales LP $0.50
Joy of Cooking - Castles LP $0.50
Lighthouse - One Fine Morning LP $0.50
Hilly Michaels* - Calling All Girls LP $1.00
John Miles* - Stranger in the City LP $1.00
Point Blank - Airplay LP $0.50
Joe Stampley - Red Wine and Blue Memories LP $0.50
B.W. Stevenson - My Maria LP $0.50
John Stewart - Bombs Away Dream Babies LP $0.50
BJ Thomas - Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head LP $0.50
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres** LP $0.50
(Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP $0.50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!)

* - I know very little about these artists, but was curious

** - used to own these before; for some reason I stopped doing so somewhere along the line, but now I do again

heard the best of from billie jo spears, and i have no idea who she is,but from the 60s, i would guess,. her blanket on the ground is sexier, racier, and more honest then the ticks song, 35 years later,and mr walker its all over is a nice slab of femminist fuck you.

anyone know abuother

Nope, but she had a track (maybe the blanket one!) on an $2.00 LP comp called Country Crossovers that I was too cheap to buy in Smithfield. Maybe I should have. (Also, what "ticks song"?? I wouldn't expect ticks to be sexy, just kinda itchy.)

as of other country acts before. What is it a country hit when it came out?

as HAVE other country acts before. WAS it a country...

brad paisleys new super creepy lets fuck in the woods tune.

Know nothing about Joe Hinton either (though the Rolling Stone record guide says his biggest hit was a cover of a country song, and compares him to Bobby Bland and Junior Parker, from which I conclude I was right to list him on this thread.)

Joy of Cooking cost $1, actually. Haven't checked to see if it's one of the albums that Xgau loved.

Donnas-like Nashville (and therefore eligible for this thread) myspace band whose demo EP has four okay songs on it that I wish were less generic:

http://www.myspace.com/atomicblonde

Filthy Thieving Bastards...ominviorousness rhythmwise (blues, funk, swing)

Also probably some polka rhythms of either the Slavic or Mexican variety or both; cf: Th' Legendary Shack Shakers (who are probably the better of the two bands) at least as much as Pogues.

I have plenty of thoughts, some of them possibly even coherent, about the spread of meth-lab-type culture out past the cornfields where the woods get heavy (or at least out past Sellersville in Bucks County and into Montgomery County, PA) which Frank alluded to in his Paisley ticks song comments, but I'll have to save them for when I have a couple free hours to formulate them; i.e., probably not in the next couple years. (On a related note, was reading Robert Lang's and Jennifer LeFurgy's Boomburbs: The Rise of American Accidental Cities a few weeks back, 'til I kinda got distracted.)

Xgau on Joy of Cooking (LP I bought gets an A-):

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=joy+of+cooking

AMERICA's Accidental Cities, actually

Actually, the Richard Thompson album is at least as omnivorous rhythmically (and melodically) as the Flithy Thieving Bastards one, if not more so -- everything from reggae to chamber classical to funk to blues to minor-key droning (almost goth metal really) to, in the song I thought might be about a young Iraqi soldier, a sort of middle eastern lilt to both the tune and RT's vibrato. And it never really seems like he's making eclecticism the main point; it's all in the context of his overall Brit-folk thing. (There are a few other performances, besides the ones I mentioned, that I like a lot on the album. Though there are also at least a couple songs where the performances seem so half-hearted that the attempts at cleverness come off annoying.)

Ingram... does this funky Eagles-I-think-riff rocker where he replaces the word "fuck" with "love" all the way through.

Actually, the riff isn't from the Eagles -- it's from Steve Miller ("Jet Airliner," I think.) Which is even better, Eagles riffs in Nashville country being probably somewhat old-hat by this point.

