Rolling Country 2017

holy shit, the Sunny Sweeney album

"Bottle By My Bed" floored me

aw hell yeah i'm excited for a good new sunny sweeney record

Only made it half way through the new Sweeney til I had the thought that the whole taking pills/crazy ex-girlfriend cliches of recent female country are starting to wear thin.

but "pills" isn't a twist I've heard before (I haven't parsed all the lyrics but it sounds like it might actually be about Ecstasy rather than pain pills?) and there isn't a crazy ex-girlfriend song on the album

the sunny sweeney record is GREAT

Sounded pretty good on 1 and a half listens, wasn't wowed by all, but by a lot of it.

Sweeney's intonations on "Pills" are killer -- she doesn't sing like her contemporaries.

"I play jazz when I am confused
Country whenever I'm lost
Bird’s saxophone yeah, just won’t sound right
I feel like Hank Williams tonight"

This one sounds a bit more forced, but the chorus works

that's a cover. written by chris wall, recorded by jerry jeff walker. i love sweeney's version.

(also, it rhymes! second line of that chorus is "country whenever i lose.")

I sensed it was a cover, just not quite as wowed by her delivery as you. The Austin-based Sweeney co-wrote 8 of the tracks I see, and turned to Texas folks like Wall on that one, plus Texas songwriters/singers Brennen Leigh and her husband Noel McKay on "Pills"

Still don't get Chris Stapleton. He was so barband rock in his performance on the Academy of Country Music Awards tonight.

Miranda Lambert got a number of awards (well at least 2-- best album, and best female vocalist)

Forgot to dvr this and missed the opening hour--Wonder if its on youtube or elsewhere (sounds painful)-- Co-hosts Luke Bryan and Dierks Bentley teamed with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh to pay tribute to the late Chuck Berry with "Johnny B. Goode."

25 performances in the show

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/academy-country-music-awards-performances/story?id=46535619

longtime LA Weekly writer Jonny Whiteside (a fan of honky-tonk country and punk-country) takes his shots at "Americana" acts he does not like including Lucinda Williams, Jason Isbell, Gillian Welch and others. Sometimes I agree with him, other times he invokes an "authenticity" type argument that doesn't work.

http://www.laweekly.com/music/10-lamest-americana-acts-8051478

Can't find my ancient Rolling Country 200? comments on Sweeney's debut, Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame, which came out on Big Machine, big at the time, but may have dropped the ball promotion-wise, since a certain big name, country-compatible crit had never heard of it---I got the promo and he didn't, which tends to bassackwardsness---or maybe, Big Machine being so cool, they deliberately dropped the ball soon after starting the usual rounds, maybe sharing Sweeney's opinion, that she didn't know what the hell she was doing in the studio back then. Au contraire---it's uneven, sure, like most of hers (maybe all; I still need to hear the new one), but all are worth checking out. The debut sounds like an alt-universe, low-budget CD Baby Nat Maines, one who never hit the big time, but hits the big notes to kill (bastard) time, still spinning her wheels in the backside of Texas, muddy rumbling echo and all. Consult your local thrift store:https://www.discogs.com/Sunny-Sweeney-Heartbreakers-Hall-Of-Fame/release/5456280

Re the Whitside link: haven't heard Outlaw and Grelle, true that Wayne Hancock can be tiresome with the retro, though much more in the studio than live, ditto Gillian Welch, occasionally ditto the others, but despite their unevenness, Lucinda Williams, Shovels & Rope, and Isbell are always worth a listen.
PS: Boland's 2015 album is not so bad, as mentioned on RC and my blogged Nashvile Scene ballot:Jason Boland & the Stragglers, Squelch: social commentary, which can seem self-righteous and lazy in its way, especially since he's always reliant on basic Waylon-to-Sturgill templates, but sometimes it really works, the more personal-is-political he gets (and not nec. "political" in the usual sense; like there's one about finally making it out of a small-minded smalltown, to New Orleans, which is "buzzin' like a sign," and it doesn't go at all like I thought it would).

I like the Sunny Sweeney record! It is very good.

I am about to get on a plane to Nashville and I am extremely excited. Except the line-up at the Opry the night I was going to go is... Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban. Both have songs I like but not very many.

Have fun there anyway.

Lauren Alaina's #1 country hit "Road less Traveled" is not wowing me musically on first few listens (co-written with Meghan Trainor and Jesse Frasure) . Alaina was an American Idol runnerup in 2011.

