Rolling Country 2014

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.

ha, Harris & Crowell right into a duet: Parsons' "Wheels," and yeah, acoustic, but with upright bass and ace piano, plus three guitars. Luvly.

Still together for "Pancho and Lefty," "Til I Gain Control Again," fuuuck (they still archive these, or most of 'em; might be some artists/labels holding out)

best (heartbruising) rendition of "If I Needed You" I've heard; can seem like one of TVZ's atypically formalist turns, but not here.

Picking up the tempo for "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight," with the pianist switching to accordion, and a nuanced touch (ditto the pickers)

Thanks for the link to Music City Roots, dow. Damn, I love Emmylou and Rodney. His memoir was excellent, and Emmylou's is coming out in the next year or two, I understand.

Oh, didn't know that, thanks. Also, during the MCR interview, she said they're working on a second duo album, this time writing together. Don't think they've ever done that before--?

Tonght's Music City Roots features Amy LaVere. whose recent Runaway's Diary is really striking, for the tone: sounds really young,like, "I can't believe I'm doing this," and also "I'm doing this, wow!" and always observant, drawing back a little more, too, whenever things get too gnarly--nevertheless, scary ol street dude Townes Van Zandt drops science in her face, via song, not personal appearance(good selection and sequencing of originals and covers).

checking into thread entirely to love sturgill simpson, even if he does swallow the ends of his lines.

IT'S MARDI GRAAAAAAAAAAAS
UP IN THE CLOUUUUUUUUUDS
I'M UP SO HIIIIIIIGH
MAY NEVER COME DOWN!
I'LL TRY ANYTHIIIIING
TO DROWN OUT THE PAIIIIIIN
THEY ALL KNOW WHY I'M GETTING DRUNK ON A PLANE

"drunk on a plane" is fucking perfect

Headliner on tonight's Music City Roots live radio/TV stream (7-10 PM CST): Irene Kelley, whose has cool phrasing has stayed with me from a few previous broadcast sets over the years. Mainly known as a back-up singer and co-writer, though she's had a few albums, which I haven't heard. New Pennsylvania Coal has her fellow A-List Nashville cats picking, with guest star vocalists. On the same bill: American Aquarium, The Vespers, Songs Of Water---not a good week for names, but descriptions seem fairly promising.

x-post--Dierks Bentley getting abandoned groom sympathy bro-style without dissing the not-to-be-bride who left him

singing the blues...

Well, this is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUQ2ltrdkTw

drunk on a plane" is fucking perfect

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson)

the "quarterback" video is interesting in that it ends differently than the song does. the song ends with everyone in school and in town siding with the quarterback and no one believing the girl. the video ends with seemingly everybody in school taking the girl's side.

I must say, the Singles Jukebox nailed it, if I may so:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=12354

the bendy riff on "Drunk On A Plane" is fantastic but the vocals just sound so melodically & rhythmically bankrupt to me and I hate that.

kinda hate "drunk on a plane" but good for y'all

"quarterback" is very affecting

Now it can be told! Edd Hurt, via the invaluable Perfect Sound Forever, on idiosyncratic early 70s lawnghaired Nashville cats The Country Cavaleers http://www.furious.com/perfect/countrycavaleers.html

http://www.furious.com/perfect/graphics/countrycavaleers.jpg

http://www.wonderingsound.com/feature/kira-isabella-quarterback-country-radio-date-rape/

More re "Quarterback" and country lyrics

That's by Charles Aaron, who was at Spin for ages

interesting + carefully compiled analysis of the prospects of emerging major-label radio-promoted solo acts (since 2008, since 2007 is when country's current biggest superstars, male and female, emerged): http://www.mjsbigblog.com/the-country-radio-climb-how-are-major-labels-serving-new-acts-male-female.htm

it's a fairly long read w/ lots of tables but the main takeaways are

- significantly fewer of the women who are promoted to radio will ever score a top 20 hit compared to men.
- whether women have an established fanbase prior to being promoted to country radio (from tv talent shows, acting, or a career as a pop artist) is a far more important determinant of whether they can score that first hit compared to men, for whom having a prior fanbase seems to make no difference. of the nine women who succeeded at getting a top 20 hit, the only two that did not have significant fanbases beforehand were sunny sweeney and kacey musgraves (and even she had her minor stint on nashville star).
- solo men who score a top 20 hit are extremely likely to score more of them later on. meanwhile, not even one of the solo women to have scored a top 20 has logged a second hit since 2008. (cassadee pope and kacey musgraves both have songs currently charting, but it's looking like both will fail to reach the top 20.)

