Rolling Country 2014

I really like the second Sturgill Simpson album much more than the first.

Agghh I need help! There's this country song by a woman/women's group that references Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings. Not sure in which way but there's clear references to those guys. The song is about 2/3 years old (i think?)

I was thinking that it was either an Ashley Monroe or a Pistol Annies tune, but cannot find it on their albums. Desperate to find it!
Hope someone can help :))

not sure if it mentions Kristofferson, pretty sure Waylon and Cash are though...

Loving the Highwaymen right now. Not sure if that's credible enough for y'all but it's fantastic. Need more of it.

Try the expanded reissue of Wanted: The Outlaws, which was the flagship of the Outlaw Country campaign in the mid-70s: Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and (yay) Jessi Colter. If you like her tracks, check her comeback, Out of the Ashes. I'm not that big on Kris, but look for a couple of his early albums, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I and Jesus Was A Capricorn. Nelson, Haggard and Kristofferson have been working on a new album, out this year, mebbe.

Oh yeah, Cash & Jennings did one called Heroes, apparently along the same lines as the Highwaymen series. Haven't heard it, but told it's good.

Gonna look those up, thanks much!

I like this song from Nikki Lane's new album, answering the musical question: "Nikki, when is the right time to do the wrong thing?" https://soundcloud.com/newwestrecords/nikki-lane-all-or-nothin-right/s-l71iv
Also digging the title song from her 2011 EP, which I was totally ignorant of!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwzdQRfM-4

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19386-sturgill-simpson-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/arts/music/sturgill-simpsons-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music.html?_r=0

expecting wire and complex reviews soon

wow, dow otm

Just checked that xpost First Listen stream of Sturgill. Initially, I'm put off by the way he loses the end of lines, especially on the early originals: why make an effort to write distinctive lyrics, his own true testimony of outlaw country zigzag wanderin', if you're gonna drop 'em into [ unintelligible ].

yeah so i found the song i was looking for! Is it country? Don't know. But it's First Aid Kit - Emmylou
http://youtu.be/PC57z-oDPLs

phew

congrats on finding it

re sturgill simpson losing the end of his lines: ding ding ding. i like the new album quite a bit, but that's one of the things that's keeping me from loving it. also, in addition to the other comparisons that have been made in sturgill literature so far (waylon, jamey johnson, etc.), something about the particular way his voice drawls reminds me of early dwight yoakam.

LEE ANN WOMACK PREMIERES FIRST SONG FROM
THE WAY I'M LIVIN' ON WSJ.COM

Album Produced by Award-Winning Frank Liddell,
First New Music in Over 6 Years
The Way I'm Livin' was produced by Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, David Nail), and features the songs of Chris Knight, Mindy Smith, Buddy Miller, Mando Saenz, Hayes Carll, Neil Young, Bruce Robison and one cagey cover lifted from Roger Miller. The album will impact at radio in June

Haven't heard that song yet. List of songwriters makes it seem too alt to "impact" radio, but yea, haven't heard it yet so who knows

Yes, "WSJ.com" is Wall Street Journal...

impact AT radio

We need Alfred to teach them grammar

I'm still recovering from the Nunn daughter in Georgia using "to architect"

Speaking of xpost Nikki Lane (still haven't heard the whole album, but so far so cool)
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/nikki-lane-the-rise-of-a-country-rebel-20140523?google_editors_picks=true

Well, no hobbling vocal mannerisms (Church as well as Simpson) from John Fullbright: he's got the flair of fellow Okies Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, and sometimes carried-away Carrie Underwood. But also, maybe with an ear to the longevity of Okie-once-removed Merle the Hag's best work, he knows about the appeal of self-restraint, when you've really got something to restrain. So, he breaks his projection into succinct sincerity, applying the reins as he starts to rise (a little wry twist, tightening the jaw and nostrils as he starts to wail, biting the words to make sure they jump a little more).

