Rolling Country 2006 Thread

"Best of Both Worlds" has a pronounced* southern accent in the verses (but not particularly a country way of phrasing). The southern accent is barely present on "Who Said" (which nonetheless has a twangy guitar), except for the twist she puts on a few words at the end of a line: "magazines," "my way." And it seems gone altogether from "I Got Nerve."

*One does tend to pronounce one's accent, doesn't one?

[Haikunym, I'm sure some of the teens who bought the soundtrack noticed the southern (though not all that country) accent. Why in the world wouldn't they? Btw, a large number of teenpop stars were born in the South, though many of 'em ended up in NY or LA.]

A. They wouldn't notice any traces of accent because they don't care about it one way or another, unlike people like us -- even if they do have southern or non-southern accents of their own.

B. They wouldn't notice any traces of accent because the songs' excessive noisiness and brutal futurist onslaught make it very difficult to discern anything about Miley's voice at all.

C. They wouldn't notice any traces of accent because they are too busy chanting the lyrics at the same time as the singer.

D. My daughter doesn't hear any accent. Then again, she and all her 11-year-old friends hate Miley and think she's corny. So the target audience is probably younger than that.

depends on what suburb; closer in, like antioch or north of town, or out east like gallatin, it's reeeall southern. franklin and williamson co. there are just more rich people from other places and songwriters who moved here from new york and l.a. so that's another kind of accent. and shit, you can go to east nashville and sit in the booth at the quite good mexican joint on gallatin pike on a friday night and not hear a southern accent anywhere.

bill friskics-warren compares urban's new one to prince in a washington post piece he did. which makes sense, altho he's no prince. it's sure a frantic record, tho.

listened again to new darryl worley, and this time it sounded a bit flatter, and too many guitars competing in one sonic space. he sings real well and although the songs aren't quite as good as some of the riffs--he does a great faces/stones rip--it's kinda like seeing a really good blues band on thursday night and you go home early and not quite drunk like you would be on the weekend (if you living the blues lifestyle, that is. I had two stella artois last night with my meal and I feel it today, just gettin' old...)

xps

The top 20 have yet to be revealed, but so far no Montgomery Gentry
(though another post suggested that they weren't "really country," though I guess K. Urban is.) Also, a lot of hatred for Brooks & Dunn on that blog, though Brand New Man made the list.

I am hereby interested in checking out Tracy Lawrence and Colin Raye someday (though I don't remember liking them) (and though the guy on that blog, while smart, definitely likes a lot of stuff I don't.)

Here's what I wrote upthread about a Carlene Carter album he loves:

The Carlene Carter album I bought seems consisently kinda fun but never quite fun *enough*, at least so far. Maybe I wish her poppabilly was more rockabilly, "The Sweetest Thing" is slow, and could amost be a Lorrie Morgan hit from around that time; "Goodnight Dallas," which I like more than most of the tracks, has mariachi horns and yodels, so it's "western" I guess. I'm still waiting for at least one track though to jump out at me as much as, say, "Montgomery to Memphis," which jumped right out of the self-titled Leann Womack CD I bought the second I finally put it in the changer today. So right now I'd say Leann beats Carlene beats the Sweethearts, though Carlene could still win this race...carlene's CD doesn't quite make the cut, i don't think, though yeah, maybe as don suggests her new wave era stuff is less perfunctory than what she was doing in '90 (when she was actually having hits, i take it.) even "me and the wildwood rose," about growing up at grandma's and singing for miners with her little sister, doesn't quite connect. i like the rockpile-abilly powerpopsters ("i fell in love," "my dixie darlin'," "come on back," "one love," the mariachified "goodnight dallas") okay but never love them. most surprising cut, just 'cause i never knew carlene did such stuff, is that stately lorrie morgan approximation i mentioned, but i doubt i'll need to hear it again.

