Rolling Country 2016

Colvin % Earle: Her gentle voice, sometimes in-one-ear-and-out-the-other solo, seems to draw out the tune-friendly side of his, compatibly enough with the tuneful tunes he (as usual) writes, and their co-writes are thoughtfully straightforward, sometimes with unexpected nuance in the performance: first verse of "Tell Moses" slyly promises "milk and honey on the other side," then shifts to exhorting Selma-to-Montgomery marches---nice jump, although it just now led me to fleeting connection w MLK's love life: truly, truly perish the thought. But there might be some subconscious Goodbye Earle link he's making between his own, frequently outspoken idealism and even longer history of zig-zag wandering between the sheets and divorce courts (not to mention child-support schedules).
(Colvin's proximity may also have something to do with the old coop-flyer actually bearably singing "Don't question why she needs to be so free," while waving a wet hankie at departing "Ruby Tuesday.")
The best in the writing-advanced-by-singing class is also best in show: "You're Right (I'm Wrong"), which is succinctly confessional, but also prowly, even Stonesy without taking the "Miss You" booty call suggestions----even "I'm missin' you tonight," with just a tad of thirsty harmomica----too much past the furtive urgency of tempo (no disco, heaven forbid) and headphone Easter eggs of certain notes played by Earle and producer Buddy Miller (who never gets to noodle like on some BM albums).
Also! "The Way That We Do" so far seems like a good Cobain ballad, though without the KC moan. "You're Still Gone" is good too. But sometimes the gentler side can seem the wimpier side of folkie summer camp, maybe being reconciled to your own emotional range involves too leads to too much resignation,too much writing, mebbe (although the other covers, of "Tobacco Road" and "You Were On My Mind," are not as spirited as they should be either).
Anyway, several keepers so far for sure.

jeez, blake shelton is increasingly unbearable. "you put the hang in hangover"? doesn't even make sense. or else I don't get it. of all the current attempts at tabloid tie-ins, his has got to be the worst.

hmm maybe you hang out hung over?

This Guy Clark bio looks promising. The author instigated the Guy Clark tribute album mentioned here; tribs are rarely so good. (Speaking of the Clarks' "circle of friends," check their house party in hte 70s-made doc Heartworn Highways)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When Tamara Saviano began working on Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, her no-holds-barred biography of the beloved Americana music icon, she already knew Clark’s peers and fans loved and respected him. She’d also heard that profiling still-living subjects was harder than chronicling those who’d departed. But she was still surprised that every single one of her 200-plus interview subjects checked with Clark before agreeing to talk.
He gave them all the same answer: “I’m not out to rewrite the truth. Just tell her everything. Don’t hold back.”
And so they talked candidly, during countless hours of conversations she recorded starting in 2008. Saviano’s 406-page book, completed just before Clark passed away on May 17, takes an honest look at one of America’s most revered musical storytellers and his relationships with two key figures: his wife, Susanna, and her soul mate, Townes Van Zandt — who was also Clark’s best friend. Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark...is a title in the John & Robin Dickson Series in Texas Music, sponsored by Texas State University’s Center for Texas Music History.
...Clark and Van Zandt...wrote songs popularized by members of the outlaw country movement as well as more traditional artists; Clark’s contributions included classics such as “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “The Randall Knife,” “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” “L.A. Freeway” and “Texas, 1947.” Always keeping the focus on the song, not the performer, Clark’s poetic lyrics sketched characters both fictional and intensely real, using slice-of-life imagery to peel away external layers and carve into the deepest reaches of human souls. Though he released only 13 studio albums in his lifetime, his work has been recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Jeff Walker, Emmylou Harris and countless others.
His long list of friends and admirers included Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, Rosanne Cash, Jack Ingram and others, many of whom shared insights for the book. Saviano also includes 113 photos from all phases of his life and storied career.
In Texas and later in Nashville, Guy and Susanna, a formidable songwriter herself, attracted a circle of friends and acolytes who loved nothing more than sharing songs (and substances) together. Clark, also a luthier, and Susanna, a visual artist, met when he was dating Susanna’s sister, Bunny. When she committed suicide, Guy and Susanna bonded over their grief. Saviano delves into details of their relationship, aided by Susanna’s own journals, as well as interviews with family members who also gave her unfettered access to documents, photos and memorabilia.
“It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I went back to every part of Guy’s life and found the people who were there at that time,” Saviano says. “I learned details that nobody else knew, including his closest friends.”
But the book is far from straight biography; in the third section, Saviano herself becomes part of the narrative. She was managing editor of Country Music magazine when she met Clark in 1998. In 2006, she became his publicist for the album Workbench Songs, a role she repeated for 2009’s Someday the Song Writes You. In 2011, she produced the Grammy-nominated album This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, which was named the 2012 Americana Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association.
“I had no idea that I was going to grow to love the old curmudgeon, but I did,” Saviano says. “I felt I needed to make it very clear that I was not only a reporter. We had become good friends and Guy confided in me about many things. I’m not sure it was a typical relationship for a biographer and subject.”
Advance praise for the book is already rolling in. Says Joe Nick Patoski, author of Willie Nelson: An Epic Life and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire: “Tamara Saviano hasn’t just written the definitive biography of the definitive Texas singer-songwriter. She goes deep in unfolding the intimate relationship between Guy Clark, his wife and creative muse Susanna Clark, and their best friend, the other definitive Texas singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt.”
Saviano is also at work on a documentary further exploring the relationship among Guy, Susanna and Townes, whose death in 1997 sent Susanna into a spiral from which she never recovered before passing away in 2012. (Clark’s love song “My Favorite Picture of You” became the title track of his final album, released in 2013.) But as Van Zandt’s son, J.T., notes in the book, the two men spurred each other on as songwriters. “I don’t think that either one of them could’ve made the impact that they did on music without the other one, as best friends, in the time that they did it,” he says. “… The fact that they both … existed together is not a coincidence. It was meant to be.”
About Tamara Saviano: Saviano moved to Nashville in the 1990s to work in radio promotions at Capitol Records, then segued to Country Music magazine, where she became managing editor. Moving to TV, she became operations manager/producer at the Great American Country cable network, and has since served as a publicist, project manager and artist manager for some of Nashville’s top talent. Her credits include producing Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, which won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, and The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, a 70th-birthday tribute album.

