Rolling Country 2012

Ph well, mebbe I'll save up and be ready for this:
Alabama's Quest for Gay Rodeo
Maggie Martin (2012-05-29)
Listen Now:
FORT WORTH, TEXAS (APR - Alabama Public Radio ) - More than 100 people gathered in a large arena in Fort Worth, TX to watch and compete in what was called a "traditional" rodeo. However, the term traditional may depend on your point of view. The event is a gay rodeo. It's like a traditional rodeo with bull riding and calf roping, but it's open to the LGBT community. John Beck of Denver is an expert on the gay rodeo. He's hard to miss with his large, red feather on his cowboy hat.
"That's been my signature for close to ten years," he says.
Beck is known as the Grandfather of the Gay Rodeo and is one of the oldest competitors on the circuit. He rode in straight rodeos too, but says the atmosphere of a gay rodeo is more welcoming.
"We work together better than in straight rodeos," says Beck. "Straight rodeos, I hate to say, is more of a cut throat type business. We're out here for camaraderie and fun and give the people who win a pat on the back. You don't find that in other rodeos."
Even though gay rodeos aren't as competitive as their traditional counterparts, Beck says they're just as dangerous.
"I've had five ribs broken, both collar bones, both legs, one ankle. It doesn't bother me."
On the other side of the arena is a woman who's also made a name for herself on the rodeo circuit. Lisa LeAnn Dalton of Fort Worth, TX is just above 5 ft. tall with short blonde hair and blue eyes. She's dressed the part of a rodeo competitor with a black cowgirl hat and a championship buckle. But she's not competing today. Five years ago, she had a bad accident in the arena that took her off the circuit.
"I broke C5 and C6 and damaged my spinal cord and was paralyzed completely from the shoulders down. It's been almost five years, but I can walk now."
Dalton competed in gay rodeos for about five years before the accident and made her name riding bareback broncs. Among her other prizes, Dalton won the national rodeos twice. But Dalton isn't gay. She's straight, but she prefers gay rodeos because there are no gender restrictions. In traditional rodeos, women can hold the reins with both hands. That didn't work for Dalton.
"I rode one-handed so I technically could ride in any rodeo and then I could qualify for and compete against the guys, but not all of them were interested in having girls so I was turned down some."
Dalton says of the rodeos she competed in, gay rodeos were the funnest. But some of that fun has gone away now that she's restricted to the sidelines.
"I love to come back and see all my friends but it's a bummer because it's not fun watching for me. I'd much rather competing," says Dalton.
Music starts to blare in the arena and the crowd roars as chutes open for one of the most popular events-bull riding. Competitor Russell Schnitz of Gonzales, TX hangs on tight to his bull. But he doesn't stay on long. He hits the dirt and barely gets out from under the bull. He has a bad scrape on his left cheek.
"I almost got him covered. Right at the buzzer I bucked off him and fell under him. He stepped on my face. And that was that," says Schnitz, who is still slightly shaken by the incident. He's been competing for 15 years and it's taken a toll on him.
"I used to do every single event, but now that I am older, I just do a few. Today was the first day I rode the tough bulls in a long time. I usually just ride the smaller ones because I'm too old to be hurt and my friends talked me into the regular ones today."
Schnitz, Dalton, and Beck have been competing in gay rodeo circuits for years in states like Texas and Colorado. But not in Alabama. That's because there isn't a gay rodeo here yet. A man in Birmingham wants to change that. Rick Vaughn is president of the Cotton States Gay Rodeo Association in Birmingham.
"I just felt it was a very positive thing for the gay community. And to show the rest of the world that we do things like everybody else does."
Vaughn says he wants to be seated by the International Gay Rodeo Association, or IGRA, by November. He wants to hold Alabama's first gay rodeo by 2014.
© Copyright 2012, APR - Alabama Public Radio

12,000+ words I wrote (plus an intro where I use the editorial "we" under duress) on 50 really good country songs, from the '20s to the '10s.

http://www.complex.com/music/2012/06/50-country-songs-that-dont-suck/

Great songs, xhuxk. I went to find Milsap-disco immediately.