The maybe-middle-eastern-soldier one (where, no matter what nationality the soldier is, he is lured into battle to avenge the deaths of the brother and father of a a woman he's sleeping with; also, he is called "Little Joe"* because his head scrapes the ceiling, I think Richard explains it) also seems to include lyric puns on Suuni (as in "soon he") and maybe Shiite, though those might be my imagination.

*- or John or something

(Most annoying track, probably: "Mr. Stupid.")

And in "Bad Monkey," one of two songs on the album to discuss great apes, Richard says he's not going to go on the rollercoaster with you. The song is quite lively and boppy, a real bounce in its sound, but it makes me miss another amusemement park song by him from a quarter century (!!) ago, when he wanted us to take our chances on the Wall of Death.

One time thru the Tim McGraw record and I think it might be my 2nd-favorite big-label record of the year behind Macy Gray's Big. I know Edd is smarter and more knowledgeable than I am in just about every way but I disagree about McGraw's voice, I think at this point he might be the best male country singer and one of the best singers in the U.S. At least to my poor withered ears.

Yeah, Tim's easily one of the great singers of our time. (Though I've still yet to hear his new one.)

Also interesting on the Ingram CD: "Ava Adele," a spare lullaby, and the brassy closer "All I Can Do."

Some of the better tracks on that Todd Snider collection of demos etc (on Oh Boy) are written with and/or for Ingram, and somebody blindfold-tested me on some of Jack's own tracks, which I liked, past my initial dim view of him hitching a ride with the Robison brothers on a live album, and with Coe and other vintage bad boys, on a live CMT thang I prob dicussed on a prev Rolling Thread. Yeah, speaking of xgau ratings, he's always been pretty dependable on Thompson, too. I wanna get some of the live albums from his site, where he does "Genie In A Bottle" and "Oops, I Did It Again," which sounded just perfect for his faux-orientale lilt, when he did them live on the radio. Prob shouldn't call his voice that, more that he said he wanted to extend the UK folk tradion in its natural flow, so why not include Middle Eastern, since the Celts are thought to have come from there. And of course the French connection (he could also do Scandinavian, and every other group that's overrun England!) Really liked Jo-El Sonnier's hit version of "Tear-Stained Letter," and Del McCoury Band's h.v. of "1951 Vincent Black Lightning," or whatever year it was, and appropriate even if you don't like bluegrass. (I could do without Del's voice; my own bluegrass problem is usually with the male vocals). Appropriate cos it's one of the best motorcycle songs ever, incl. comin' round the mountain. Xgau's also good on Joy Of Cooking, all of who's albums are worth check ing out (they also did a good semi-reunion album, unlikely enough, as The Joy, mainly with Toni & Terry or Terri, who also billed themselves under own first names when recording with Nashville cats, to mixed results. Toni tried to go more mainstream country-pop with Good For You Too, but haven't heard that, and Terri or Terry Garthwaite did more folk-rock-reggae-blues-wah-wah stuff, not so typical in late 70s as now, esp. for designated folkies, although Joy were known for their congas etc as well as songs that might harsh your early 70s mellow, like about having babies in trailer parks; they seemed to represent their earlier lives in blue collar Bay Area as much as Berkeley feminists in ponchos etc)(good new Color Guard, xhux, but not country so I better mention elsewhere)

("all of whom's albums"? Nah, "and all of their albums")And not that "Berkeley feminists in trailer parks" are nec. "just", point is that they rep. that with the bluecollar,not so common then, if it ever has been, musically, in convincing juncture)(if anything, the more collegiate lyrics were less convincing, rhetorical, so they were prob right to try Nashville and elsewhere, beyond the safe West Coast/p.c. collegetown clubs).

"not that Berkeley feminists in ponchos" is what I meant to say that
I did not mean to low-rate, jeez. Also I prob misspelled the town's name, but back to homework (reviewing Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation for PaperThinWalls)

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Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP (Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP [i](Various) - Hey Love: The Classic Sounds of Sexy Soul triple-LP $0.50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!)[/i].50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press 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1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx 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Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this before!).50 (M'Press Records/Onyx Communications, 1986 -- never heard of this 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this cannot be. it was the black 'freedom rock' for chrissakes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKu78xJ6g1k

i have both volumes btw(time life still sold it on cd up until a few years ago at least), simply indispensable.

wow wtf. er, i think i've made my point.