ILM's 2017 Rolling Country Thread Spotify Playlist

This Ann Powers blurb almost makes me not want to hear the Charlie Worsham album. But I guess I will listen and give it a shot. He's on tour now with Brandy Clark

Beginning Of Things is one of the most intelligent and skillfully crafted albums of the year so far. It's also pure fun; Worsham is as great with a joke as he is with a guitar or a banjo. Part of the new generation that's reviving the best elements of country music — its intense songcraft, great playing and generous heart — Worsham will be making major waves in 2017.

http://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2017/04/20/524886771/world-cafe-nashville-charlie-worsham

First listen to Worsham's take on Nashville country didn't wow me.

Worsham's becoming quite the critic's fave. Here's a Jewly Hight feature on him for NPR. Maybe I will give him another listen...

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526558502/charlie-worsham-wants-to-tell-you-the-truth

Going on a trip from NYC to Vegas, couple of canyons, to LA and San Francisco! Am looking for country tips! Bars! Concert agenda's, concerts, festivals, record stores etc!
Any guidance would be deeply appreciated!

Are you heading south first through Bristol, Virginia through to Tennessee?

Ah. No flying from NYC to Vegas first, then driving through Zion and Bryce via Grand Canyon to LA. Would love to catch some small time shows, or even a Highwayman coverband in some obscure country bar. Anything, really :)

bakersfield country music museum And the Buck Owens Crystal Pallace in Bakersfield, Ca

Thanks a lot. Gotta dig into that.
Also; any book recommendations about country music are welcome! Is the Waylon bio any good?

http://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/entertainment/tn-gnp-et-0611-eli-locke-20160611-story.html

Here's a mostly traditional California country singer who does gigs in Burbank and elsewhere. Eli Locke has Gary Allan's bandleader in his group. The author of the article, Jonny Whiteside has written a book Ramblin' Rose: The Life and Career of Rose Maddox, that I have not read.

Thanks! Have you read the Waylon book per chance?

Thanks! Have you read the Waylon book per chance?

Sorry for the double post

Nope

Toby Keith will perform in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Saturday, on a bill with Saudi singer and oud player Rabeh Saqer. That's the weekend when the President is there

The new Shelby Lynne with Alison Moorer album is ok, but did not wow me on first listen.

I went to the Grand Ol Opry for the first time. Saw a bill that included Darius Rucker and Little Big Town and Wynonna. Not bad. Nice harmonies from Little Big Town. Wynonna wore an American flag bandanna, and said "isn't this the greatest country in the world." Not a word from anyone about Charlottesville.

Plus saw a decent cover band called Nashville Skyine at Robert's Western Wear on Broadway there

Skyline

good line-up! was it at the Ryman or at Opryland?

there is no more opryland

you know what i mean

i don't actually! The Ryman is the Ryman, where else are you thinking of?

there's a big building in what used to be Opryland where they put on a lot of shows. Church pews set up behind the stage, etc. Scroll down on this page:

https://www.opry.com/planatrip

From looking at the website all the September shows are there instead of at the Ryman. it's fine though! The sound is great!

oh sorry, you meant the opry house! yeah, okay; that's not a bad place to see music i guess but the ryman is far superior ime

The show was at the Gran Ole Opry not the Ryman. The current Opry is out in the burbs near a multiplex movie theatre and a shopping mall and you park in a huge shopping mall parking lot.

The bill also included Jeannie Seely (old-school singer); The Sisterhood (newish female duo with Rod Stewart's daughter); Riders In The Sky; and Charles Esten (from the tv show Nashville).

This (plus seeing the eclipse there) was the start of the wife & I's southern trip-- after Nashville we went to Muscle Shoals, AL; then Clarksdale, MS, and Memphis , TN plus a night at Senatobia , MS for the Barbecued Goat picnic with Sharde Thomas and her blues fife and drum band (the granddaughter of Otha Turner)

Dude that is one of the best road trip itineraries I've ever read

It was a great week--wish we had even more time. Although we did get tired a bit of barbecue and fried tomatoes, fried pickles, fried okra, fried everything food-wise near the end. Of course, some of it was also somber and disturbing-- from the Lorraine Motel/Civil Rights Museum in Memphis to the number of boarded up and abandoned buildings near Stax in Memphis, and in Clarksdale; gun shops everywhere, etc.

Oh yeah, was thinking about that kind of local-enough-to-me 'scape while listening to the new Langford we were talking about on the Mekons thread. Heard Sharde and her fife and drum band on Beale Street Caravan (not sure what's happening now with their re-launched site's archives, but think the set was during one of those shows recorded at annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnics).