Yep, and I think the dB's' new "She Doesn't Drive In The Rain" is a real good contemporary country jangle-ballad. Would really like to hear the Pistol Annies With Special Guest Lee Ann Womack cover, but the orig should be on the radio rat now.

Turns out Holsapple wrote it w Kristian Bush of Sugarland, so maybe they'll do it too.

Eric Church, some McGraw performing at this weekend's Bamajam 2012, hope more music surfaces later, mostly yadda-yadda so far
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9VNYsKxdKc&feature=related

Also from YouTube, Don Williams' EPK; he's back with the producer of his hits (and non-hits). Should I request the new album? Trying to avoid the snoozier stuff these days (incl much involving drone etc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvBf9TKrqAo&feature=youtu.be

Strange! You may see a big black space, But if you click on it, esp right above my name, it'll take you to the EPK

Don, did you see the gigantic 50-country-song thing I linked to a few posts up? Would be curious what you thought of it; just beware of all the quotation marks that Complex's faulty tech tools substituted for my dashes all through it.

In other news, I like a song or each each on the new Alan Jackson, Josh Turner, and Edens Edge albums, and less than that on the new Easton Corbin -- none of which are enough to make me listen to them more than I already have. Not much a fan of Luke Bryan's "Drunk On You" either.

Exchange on Facebook yesterday, after I linked to my Toby Keith "Beers Ago" blurb from my country song thing...

Me: Wanted to end with a single from this year, so I cheated -- This actually came off a 2011 album. That it's the best I could come up with indicates just how lame 2012 has been for country records.

S@r@ Sh3rr: I don't know a lot about new country but I look at the Billboard charts every week for karaoke purposes and I noticed that there's a return to young cowboy hat studs.

Me: I hadn't thought of it that way, but that sounds about right -- At least they sound like hat guys, even if they don't wear them: Just real rote and cautious, with basically none of the character or chips on shoulders that made so much Nashville country so great in the past decade or so. Kip Moore (who wears a baseball cap) made a fairly decent album; Lee Brice's new one (he wears a baseball cap too) might be borderline but nothing on it touches the four best songs from his debut. I like the Farm's single "Home Sweet Home" okay. None of the other young guys seem to be grabbing me this year (like, for instance, Randy Montana and David Nail did last year even). And the old guys aren't doing much better. If there's stuff I've missed, I don't know where it is.

"...a song OR TWO each" on Alan Jackson, etc., I meant.

Hi xhuxxk, I'll comment when I've had time to listen to all 50 songs, several of which I thought were long gone from anywhere but yard sales, like "Heather's Wall"--ghost song, ghost track. Thanks! Hope the artists are aware.

Don't know whether I hope Ty Herndon is aware, considering I go into his...unfortunate incident. But right, that song has ghosts galore.

Just listened to nine of the first ten (Rimes wouldn't play, but she's usually good, usually and vaguely taken for granted by reviewers, it seems; glad you didn't do that). "Space" and "Heather's Wall" have none of the padding (incl excess melodrama, without or without an inspirational aura) so often required for country Top Ten--Hell, I'm impressed he made it 17. Good presentations, though "Space" isn't wordplay, and that girl sounds nothing like Nico, very little like Marianne F., though yes, somewhere between her faves, Dusty and Bobbie G. Way between. But that's the point, she's isolated, makes herself even smaller to lay low, when the scarey ol' Drone Patrol comes through at the end. Rebecca Lynn Howard's track is cool too, bet Scott Seward would dig it. The Friday night fight rolls on out of sight, "pre-football game," as you say. "Bad Things" was always king, Red Revelations made my Nash Scene Top Ten too, thanks for getting me into both (and indirectly into True Blood)