i think it would have been interesting to look at how much being part of a duo or group helps for men compared to women but i don't think the results would be surprising

Tonight's Music City Roots live audio/video stream incl. Susan Werner, whose 2013Hayseed was all about life on the fsrm, like dealing with freaky weather, whether you call it climate change or the roll of the dice; also, "My my, hey hey/Pesticides have made me gay," snd the awesomeness of yet another big fat moon. Also, David Olney, who used to stomp around like late 70s/early 80s Joe Ely Band; dunno know what he's up to now, but the last tunes I heard were still all-weather. And: Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper: heard Cleveland with other bands, which were good modern bluegrass, not too nasal. Oh yeah, and Micheal-Ann; got a promising promo from her.

sorta surprised not to see mention of "girl in a country song" here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MOavH-Eivw

i posted a link to it a month ago along w/ some thinkpiece but it didn't spur much (any) discussion itt

i'm kind of sick of how gender role reversal in music videos recently has to come with some obnoxiously obvious signifier (big ROLE REVERSAL switch in this video, useless introductory sequence in jlo's 'luv ya papi' video) apparently b/c ppl would be confused otherwise

i'm kind of sick of how gender role reversal in music videos recently has to come with some obnoxiously obvious signifier (big ROLE REVERSAL switch in this video, useless introductory sequence in jlo's 'luv ya papi' video) apparently b/c ppl would be confused otherwise

Think of it as waving a big red flag to get Slate writers' attention.

lol

Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited

A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Anniversary

of Cash’s Landmark Album Available August 19

Album Features Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Bill Miller,

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Norman and Nancy Blake and others (full track list at end)

Of all the dozens of albums released by Johnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964’s Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was among the closest to the artist’s heart. A concept album focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history of the United States, its eight songs—among them “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” a #3 hit single for Cash on the Billboard country chart—spoke in frank and poetic language of the hardships and intolerance they endured.

Now, 50 years after it was recorded, a collective of top Americana artists has come together to reimagine and update these songs that meant so much to Cash, who died in 2003. Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks, August 19), produced by Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville), features American music giants Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Bill Miller, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Norman and Nancy Blake, as well as up-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids and Rhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music of Bitter Tears for a new generation. As his project was for Cash, the new collection is a labor of love with a strong sense of purpose fueling its creation.

“Prior to Bitter Tears, the conversation about Native American rights had not really been had,” says Henry, “and at a very significant moment in his trajectory, Johnny Cash was willing to draw a line and insist that this be considered a human rights issue, alongside the civil rights issue that was coming to fruition in 1964. But he also felt that the record had never been heard, so there’s a real sense that we’re being asked to carry it forward.”

Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades as one of Cash’s greatest artistic achievements, did not realize its stature as a landmark recording easily and quickly. At the time that Cash proposed the album, he was met with a great deal of resistance from his record label. They felt that a song cycle revolving around the Native American struggle as perpetrated by the white man took him too far afield of the country mainstream and Cash’s core audience. Cash still released the album and although it did not perform as well as he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.

Ironically, at the same time that his own label was balking because it felt he would alienate the country audience with his Native American tales, Cash was finding a new set of admirers among the burgeoning folk music crowd that had recently made stars of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Cash’s debut performance of “Ira Hayes” at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews. His appeal was undeniably expanding beyond the country audience, and for those who did connect with Bitter Tears, among them a 17-year-old aspiring singer-songwriter named Emmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and important. “The record was a seminal work for her as a teenager,” says Henry. “She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment that Johnny Cash was a folk singer, not a country singer, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the great folk singers at that moment.”

Henry’s awareness of Harris’ affection for Bitter Tears led him to invite her to contribute to Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited. Following the epic, nine-minute album-opener “As Long as the Grass Shall Grow,” written by Peter La Farge—a folk singer-songwriter who Cash had befriended—and sung here by Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead vocal on the Cash-penned “Apache Tears,” which also features sweet, close harmonies by the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprising Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. For Henry, carefully matching artist to song was integral to the integrity of Look Again To The Wind. For some of the tracks, that process required a great deal of consideration. But when it came to deciding who would interpret “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.

Another of five songs on the original album written by La Farge, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” is based on the true story of Ira Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World War II photograph. Hayes’ moment of glory was followed upon his return to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Cash, moved by Hayes’ story and La Farge’s recounting of it, vowed to record the song. When planning out Look Again To The Wind, Henry knew that only a few living singers could deliver the song the way he wanted to hear it. He called Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing background.