Okay y'all but I have just heard Los Tigres del Norte's new record called Detalles y Emociones and it's even better than I thought it would be. Great excellent protest song "El Muro," about the proposed wall between U.S. & Mexico, written by Cristina Rubalcaba, has a bunch of fire to it -- literally, they threaten to burn it down! Also, a great chanted chorus of "Bush, Bush, don't push!", lyrics in Arabic and French and German as well as Spanish and English, and explicit parallels to Palestine, Berlin, and North/South Korea!

Maybe moderators can fix that tremendoid post? (I'd always assumed that when ILM-ers do that they're just being assholes. But tremendoid's followup post suggests it was accidental, which is nice to know.)

yeah sry, afaik i just copied, pasted, and tried to italicize. it did give me one of the nu-xpost warnings, maybe has something to do with that.

Joy Of Cooking, all of who's albums are worth check ing out

Album I bought seems pleasant or better, though more for the instrumentation than for the singing (which generally hits me as merely tasteful to stodgy, but then I never really got Bonnie Raitt either) and the lyrics (which haven't really connected with me, and didn't the last time I tried with this band, I'm remembering). Instrumentation parts I like best are the ones that remind me of Quarterflash a decade or so early. In fact I swore I heard a saxophone on there, and some flutes (did Quarterflash have flutes?), though none seem to be credited anywhere. Either way, more folk-rock bands should feature congas, obviously. LP's nice enough. I'd just like it more if Marv and Rindy Ross were singing (and writing, and Rindy playing saxophone).

Speaking of Marv and Rindy, maybe I should check these out? (News to me; I just googled their names).

http://www.trailband.com/meettheband.htm

http://www.ghostsofcelilo.com/team.html

This is weird, too, since I could have sworn Seafood Mama was their PRE-Quarterflash band:

http://pnwbands.com/seafoodmama.html

Also pleasant: The Lindsey Buckingham album I bought. Which is also way too reserved, and would be better if Stevie Nicks was singing. I gather it's supposed to be whimsical or something. Could also use way more guitar, oddly enough. It's fine despite its overweening preciousness, I suppose, but it's overweeningly precious nonetheless. Then again, I'm not one of those wackos who prefers Tusk to Rumours or Fleetwood Mac. My favorite track: "Trouble," the hit single (though "Johnny Stew" is a fairly cute "John I'm Only Dancing"-alluding falsetto disco-pop attempt).

(I guess thinking of it as "new wave era wackiness" might make it more tolerable, though. So I will.)

Neil Sedaka -- New best of drifts into showtune schlock for a couple songs in the middle, otherwise I still love most of it. Lalena said that all her life she'd assumed that a woman was singing "Laughter in the Rain" -- maybe Carole King, who it really sounds like. (Also, who had the hit with "The Immigrant"? It seems quite timely!)[/i}

From Geoffrey O'Brien's review of Ken Emerson's Always Magic In The Air: "So local do things get that when, for example, the vexed question arises of whether Sedaka and King actually went out together, it is like being dropped in the middle of a spat in a high school hallway, with Sedaka claiming that King was 'a Neil Sedaka groupie... she would neglect her schoolwork to write songs and chase me from bar mitvahs to weddings,' and King responding: 'I went out on [i]one date with him!'"

Oh poo; let's try that again

Neil Sedaka -- New best of drifts into showtune schlock for a couple songs in the middle, otherwise I still love most of it. Lalena said that all her life she'd assumed that a woman was singing "Laughter in the Rain" -- maybe Carole King, who it really sounds like. (Also, who had the hit with "The Immigrant"? It seems quite timely!)