Good thing, because he knows he could make it on this sound times glib sentiment, each one alibi-ing the other.Especially since, when he adds drums, and keeps the keys, he doesn't even need a balancing act, he could just hit like country-as-early-70s-Top Forty, in there between Tumbleweed Junction Elton John and, say, Albert "It Never Rains In California" Hammond. We know he knows, because, early on Songs(May 27), he's got this song within a song within a song, seems like, where he starts out hoping to get by another day without a cliche, and then goes into several cliches, culminating with "keep hope alive." Then brood on a while, and suddenly he's "Little Lord Fauntleroy/In a La-Z Boy/Tryin' to keep hope alive." But past the irony and self-mockery and self=pity, he seems like he does want and feel the need to keep hope alive.

So, I'm thinking this, and *then* he actually comes up with one about "Writing a song/About a song/Write a line about the line within the line"! But again, not just round and round the navel, he's also thinking about "living the life you wanna live," like implying, is this--which amounts to living a life that's about living a life---The Purpose_Driven Life, yes thank you Rev. Rick Warren--is this any more or less something than writing a song about a song etc.? Maybe too good a question!
Anyway, he then hauls out the drums for good radio bait relief, then gets kind of abjectly romantic while of course still sounding good(but not quite good enough to cover the weepier lines), and then, just as my increasing discontent became aware of missing the perspective-finding shifts between first and third person, re the sometimes scary and always ambitious From The Ground Up(2012), he (spoiler alert) got his gears back together. But it was a close call, and there's still-smelly valentines in some of the previous songs, which may drive me away from many future listens. Though at the very least, it's yet another good(in this case, good-to-killer) EP trapped in an album's body. We'll see.
Oh yeah, it's still streaming here for a little while (and maybe on Spotify later, like the 2012 set) http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=4&

What's Willie Nelson's best album? Or is that too broad of a question?
Can't get enough of The Highwaymen and Waylon, need more like this. Again!

8-song preview (does not include "Automatic") of Miranda Lambert's new record:

http://www.cmt.com/artists/miranda-lambert/

Maybe it's just the initial rush of getting new music from one of your favorite artists, but this sounds great. The production is similar to the last album (which I thought had both pros and cons), but there are some big, memorable melodies, more reminiscent of the first two albums. Standout for me is "Oh Shit," but there really aren't any obvious missteps in these 8 tracks. The Little Big Town guest spot could have been a train wreck, but instead is a lovely, anthemic singalong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/arts/music/country-music-opens-its-ears.html

Jon Caramanica's overview of country's interest in rap

What's Willie Nelson's best album? Or is that too broad of a question?
Can't get enough of The Highwaymen and Waylon, need more like this. Again!

Shotgun willie is one of my faves

Yeah, Shotgun Willie and since you like Waylon too, try Waylon and Willie, that's the best of their several I've heard, although Take It To The Limit is good too. Phases and Stages is an usual breakup album: he writes the first side from the woman's point of view, the second from the man's. Both do go through various stages, incl. "Oh well, what the hell," and back to the bars (uh spoiler alert--but it's cool that it's not all weepers, though there are def some of those too; real good ones). Also, his other big concept album is The Red Headed Stranger; then check Pancho & Lefty,with Merle Haggard, and Me and Paul(a non-duet album, despite the title). All these add up to the best of his 70s, maybe early 80s sets with Outlaw and Highwaymen-appeal(of the ones I'm familiar with).

If you want to range further afield, try Face of a Fighter(demos, but awesome); the western swing album with Asleep At The Wheel,Willie and the Wheel; Stardust, which is prob his best exploration of The Great American Songbook; the all-instrumental Night and Day and mostly-instrumental Let's Face the Music and Dance, plus his collaborations with many good-to-great female singers, To All The Girls....

Any opinions on the band "Exile"? They had a country career that I know utterly nothing about, but their pre-country "Kiss You All Over" just came up on one of the local oldies stations* and struck me -- musically -- as "Walk On The Wild Side" repurposed as mainstream love slush, and not bad at that.

