Rolling Country 2014

Okay, listened to the current xpost Jason Eady, Daylight and Dark: a mild-mannered, reflective, sometimes rueful voice, usually late night for him. between 9 and 10.Although "Temptation" seems to be out in the great wide open, an eerie gray today, with no distractions, while he thinks about his thoughts, about being tempted. He invites us to lean in, just a bit. So far, the title track and about half the others, ones that sound a bit more lived-in, pull me along. Background and duet assistants assist, also when the tempo gets picked up, just a tad. Don Williams, George Strait appeal.

Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, Our Year: Was she this strong on her solo albums? Must check. Seems like she should always sing lead. On "Lonely For You," she even sounds like a (vocally, not emotionally) self-sustained Everly, no need for overdubs. He's crisp, but there's a subliminal ebb and flow on a couple tracks, like he's pausing the take, "Lemme come back to that line": the writer as vocal stylist, whoopee. Still, it mostly works out, especially when I play it louder, and the sequence of tracks is good, like even "Harper Valley PTA" takes on a claustrophobic quality here, as Willis relentlessly busts the endless, obsessive rounds of musical beds in this itchy niche, this teeming Valley. Fine finale, "This Will Be Our Year," doesn't seem ironic, though lyrics x context of sequence show they know they got a lot to hope for, def. incl. change, but they've sure worked for it, earned it. Good, but if you haven't heard them before, check 2013 Cheater's Game first.

http://www.spin.com/articles/40-best-country-songs-2014/?page=3

Here are some singles,a mixture of pop and Americana and Jon Langford (I guess he counts as roots/Americana now).

I wrote some of those blurbs -- thanks!

Re: Willis, I'd say she's even stronger on her solo albums (though I like both of the duets albums with Robison quite a bit, as well). Of her early 90s albums for MCA, her self-titled release was my favorite, though all three were solid. Since signing with independent labels, I'd say <i>What I Deserve</i> is her strongest album, but I really don't think she's ever released a bad album. She plays to more of an Americana audience, but I think her song choices and feistiness avoid a lot of the stuffier trappings of so many other acts in that corner of the genre.

Both the Willis & Robison and Jason Eady albums made my Nashville Scene ballot. I liked Eady's previous album a bit better than this one, fwiw.

Ah cool, will check all those too, thanks Jon!
Also, I got Rosanne Cash's The River & The Thread pretty early, but after a few spins, quickly dismissed it as too arty. But as I start listening again, and this time to the Deluxe Edition, it's growing on me. The bonus tracks---Townes Van Zandt's "Two Girls" (vibe/strategy cousin to the most truly artful, if also arty original here, fabulous "Night School"), Jesse Winchester's sensuous blue "Biloxi," and "Your Southern Heart," (apparently Cash-Leventhal, like all of 'em if not otherwise specified)---def. tip the scales in favor of artisanal pleasure: conceptualism gets carried along, as she increasingly seems to enjoy making dark, rich, fluid,lustrous stuff, suitable for some thoughtful listening and a discreet buzz.
But c'mon: this is post-country. This is Rosanne Cash. Yes, it's about a narrator, maybe a woman (gonna wear a dress, anyway), references to tape and other music gear stashed, coming back to places like Memphis, and RC was born there, but mostly grew up in Southern California, in a house JC bought from Johnny Carson, she's said she was never at ease as a young female radio star in Nsshville, and she moved to NYC 25 years ago. Writes and edits books, etc. Probably owns every issue of Oxford American ever, and has appeared in the pages of several.
So we get empathetic or anyway increasingly sympathetic takes on a returned native's approaches to local residents, mostly with sensibilties skewed and possibly screwed, in the best tracks. But no mention of, say, Wal-Mart vs. Mom 'n' Pops (check Alan Jackson's "The Little Man" for good bits on that, despite the title), or meth, booze-running (yep, she's making me re-think A. Presley's album, despite finding its topicality a bit schematic at first), no open carry laws, no clampdown on birth control and abortion, etc. Tuning into the electric church, "50, 000 watts of common prayer," at one point, but no common speech, not when river bottoms can be "The Sunken Lands." No slang, no inverse condescension, Ah reckon.(Common prayer? Well, we do still have some Episcopals, way back there and on that NPR.)
But hey, "Open up that window, and pass the baby through/Take her to the ghost bridge, and she'll know what to do." Sounds like she's with us, folks! (And she's still studying, judging by "Night School" and some others, still learning from covering Townes & Jesse, from "Ode To Billy Joe," which she specifically references in passing once here and covers live, and from the expansion-compression cycles of 90s-now Dylan, I think, I hope...)