From Geoffrey O'Brien's review of Ken Emerson's Always Magic In The Air: "So local do things get that when, for example, the vexed question arises of whether Sedaka and King actually went out together, it is like being dropped in the middle of a spat in a high school hallway, with Sedaka claiming that King was 'a Neil Sedaka groupie... she would neglect her schoolwork to write songs and chase me from bar mitvahs to weddings,' and King responding: 'I went out on one date with him!'"

Listening to the new Lance Miller single, "She Really Loves Me" (which is at least a month old, and I have no idea if there were previous Lance Miller singles or who he is really, and allmusic doesn't have much more than a date of birth (1970) and a tracklist)(oh, a quick Google search shows he's a Nashville Star alumnus). Anyway, a very good voice that sounds like it would have fit in 25 years ago (when he was 12!), like Gene Watson's now* or John Conlee's then, very broad and warm and chewable w/ a rueful twist to it. His woman suggests that he have a drink with the boys after work, that's fine with her, and she's stopped complaining about his strewing his laundry around the floor, etc. and this means either she really loves him or she don't really love him anymore: "But then I really hope/I ain't gettin' all this rope/Just because she no longer gives a damn." It's close to perfect, and the accompaniment would be called traditionalist, steels and acoustics and nary a synth or a rock drum, and it's fine, though a bit of unhappiness in the back of my mind is reminding me that this kind of singing back in its day wasn't traditionalist and so could have had plenty of disco or rock in its accompaniment. (Someone with more knowledge can correct me on this.)

*Gene Watson probably sounded like Gene Watson back then, too, and I presume sounded very good, but I have no idea, having heard so little of country music's past.

Hilly Michaels LP I bought is a more fun new wave era sideman going solo album than the Lindsey Buckingham album, I'd say. The cover is very colorful, not unlike the Dan Hartman Instant Replay album he'd appeared on two years before (before 1980, that is.) Dancey beats are stolen from Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man," Blondie's "Call Me," and some minor glam-rock hit I can't place, but in a coked-up bubblegum L.A. studio pop-rock context, I guess. Though maybe Hilly was from England, come to think of it. Producer is Roy Thomas Baker; guest contributions come from Greg Hawkes, Davey Johnstone, Ellen Foley, Karla de Vito, Liza Minnelli. G.E. Smith, and Dan Hartman, among others. Rolling Stone Record Guide gives it just one star, dismissing Hilly as a "jive new waver," a "finger popper in post punk clothing," but then again so is Lindsey, who they say sings like a '50s teen balladeer and who they give three stars. Lindsey does sing better, I guess. But Hilly has more energetic hooks to pull off the zaniness. (And less to do with country music, come to think of it.)

Long John Baldry on now. Big bad British blooze stompage! (The roots of Count Bishops, maybe.) (With Elton and Rod Stewart helping out, no less.)

Liner notes say he had a Brook Benton/O.C.Smith-type period, in the late '60s, before returning to blues-rock roots. Might be an era worth checking out, and definitely enough to qualify him for a country thread, right? I've never listened to him before, not even once. Song credits here (Tuli Kupferberg and Randy Newman as well as Willie Dixon and Huddie Ledbetter) suggest he's no purist.

Speaking of Brook Benton, first side of that Joe Hinton (who got compared to Brook) LP was great! Hit country cover was "Funny How Time Slips Away," with crazy high notes at the end. (My chronology here may be confused, but did Ray Charles's early country crossover success inspire many proto-soul singers to make country moves? If so, who else?)