Hey xhuxk, I made a Spotify of the stuff I could find on that list so I could easier play it through my stereo while reading through, hope you don't mind. Awesome article:

http://open.spotify.com/user/yesmoremaciej/playlist/74GTFgoasj2NyjMTyD59jn

man I still love that Kellie Pickler album released in January.

deeply obsessed with "Springsteen" now

Church's album has been my sleeper.

just got the album after getting caught on "Springsteen", gonna get into it shortly

xpost Oh yeah xxhuxx, I guess "Space" is wordplay in the sense that she gives it to him alright, by expanding convenient absence-of-Sarah into this cold, dark, approximately infinite thing, also conjuring "an island on the dark side of the moon." In this track, and in "Heather's Wall," the usually numbing use of radio-aimed repetition has just the opposite effect. Also, no cute excess melodrama, just: baby it's cold inside. The program directors don't wanna know, but some folks, including many females, understand (so Buxton may well have an enviably sweeter gig as some smart cookies' creative-process-resource than she did as a non-star)

the kellie pickler is so surprisingly good. far better than the new carrie underwood.

also this is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLOmpgLmtP0

maciej recognizing trill -- I don't mind at all; in fact I'm honored, and happy you liked the piece. Curious which/how many songs you wound up tracking down though. (I'm semi-employed by Rhapsody these days, so Spotify's off limits to me -- Otherwise, I'd post your link somewhere.)

dow -- You may be right about Nico and Faithfull in re: These Bird Things; sometimes I might use those ladies as ice-queen fallbacks, and Salla's singing has warmth; just not sure it's the r&b-inflected warmth of Gentry or Dusty, either. I was probably grasping for straws there.

As for "Heather's Wall" and "Space" (or Eddie Rabbit's "Suspicions" or Trace Adkins' "I'm Tryin'," for that matter, and maybe a couple other things on the list) I agree they have a spareness unusual in Nashville (though busy-ness is the least of Nashville's problems in my book -- it's not something that actively bugs me much anyway.) But fwiw, I don't hear those songs' kind of space in most alt-leaning country, either.

The LeAnn Rimes song I wrote up was basically disco-rock; not sure why it didn't play there (I actually haven't tried any of those streams myself), but it should here:

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

THEM Bird Things -- oops.

found 39 of them on Spotify. Missing the ones by: Gene Watson, Ty Herndon, Sylvia, Terrie Gibbs, Ronnie Milsap, Stoney Edwards, Narvel Felts, OC Smith, Dick Curless, Moon Mullican, and Smokey Wood and the Modern Mountaineers

The "50 Songs..." feature is, of course, fantastic stuff, xhuxk. I've loved "Somebody's Knockin'" for years; the local "classic country" station keeps that one in pretty heavy rotation. They're also big on Don Williams and early Tanya Tucker, so I can overlook the fact that they throw the occasional Kenny Chesney or Rascal Flatts single into their playlist.

"I'm Diggin' It" was the last cassingle I bought. Elliott's other singles weren't enough to kickstart a career, but that one still holds up well. Makes me quite happy to discover that anyone else actually remembers it.

The Pickler album is definitely worth going back to. Wouldn't have released the title track as a single (it missed the top 50), but I also don't know if there's anything on it that wouldn't sound out-of-place on radio between Luke Bryan and Lady Antebellum. Still don't think it's a great album, but it's a very good one that I really did not think she had in her.

Underwood's album is pretty obviously her best yet, though it's still a long way from being great, either. Will be interesting to see if the minor backlash she's incurred for her pro-marriage equality statement a couple of weeks ago actually has any real impact on her commercial stats.

Is that the consensus with the current Underwood album? If so, I really didn't realize people were liking it that much. I haven't heard it -- was kind of under the impression that she was one of those people who peaked with her debut then kept getting worse (which I probably tend to think about way more artists than deserve it) -- but I guess I need to check it out now. Should probably try the Pickler again sometime, too.