Good music and conversations, incl. with listeners calling in, from a studio in Austin to this show in Boston: Rick Trevino, with recent songs re his (third-generation, gradually re-emerging, inescapable)Chicano background and situations of immigrants, also personal chestnuts like "Bobbie Ann Mason"-- I must check his new album, old ones too:http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/09/08/country-music-rick-trevino-lati

not exactly country, but rootsy, and fans of Jenny Lewis and Neko Case may enjoy Valley Queen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMp_dAG0PsQ

Thanks, will check out the album. Coming up next on FarmAid: Willie Nelson & Family (hope Neil will show up again, mebbe for a sing-along of "Homegrown", as sometimes happens)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg6-hljSb9E

so, what's up with Caroline Spence? This is a great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY_h4z1MQDo

Yep and it's s gooc of example of how her little & wiry voice can put one over the plate with no excess effort: she says that when she invades the boys' team, it ain't gonna be softball no more, and she's right. Not seeing personnel credits for Spades and Roses, except for a mention of the drummer(-arranger of the occasional, never-overdone strings) also being the producer. He discreetly keeps thing moving right along, even when there are no drums, plus she's got the supple tunes and words ("Southern Accident"!), although "You Don't Look So Good (Cocaine") seems too naggy. wouldn't change my way of life for sure. Overall, reminds me a bit of early 70s Emmylou and Neil (incl. mix of acoustic and electric, although no big solos), but it's all life lived, incl. some straight thought-talk to self and other, also bits of wistful thinking, incl. looking ahead & back ("There might have been some eloquence/In the very last words I said...")
Not on bandcamp, though her 2015 album is; I found this one. on Prime.

Also gets a bit folkie-solemn with the hopefulness sometimes, but goes with the lost evenings w wine, guys--she's concisely candid enough about impulsive and compulsive elements.

Philosophy as drug: see those xpost 70s West Coast associations

colter wall's album is really nice. canadian boy to boot

at 22 years old though how many packs of cigarettes did he have to smoke to sound like an 80 year old dying man i wonder

best track off the album is transcendent ramblin railroad blues imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryqh1pd7LdQ

I just finally got around to the Colter Wall album today. It's almost too throwback for me, but his voice is neat.

xp dow, that's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for

Listening to xpost Margo Price again, making payroll and other adventures along the way---Price Tags def. earning it,with every note: https://margoprice.bandcamp.com/releases

Alex Williams' Better Than Myself is more reinforcement for my impression that several of the best younger artists this year, like Price and Rose, who come across as lead singers of first rate bands---comboa who may in some cases be augmented or replaced or even composed of (Atkins' crew) by session players, but the albums all sound pretty organic---which is why I'm thinking "lead singers" instead of "band leaders" first of all, though obviously they're the latter (and not too dependent on or mistrustful of solos and other instrumental effects).
Anyway, Williams says right off that somebody (the drummer of his previous, failing band, according to interviews) told him his songs were better than him, and he takes this as a compliment: they're all "candy from the jukebox, spawnin' down in hell." Got his own sense of pop, like Moreland and Atkins and Rose: retro but adapted for self-expression, which in his caee can involve outlaw self-mockery, that side of his heero Waylon, but in both cases a way of not taking himself too seriously and getting enough distance for glimpses of perspective, though not enough to interfere with the more wtf side of his ramblin' life, his "Mickey Mouse ways," as Waylon put it.
Haven't got all the lyrics yet, though the country-with-bluesy-rock-appeal, and the voice, which I'm so glad does without imitations of Waylon's manly vibrato-warble (worked okay, but one voice like that was enough)---but I get the sense that this Belmont drop-out, refusing the usual slog 'n' fog, with so many of his peers now dealing with college debt and ageing out of their family's insurance coverage, just for two examples, still finds himself (and other members of his "fucked-up generation") still in the working and playing and self-medicating cycle (traditionally working and drinking, the latter enthusiastically mentioned here, though he later assures us that he's now "too stoned to pour a drink").
Some related social commentary, or comments, as he continues to make the barstool rounds, rolling another number for the road---also some gas station coffee seems involved. this stays fairly sparky.
Picks up some good advice from a barfly! "Take the good with the bad"---not too much country or fatalism in the mix, don't forget the pop and other gratifications.
Not specifically displaying himself for sexual purposes, but there is a love song: coming off a lawng, McConauheyesque-sounding winning streak---"Yes, these are diamonds around my neck, whut did yew expect?", he says it's a new day, and though "Ah'm not shore how much of this is true, but Ah do know Ah cain't get enough of yew." A bit mellower than most of these, but not out of character after all.

Combos, not "comboa."

