Rolling Country 2014

Do they sue Chick fil A? (I know I should just listen, but)

Haven't seen anyone mention Jason Eady's album from earlier this year, Daylight & Dark. It's the record I've returned to again and again. Beautiful writing and really well produced. The ballads are something special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSxTfTPIF0

Paisley sounding defensive in this interview:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/brad-paisley-turns-up-the-fun-on-latest-album/2014/08/29/a9284896-2f85-11e4-be9e-60cc44c01e7f_story.html

and less so in this one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/brad-paisleys-country-continues-to-expand-its-borders/2014/08/24/79141af8-2af9-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html

Will check out Jason, thanks (also need to check David Nail, Eli Young Band). Just today, I've become infatuated with Elise Davis: she's conversational, candid, concise, conflicted, fun. Her unpretentious charm contributes to some confusing situations, no doubt, but those wide eyes see a lot. The Life EP is what cut through my own mental clutter initially, but it sometimes sounds a bit like standard radio bait compared to these older tracks (not saying they're nec. better as *songs*). She's not all the way there yet, but could def. see her co-writing/on the same bill with Pistol Annies (together and sep), Brandy Clark, Musgraves, Lucinda, Maggie Rose:
http://www.elisedavis.com/music/

Damn -- never seen Paisley so much as miffed in any interview.

Wonder if he read T. Coates

What we were not expecting is that the song would be misinterpreted and Brad would be cast as a racist

i still crack up laughing seeing sentences like this uttered about a song called Accidental Racist

Do they sue Chick fll A?

they do, and then brad sues carrie. really really like this song. this is a good line: "grandpa's with the lord now/but we got a new ford now."

That is a good line

Ain't nobody's newsletter like Mary Gauthier's:

Kansas. A state I was once thrown out of! When I was a seventeen-year old kid, I was living in a halfway house in Salina. I got a job driving cars through the carwash in the dead of winter, spraying off ice and salt from the cars, washing them down with a pressure washer, then driving them through the mechanical car wash. I had sticky fingers then, and I grabbed change, 8-track tapes, and in one case, a bottle of pills from a Catholic priest's long, white sedan.

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/5b6e3c06b2456de7159101994/images/28a1a620-9adf-4504-aa4e-e8334bd88c84.jpg/

I was arrested for my criminal ways the day before my 18th birthday, and put in the Salina County Jail. I spent my birthday in solitary, my only visitor a sweet little church lady, who came to pray and sing with me. I’ll never forget her kindness. I was so glad to see her it made me cry. Eventually, the police told me that if I left Salina and never came back, they’d let me out and they would drop the charges. That was 35 years ago, and this is my first time back to Salina. I will be performing a benefit for Central Kansas Foundation, “a provider of quality, effective, and innovative substance use disorder prevention and treatment since 1967.” Full circle, right? Glad to make my return for a good cause!

Also in my news, I’ve been playing at The Grand Ole Opry quite a bit lately and having a great time asking folks to join me on stage. Here’s a video of Another Train at The Opry, with Kathy Mattea, Marty Stuart, and Radney Foster. And, I'll be back at The Opry again on September 13. C'mon by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL87alUotk

Edd checks in with Robt. Earl Keen:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2014/09/05/robert-earl-keen-the-cream-interview

I'm suddenly struck by the irony that I'd always thought of him as mainly a singer-songwriter, who's better at the writing, yet he points out that his friends who co-write and place cuts etc are in a "different world": seems to see himself as mainly a road dog who can front a band and furnish his own material.
Guess that basically goes with a show preview I wrote in 2010:
Robert Earl Keen
Tuesday @ Huntington Park
Texas singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen likes to mess with
comfortable materials. Verses keep flexing the context of his most
famous (and bumper sticker-ready) chorus, "The road goes on
forever/And the party never stops." Most of the songs on Keen's "The
Rose Hotel" also provide excellent points of departure for restless
guests. Even the citizen who nostalgically dwells on "Throwing Rocks"
with his country rock honey gets overtaken by events, smoothly
infiltrating and re-calibrating his sentiments and grooves. Vitality
rides with mortality, and a bunch of colorful maps.

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/keen-robert-earl/then-came-lo-mein-11798.html

XP Er, that quoted lyric is "The road goes on forever/and the party never ENDS".

Guess I was cross-channeling Zappa's "The torture never stops," another good bumper-sticker.