B.W. Stevenson does crazy high notes, too, by the way. I never had any thoughts about him before, either. Rolling Stone Record Guide calls him folk-rock (and likes him), but I'd be just as likely to classify him (just like BJ Thomas and maybe John Stewart by the way) as soul-country, though maybe that's only because Brooks and Dunn's cover of "My Maria" convinced me? (Whose version was bigger? And am I wrong, or did Three Dog Night or Blood Sweat and Tears or somebody have the bigger hit with "Shambala"?) Anyway, B.W. looks quite scraggly, even kinda scary, on the album cover, which makes me appreciate Brooks and Dunn's embracement of him more -- he looks like he should be a stoner rock band, or I dunno, looks like Rick Rubin or somebody. And a track or two sound like David Allen Coe. (Maybe "Sunset Woman," written by Dave Loggins, who I wonder if anybody has any thoughts about, come to think of it? "Please Come to Boston" is such a great song. His '72 Personal Belongings album seemed pretty decent too, last time I listened, in a Gordon Lightfoot type beautiful loser who can't settle down way.)

John Stewart by the way

The John Stewart who did one of my favorite songs ever "Gold" with Stevie Nicks (and used to be in the Kingston Trio, right?), not the more recent one on TV, that is. And I mean the album with "Gold" on it (or parts of it anyway) is sort of soul-country. I assume his Kingston Trio era stuff was less so.

Dullest track on that Baldry LP: "Flying," 6:50, witten by Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane, and Ron Wood, with gospel parts. Fortunately, it's at the end.

Long John Baldry on now. Big bad British blooze stompage! (The roots of Count Bishops, maybe.) (With Elton and Rod Stewart helping out, no less.)

origin of elton john's name: he took elton from baldry saxophonist elton dean, and he took john from baldry himself.

Lalena on B.W. Stevenson: "Who's this grump?" Then, a little later: "He looks like a hippie but sings like a country guy."... He mostly sings in a David Allen Coe baritone, but in his two biggest (only?) hits "My Maria" and "Shambala," over hints of Latin percussion to maybe match their titles, he reaches way up into the big sky with high lonesome Western (maybe even Mexican) falsetto notes. Interesting.

John Stewart, on the other hand, looks like Gary Shandling! One thing that's really impressive (though maybe not so surprising if you've heard "Gold") about Bombs Away Dream Babies is how strong -- almost disco -- the beat on so much of it is. Best songs after "Gold" -- "Midnight Wind," which is great, then probably "Over The Hill" -- have a dark witchy woman propulsion that proves once and for all that Fleetwood Mac helped invent goth rock. (How was Stevie Nicks left off that list of Kate Bush influences on that best-woman-singer-of-the-'80s thread a couple weeks back? It's so obvious.) Stevie's only on "Gold" and "Midnight Wind," though Lindsey's on four cuts, including "Over The Hill" and the very dance-soft-rocky "Heart of the Dream," and you can tell.

Henry Gross's "Moonshine Alley" on Release (which I bought cheap a few months ago, see way upthread) is way better than Daniel Lee Martin's "Moonshine Mama" (which I still like.) The Gross song is more a backwoods murder mystery, like CDB's "Legend of Wooley Swamp" or Warrant's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and sounds spooky enough to pull it off. Then, good dance rock on Side Two, after the hit "Shannon" -- "One More Time," more disco than any country would dare nowadays, and "Something In Between"'s boogie woogie rock starting out like "Spirit in the Sky." Like so much in the '70s, sounds fearless and effortless at the same time.

(Though "Something In Between" does start to drift into the kind of boogie woogie mush only muddy Deadheads could dance to after a couple minutes, I guess--also like so much in the '70s, which is part of the problem, no doubt. Otherwise, Gross imitates Elton better than John Miles, who does it okay.)