Talking about Caroline Spence: she's doing a residency in January here at the Basement. Wrote this about her recently:

Virginia-born singer-songwriter Caroline Spence released a remarkable track about the limits of Nashville songwriting on her 2013 EP You Know the Feeling. “Whiskey Watered Down” takes down a shallow tunesmith who, Spence declares, will never be “Parsons, Earle or Van Zandt.” What makes “Whiskey Watered Down” a definitive song about a particular strain of Music City songwriting is her choice of role models, but the tune also equates bad songwriting with bad relationships. A Nashville resident since 2011, Spence continued to work in classic singer-songwriter mode on her 2015 full-length Somehow, which includes a full-band rendition of “Whiskey Watered Down” that I find less effective than the acoustic reading she performed on the 2013 EP. I admire Spence’s writing on this year’s album Spades & Roses, which contains the excellent track “You Don’t Look So Good (Cocaine)” and the equally fine “Softball,” about sexism and what it takes to become a big-league songwriter. Spence, who recently released a five-song EP called Secret Garden, has potential — she bears watching. EDD HURT

I didn't vote for Nicole Atkins' new one in the Scene poll I just finished. Not even tangentially "country," which makes sense for a Jersey-bred singer who sounds like Cass Elliot. But a really good album. I like her; she's tough and funny. Did this piece on her in July: https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/20867860/nicole-atkins-explores-the-joys-of-organic-songwriting-and-production

Thanks! Well, some of us heard Atkins' latest as having kind of a Dusty In Memphis vibe, not country but some urban country appeal and sensibility (broody and drinking and poised after midnight)--sooo, I put her in my gratuitous made-up motley Countryoid/Americana/Related category on the Scene ballot, which I'll post on RC 2018 when the issue comes out.
Kind of off-putting that Spence or whomever harps on this "not as good as such-and-such" bit; once when I was stressing over comparing myself, a photog friend said, "Well I know I'm not the best, but I just want to drink and take pictures." It's worked out pretty well for him.
(And as usual, Earle's latest made my gratutitous made-up About Half Good category; both Earles did, although I may have been too kind to JT, who's convened some motorvatiing musicians, but is so abashed and maybe wasted [on abashment, at least] that he usually sounds like a bug on the windshield of life).
Back to Spence, thanx also for reminder of the new EP, which I think is acoustic? Will check.

Oh, and I got tired enough of the "sounds like" aspect, even on so many of my favorite albums---self-expression via retro seemed especially prevalent this year--that I took Langford from Related to the real Top Ten, because he doesn't sound like anybody else, even or especially in Muscle Shoals, where he also sounds at home.

I thought Robert Ellis' piano playing made the Atkins album. Yeah, Langford's Norbert Putnam record transcended local color but barely. "Natchez Trace" is good, "Snake Behind Glass" the best song on the record. I saw him play here this fall. I also found some things to say about Chris Gantry's 1974 album, which is a beatnk kinda thing. Far better guitar player than singer or even songwriter--Motormouth, from '70, is just something else entirely and not necessarily a good thing, but I admire his gusto. https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/20982813/chris-gantrys-longshelved-lp-at-the-house-of-cash-is-progressive-even-by-2017-standards

I also investigated the work of producer-songwriter-singer Norro Wilson, who died this year. Worked on a bunch of pivotal '70s country records by Wynette and Jones. Undoubtedly one of the savviest singers in "country," a pop-country genius whose '60s and '70s solo records are country, folk, Atlantic-style r&b, West Coast pop, shlock-pop-country in the style of Dickey Lee, Billy Swan or Bergen White. Amazing shit. Got to find his Smash LP Dedicated to: Only You. This is from the '70s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80DECm61mIE

Tyler Coe, one of David Allan Coe's children, has been putting together excellent podcasts about country. Maybe the best so far is on Shelby Singleton, but the Bobbie Gentry episode is really good too. Coe gets the business side of the equation really well, is hardheaded. He also provides transcriptions if you just wanna read: https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/

The highlight of my Americana-fest experience was seeing Little Bandit, a kind of Charlie Rich-depressive-funny band featuring Alex Caress, the brother of former Nashville bassist-singer Jordan Caress. Comes at his "country-soul" from a queer perspective. Breakfast Alone made my Scene ballot. Another hit at the fest I didn't see was the War & Treaty, a gospel-soul duo. Their EP is promising:

CRITICS' PICK
The War and Treaty
This event is over. The High Watt
Lord have mercy, here’s another soul-gospel-pop Americana amalgam. Husband-and-wife duo The War and Treaty, who recently moved to Nashville from Albion, Mich., performed a well-received set in town at this year’s AmericanaFest with backing from Nashville guitarist Buddy Miller’s band, and Rolling Stone gave their turn at the festival a glowing review. Ohio-born singer Michael Trotter Jr. honed his piano chops while serving as a soldier during the Iraq War (somewhat improbably, he practiced on Saddam Hussein’s piano while his unit was encamped in one of the former Iraqi president’s palaces) and met singer Tanya Blount, a Washington, D.C., native, when he returned home. They’ve released their debut EP, Down to the River, which combines their gospel-influenced vocals with tough blues and soul grooves. Not everything works — the duo tends to approach their performances head-on, which sometimes obscures the quality of their songs. Still, material such as “Down to the River,” which features slide guitar, and “Hit Dawg Will Holla,” a stop-time blues shuffle, suggests they could develop into songwriters who know how to work an amalgam. EDD HURT

I think Carson McHone, who didn't make an album this year, deserves notice, up there with Whitney Rose, whose record I like a lot. Anyone else hear her?

The ongoing battle over the soul of country music seems like a necessary activity that tends to overstate the danger that commercialism poses. Time and time again, country music has demonstrated its ability to absorb folk, rock, country-rock, schlock, disco, patriotism and regionalism, and young singers continue to discover new ways to syncretize the music of Williams and Wells with pop without pandering to the let’s-save-country ideologues. Hailing from ostentatious Austin, Texas, singer Carson McHone is a young country singer who expresses herself through the form while avoiding the formalism that etiolates the work of many country purists. In other words, she controls an aching break into her head voice that marks her as a stone country vocalist, and her 2015 album Goodluck Man brims with tunes that evoke the spirit of early-’70s country without wandering off into retro. McHone has been working on a new album in Nashville with Spoon producer Mike McCarthy — let’s hope it’s commercial as hell. EDD HURT

I nommed the Whitney Rose on the ILM poll (I think???) I came across her while browsing year end lists. Love her album.

yeah, and her other 2017 release, South Texaz Suite, an EP. Kinda wish she'd saved the best tracks for the full-length, but it's worth checking out for sure, especially "Three Minute Love Affair."

Texas, that is.

Want to hear The War and Treaty, also Carson McHone.

Now, starting to look ahead:
https://www.rollingstone.com/country/lists/2018-country-music-preview-30-most-anticipated-albums-tours-w514999/loretta-lynn-wouldnt-it-be-great-w515083

here's one:
Loretta Lynn

Album: Wouldn't It Be Great
Release Date: TBA
The Country Music Hall of Fame vocalist delayed the release of her already-recorded new album Wouldn't It Be Great until 2018 after suffering a stroke last May. Like the Grammy-nominated Full Circle that preceded it, the LP was co-produced by John Carter Cash and Lynn's daughter Patsy Lynn Russell and cut at Johnny Cash's cabin studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Boasting new songs like "I'm Dying for Someone to Live For" and "Ruby's Stool," written with songwriter Shawn Camp, Wouldn't It Be Great also includes new versions of Lynn staples "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin'" and "Coal Miner's Daughter." "You can't get them anymore," Lynn told Rolling Stone in 2016 of her decision to update her classics. "You've got fans that want it. So we will give them to 'em." Full Circle was a satisfying blend of old & new, glad she's still in the circle game.

brother colter wall's new one was my album of the year by the way

He made it into one of my Best New Artist slots on the Scene ballot. I still need to check his Imaginary Appalachia EP, have you heard it?
Another one from the Stone link. She's always sounded like she probably likes Elton John, David Bowie, Patsy Cline: "Americana"? OK!

Album: By the Way, I Forgive You
Release Date: February 16th
On her sixth studio album, Americana heroine Brandi Carlile ramps everything up a notch, working with Waylon Jennings' rebel-yell son Shooter, who co-produced with Dave Cobb. She takes deep dives into her family history ("Most of All") and offers up an anthem for the downtrodden ("The Joke," a chin-up call to arms for anyone feeling oppressed, was blasted out in a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!). While largely adhering to her unplugged, modern-Appalachian approach, Carlile also pushes a few musical envelopes: "Harder to Forgive" is swoony, luxurious pop, "Hold Out Your Hand" has a wall-of-drums wallop and "Party of One" wraps up with shivery orchestration. D.B.

I keep confusing him with music writer Seth Colter Walls in searches (still not quite sure they're two diff people).

ha

definitely different people

and i have heard IA a few times actually, yes

it's good but i like his self-titled release better, though sleeping on the blacktop is equally as good as say thirteen silver dollars (similar vibe)