So I'm gonna make up another category for the Scene ballot, incl post-country (her) country punk (Lydia Loveless) cowpunk (prev unleased This Is Lone Justice, and some other tags/stuff.

Not to get purist! Just to have another Top Ten (which won't get counted in the poll, but neither would they as Hon. Mentions, my ongoing catchall category.)

This new category may be called Countryoid.

I wish I liked the Cash album as much as her Civil War ballad and as much as I love "Little Man."

Me too (though my wife likes it). We saw Rosanne Cash live around this time last year and I liked the songs better(they seemed to have more energy and life and less formula)

Yeah, works better live, esp. when she also includes "Ode To Billy Joe" and includes some of her older songs with the new ones

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses. Like-tolove the writing (for the latter, line about the girl who's compared to "a saddle in a one-hoss town," ouch!)and performance of "Ain't No Way," but the understated, breathy drawl can let me drift away when she doesn't let the instruments do enough of the dirty work, and seems willfully simple when the writing does. She and I come from similar backgrounds, and I'm still there, incl. financially, so obviously not smarter or for that matter better (or worse) off with the out-of-town book learnin' either, but I know she knows there's more to it than the title track rants about---oh wait, she'd be "Better Off Red," if all those things that she learned when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon could just fall out of her head.

But of course, she's just giving us the unflattering truth of what she thinks sometimes, including the easy connection to "American Middle Class," and "Knocked Up" too, after spilling the beans in "Dry County Blues" (which drifts away a bit toward the end, but that's part of the point about that way of life)(ditto [a day in the]"Life of the Party," kinda generic but again context y'all, and nice picking), and especially "Pain Pills" (my fave, with the "backup singer" caught in echolalia and bouncing off the particle board, times the monster guitar she finally lets off its leash---although it's real good on and important to "Grocery Store" as well). After all that, "Knocked Up" 's wry delivery understates & underlines the notion that she hasn't really turned up her nose at *all* the secular local customs. Still, gets a little tedious, but maybe that's part of just movin' right along folks, life and life only. Fine line between the mundane and quotidian, yep.
"Drunk" okay set piece, you know the plot from first couple lines, didn't Brandy Clark do this? "BLessing and A Curse" is better, with bracing music, even though no hairy solos, good she can do it this way too; "Surrender" is even better with the candor again, though not quite spelling out what she's surrendering too, except it's not a sense of (ultimate) defeat, just "I can't do it alone," which I hope means she's realizing she can't rely too much on vocal power/distinction, and that she will also be a Pistol Annie as long as that works.
Hon. Mention, I guess. End of another minority report.

"if all those things that she learned, when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon *entered her*, could just fall out of her head," I meant (still not that good, but a little clearer).

Should have just quoted the line instead of parodically paraphrasing it, but anyway.

Oh yeah, staying in Pistol Annies might help w writing as well, at least re feedback, also trying different co-writers beyond PA.