#22
I Fell In Love
Carlene Carter
1990

Talk about your legacies. Daughter of June Carter & Carl Smith, stepdaughter of Johnny Cash and stepsister of Rosanne Cash, few artists had to emerge from as many shadows as Carlene Carter did. While she’d been putting out records since the mid-70’s, she still had experienced very little success. When she surfaced on Warner Bros. in 1990, she finally broke through, with an album that paid homage to her heritage while still moving country music progressively forward. The breathtaking creativity on I Fell In Love makes contemporary rockers like the title track and “Come On Back” co-exist with covers of her father’s “You Are the One” and the Carter Family’s “My Dixie Darlin’”, and it actually sounds like they belong together. Despite some excellent covers, Carter best honors her family through her own pen. “Me and the Wildwood Rose” tells the story of growing up as a Carter through her own eyes, and recounts the death of Mother Maybelle, when the family gathered at the grave and “stood in a circle and sang.”

Download This: “Come On Back”, “Me and the Wildwood Rose”, “You Are the One”

saw vince gill on leno last night, with a big band, horns, and doing white r&b. he doesn't get *out* of himself as a singer, but i suppose that worked on this particular song...too suave to externalize his soul and all that. but he sings well, not as well as he plays guitar. he's truly great and played some rippin' stuff. (but, for a lesson on how much better a guitarist can be and still be steeped in the same kind of stuff that any number of country guitarists and r&b guys are, i wish i had a video of robben ford at the ryman a couple weeks ago. he made james burton and steve cropper look like kindergarteners. just think if he got on, say, dierks bentley's record and they just let him loose.)

anyway, it was pretty good and now i have to find a copy of those four discs from somebody.

anyway, on beefheart, i always thought "doc" peaked higher, but "ice cream" had a droll charm, esp. in the amazing interaction of guitars and drums on the title track, which really extends blues rhythms into something new.

xp

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash probably has the greater individual songs, Red Roses For Me has more energy, and I end up skipping forward less when I'm listening to RRFM.

The Poguetry In Motion EP is a marvellous thing, also; not sure where that's been reissued, but two of the four songs "Rainy Night In Soho" / "The Body Of An American" stand with their very best. The other two aren't too bad, either.

sort of gentry or big and rich lite, sentimental, the usual problems with women, playing way beyond their leauge, and arythymic singing, an inability to keep the energy up and wow are the lyrics just awful:
for some red heat real fast picken turbo grass areosmith or cootton eyed joe a little star light moonshine down home party time and let it go with my countrfied show...

these people are from grand prarie alberta, i thnik, which means all of the (innumerable) southern/small town signifers strike me as posing without committing

grand prarie has got 60k people.

(where is the coutnry about being broke and homeless even if you are a rig pig making 100k a year, i mean grand prarie is prime oil country, and with the insane prices, the drinking, the lack of housing, the fucking and the gambling, plus working 70 hour weeks, and thousands of people from newfoundland, you would figure there would be a whole subculture of oil songs...there is one by corb lund, but there should be more)

They're all now on the Rum Sodomy And The Lash CD. I used to own the EP on vinyl, and got rid of it somewhere along the line; nice to have those tracks again. I thought I had another EP, too, with "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" and "Muirshin Durkin" (one of their best tracks ever, now on the Red Roses CD), but AMG doesn't seem to list that anywhere, so it must be long forgotten. And I associate those two EPs with two Fear And Whiskey-era Mekons EPs I had copies of way back in my Army days (whilst reviewing both Red Roses and Fear and Whiskey for the Voice in my spare time): Crime And Punishment and Slightly South of The Border (not to mention the even greater and I assume rarer English Dancing Master, from a few years before, when not even critics cared about the Mekons) Why was I so quick to purge my shelves in those days? Sigh. I will likely never see them again.

I really really wish those faceless dolts would go away.

Now playing: my sleeper pick for country (absurdly broadly defined) album of 2006: The Memory Band, Apron Strings on DiCristina. They've zenned into the Fairport tone and soul, the fiddle player is beyond awesome and "I Wish I Wish" is a beautiful transformation of a traditional ballad that's also the best possible fuck you to re-virginizing evangelicals everywhere.

there first album cover featured shotguns...

i dont know the memory bands

One still bumps into those old Sin Records era Mekons things over here now and again, I haven't played mine in forever, though I think fondly of them. I don't think I've ever even seen a copy of "The English Dancing Master", I don't think many of those CNT things ever made it far south, the indie distribution networks in early 1980s Britain weren't what they later became. I had half an idea that there had been a reissue of CNT-era Meeks stuff, perhaps that was just "The Mekons Story".

It seems that Greil Marcus was the only person alive who cared about "The Mekons Story" when it came out.