That's been the consensus among the folks I talk to who write predominantly about modern country; mainstream sources have been more mixed but still generally pro on it. My full review is here.

"Before He Cheats" and "Some Hearts" have been the only two singles of hers I've liked much at all, and she's had maybe two or three other album tracks that were solid, but this one has a handful of cuts that I've gone back to revisit and two that I like outright. So that's an improvement for her. I still think her level of acclaim and stature are greatly disproportionate to the quality of the material she's released, but I can see that gap closing a bit with her new one.

I'll listen to it. As is, a week short of halfway into the year, my country album top 10 is shaping up to look downright weird, and more alt-ish than it's ever been since I started keeping track: Elfin Saddle (more Brit folk but with Appalachian tendencies), King Mob (somewhat rockabilly but really loud pub-rock), Bhi Bhiman, Blackberry Smoke, Turnpike Troubadours, Darrell Scott (which I probably heard almost a year ago but it didn't come out until February or something). Lionel Richie and Kip Moore would have a shot (and even if it's the second biggest selling album of the year I don't think the Richie actually gets played on country radio); Dierks Bentley and Tim McGraw might squeak in for lack of competition. (Also marginally tolerable, if no-names: Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires, Drew Nelson, Bryan Clark & the New Lyceum Players. Hell, I might go with those over the equally marginal Nashville guys, just because Nashville pisses me off lately. Wonder if Dr. John -- pretty good, far from great -- counts. And if ZZ Top's album is good as the single, maybe them.)

Finally made it through the second ten of xpost xxhuxx's 50 Country Songs That Don't Suck. Adkins' "I'm Tryin" is great up to half way through, but at 4'40" it's noticeably longer than most, maybe all of the next nine. Also much more recent, and lengthy repetition became a given with so many radio-aimed songs, hits and non-hits, sure enough. My faves are "I'm Diggin' It" and "Seminole Wind," both with tenacious beats; she's bit by the lovebug, like she's celebrating, and Jawwn's riding the ancient snake through the tropical profusion of them word things, the arrangement slanting the light of motel window blinds all through there. T.G.'s song might've been lifted from The Summer of 42, which I saw in the summer of '72, so mainly remember it was a hit date movie with a real happy ending. But I also remember it was much more appropriately atmospheric--you know: gettin' in the mood--than T.G.'s high-stepping barroom sing-along, guess they didn't want it to sound suggestive. Pretty close to Sylvia's oompah band, with matadors in lederhosen. The arrangement on Don Williams' song seems busier than I remembered, but his voice has no prob mood-wise, maybe he should cover T.G.'s song, but does he do the sex stuff, except maybe very very very subtly?

Listening to (Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnston, Susan Cowsill) The Hobart Brothers & Lil Sis Hobart's At Least We Have Each Other. Cowsill of course the youngest of her brothers'/mother's/manager dad's group The Cowsills, real life basis of the Partridge Family. She does not sound waify here, fairly tough and flexible voice, something of a potentially upsetting, born-for/to-trouble spark. Also ready when Johnston brings out a bit of power pop, the soda pop pulled from a rusty icebed outside of an ol' gas station, probably in Texas and/or the Great Plains, while the sun keeps the beat--they keep enough shade, enough cool to try and work out "the difference between beaten and beat," also Beat. Several Rolling Countrys ago, Edd Hurt and I were digging Jon Dee Graham's gravelly live solo sets (also played w Alejandro Escovedo in guitar armadillo army True Believers and fairly recently with A.E.'s own band). Think Edd's Top Tenned at least one JDG album I haven't heard, but prob will(now that nobody goes to MySpace, tons of albums there, incl most of Graham's, plus I gotta get to the promo of his new Garage Sale). This album (electric and acoustic versions of most tracks, justifiably so) rec to these individual artists' fans, ditto those who enjoy the best of James McMurtry, Warren Zevon, John Doe, Dave Alvin, Eliza Gilkyson, like that y'all.