It's the middle of the night where I am and a show called "Gone Country" just ended on MTV Hits ... here is what they played:

The Lumineers, "Ho Hey"
Lambert/Underwood, "Somethin' Bad"
Kongos, "Come With Me Now"
Avicii, "Hey Brother"
Aloe Blacc, "Wake Me Up"
Kacey Musgraves, "Follow Your Arrow"
Taylor Swift, "Red"
Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)
Maddie & Tae, "Girl In A Country Song"
Mumford & Sons, "Hopeless Wanderer"
Lucy Hale, "Lie A Little Better"
Lady Antebellum, "Need You Now"

Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)

I dunno, they've kinda grown on me, but I understand their polarizing tendencies

I'm waiting for the 2016 GOP Convention where FGL plays "Cruise" after Ted Cruz accepts the nomination

i like a few of fgl's songs but "this is how we roll" is horrendous

Florida Georgia Line, "This is How We Roll" (I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?)

yes

that song is horrendous, yes, but actually looking at them in the video really put it over the top

anyway, i know better than to expect good things out of MTV and i went into this thinking "surely they're not going to play real country music for an hour" but Kongos -> Avicii -> Aloe Blacc still broke my brain.

Well, things could be worse, and as a matter of fact they are. I've liked all the Justin Townes Earle albums I've heard, which is most of 'em, and the more recent poetics of weariness were the more amazing for being any good at all, in terms of something I (def not his sponsor) could actually listen to, much less enjoy (shadow imagery of exhaustion countered by engaging arrangements, pretty often). But Single Mothers sounds like a man with no arms or legs in a shoebox in the middle of the road, not one with a lot of traffic, either, so no suspense there. No insult meant to actual men with no arma or legs; no doubt they're more resourceful. Nice drumming, though. (And a few tracks on this 29 minute-and-change specimen sound okay individually, but overall context, yuck.)

But don't sleep on JTE's non-weary The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.

Farm Aid 2014 will roll another for the YouTube starting this evening at 6 CST.

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

Pegi Young has cancelled her set.

The all-star musical lineup of the FARM AID concert will feature performances by board members WILLIE NELSON, NEIL YOUNG, JOHN MELLENCAMP and DAVE MATTHEWS with TIM REYNOLDS. Other performers include JACK WHITE, GARY CLARK JR., JAMEY JOHNSON, PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND, DELTA RAE, LUKAS NELSON, CARLENE CARTER, TODD SNIDER, INSECTS VS. ROBOTS, RAELYN NELSON BAND and JESSE LENAT.

Was on live from Raleigh apparently this afternoon on Willie's XM/Sirius radio station (& elsewhere???)

Some of it will be on FarmAid's YouTube channel. Meanwhile, looking fwd to hearing this album, and some of this other stuff:

Lee Ann Womack Gears Up For A BIG Week
Wall Street Journal To 1st Listen The Way I’m Livin’ 9/17
Tapes CMT “Crossroads” with John Legend 9/17 for 9/26 Debut
USA Weekend 9/14; NPR “World Café” 9/17 + AMA Showcases 9/19 + 21