BJ Thomas, "Little Green Apples": White soul-country guy deftly covers huge hit by black soul-country guy, making what I assume must be the most minstrel-music-worthy line in any chart-topping hit in the past several decades ("when myself iz feelin low") seem even more blackface. Still sounds great regardless, of course. (He also does "This Guy's in Love With You," "Suspicious Minds," "Guess I'll Pack My Things" [who made that one famous? I was thinking it must be Charlie Rich; it's somebody I was listening to recently, but it's not on Rich's reissue CD, hmmm..], assorted Jimmy Webb and Joe South numbers whose titles don't look familiar, and of course "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head," which is pretty great even though as a kid I may well have hated it as much as "Candy Man" by Sammy Davis Jr [which may have had minstrel leanings of its own, come to think of it.]) (And I just now realized that I don't know if I've ever heard BJ's "Rock and Roll Lullabye," which critics have forever sworn is genius. Is that possible? Or maybe I've heard it and I just forget what it's like?)

Joe Stampley Red Wine and Blue Memories, 1978. Solid honky-tonk for drunks. Two best songs seem to be the first one--the title track--where a woman propositions Joe in a bar and he'd rather just keep drinking, and the last one, "Houston, Treat My Lady Good," where he loses his woman to the big city and people keep calling for her on the phone and he tells them that maybe she'll be back tomorrow even though you know she won't. I also really like "Hey Barnum and Bailey," where Joe calls himself a clown -- didn't either he or Moe Bandy have another song where whichever one called himself a rodeo clown? They were pretty clowny, with ridiculous toons like "Hey Moe (Hey Joe)" and the immortal "Where's The Dress." But apparently sometimes they were sad clowns, too.

"Hubba Hubba" by Billy Crash Craddock appears to be explicitly about cunnilingus. But I'm not positive about this and may have heard a couple lines wrong (especially the line that sounds like "giving head"), and can't find the lyrics on the Internet. But if it is, it'd give the Brooks and Dunn song about going down in memory town a run for its money.

Pam Tillis Above And Beyond The Doll Of Cutey, 1983: Promised I'd get to this, and today (last day of my vacation before returning to work, sigh) I finally did. Definitely a pop new wave album, not a country album. Hiccupping vocals over hiccupping synths (not a lot of either, but enough to get by). Like Pat Benatar in Lene Lovich mood, though probably more like Sue Saad or somebody (except not so rock, except maybe in "You Don't Miss".)...Oh wait, I know who it sounds like!
The Motels. Martha Davis, right? According to AMG (their country guide book; I assume on line too), Pam had fronted a jazz-rock band named Freelight in the late '70s; then she returned to Nasvhille in 1979 and wrote r&b songs for people like Gloria Gaynor and Chaka Khan. Then this lively new wave move with the weird title that means...who knows? Then no country album for a while after, I gather. (Now she'll segue nicely into the two Josie Cotton albums I found for 50 cents last week, won't she?)

T.G. Sheppard, I Love 'Em All, 1981. Bought this last summer; really wanted to like it, wanted it to be as cheesy and silly as its cover, where studley T.G. is being mobbed by all the fawning lipsticked ladies he loved before, but sadly it's a snooze. ("Silence On the Line" is okay, I guess, but not in a cheezy way, and not enough to justify keeping the thing.) I still want to investigate the guy more someday, though, since "War Is Hell (On the Homefront Too)" is one of my all-time favorite dance-country songs, and there's still time for a cover version. (I've heard it only on a K-Tel comp.)

I'm trying and not succeeding in remembering if I once took that John Stewart album out of the library back in my NYC days. Singing with the Kingston Trio Stewart's voice was gravelly; my guess is that Johnny Cash would have been a powerful influence on this.

"Gold" is so great – is a mainstay at supermarket Muzak stations across the country.

The Lindsey Buckingham album I bought. Which is also way too reserved, and would be better if Stevie Nicks was singing. I gather it's supposed to be whimsical or something. Could also use way more guitar, oddly enough. It's fine despite its overweening preciousness, I suppose, but it's overweeningly precious nonetheless. Then again, I'm not one of those wackos who prefers Tusk to Rumours or Fleetwood Mac. My favorite track: "Trouble," the hit single (though "Johnny Stew" is a fairly cute "John I'm Only Dancing"-alluding falsetto disco-pop attempt

I haven't heard this in years, but I remember it disappointed me: I was expecting a really weird McCartney solo album and instead I got tracks that are rather more conservative than his Tusk tracks.