Looks like most if not all of Freedy Johnston's albums are on his MySpace as well, incl the raved-about and the only one I heard, from a couple years back, which I may not have given enough attention. Need to check 'em all, judging by his Hobart songs.

anybody bought the new Alan Jackson?

Didn't buy it -- Got it for free, but did listen to it a few times, to less avail than I hoped. Like the single, "So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore," more than most A.J. singles, and thought there were a couple other okay songs with a breakup-oriented theme. The seven-minute Zac Brown collaboration is more expansive than anything on Zac Brown's own new album, which counts for something. But not for enough, and there's nothing beyond the single that I can imagine ever needing to hear again.

Sara Watkins is playing a free show tonight in Pasadena. I ran across her new album by accident (didn't know anything about her) and kinda dug it.

What Brad Paisley thought and what was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMefOyqw7gI

Played the White House lawn on July 4.

Listening to the third ten from xpost xhuxx's "50 Country Songs That Don't Suck", though the magazine's embeds aren't playing at all now--no worries, so far they're all on YouTube (except had to get a live "The Pill" from Loretta's MySpace). LIke this vid for the Statler Bros' "Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott" ("happened to the best of meee")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJlD5roDqNw

This subset--from Eddie Rabbit's "Suspicions" to Barbara Mandrell's "The Midnight Oil"--has more keepers than the previous: almost all of 'em, and some choices are just a matter of taste, although I really am tired of songs that tell everything in the first verse and chorus, with latter verses just placeholders, while the infinitely repeated chorus trances us out, supposedly. Even Stoney Edwards' "Blackbird" turns me off a bit, though still digging his delivery (okay, mission semi-accomplished, entrancers)Sufficiently powerful/to my taste voices can overcome, def the Kendalls. But I'm lucky to find brief live versions of Stella Parton's "Standard Lie Number One" and Loretta Lynn's "The Pill," so linear here they're like short stories, sharp ones too. Stella's got two sets of lies-well, I won't spoil her comparison, just listen. Charlie Rich's luxuriously upholstered voice is indeed "Rollin' With The Flow", and he figures however fucked he is, he'll play it out, yo, still in the game, and he asssumes all his folks will continue to keep rolling with him, cause they know how he is. OMG "The Midnight Oil": basically the standard confessional cheating song, but "that midnight oil all over me" really frank and pungent and 70s-appropriate (maybe it helped to have oil's physicality set up by the make-up and trad wordplay: "When I'm puttin' on my make-up/I'm puttin' on the one who loves me best"--that's the chorus too, so don't have to mention the oil so much, the make-up's a cover for the oil) but still amazed country radio played it so much--guess that's another reminder of "The Pill" as milestone.

Narvel Felts like honky tonk Tiny Tim here, later for Slim Whitman, and Ringo Starr should cover--whatta find, thanks!

So good to see alll that Stoney Edwards on YouTube too.

don't have to mention the oil so much, the make-up's a cover for the oil

Ha -- wish I'd thought of that angle! And glad you're liking these; wish I had more to add than I've already said (but if I think of anything, I will.)

Sorry for any accidental re-hashes of your commentary, which I can't see too well currently---this giant-ass ad (with its own music links, I think) keeps getting in the way.

Ah damn, just now saw this: Rolling Country alum Edd Hurt on the recently deceased Susanna Clark--forgot she co-wrote "Easy From Now On"
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2012/06/29/susanna-clark-1939-2012

"Easy From Now On" is your typical piece of genius songwriting, right down to the way Carter and Clark tease you with the song's title hook, which takes its time making its appearance.

Spot-on. Terri Clark also covered "Easy From Now On" a couple of years before Miranda got to it, and she did as fine a job with it as anyone else. I particularly love the way the song functions as a closing statement on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Carter remains a criminally under-appreciated talent in her own right. Of the versions of the song I'm familiar with, Harris' is probably my least favorite, but that's really a matter of splitting hairs.