*KCKK, owned by a company in the Denver 'burb of Lakewood; interesting playlist, as they seem to go for a good deal of the nonobvious: mid-level hits from the mid Sixties to mid Eighties, on a middle path (e.g., I'm not expecting to hear Motley Crue or Sugarhill Gang but right now they're playing the O'Jays "Used Ta Be My Girl"), for an audience that's probably middle-aged at the youngest. And now they're playing the album version of Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side Of Town."

(Oh, and I see "Kiss You All Over" was a Chapman-Chinn song.)

Exile's local, so they still have a pretty big following here, even though the original line-up has long since disbanded and only a couple of guys still play occasional nostalgia tour gigs.

In their mid-80s heyday, though, they were pretty huge-- a bunch of #1 hits at country radio. Because of their origins as a rock outfit, they were seen at the time as less "authentic" than, say, Alabama, which is why they never made many inroads at the CMAs or ACMs, but their singles ("Give Me One More Chance," "Woke Up in Love") hold up as well as most anything else from that era. The local classic country station keeps both of those singles, along with "She's a Miracle" (and "Kiss You All Over," fwiw) in pretty steady rotation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nashville-hitmaker-luke-bryan-at-jiffy-lube-live/2014/06/01/33100c4a-e933-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html

If someone eventually reveals that Luke Bryan is a robot built by scientists trying to create the ideal country-music superstar, count us as among those who will not be at all surprised.

First, no human should be able to breathe while wearing pants that tight. More important proof: Just one day after taking a nasty spill off the stage at his concert in North Carolina, Bryan displayed over-the-top, full-force energy during his Friday night show at Jiffy Lube Live, as if nothing had happened.

Lyrics with so many mentions of trucks may also have been written by robots (although many of them work I must admit)

went to the just-opened "country: portraits of an american sound" exhibit at the annenberg space for photography in LA today. really nice collection of photos by les leverett (longtime official grand ole opry photographer), leigh wiener, henry horenstein, henry diltz and a few others. it's a pretty big exhibit. heavy on '60s and '70s shots (and extra-heavy on johnny cash shots), but a few older ones and a small but interesting collection of current portraits. worthwhile if you're in LA (and free). i think my two favorite shots were a black-and-white study/mockup for the cover for the louvin brothers' satan is real -- which was nicer than the actual cover -- and charlie rich hanging out on a porch with c.j. allen, the sharecropper on his family farm who was one of his mentors on the piano.

I wonder if the the exhibit will tour?

"Talk of Dreams" (1980) by Lee Beom-yong & Han Myeong-hoon (이범용 & 한명훈) sounds fairly country. And from last January there's a TV version, still countryish, by the two remaining members of V.O.S, a mid-'00s boyband. Very pretty (the song as well as the singers).

Thanks for the info about Exile. Seem on the border between lite soul, lite rock, and lite country; sound okay, though I actually think the country rhythms get in the way of what otherwise is a nice bit of Quiet Storm.

Working on a piece about the Country Cavaleers, whose singer, James Marvell, is still out there doing his thing in Christian Country, and who was once in a series of Tampa garage bands with Buddy Good, who later joined him in Mercy (on their re-recorded version of 1969's "Love (Can Make You Happy)," and later went to Nashville and made some singles as the Country Cavaleers, and appeared on the Wilburn Bros. show in '72. Marvell bills himself as the original country outlaw, because the Cavaleers had long hair (and an anti-drug message to boot). Easily the most obscure country act that actually has some credence to their almost-career I've ever run across, and found their two LPs, which are so obscure that there's absolutely no discographical info anywhere, though they did cut one single for the "custom" label Cutlass (a Dickey Lee-Don Williams-produced (!) cover of "Stop! in the Name of Love" b/w a Jack Clement tune originally done by Charley Pride in 1968) as well as one MGM single, "Humming Bird" b/w "Hang on to What," which scraped the bottom of the charts. Other singles were on the Maryland label Country Showcase America; the LPs were independently issued on their own JBJ and Versha labels. The JBJ album features Good and Marvell imitating Tiny Tim, Ed Sullivan and Marlon Brando on the back cover, along with a song called "Turn on to Jesus," which is kind of Beatles-esque, a nod to their '60s garage-band roots. (Ironically, they apparently attempted to interest future Outlaw marketing auteur Jerry Bradley, of RCA Records, in their proto-outlawism, which was more comic than bad-ass.) Quite a story.