And, will point out that the entire Mandrell tribute "She Was Country....Cool" is pretty fine, LeAnn Rimes does fine with the filthy "If Lovin' You Is Wrong" (kinda skips over the line about "married men," like she didn't want to get into that too much!), Sara Evans avows how her gardener or dance instructor or husband, even, can eat "Crackers" in her bed any time, and Blaine Larsen sounds great too. Only clinker is Randy Owen, whose Alabama shit stunk up an otherwise great show, that Cropper tribute I mentioned upthread. Never could abide that stuff.

anne mccue's record, finally gave it a good listen. about a B. sometimes she rocks out and it works, sometimes it just sounds constrained and polite. pretty good overall but nothing to write home about that I hear. more hooks, baby, you got the looks...

Not familiar with Original Sin. I've got a couple hodgepodgy odds-and-sods CDs (I Have Been To Heaven And Back: Hen's Teeth And Other Lost Fragments of Unpopular Culture Vol. 1 and Where Were You: Hens Teeth Etc Etc Vol. 2 that include sundry rare early tracks among sundrier live ones and so on; somewhere in storage I also have Punk Rock, I think it's called, where they entertainingly re-record a bunch of their punk-era stuff -- my Fear and Whiskey CD leaves that great album intact; a few of those early tracks also show up on the two-disc Heaven And Hell: The Very Best of the Mekons, which also has all I'll ever need of their widely acclaimed '90s and '00s stuff, which I've honestly never really understood the appeal of), but anyway, I think with those early EPs, I also miss the actual objects, you know? Though I do think they were doing their best music back then; my favorite album by them {used to have it on vinyl, now on CD} is 1980's The Mekons, a/k/a {for no reason I've ever figured out} Devils Rats and Piggies. And I actually found The Mekons Story fun back in the day; wish I'd kept my vinyl copy of that one too. I assume Lester Bangs liked it too, since he wrote the liner notes, in which he claimed it to be the best album in the world this side of Metal Machine Music and/or something by Black Oak Arkansas, I forget which. So blah blah blah. After Edge of The World, for me, they had more trouble holding my attention.

pretty good, a bit genteel in the vocal department. really gets going about track 10 with "san franciscop mabel joy" and "you've always got the blues." who can tell me what the best newbury record from the '70s is? xgua gives neither one he grades in his '70s guide above B-. He says, "Never trust meteorological symbolism," and sure enough kacey jones' record has these rain sounds in it...

speaking of nashville humanist songwriters, bobby braddock has a new autobiography coming out, "down in oberndale," (pretty sure that's spelled correctly) which is pidgin southern for auburndale, fla., where he grew up. what are the great *songwriter* autobiographies?

And Pitbull's El Mariel didn't make the ballot in the "Hip-Hop" category. And Ms. Peachez "Fry That Chicken" didn't make the ballot under videos.

The Kentucky Headhunters – Flying Under The Radar (CBUJ reissue)*
Becky Hobbs – Best Of The Beckaroo Part 1 (Beckaroo reissue)
Shawn Camp – Fireball (Skeeterbit)
Hacienda Brothers – What’s Wrong With Right (Proper)
Terry Lee Bolton – American Man (MRC)
Alan Bros. Band – Brick By Brick (Alan Bros. Music)

New Bill Kirchen album sounds pretty dang good so far, too. Kentucky Headhunters just made the top 10 (not just country, everything) album list I submitted to the poll for my current employer. As did Leanne Kingwell's album, but we decided she's not country despite being indie right? As did Victory Brothers, who are definitely both, but they are not from A to L in the alphabet. As did Montgomery Gentry and Toby Keith, who are country but not indie (and Huck Johns, who may or might be country and/or indie, but probably not). And so on.

Bill Kirchen's album is more rock and soul and blues than anything I've heard by him before. Great title (and rocking title track): Hammer Of The Honky Tonk Gods. He does "Devil With A Blue Dress On" as a slow shuffle, closes with an Arthur Alexander song.

Oy vey. Me upthread:

I finally listened to this here Kasey Jones album of Mickey Newbury songs. Uggh. Useful if only to have all the worst versions of Newbury's songs in one place.