Unrelated:

Brad Paisley is being courted to sit alongside Mariah Carey on the American Idol judging panel next season. The show has been on quite friendly terms with the country demo since at least its fourth season, so that could be seen as a pretty big "get" for them.

And "Pontoon" is very rapidly ascending the charts (top 15 in under 12 weeks, which is all too rare for country radio these days), clearly en route to becoming Little Big Town's biggest hit. Production's aces, and Karen Fairchild really tries her damnedest to sell the totally undercooked double-entendres, but it's not much of a song. Glad to see that group breaking through, though.

Jon, did you ever see Carlene's Austin City Limits set, with Al Anderson playing lead? She was just awesomely gleeful all over the place, Dept. of I'll Have Whatever She's Having etc

ha, enjoying the auto-tuned Jason Aldean hook on the new Colt Ford

I find Colt's shtick less and less bearable with each subsequent album. Here's what I wrote about his new one (which I still didn't hate, mainly because of the guitars):

http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/colt-ford/album/declaration-of-independence

Also, I finally heard a Nashville country album this year that I unreservedly like -- Kix Brooks, out Sep 11.

Will check Kix, he's touring too. Finally jumped aboard the ziptrain fourth ten-set of xhuxk's http://www.complex.com/2012/06/50-country-songs-that-don't-suck From Anne Murray's "Snowbird" to Arthur (Guitar Boogie)Smith's "Who Shot Willie." Not really a question, we know from the celebratory vocal and fiddle. True, Miz Maxine Freud, the lady of the triangle laments, "Willie was tall and Willie was good, and Willie would come back if he good," but narrator also explains that "Maxine is young," and she's already forgotten about Willie as our correspondent in the field does his best to console her. Maybe she has forgotten by this point in the song, which moves along like the rest of this subset. A practical, survival-minded, almost stoical approach, although slinging plenty of vivid detail out of the window, gong that stop sign boy. Come to a full stop it might git you, like the cabdriver in "Kay," either way it'll quickly accrue--"While the ashes are falling, from the smoke you inhale/There's an old dream to recall/Or a new one to fail"--so whut can a ballin'-on-a-budget boy do, but toast "Smokey The Bar" one more time. Tom T.'s original version of "The Homecoming" is kind of a man-to-man, business-like rationalization, with self-obsession/confession leaking out of the delivery."Never gets past the foyer": could be! And the cover shot is devastating" homecoming to the cemetery, T. as middle-aged businessman, perhaps remembering (or just now composing) the words only rehearsed, to be looped through fantasies of the past as future from now on, as they maybe have been replayed in his headbox for so long. Sir Doug's version is maybe even better, more frictional for sure, with the yearning to connect, to be absolved, to get the fuck back out of here swirling around, cabin and club and highway fumess in his lungs. I thought the tramp-daddy was the one knocking on mama's door, that this kind of sometimes-at-midnight arrangement was the only way they could still make it work--what a naive child was I--that "red light" she turned on, of course! Thanks for pointing it out, and making this drive-by sequence.

"come back if he *could*" sorry

The last one referred to is O.C. Smith's "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp." Thanks for reminding me of the black country anthologies From Where I Stand and Dirty Laundry, gotta check those too. Harmonica Frank's freewheeling trickbag focus on whack is survival-minded too, the old hobo, tramp, busker and pitcher rolling onto that Sun train for a spell.