(commercial for Talledega 500, I think, in the next room: crashing into the stands? Maybe it's another whack Geico auto insurance commercial?)(but nice contrast with gentle soundtrack: Willie's contemplative western swing cover of ZZ Top's "She don't love me, she just loves my automobile," but no complaints cos she makes nice to him to get next to his wheel--it's from that Top trib I reviewed in Voice with the Charlie Daniels overview, "Sharp Blessed Men" the title, contrasting Top & friends' basically no-complaints Texasentializm with CD's high-strung jazz-rock-country flight to freaked-out fundamentalism--lifers vs. lifers, although not "vs." musically, since CD cranks Top covers pretty awesomely himself, in concert) Lindsay can get very wound up in concert, with Mac or solo. Although, on CMT's Crossroads, Little Big Town didn't spark each other very much, much less help him. Maybe he should always record his solo albums live, but of course he's the studio wizard etc. Someday I'd like to burn together a Great Lost Fleetwood Mac album, with the best and most compatible tracks from L.B., Stevie, Christine, Mick Fleetwood's Zoo, although I've only heard the latter very live, no idea how they were in studio.

Me and Martin talkin' (along w/ Josh and Blood and Jonathan) about Miranda Lambert's "Famous In A Small Town" over in Jukebox.

"famous" is the leak of the day on idolator.

This bubblecountry's gal's self-released CD is sounding excellent so far. (Frank really needs to check this album out, I think.) Favorite track so far is the title track, "What U See," absolute Miranda Lambert hard rock with a "Smells Like Teen Spirit" riff; after that so far "Colours" (where she's looking for something in red gray pink yellow orange and bright green chartreuse) and "Butterfly Tattoo" (where dad's gonna kill her if mom doesn't first and nothing says she's 17 like breaking loose -- though actually she's just 14, apparently)--both songs sound really pretty too.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/brandieframpton

new tribute to June Carter Cash Anchored in Love has some pro forma moments--cheezoid harmonica and offhand Willie-isms during "If I Were a Carpenter" (sounds like he's smoking a joint and admiring Sheryl Crow's gams during the performance, plus this song needs to be retired until after the magnetic poles reverse back in a few years). "Jackson" w/ Carlene Carter and Ronnie Dunn isn't bad. D.P. McManus shows up on "Ring of Fire"--he keeps trying to sing right but I never think he does it, I have a real aversion to his voice these days. Billy Bob Thornton does pretty good--he just talks-- on "Road to Kaintuck." Basically this is some canned shit--go back to the original June Carter Cash records and you'll find a really underrated singer.
Repeated listenings to Miranda Lambert's record convince me it's some kind of masterpiece. She really sounds like she could take care of any situation--she could probably fix the transmission she complains about in "Dry Town." The sound effects are just amazing. I'm impressed by the way she handles Susanna Clark/Carlene Carter (Routh)'s "Easy from Now On." Flawless record.
And if you want to know how Nashville once did the kind of "fusion" that now is dominated by bluegrass/stringband-meets-studio-rock, with nifty instrumentals, the newly reissued Minors Aloud by Buddy Emmons and Lenny Breau is pretty instructive. Breau spent time in Nashville giving guitar lessons and apparently doing lotsa drugs, died in '84 or so maybe 42 years old. He did some stuff with Chet Atkins here. He was the missing link between jazz guitarists like Tal Farlow and someone current like Bill Frisell or Stanley Jordan. They do Charlie Parker's "Scrapple from the Apple," and Emmons is a wonder. His work with Ray Price alone makes his place in history--check out the album Night Life. Anyway, in 1978 they did Parker when they wanted to Outreach, now it's some pseudo-Celtic bullshit, and you can guess what I prefer.