Rolling Country 2018

andrews was the backup singer (and iirc keyboardist) for the tour for invented, many of the songs on which were inspired by cindy sherman's photography and written from the perspectives of women and featured traded off vocals between jim adkins and andrews

The duet sets with hubbie that I've heard are good, but fuckin finally a new solo Kelly Willis album (also in here: the return of Sugarland etc.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/hear-kelly-willis-soul-tinged-new-song-back-being-blue-w518485

When I worked in a Deep South CD store in the mid-90s to early-00ties, Elvis sold almost as well as the Dead, and his gospel outsold all his other stuff. Now Some public radio stations are re-broadcasting/-streaming "He Touched Me: Elvis' Gospel Music, " w cogent comments from colleagues, intros by Laura Cantrell. Sounds great, wish there were more live (do hear some live w Jordanaires x Sweet Inspirations, for some audiences adjusting or not to integration)(most of the material is from the SI's side of the tracks).
More info on the ever-handy (though Not Secure) Elvis Information Network:
http://www.elvisinfonet.com/elvisnews_HeTouchedMeRadioversion.html
The whole show may be posted somewhere.

Expanded reissue of Emmylou's The Ballad of Sally Rose---good?

Released in 1985, the song cycle is based loosely on her short time with influential singer-songwriter Gram Parsons...Highlights...include the singles "White Line" - which reached #14 on the country charts - and "Rhythm Guitar" with Waylon Jennings on lead guitar. In addition, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt sing harmony throughout the album. Two years later, the friends and frequent collaborators would release their first album together, Trio...
More info: http://view.e.wbr.com/?qs=61051c94690b58e096f0ee97da524b07450d8da7cb262cc9a54ebdc45039d666f3ec1e61f

“We had just enough tequila that I asked them, ‘Do you want to do a show?,’ and they were like, ‘Yeah!,’” recounts Becca Mancari, explaining Bermuda Triangle’s origin story.

The Nashville group – Mancari, fellow singer-songwriter Jesse Lafser, and Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard – rolls into Antone’s on Thursday, with another Music City act in support, Liz Cooper & the Stampede.

Promising a drum machine paired with an upright bass, Bermuda Triangle hit the road for nine dates concluding Friday in Dallas with only two songs on Spotify. Speaking by phone from a solo show stop in Virginia, Mancari chatted with “Gay Place” about summertime crushes, being gay in Nashville, and guitar-shredding ladies. Seems like it might be good. Continued here:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/gay-place/2018-04-03/bermuda-triangles-becca-mancari-makes-waves/

i have the Becca Mancari album from last year on my 2017 spotify country playlist and it's pretty damn good.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/20978146/becca-mancaris-good-woman-is-informed-by-a-life-spent-traveling

https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement-east/liz-cooper-and-the-stampede-blank-range-and-the-kernal

Anyone seen/heard this? Has it been mentioned yet?

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/04/cocaine-rhinestones.html

Oh, I see it up there, never mind.

Thanks yall, will def check all that out---speaking of Gay Place, no doubt the name was chosen for more than one reason, like Nashville Scene's A Face In The Crowd column---in this case, it's also the title (maybe from "It's known as the gay place/That out of the way place") of a collection of three novellas by one Billy Lee Brammer, all of 'em about life and death and other stuff in orbit around a gas giant Governor of Texas, with LBJ-size drive and cunning and deep pockets full of other politicians, civil servants, media workers---and also the kind of un-LBJ-like charm that Huey Long, Big Jim Folsom, Slick Willie Clinton relied on---he's wallking a tightrope amidst 60s shitstorms. It's pretty musical.

Ashley Monroe's new one now streaming.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/12/601100251/first-listen-ashley-monroe-sparrow

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

That dude's too much of a kitschy tribute act even for me, and my tolerance for that is pretty wide open.

i have the Becca Mancari album from last year on my 2017 spotify country playlist and it's pretty damn good.

She did a great episode of 'My Favorite Album' talking about Big Thief's 'Capacity' a couple months back: http://myfavoritealbum.libsyn.com/becca-mancari-on-big-thief-capacity-2017

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

I saw him open for Old Crow Medicine Show last year. you know, he was all right. A good version of the usual Lower Broadway Country for Tourists shtick. I didn't mind him at all.

Saw Lee Ann Womack last week. Amazing singer, good stuff, even a good version of "Long Black Veil." She lives up to the hype.