(Nashville, TN) —September 15, 2014 — It may have been seven years since Lee Ann Womack put out a record, but she’s – as The Wall Street Journal noted when they debuted “The Way I’m Livin’" earlier this summer – “making up for lost time.” Having world premiered a provocative video that’s attracted much conversation on CMT – with a sneak peek at RollingStone.com – the new week is picking up momentum at a staggering pace.
Wednesday, September 17, The Wall Street Journal will again take the lead in bringing the Grammy-winner’s decidedly hardcore music to the pubic, streaming The Way I’m Livin’ in its entirety. Produced by Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, Chris Knight, Pistol Annies), the roots writer collection takes life at its most unvarnished and splintered – attracting those who lament the passage of the 'tough stuff' from the genre.
“The response is a little amazing,” Womack says. “Frank and I made a record of the songs we love... with players who really went deep to match my singing, the emotions I wanted...and we didn’t think about radio or marketing or anything. We just did this move us. You can’t second guess other people, but it sure feels good knowing other people share our hunger for this music too, because it’s definitely grown up country.”
Featured in this Sunday’s USA Weekend addressing the process and risks of TWIL, Womack proves music exists beyond neat boxes and convenient tags. She tapes CMT’s “Crossroads” with urban sensation John Legend on September 17, a collaboration that appeals to the 6-time Country Music Association Award winner. (The show will premiere on CMT on September 26.)
“John Legend comes from a deep place,” she says. “He’s a great musician and vocalist... Kanye West enlists him for that musicality – and whether it’s straight soul or hip-hop, John brings great melody and emotion. As someone who knows how soulful country can be, this is gonna get interesting.”
Womack’s ability to straddle and blur lines has made her a go-to for Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Alan Jackson and Buddy Miller. As the Americana Festival & Conference kicks off, the East Texan is featured on NPR’s “World Café” Americana coverage September 17. She performs at the Cannery Ballroom September 19 on a bill with Miller, Sam Outlaw (with Ry Cooder) and Trigger Hippie, as well as an "Americana's Most Wanted" guitar pull that afternoon for SiriusXM with Hayes Carll, Bobby Bare, Jr and Bobby Braddock. She will also be a guest for the "Rock My Soul" PBS special taping on gospel quartets featuring the McCrary Sisters and the Fairfield Four that September 21.
“This is everything music is: heart, soul, life, pain and the power to express beyond just words. Good music comes from the same root – and this is a chance to prove it with actions over words! I’m fired up, grateful and ready to get the music out.”

decidedly hardcore music

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/jason-isbell-cleans-up-at-americana-awards/2014/09/17/cdf750d0-3ee0-11e4-a430-b82a3e67b762_story.html?tid=pm_entertainment_pop

He still doesn't wow me (like I think he does Dow)

would've voted sturgill

Tonight on Music City Roots' live stream (and soon in the archive), 7 to 9:30 or so Central:
BR5-49, Chris Smither, Ruthie Foster, The Duhks (Americana Music Showcase, duh--and if you think the following is rah-rah, you should see what all I cut)
Co-host Craig Havighurst does backstory/intros:

I moved to Nashville in the fall of 1996 and on the Sunday that I drove here to close on my cute old East Nashville house, the New York Times Magazine ran a big feature about Music City’s renaissance (yep, even then). It was quite exciting to read it aloud to my traveling companion as we drove. My new neighborhood was said to be a hive of musical revivalism. Dead Reckoning Records was putting out quality, progressive music with deep roots. And Lower Broadway was humming, thanks to a renovated Ryman Auditorium and the nightly performances at Robert’s Western World by a classic country band with the quirky name BR5-49.

...The original lineup of BR5-49 has reunited. It’s not clear how many shows they might do, but it’s clear it won’t be a lot, so to have them on our stage is very special indeed...And they’re also a cracking band that knows how to write, play, sing and ultimately present real-deal country music with the bluesy pathos and vivacious fun of the music’s golden age.

BR5-49 embraced the campy corny side of 1960s and 70s country music when it pulled its name from a Junior Samples sketch on Hee-Haw. But the committed performances, the deep knowledge of the classic country catalog and its influence on their original songwriting left no doubt that they took hillbilly music seriously. And with that, they won over thousands of converts. After nearly two years of Robert’s shows, the industry and media caught on and the band got to release major label albums and tour the world. Their ascendancy helped fuel and compliment the growth of the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and many others as Americana grew into a viable, vibrant sector of art, commerce and culture. Band members Chuck Mead, Gary Bennett, Don Heron, Jay McDowell and Shaw Wilson are each doing their own things these days, but these rare reunion shows are a chance to celebrate all that’s transpired in Nashville since those heady days on Lower Broad.

The rest of this year’s AMA Showcase lineup is every bit as exciting. I fell for the music of Chris Smither in the early 90s as my passion for the blues and songwriting sent me hunting through the layers to some of the hidden gems of acoustic music.Turns out he wasn’t hidden to (friend from way back) Bonnie Raitt, who recorded his songs, including hits “Love Me Like A Man” and “I Feel The Same.” The album that hooked me was 1991’s Another Way To Find You, which was a no-retakes studio album before a small audience. It was riveting for both his fine singing and elegant, elaborate guitar playing. Turns out he’d already been recording for 20 years by that point! And he’d keep going for the next 20, adding all kinds of laurels to his bio – songs for films, the Monsters of Folk tour with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Folk Alliance awards and Americana charting records. Just now, he’s celebrating the release of a 24-song retrospective and a book of his lyrics going back to 1966. This is a veteran song master, and we are lucky to have him.