Not as wowed by Maren Morris as I had hoped.

Has anyone checked out the new Elizabeth Cook record, Exodus of Venus, done after she split with longtime husband Tim Carroll (who played guitar on her breakthru records Balls and Welder) and, apparently, her manager? It's been bruited as the record on which she leaves country, but I hear it as her most conventionally (contemporary) country record to date. I like the song set in London and am interested in the new way she sings.

I'm also interested in the Guy Clark biography--Tamara Saviano was the person who got me my first interview with Clark, 10 years ago. I was able to interview him 3 times, and Clark was a very canny operator who I think felt as though he never quite got his due from Nashville (he never got rich, apparently), even though he's been a Legendary Figure for decades. I would say that Clark is about as good a songwriter, and obviously an inspiration for, the Go-Betweens' Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, same kind of stripped-down approach. But I never much liked Clark's solo records, not even the early ones, thought his voice just wasn't interesting enough to activate the material. When I interviewed him a couple years ago, I mentioned Gary Stewart's (to my ears) definitive reading of what may be his greatest song, "Broken Hearted People," and I think Clark was actually a bit lukewarm on that. (Steve Young, who also passed this year, did a cool rearrangement of that one on his 1976 Renegade Picker album.)

oh well, I know this isn't going to change minds, but I like Stapleton's preoccupied sociability---lotta dark thangs he's been through, stuff he could say, but he'll just say this, share a vibe, a drink, and move on. No grim doughboy Game of Thrones slogfest, like the labored sounds of Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, David Clayton Thomas, Scott Stapp (in descending order of tolerability. I like that formulation, "preoccupied." For me, the singing is ordinary and the songs repeat effects, but what puts him over is that he really doesn't try too hard. Now whether that's intentional or just the way he's build, I honestly can't tell.

Will check out the Cook record. Didn't realize she also did this as I don't have Sirius/XM radio

For the past nine years, Cook has hosted her own show, called "Apron Strings," on SiriusXM's Outlaw Country channel. She plays classic country, Americana and Southern rock, and in between songs, discusses anything and everything that comes to mind.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/06/23/elizabeth-cook-triumphs-over-tragedy/85863360/

Miranda is here to save us.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XxQz2P6X9Fg

playlist is updated.

I will use Miranda as delayed gratification, the carrot at the end of the stick, after I write about a couple of xpost dark thangs:

The first being that xpost Elizabeth Cook album, Exodus of Venus: If she has indeed experienced triumph over tragedy, re the headline in curmudgeon's link, that's great, but part of the artistic triumph or effect of the album itself is that you wouldn't know it, if looking for triumphant or coming-into-the-light themes---well, there's one, "Dharma Gate," which sure sounds like a cosmic transition point, where you might die and go to drug heaven, and then whatever comes next, if anything, or come back for another chance---or just where the penny's dropping, a moment of lucidity: "What are you doing? The chance, the choice is Now"--but that's more implied by the musical undercurrents than any upfront therapyspeak. It seems to come from and be personal experience, something ongoing, or a fresh memory, like the rest of the album.