The final 10 of xhuxxk's 50. I think I got more out of 'em going 10 at a time than I would have trying to do it all once, lots of them had me buzzing anyway, dunno what the writing would've been like after one marathon session.
Delmore Brothers, "Freight Train Boogie": I've got the Ace collection pictured, real good. Might pick something else from that to give more of "rock 'n' roll ten years aarly", as shuxx tags this, because the deftly mellow vocal phrasing reminds me of Doc Watson covering Mississippi John Hurt, though Doc did go on to rockabilly, so maybe this discreet house party vibe is a good warm-up for outright rocking--dig the guitars adding detail and momentum (like live radio performances of Charlie Christian with Benny Ooodman go hurtling towards rock). Also, boogie as boogie-woogie just about, can imagine the guitar solo on piano.
Def some woogie in the boogie, and outright rock assertive absurdity on "Ding Dong Daddy." Surprised to read here about Wills andthe TPs reputedly wusstern swing; only reservation I've ever had is their tendency to sing like polite granpaws even when young. Anyway an excellent pick. Since I'm still relying on Youtube for all these, I also checked Louis Armstrong and the Sebastion Cotton Club Orchestra's version, which is mainly trumpet, drums and Satchmo's scat, in 1930: cutting through early swing towards pre-rock rocking, seemingly off the cuff, on the fly,
Moon Mullican "Pipeline Blues": excellent comments as always, and this song is so fracking relevant again; will be even more so with President Mitt's energy policy, just announced, though he won't appreciate the fatalistic horndog's boom and bust perspective: "You don't miss your water, 'til your well runs dry, you don't miss your honey, 'til she SAID goodbye."
Couldn't find Milton Brown's version of "Texas Hambone Blues", though I very much enjoyed Carlitos and the Hi-Lo Playboys doin' it at the Redwood Lounge. Go see 'um. Also check Milton's "You're Bound To Look Like A Monkey," fastest boogie heard today, and built on a playgroud thing:"I can tell by your hands, you've got monkey glands, I can tell by your nails, your folks hung by their tails"--yeah, so that's why you'll look like a monkey when you're old, I never will!
Roy Newman and His Boys, "Sadie Green": give it up for the clarinet, and the way the fiddle matches it, is this even possible any more, with recording methods in reach of modern man? Think it might be "big brown eyes and feet to match", not "teeth", xxhuxx.
Armstrong also gets a sound with rock appeal via somehow wiry, sinewy muted trumpet on "Blue Yodel # 9", which yeah is several shades of bluesy,punky, country, the most affecting track here.
Allen Brothers, "Maybe Next Week Sometime": amazing! Gotta check more of theirs, though YouTube also offers a second version, okay but not as good (lyrics are more diffuse). It turns out he does want to go to extremes right now, but but things moderation in all thangs, incl. digging gold in the graveyard, racing with a ghost and dallying with the wife of a dangerous man, in their own home, is wise. Oh discretion, oh tweak freaks! I'm one too.
Emmett Miller sounds more stilted than I remembered, Poole's version of this seems more diffues than others (more diffuse lyrics, though the discontent, maybe foreboding comes through) Not particularly engaging picking either. But all on-line courses should be like this, what a trip, thanks!

And thanks for making it through them all, Don! (Or did you? -- Don't remember you mentioning Smokey Wood & the Modern Mountaineers, for instance, not that you have to mention all of them -- you mentioned more than anybody else did, here or elsewhere). Now one of these days I need to sift through your responses and respond to them -- definitely wish I'd noted the current-events potential of "Pipeline Blues" though; can't believe I missed that, as obvious as it is. (And yeah, the Playboys' polite grandpatude might be what bugs me most about them, but in general compared to say the Musical Brownies or Newman's Boys or the Modern Mountaineers or certain other westbound swangsters, their playing has frequently hit me as kinda staid, a lot of the time. Then again, they sure did play a lot of it, quantity-wise. Wills box set is still one of the very few box sets I own, though, even if it doesn't include my favorite recordings by him -- So I'm still a fan, don't get me wrong.)

Might like the imminent Jerrod Niemann album as much as the imminent Kix Brooks (former peaks higher, latter's more consistent -- evens out, more or less.) Which means 2012 is shaping up not quite as horrible Nashville-was as it was a couple months back. Still haven't gotten super-excited about a single country single yet, though. (Favorite probably the Pistol Annies' "Takin' Pills," which is really still a 2011 track in my head.)