Was wondering what Amy LaVere's been up to lately---here's a good live set featuring Motel Mirrors, also incl. Will Sexton,John Paul Keith, and another guy whose name I didn't catch---Barbara Ching briefly discusses blues-country connections and plays a few excerpts, but mostly it's the Motel Mirrors show:
http://www.bealestreetcaravan.com/weekly-show/bsc2228/

Most of the songs are from their new album, which I haven't heard.

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

― alpine static, Saturday, April 14, 2018 10:01 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That dude's too much of a kitschy tribute act even for me, and my tolerance for that is pretty wide open.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, April 14, 2018 10:30 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Idk I think he might actually have the tunes and pipes to back up the act.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNVUTgd4pio

Probably late to this, but I heard this while driving through Ohio last week.

Total rip off of Kid Rock's "All Summer Long".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16s7He1C9BE

Those xpost two Bermuda Triangle tracks on Spotify instantly toke a hold of me, and haven't let go: deepnrich, up front: "You love Suzanne, I love you, where is she? Go and get her." Such a contrast with the aforementioned Becca Mancari set, at least the sound, which is thinned and chill, latte, with most of the vocals double-tracked; they and the good session band are distanced. Going for a the xx effect?

Seems like the writing is good too, but it's also filtered. "Kitchen Dancing" is "dry"/up front, and the best track here; subsequent acoustic single version of "Golden" is better (would like to hear Willie cover this: about a lover who won't go 'way after leaving: "You keep going golden"--was already thinking of when the sun goes level, won't get out of your face, before becoming aware of the words, especially that hook-line at the beginning of the chorus, so I guess in that case the filter is a good test, but still prefer the acoustic, with the increased/undiminished vocal presence).

Really looking fwd to more Bermuda Triangle.

Ah meant "took a hold," but "toke" yes too.

brothers osborne album seems incredibly badass on first listen to me

anyone excited for the new dierks?

me

me too. single has v obvious tom petty vibes

Over at Saving Country Music, Trigger continues his crusade. At this point I'm a fan of the man. He continues to write his criticism in the face of all known facts or interpretation. This time he's taking down Bebe Rexha this week.

I did shorties on Sam Morrow: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/sam-morrow

The Weather Station: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/the-weather-station-wfrances-cone

Charley Crockett's half-assed record: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/mercy-lounge/charley-crockett

Over at Saving Country Music, Trigger fulminates against Bebe Rexha: https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/bebe-rexhas-arrogance-should-be-alarming-to-the-country-industry/

I did shorties on Sam Morrow's Lowell George fixation: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/sam-morrow

Weather Station's dystopian Joni kick: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement/the-weather-station-wfrances-cone

Liz Cooper's pretty damn good folk-rock: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement-east/liz-cooper-and-the-stampede-blank-range-and-the-kernal

The great Chris Smither (go find his I'm a Stranger Too! and Don't It Drag On): https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-bluebird-cafe/chris-smither.baB8Vb

Also enjoying Caitlin Canty's pretty darned good new Motel Bouquet, unaffected and moving: https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-bluebird-cafe/chris-smither.baB8Vb

sorry to repeat, wanted to add those to the post...

haven't written about Canty, hope to soon. Sorry for the repetitions.

can we save the saving country music links for the worst music writing thread

That Jake Owen ripoff of Kid Rock taking from John M etc is not impressive

new sam hunt:

http://strm.to/DowntownsDead

not an anti-suburbia treatise

Oh, I heard another album by a member of xpost Bermuda Triangle: Jesse Lafser's 2015 Raised On The Plains. It does sport a "Don't Fence Me In" urgency, but then she turns out to be more like a historical cowboy, covering a lot of ground but still making the rounds, having similar experiences despite the momentary excitement and current details: lots of romantic frustration, and though the astute Dylan and Richard Thompson ballad studies provide springy, birch-tree support and projection for self-expression, sometimes she gets into an overly complicated presentation of an easily recognizable point---then again, sometimes you gotta load all the way up with whatever you can find to blast your way through said frustration.
But so far seems like it usually works out, like with "Rosie," which is also one of those BT tracks on Spotify: she leaves the TV on all night long, blasting updates on the forest fire, the better to torture herself via associations with that flamin' outrider, and now the sun's on the bed where you lay your head. Looking fwd to more Bermuda Triangle.