In more blues news, we are thrilled to welcome Ruthie Foster, a guitarist and singer who’s been honored multiple times in recent yearsby the Austin Music Awards as the city’s finest vocalist. With a varied background and just the right amount of schooling, she brings a fusion of precision and passion to her music. For her very new album Promise of a Brand New Day, her eighth overall, she enlisted Meshell Ndegeocello as producer. It’s quite a distance from her coffeehouse folk origins, characterized by a nicely orchestrated, jazz-inflected sophistication. She told CMT Edge that she sought a new degree of social relevance and point of view on the project.

And just as BR5-49 reunites the core duo of Chuck Mead and Gary Bennett, The Duhks return with the core musicians who brought such a fresh, global and funky sound down from Winnipeg, Canada upon the band’s formation in 2002. Back then we were astonished by the vocals (and tattoos) of powerhouse Jessee Havey and the neo-trad banjo and band-leading of Leonard Podolak. The band swapped Havey for Sarah Dugas for a while and then went on hiatus. Now Havey is back and the band has issued its beautiful and typically eclectic new Beyond The Blue album on Compass Records. With fiddling from Rosie Newton andpercussion by Kevin Garcia, plus guitarist/bouzouki player Colin Savoie-Levac, the reconfigured Duhks seem ready to fly through some new chapters of global folk fusion.

"The cover art is typically lame."

It's working the risque theme he's had going for over a decade now

"I had never seen these dudes before; are they the worst thing to ever happen to humanity?"

:D

So the Womack seems too plain at first, kind of bread-and-water penance, but gets much riper: with songs from various writers, she's made a mini-series about somebody who keeps getting flashbacks to a relationship with a bad man, and she can't be satisfied with the love of a good man (or two or three), or a one-night stand (or five or six or). Also a good plot twist toward the end, which I won't spoil. Will say that we do get a track with a hip-hop-ish pop beat, around a robust steel guitar. would like to have heard more like that 'un, but most of the arrangements are good, once the album gets going (guess the early tracks might be where she's just emerging from emotional roadkill).

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81AH-9uJk%2BL._SL1500_.jpg

Can you believe it's been 15 years since the release I Am Shelby Lynne?

To celebrate, we are putting out a deluxe reissue on CD, which will feature six never-before-released bonus tracks, PLUS
a full concert DVD, Shelby Lynne: Live at the House of Blues, which was filmed in Los Angeles in 2000.

We are also proud to be putting out the original album, remastered on 180-gram vinyl, for the very first time.

Both will be released on October 7th.

Watch Shelby perform bonus track "Should Have Been Better" from Shelby Lynne: Live at the House of Blues:
http://youtu.be/ZOikrKRWTTs

Shelby will also be performing I Am Shelby Lynne at two very special shows:

October 2nd in New York, NY at City Winery
October 8th in Los Angeles, CA at Largo at the Coronet

.

Pretty good, if brief, country edition of xgau's recently re-revived Expert Witness (AKA Consumer Guide), now posted every Friday: https://medium.com/cuepoint/robert-christgau-expert-witness-6c4d404c51a9

My response to that XGAU EW CG (prev. posted on fb):

I like the Willie way more than I usually like Willies! Put that Shaver best-of on my Nashville Scene country poll reissue ballot last year (fifth spot out of 5), but mostly for lack of competition -- The CD's been in my car ever since but I'm sad to report I only got all the way through it one time. (Love "Georgia On A Fast Train" to death, but after that he has a hard time holding my attention.) Which is more or less as many times as I made it through Hard Working Americans CD too, come to think of it. (Hung onto that one because it's an advance promo.) Well meaning, passable guitars, and songs way better than the singing, but I still have low tolerance for music that stodgy.

As for John Hiatt, I haven't cared about an album by him since *Warming Up To The Ice Age* in 1985 -- and in fact stopped even trying to at some point, though I'm pretty sure I skimmed through the new one unless it was the one before -- but I suppose I'll check out that old people song.

I wonder if John Hiatt has a single fan under the age of 50.