“I wanted somebody whose relationship with Johnny Cash was not only musical but personal,” he says. “I’d worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not ask? Who else has a voice with that kind of power and authority?” That same sense of intuition guided Henry to choose the other participants and the material they would render. For La Farge’s “Custer,” the album’s third song, the producer knew instinctively that Steve Earle was the right man for the job. “Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I can imagine working right now who could deliver a song that is that pointed in that particular way and do it authentically without cowering from it or making it feel a little too arch,” Henry says. “He really could embody the kind of swagger that that song insists upon.”

Similarly, Henry chose Nancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on backing vocals) for the Cash-written “The Talking Leaves,” Norman Blake to sing “Drums,” the Milk Carton Kids to lead “White Girl” (both of those authored by La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalist Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album’s finale, “The Vanishing Race,” written by Cash’s good friend Johnny Horton. To bolster the album (the original, typical of mid-’60s vinyl LPs, ran just over a half hour), Henry fills out the track list of Look Again To The Wind with reprises of “Apache Tears” and “As Long As the Grass Shall Grow”—both sung by Welch and Rawlings—and ends the set with the title track, a La Farge tune that did not appear on the original Johnny Cash album but instead on the songwriter’s own 1963 release As Long as the Grass Shall Grow: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here it’s sung by Bill Miller, with Sam Bush providing mandolin and Dennis Crouch upright bass, a fine and fitting coda to the collection.

From the start, Henry looked at the project as one that would require great personal commitment and responsibility on his own part. Approached as potential producer of the project by the man who first envisioned it, Sony Music Masterworks’ Senior Vice President Chuck Mitchell (who’d been in conversations with Antonino D’Ambrosio, author of A Heartbeat and a Guitar, a book about the making of Bitter Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. “Johnny Cash was my first musical hero and I feel a profound debt to him as an artist, and as a courageous one,” he says. “How could I say no to that?”

He also realized that the Bitter Tears album held a special place in Cash’s canon, and that in many ways the issues it raised still resonate today—this had to be apparent in the new versions. “Mr. Cash knew that if he took this on, even if his point of view was not adopted, he had the power to be heard,” Henry says.

The album was recorded in three sessions: the first two in Los Angeles and Nashville and, lastly, one at the Cash Cabin, in Cash’s hometown of Hendersonville, Tennessee, where Bill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental backing for most of the album are Greg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards), Patrick Warren (keyboards for the L.A. sessions), Jay Bellerose (drums) and Dave Piltch (bass).

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, OKeh, Portrait, Masterworks Broadway and Flying Buddha imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.SonyMasterworks.com.

TRACKLIST:

1. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow – feat. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

2. Apache Tears – feat. Emmylou Harris w/The Milk Carton Kids

3. Custer – feat. Steve Earle w/The Milk Carton Kids

4. The Talking Leaves – feat. Nancy Blake w/ Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

5. The Ballad of Ira Hayes – feat. Kris Kristofferson w/ Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

6. Drums – feat. Norman Blake w/ Nancy Blake, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch & David

Rawlings

7. Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat. Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

8. White Girl – feat. The Milk Carton Kids

9. The Vanishing Race – feat. Rhiannon Giddens

10. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (Reprise) – feat. Nancy Blake, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings

11. Look Again to The Wind – feat. Bill Miller

The aforementioned Nikki Lane's current album, All Or Nothin' is about a rowdy gal who sometimes quietly busts her partner in luv crime---gotta keep honor among thieves, after all. Pretty confident, though not invulnerable, either way, and suggests (what may have actually happened, for all I know) Wanda Jackson keeping her 50s edge and losing the hopefully imposed late tearjerkers in the mid-60s, demonstrating, as Buck Owens did, how country could adapt to the Beatles, (and vice versa, via covers, the influence of Everlys harmonies, and even L-McC's "I've Just Seen A Face"). Which of course is something Dwight Yoakam's returned to over the years, incl Three Pears, but it seems more of a female tradition, thinking of, say, Those Darlins, Holly Golightly, or that album of Elizabeth McQueen pub-rock covers(yeah, but sounded mid-60s too, as pub-rock could in the mid=70s), discussed several Rolling Countrys ago.
Though the closest comparison might be to the late great Amy Farris's Anyway, with a twangy slender voice unfazed by sometimes flamboyant production. Whether it'll keep seeming like more than a stylistic excercise remains to be seen, but it's good exercise at least. Go Babe!

anyone heard/liked the new sunny sweeney record? concrete was one of my favorite albums of 2011, only just starting the new one

I don't like the single.