I mean she sounds like she's learned some things about songwriting from Dylan and Thompson, not singing (well maybe what not to do; works for them fairly often, but no need for her to follow suit)

Latest Dierks Bentley hit "Woman, Amen" has annoying arena-rock drums and production. Haven't heard the rest of his new album The Mountain which is coming in June (and was recorded in Telluride, Co)

i heard parts of it recently and liked it a lot but i like arena-rock drums and production

x-post--I like the Sam Hunt lyric

Downtown's dead without you
Girls walk by and friends say hi
Then Friday night it might as well be just another
Tuesday night without you
As long as you're still in my head
There ain't a way that I can paint a ghost town red
Downtown's dead, downtown's dead

I like Bentley’s “Drunk on a plane.” More clever musically

album’s pretty good. brothers osborne and brandi carlile guest

Reminding me I still need to check their latest albums as well as his.
Proceeding somewhut alphabetically, just trekked through Ashley McBryde's Girl Going Nowehre which of course is meant to be and moderately is an inneresting title for what I assume is meant to be a breakthrough album: starts right off not with a band but the foreboding, low-key title track, which is a twist on the obligatory-for-country-girls salute to the hometown. As performed, it's not an ironic twist: she sounds sincerely and humbly grateful for their telling her she's bound to fail, for giving her that much more incentive to make it. Quietly sincere, determined, and spooked.

It's a combo which works great on the better tracks, like "American Scandal," where she turns the volume up to make clear this is non-ironic desperation---she really really needs it to be like Kennedy and Monroe. But the next one, "Southern Babylon," seems, even before the unnecessary mention of "Hotel California," like an alibi for of the fodder it's sandwiched between, the Springsteeny "Radioland" and
and MellenPettyCarnes tap-tap-tap of "The Jacket, " both fortified with country-Americana namechecking o course.

There's a sincere etc. tribute to another kind of family, in a dive bar, but with unremarkable mumblecore imagery she might as well be nodding to the sunday school teachers and grannies as happens in the usual obligatory-for-girls etc. "Next Door To Leroy" at least singles out and details one of the fellow misfits who provided reinforcement early on: says something, pretty succinctly, about your high school years, when you have to recover from the results of peer pressure by going over to the junkie's house. Good loud guitar too (several of these, but she needs more, at least as distraction).

She sincerely can't live without her boring messy boyfriend, Andy."El Dorado" more intended radio fodder yadda yadda, but the countryiest (sincere note to a wholesome type), "Ef yew git tahhred of bein' happy, give me a cawl," may also be the most rocking, in a whiskey-cymbal-splashing, Eric-Church-with-a-much-better-voice kind of way, and is certainly one of the best at least. Ditto the finale, "Home Sweet Highway," sincerely horny ghosty eyes on the prize and distinctive musical twinges amidst the twangs.

"starts right off not with a *bang*," I meant, though might not be a band either on that opener: as I said, it's a very quiet track.

So title track of xp The Mountain is an ominous victory song, and Bentley stays out of the way as the guitar chords and the words skulk their way to the peak, still not satisfied (he turns up the volume on choruses to confirm this). Could be a Neil Young song, about "turning that hill to gravel."
Otherwise, these sundown views of younger wilder times and the road ahead drone on and on through greeting card sagas, til finally Brandi Carlile pipes up on Track 12, "Travelin' Light" (def not the JJ Cale' this 'un's about forgiving yourself and embracing yourself and floating along), and takes it away from him without even seeming to try---once again, he stays out of the way, without even seeming to try either---so many songs, so little voice; it's the longest 44-minute album---ever. Okay, a few others kinda work, and might grow on me, but would require more listening than seems likely.

That one hit on this one that I dislike has scared me away from the whole Bentley album, but maybe I should give it a shot.

I think the Bentley album is really solid. 2/3rds good songs, a couple duds.

I also happen to love (a) his voice, (b) the general lyrical perspective on this one, and (c) all the snow-capped, grizzly-bearded Colorado marketing around it. So YMMV.

agree ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FuF1xcg5WU

this song is awesome. of all things it reminds me of american music club

colter will be releasing an album this year and this is one of the singles, just in time for the calgary stampede, which is surely not accidental

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYq6zKdqfkY

should mention it's a wilf carter cover

aha Brad I can kind of hear what you mean

I still can't get over that Colter Wall is the son of Brad, but I admit I'm a sucker for that voice of his