Well, things could be worse, and as a matter of fact they are. I've liked all the Justin Townes Earle albums I've heard, which is most of 'em, and the more recent poetics of weariness were the more amazing for being any good at all, in terms of something I (def not his sponsor) could actually listen to, much less enjoy (shadow imagery of exhaustion countered by engaging arrangements, pretty often). But Single Mothers sounds like a man with no arms or legs in a shoebox in the middle of the road, not one with a lot of traffic, either, so no suspense there. No insult meant to actual men with no arma or legs; no doubt they're more resourceful. Nice drumming, though. (And a few tracks on this 29 minute-and-change specimen sound okay individually, but overall context, yuck.)

― dow, Monday, September 8, 2014 4:05 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But don't sleep on JTE's non-weary The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.

― dow, Monday, September 8, 2014 4:09 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Midnight at the Movies is one of my favorites of the last oh-so-many years. The Good Life is not far behind, and Harlem River Blues was a solid if uneven effort.

But the last record, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, was a total head-scratcher. A guy who once captured the simple joy of a Woody Guthrie or Lightnin' Hopkins was now leaning on horn arrangements to prop up much weaker melodies. The mixing did him no favors, but it was not half as bad as his singing. There was some talk about his substance abuse affecting his vocals, and when I saw him on tour that year, it was akin to seeing the plastic-y version of John Travolta at the Oscars.

I spun the new one last week, and while it seemed an improvement on the last effort, it certainly did not hook me the way his first few did.

When I turn on country radio in the car and/or a video station at home I keep hearing this (and kinda like it. Yep, it's poppy bro-country)

"Hope You Get Lonely Tonight" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Cole Swindell. It was released on March 24, 2014 as the second single from Swindell's self-titled debut album.[1] Swindell wrote the song with Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line and Michael Carter.

only halfway through but this lee ann womack album has floored me pretty much

In a good way, I hope (like a gas pedal).
No doubt aided by the coincidence of reading Indexed's post just before cautiously checking out the new Lucinda, I'm floored by a heretofore unglimpsed compatibility of my two somewhut erractic old faves: though I've never thought "rock 'n' roll!" when listening to Justin (well, maybe the attitude of "Harlem River Blues," and the atypically speedy way he enjoys his girl driving him around on that new track), still, dang if otherwise he doesn't fit under the wing of LW's Memphis denim jacket blues-soul-gospel-rock-country (not country rock), with haggard vocals centering the daily struggle, with the patched-up rehab home truths, street sermons, and rebel rhetoric are fuel, along with rusty iron in the blood from bass, drums, and guitars (which also provide some rude punctuation at times, lest this Memphis stuff get too tasteful). The I'm down/gotta-get-up alternation does get familiar, but the groove won't let me go--until, of all things, the J.J. Cale track at the end. Could live without "Burning Bridges," maybe the opener, maybe the other, but no double album has ever grabbed me like this, not right off. (Well, maybe Beatles' white album).
Anyway, she's the Queen of Americana, so who knows if she'll 'llow this on Spotify---listen free while you can:
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/21/348713419/first-listen-lucinda-williams-down-where-the-spirit-meets-the-bone

I already regret the A-word; please listen without prejudice (also sorry for caffeinated typos).

(More first impressions: details of performance, especially guitar notes, sweet and nasty, stand out more than imagery, though points she makes, in conversation etc., are not vague)(vocals center the songs/performances, as I said, but music isn't just setting or highlight for words)

I'm excited to see that the Lee Ann Womack LP has a cut of "Sleeping With The Devil", my favourite song from the Brennen Leigh LP I really liked a couple of years back (and which I'm sure I mentioned somewhere on here).

Wondering whether any shops in London are likely to have a copy in stock so I can get my hands on it today. Can't think of any that will, sadly (unless you know better, The Lex?)

haven't set foot in a record shop in about a decade, sorry!

only halfway through but this lee ann womack album has floored me pretty much

^^^listening to it for the first time right now and, yes, this exactly.

Tim, it's still streaming here for the moment (hopefully added to Spotify)
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/09/17/lee-ann-womack-makes-music-she-wants-to-hear-on-the-way-im-livin-exclusive-premiere/ Bonus tracks on the Wal-Mart edition; dunno about any vinyl

couldn't get past the first few songs in the lucinda williams record but dow makes me want to believe

Could do without the first and last one and "Burning Bridges" in between, but momentum keeps building--kind of a Petty thing early on, but she keeps customizing it (thank god, since I'm not big on Petty)

omg the lee ann womack record

so tasteful and so haunted