Eric Church, The Outsiders
First track has me thinking this is hick hop in black, with a touch of metal, ready to square off in the parking lot with rich yearbook pix/cheerleader hawgs of bro country--like Metallica presented as a dark alternative to gaudy Hollywood hair metal and Van Halen pop "metal." Also, as later songs elaborate on, it's for older bros, or bros who have been around long enough to have relationships to negotiate, and other long and winding roads, sometimes with twists which have barely turned (don't ask, just---don't...). Not serenading gals when not serenading selves and each other, in instant selfie nostalgia for the present nights, "Beer In The Headlights" and all that bro-mance.
But some people liked Metallica and hair metal and pop metal, and some of this is mainly nostalgic, like Chesney remembering race tracks more than pickup tracks, and the older bro is grateful to the lady who pulled the iron thorn from his paw, put a pin back in his grenade, and maybe introduced him to the band who pace his "Wrecking Ball" before it can explode beyond some kind of luric macho as written, mellow as murmured customary boudoir code.
Oh yeah, the band! Always on point, and if if this okay (studio) character actor & storyteller (effectively low-key and informative when guiding us around the "fer-tile loins" of Nashville Babylonia, although it doesn't work as well when he turns on Her mate, the Devil), much more Chuck Norris than James Hetfield after all---which really is okay, at this point!----but if he ever managed to give his Nashville Cats in black more than Music Row's latest angles, arcs and novelty songs--sure would be good to hear them rise to the occasion, rather than have to hold back just a little too obviously, by sounding so ferocious so on cue----so as not to upstage the guy up front.
That can happen live, when everything isn't mixed beyond perfectly, but go for whatever you go for, and be prepared to stay for the band (do brace yourself for the worst-"sung" version of "Talladega" you can imagine, and then some). Still, considering the heavy, agile, always attentive playing, and the clever gimmicks of most songs, and of course Church's adequate studio delivery, overall it's an Hon. Mention (much more consistently listenable than Florida-Georgia, for inst.)

"Talladega" seems to be nostalgic for bros drinking and driving, on some occasions, so touching all bases---and most songs address how "you" make him feel, much more than touching on whoever, whatever you may be otherwise (whereever? Mostly real close, or real gone, to/from vicinity of the monologue). Not even any "By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be risin'", no wondering what Bro's doin' now, or would be if he hadn't crashed, no "I drive his truck"---no trucks, as prev. mentioned. And no blood relatives, other than a son you thugs, mugs, dealers of drugs better not touch, or "(little smirk)I'll let the Dark Side out to play..." (darkwing music in background)
So it's all at least as self-involved as a lot of male-sung mainstream pop country, which is to say, as a lot of country, whatever the special sauce.

Merry Country Christmas and adios for a while.

After the Christmas basket, before the turkey & dressing, a palate cleanser:
Terri Clark, Some Songs: "Some songs/Need air/Some songs/Need a girl." Yep,'n' some need the return of the No-BS Canadian Queen of Hat Country, with just enough of ye olde rodeo/hangar clangor, Chris LeDoux's pioneer prescription of "Aerosmith in a cowboy hat," balanced by her own, sometimes romantic, often dry POV: you gave her your word, darlin---riiight, she heard that, "So I took it down town and I cheated on you," how do like them onions? She's been around, and is still ready get some messy details on the fresh white T; more where that came from. And her new theme song is the typically forthright "Better With My Boots On." Others incl. "Here Comes Crazy," "Don't Start," "Wheels Down," "Bad Car," "Just Add Water," and "Feelin' Pretty Good Right Now." If you need some car music for holiday travel (to see The Interview, to buy the new Garth at Wal-Mart, etc.), try this, and her Greatest Hits 1994-2004, whether or not you can find that "worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux" (Hi Garth, who is not on $P0T1fy, so won't get considerd by me in this poll, unless I find a nice-priced used CD).

Rosanne getting really hearty w the arty re The River & The Thread, also slinging hot chestnuts from The List, on latest Beale Street Caravan. Listen local, or here---although, unlike most of their archived shows, you gotta join to listen---but you also get backstory of The Gentrys' Memphis garagemark "Keep On Dancin'":http://bit.ly/1CNZPg4

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses.

― dow, Wednesday, December 24, 2014 6:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, this was one of the more disappointing releases of the year for me. Gave it the benefit of the doubt and returned a number of times, but nothing grabbed me quite like her best work for the Annies. Sadly, the best of the bunch for me are the ones with serious talent co-writing (“Grocery Store” and “Surrender”).