"bad girl phase"? that was all right. "carolina on the line" really really gorgeous

"Bad Girl Phase" is the nadir of the Wilson-Lambert crazy ex-girlfriend sound, I think.

well i definitely already don't remember anything about it

Two listens in and the album's decent but patchy. POW opener that the rest doesn't really live up to. The duet is p good too

surprise lucinda williams cover in the center of this thing

find myself very enchanted with the slower songs as usual with her. but yeah, kinda patchy. love the fake "i could never take the place of your man" guitar line on the otherwise unremarkable "front row seats"

Yep-- it's so patchy! Well, on first listen, seems like 7, maybe 8 keepers, out of 13 (in 47 minutes, a reasonable running time for that many tracks): not too shabby a ratio, but dammit, Concrete set the bar high/spoiled me, and---in terms of country-pop elegance and emotional impact, nothing here grabs my attention and sails around the room with it like, say, "From A Table Away" did. Although "Uninvited" comes close: it's an almost understated little chiller, as the well-mannered witness arrives at a social occasion, " moved through the room and the crowd divided/Somebody should have told me I was/Uninvited"--but that's not the worst of it.
All the songs I like so far, incl "Bad Girl Phase" ( currently enjoying the Southern Rock tinge, and the jaded vocal: she's been here before, knows we have too), "Second Guessing," "Can't Let Go," (though it clones the original, which might make more sense if she were trying to turn Country Radio listeners onto Lucinda, but c'mon it's a Kickstarter; the NPR audience isn't exactly unfamiliar with LW),"My Bed" (one that drops the blurry double tracking which eventually undermines several other ballads, for a good duet ritual with Will Hoge), maybe "Sunday Dress" (which could be the morning after "Uninvited"'s nightmare: she's still awake--but oops the double-tracking slips in, adding a little too much entrophy), definitely "Used Cars" (yay, uptempo again, where even double-tracking--chorus only, I think---adds a nice abrasion): "Just when I thought/All of the good ones were gone/Found another woman's wreck and made him someone I could/Depend on"(not the best rhyme, but it sounds like a good make-do fixer-upper: patchy in a good way), and "Backhanded Compliment" (like "You must have such confidence, to wear that dress!"---but she also makes a Note To Self: do not say "It's my personality that makes me hot!"), all those seem like they could be fragments of scenes from the same marriage (also the good kinda patchy) Maybe the tedious ones are too, but they seem just plain tedious.
Oh yeah, and "the world goes to hell in a feel-good song" is not really much of a problem, as I feel sure the world would agree/

Her first, Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame, is worth checking out too, though she's scorned it, said she didn't know how to make an album then (think it had as many good tracks as this one, with a frustrated beginner wheeling around)

Just got a download of the new Brad Paisley for a review assignment. Gonna give it a listen tomorrow. The cover art is typically lame.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61tXeIaeg7L.jpg

Haw. Great title too. Thank yew for sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI7VYXElZ9k

this is the best song ever
drake tip on the verses & "i knew you were trouble" explosion in the chorus

'she's so far gone' !! ! !

Willie shows Bobbie a card trick: http://willienelson.com/story/watch-card-tricks-with-willie/

Shovels & Rope continue to be a self-sufficient Mom 'n' Pop harmonizing multi-instrumental duo, kind of a diary-keeping musical Bonnie & Clyde, tending to muse before, during and after doing whutever else they do, like blowing shit up. However, the new Swimmin' Time, still streaming on NPR's First Listen for the moment, so far seems like it needs to pick up the tempo more often, more like prev. sets. Still, even the ones that haven't grabbed me (yet?) have spot-on changes in the arrangements, esp. on headphones, even with chainsaw fallen tree massacre going whole hog by my window.
Thinking of S&R and the aforementioned male=female roots pop combos Humming House and The Vespers (both in the Music City Roots home page-linked audio archive downloads) like the major label arena thing doesn't work out, mebbe The Band Perry should consider this direction. They could handle it great, allready do, when in "Better Dig Two" and all.
Tonight's Music City Roots incl. Dom Flemons, ex-Carolina Chocolate Drop and now with his solo debut, Prospect Hill. which I haven't heard yet. Self-contained sets by each performer so far can be downloaded here http://stringtheorymedia.typepad.com/music_city_roots_radio/, which is especially convenient re the recent Night Train To Nashville anniversary show, so I'd say skip the Jimmy Church Band lounge r&b talent show and the Valentines, unless you want geezer songwriter/sessioneers (like Mac Gayden) wheezing ancient hits. Do check acappella gospel masters the Fairfield Four, young Mavis Staples (for instance) experts the McCrary Sisters, and wickedly on point Charles Walker Band.