I think genteel is the best thing you can say about it. To my ears it's basically Mancini Americana, with a vocalist who may as well be parsing a phone book from Kazakistan, for all she seems to understand what she's singing.

The best Newbury album from the '70s remains Frisco Mabel Joy (and the tribute to that album that came out a few years ago >>>> than this Kacey Jones record). Most of his '60s and '70s stuff gets swamped in confused, faux-Sherrill arrangements (and I love real Sherrill), so buyer beware. But Mabel Joy is classic. Also, the double album, Live at Montezuma Hall anticipates his most intense and purely beautiful album, from the late '90s, the solo/live Nights When I Am Sane. This is not background music; he sings the living fuck out of every line.

Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch)
Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time (Sub Pop)
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Letting Go (Drag City)
Calexico - Garden Ruin (Quarterstick)
Califone - Roots & Crowns (Thrill Jockey)
Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing And A Curse (New West)
Eef Barzelay - Bitter Honey (SpinART)
Horse Feathers - Words Are Dead (Lucky Madison)
Jenny Lewis w/ The Watson Twins - Jenny Lewis w/ The Watson Twins (Team Love)
Jolie Holland - Springtime Can Kill You (Anti-)
M. Ward - Post-War (Merge)
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (Anti-)

(the Plug Independent Music Awards link, if you're interested in voting.

Well, actually...Freaky Friday must be over now because the Kirchen album's sounding a lot duller to me today than it was a couple days ago. Just kinda stodgy and slow and colorless, and the title track doesn't really kick all that hard after all, and why the hell would anybody want to slow down "Devil With a Blue Dress On," come to think of it? So right now, I'm on the fence, but maybe it'll kick back in, or maybe it won't. What basically keeps happening is, well, it's in the five-disc changer now with the Game (clunky rap voice, ocassionally tasty and tasteful retro-soul backup, sounds very Dr. Dre a lot of it no matter what Dre's involvement was or wasn't, but I never gave much a shit about Dre give or take a couple songs so I doubt I'll have much more patience with this thing), Yabby You (who sounds warm and dubby and greater than I would have guessed), Borat (just saw the movie, which was slightly disappointing though still frequently hilarious but maybe the disappointment was just that it had been built up so much by so many people, but at any rate i also just realized today that the soundtrack is a compilation, and track #7 is beautiful, and i think it's by o.m.f.o. but it's hard to tell because there are not the same number of titles on the cover as tracks on the cd, since some of the tracks are just snippets of dialouge and stuff, so you can't just count down to the seventh title, which is "grooming pubis", and also "o kazakhastan" which ends the movie sounds more like laibach than most of the national anthems on laibach's own new album) and joe gruschecky (ex of the iron city houserockers, and his new album features bruce springteen on a few tracks and while i have no doubt that this album must blow out of the water that springsteen seeger covers album which must be the most boring idea for an album of the year even though i didn't listen to the thing since life is too fucking short, but gruschecky is still not writing them like he was in 1980 or 1981 and his band barely rocks at all, dude really needs to befriend kenny aranoff or somebody, though sometimes there's some passable drama in joe's oily sobersided sincerity and the guitar buildups in a way that a couple of the tracks like "safe at home" for instance might sound decent in a "rescue me" episode or perhaps a scene from "the wire" with mcnulty fucking up again), and oftimes when a kirchen song comes on i think it's gruschecky by mistake, which is frankly not a good sign.

and the more I hear of the new Intocable album Cruce de Caminos a.k.a. Crossroads the more I fall in love with it. Johnny Lee Rosas might have the best voice in America, because it's not quite perfect but DAMN he delivers the goods. hilariously, when they do a "pop" version of huge hit single "Por Ella," it lays on the country signifiers so thick that I think maybe they actually consider modern country to be the real sound of "pop" in the U.S. but sadly for y'all, it's all in Spanish, so you won't really care about it. (P.S. I am an asshole tonight.)

The Game and Gruschecky now replaced in the changer with Fairyland (French-I-think metal band on Napalm) and new Ying Yang Twins.

"One More Day" on the Kirchen album does have a nice Dock Boggs era white country blues feel to it, I guess. And I do like the Arthur Alexander cover. So I haven't written the thing off quite yet.

I've been considering springing for the Intocable CD, actually. I probably won't mind the Spanish of it if the tunes are catchy enough.