Rolling Country 2017

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

Evocative slide show of farm scenes now, incl. all those cute critters raised for slaughter

That American Music Fest finished up yesterday in Nashville. Lots of alt-country, with some token others

Americana I mean

Drag City prose ahead, adjust your shades:

AT THE HOUSE OF CASH
Now, we'll admit, there's no colon and additional writing there in the title to help you understand the vintage propers of this release, so you'll have to listen closely for just a minute here: this is a previously-unreleased album made by Nashville singer-songwriter
Chris Gantry at Johnny Cash's home studio in 1973. Chris has been working for over a decade in Nashville, and along with buddies like Kris Kristofferson, Shel Silverstein, Eddie Rabbit
and other young outlaws-in-the-making, Chris's wild times had led to new directions in songwriting. After scoring a hit for Glen Campbell with "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife", Chris
signed with Monument and made a couple albums, the second of which, 1970's Motor Mouth, was tinged with acid-rock leads and surreal lyrics. By '73, Chris was getting pretty far-out, and At the House of Cash finds him in a Casteneda-styled impasse, making sweetly melodic folk tunes with raw edges that absolutely nobody else could touch! The Man in Black himself apparently told Chris
that he didn't think even the drug people would get it. This of course only pleased Chris, who took it as a sign of transformation - and of course it was! Chris went on to write many more songs for other folks, and make more albums on his own, but At the House of Cash has sat on the shelf until now. Hearing the sound of a man shedding his own skin in an often-hectic, hypnotic, quixotic, and ultimately harmonious process, backed by top Nashville cats every step of the way, is a thrilling encounter...this is the kind of thing that makes archival releases so essential - hearing something that was not in the narrative until now that nonetheless is part of an evolution, a secret step that was felt more than heard, and was a part of everything. Chris Gantry had it going on back in '73, and that we're only hearing it now makes it all the more special. Viva la reissue-stance!
Chris Gantry
At the House of Cash
LP/CD/MP3/FLAC
Drag City
To Be Released 2017-11-17 Catalog # DC686

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/arts/music/country-gentleman-thomas-rhett.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

Caramanica on Gentle-bros

...the country gentleman. And so Nashville’s bro tide is now receding, supplanted by a kindlier new generation of male country singers. They focus on uncomplicated, deeply dedicated love or, alternately, being hopeless on the receiving end of heartbreak. They sing with voices light on drawl. They ooze respect, charm and, occasionally, dullness. At times they recall George Strait, the restrained cowboy superstar; at others, Earl Thomas Conley, the emotional ballad specialist of the 1980s.

Visually, they have a similar aesthetic: white men with dark hair cut short and often pointed skyward. (A halfhearted beard is optional.) More often than not, they have sturdy, approachable, single-syllable last names: Thomas Rhett, Brett Young, Chris Lane, Michael Ray....

At the same time, female singers have been getting squeezed ever more tightly. ...
These are systematic issues — to fix them would require coordinated response from record labels, publishing companies, radio and video outlets, and more. But the rise of the gentleman — the gentlebro? — is a reluctant, #NotAllMen solution. It dilutes the toxic levels of masculinity in the genre without offering women songs of their own to sing, instead plying them with ones that place them on a pedestal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/arts/music/country-gentleman-thomas-rhett.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

I didn't know Rhett was a bro 'til I read about it, but if so, he was the only bro I heard who was good for a whole album, Tangled Up, which made my Scene ballot Top Ten, So far, the new one mostly seems like wet nerf, especially in stark-as-nerf-can-get contrast to lead-off "Craving", the duet with Maren Morris---hey, there's a female newcomer whose debut album established her own compelling stance and standard (despite the problematic single).Not totally unfamiliar problems/responses, but/and quite the radio-ready arts & entertainment onslaught.
And there must be others, but I don't keep up with newcomers as well as I should (though Ashley Monroe, for instance, is a twenty-something veteran who keeps getting better).

Keeps getting better whole-album-wise, that is; she's always made some good tracks, solo and with the Annies.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/midland-on-bar-band-roots-new-album-on-the-rocks-w504844

These guys are getting a lot of attention too.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/how-midland-epitomize-the-authenticity-debate-in-country-w505854

Apparently Midland are not "authentic" enough for some

well they are reaching especially hard for that 70s Nashville outlaw look and there is something slightly... desperate and pathetic about that? on the other hand they are v good looking and their music rocks, so

I Love Music Question Title: is Midland the Strokes of country music?

finger hovers over Submit Post

So that country music "salad" that the one industry exec was talking about is now--Gentle-bros, a band w/ a long-haired one-time model bringing 70s & current styles together, plus a few women....

Ha... x-post

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)