Country Cavaleers doing "Hang on to What," 1973 MGM single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0E3OzyYy8c

James Marvell, 1981, a song about how he invented outlaw country in the '60s. Props to whoever made the decision to have the female background singers chime in on "outlaws" in the chorus. "Urban Cowboys, Outlaws, Cavaleers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkE0QB7IvQE

Finally got to Mary Gauthier's Trouble and Love: breakup and recovery and then some--though she claims (in interviews) to be through with romantic love, realizing she just wasn't made for it, and maybe vice versa, and though (in song) she does demonstrate "How You Learn To Live Alone," that's a co-write with Gretchen Peters (perfectly placed on Hashville the TV series to boot):another example of how she's regrouping, realigning her musical and emotional resources, into sweet unpretentious forging on, with "Worthy" the tiny turning point on a dime: "ashes into flame"--sure, why not, rewind is no great leap of imagination---once *something* provides the key, but then, you've already got to be unlocked, for creativity to do its mysterious thing, whatever the process (obviously she's a vet, a pro, almost slipping into solemn folk-country soap opera at times, but usually not: "Oh Soul" does have a choked-up male vocal shadow, and yeah she's at the crossroads and ready for repentence, but does she have to "pray at the grave of Robert Johnson"? Maybe so, considering the better lines). One of the year's best.

"Hashville"! I wish. Where the struggling hero is named Gram (get it?).

xhuxk's rhapsody playlist delving into the "source material" of miranda's platinum is stellar.

the essay:
http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/source-material-miranda-lamberts-platinum

the music:
http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.152027918

Splendid, thanks. Also enjoying this (even saluting deep roster of Average Joes or Joe's!) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/a-history-of-hick-hop-the-27-year-old-story-of-country-rap-20140627

...although they did leave out this pioneer crew: http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-05-25/music/the-groovegrass-boyz/full/

Pistol Annies' Angaleena Presley's solo debut is up-front autobio, to wit:

1. "Ain't No Man" (Angaleena Presley)
2. "All I Ever Wanted" (Angaleena Presley)
3. "Grocery Store" (Angaleena Presley/Lori McKenna)
4. "American Middle Class" (Angaleena Presley)
5. "Dry County Blues" (Angaleena Presley/Mark D. Sanders)
6. "Pain Pills" (Angaleena Presley)
7. "Life of the Party" (Angaleena Presley/Matraca Berg)
8. "Knocked Up" (Angaleena Presley/Mark D. Sanders)
9. "Better Off Red" (Angaleena Presley)
10. "Drunk" (Angaleena Presley/Sarah Siskind)
11. "Blessing and a Curse" (Angaleena Presley/Bob DiPiero)
12. "Surrender" (Angaleena Presley/Luke Laird/Barry Dean)

More details here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/angaleena-presley-album-reveals-american-middle-class-life-20140627#ixzz35zLCMAdb"> http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/angaleena-presley-album-reveals-american-middle-class-life-20140627#ixzz35zLCMAdb

The Sturgill Simpson record is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOCFWd8qusw

atlantic: The Bro-Country Backlash Is Here

(you can listen to the maddie & tae track here fyi, since it's hard to find elsewhere: http://musictumblrnotes.tumblr.com/post/90397213533/girl-in-a-country-song-maddie-tae-maddie )

Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell co-headline this week's http://musiccityroots.com/roots-tv/, streaming tonight from 7 'til 10(?) (Central, anyway).

MCR newsletter: "We are expecting solo acoustic performances by each (Emmylou, Rodney) at Roots, with some duo moments as well."

Nah gah live post the whole thing, wouldn't be prudent, but right now: Humming House, young acoustic pickers, but all with powerful, non-nasal voices; the woman snare drummer was singing lead--rich sound--this guy's okay too. Here she is again, contralto maybe, and with the most starpower, even sneaking up on this spooky ballad.