She seems to be trying to make sense of chaotic scenes, pictures from life's other side, without reducing them in anyway, incl. exploiting what's obviously melodramtic enough already. A couple of tracks still seem too even-handed, monotonous, as E. Cook reports again from the battlefield, over burnt-dry, steady rolls, with periodic guitar solos providing equally dry, electronic heat lightning: effective jolts, but they work better when she doesn't rely on them so much. Mostly, she lets the spare, somewhat metal-associated beats flex a bit more, even get to a kind of New Orleans hip hop rattle at times, and the guitars get to flex too, nothing musclebound.

Her voice eventually gets too flex some too, taking the band out for a run in "Straightjacket Love," which alternates a high lonesome hillbilly (nasal) walts, with meth bursts: "Look out look sugar, Mama needs her drug, better come and save her, with yore/Straighjacket Love." Also, she chirps like Dolly Parton while taking her first tour of the methadone clinic, where Dr. Feelgood is all squeaky-clean and "socialistic," no bad boy appeal atall, but oh well, showing up for regular no-drama doses "adds some structure to the week," and she can sell what she doesn't use up.

Prob be some argument, but to me, this is a country album: the pitch and cadence of her voice, the turns of phrases, as written and sung, guide and shadow the grooves, bringing out the bluesy elements of crossroads sounds, without trying to pretend they're pre-digital; the subject matter, layers of atmospheric consistency---the fixations of an addict, recovering enough for perspective on same---though getting the fix, "getting straight," as they used to say, can provide enough detachment for moments of insight even inside the thing, as "Dharma Gate" and others suggest---all merge with certain classic themes of country, even if she's not meditating on a shot glass all of the time.

The other dark thang is Lucinda Williams' The Ghosts of Highway 20, which is similar to Cook's album conceptually, incl. the sonic grid, although here we get up to four guitars---Williams regular Val McCallum, with guests Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz, who plays acoustic as well as joining the electric mesh, along with Willams' own strings (think she's credited with some acoustic too): intricate treble skeletons, sometimes whole nervous systems, though never too detailed, more like instant afterimages, visions already falling away---what her voice and words would say if they could, if they weren't bound to testify down here on earth, in the dry and moist and funky shadows of the barn (the voice, not slurring as much as on some previous albums, but occasionally decaying, as all things must, especially when "all of my thoughts turn to dust"; also also the bass and drum kits and hand drums are funky shadows etc.).
But the guitars are light through holes in the roof, and also big blowing chunks of her family tree on the title track, for instance, and she's not trying to grab hold of those, just be mindful of them and dodge and otherwise work around them. Like several of the lyrics are about different kinds of solace. The thoughts turning to dust are from her father's notes (he died with Alzheimer's), about what he gets when he might expect tears, and the guitars burn that dust, instead of having to sling around tons of sobs, so it works out pretty well, musically, anyway. And Woody Guthrie's "House of Earth" channels a witchy woman, who will show you how to make better boys, also you will take this back to your wife and she will make better girls--she foretells this, in a stoned lullaby sway, while sometimes sliding into him---"you will leave drops of honey" on the couch, she/he will leave money---although (there's a punch line of sorts).

Yadda yadda, some of it doesn't work, but another effective use of vocal clarity-to-decay comes in "Louisiana Story," and also I like the effects of two extended grooves, "Doors of Heaven" (kind of parade gospel, she gets in There and struts her stuff), and "Faith and Grace," (a big ol storefront church on Main Street, for Exiles, but not for choirs, or handclappers) remind me, as does Cook's album, of the pitch for this promo I haven't listened to yet: supposedly, it's metal and associated atmospheres for recovering addicts doing yoga, who aren't scared of triggering sounds, who don't want the sweety-pie BS of New Age.

Too long, but mostly keepers.

This is the press sheet for recoverers' yoga music--guess you could do yoga to the Cook and Williams albums too, though some say music is distracting; the movements must be exact):

This October (2015), Screaming Crow Records will release the first ever BLACK YO)))GA CD/DVD. Created by 200-hour RYT-certified instructor, Kimee Massie, BLACK YO)))GA is vinyasa style yoga set to drone, noise, stoner metal, ambient, industrial, space doom, and other traditional meditation music. It incorporates basic poses in a relaxed environment, while focusing on safe body mechanics. It’s a traditional yoga class in practice, however darker than what you may typically associate with the practice in the Western world.

Since 2012, the music for classes has been a series of mix-tapes. This particular recording — Asanas Ritual, Vol. 1 — was performed and created by the BLACK YO)))GA Meditation Ensemble, an eclectic group of metallic hippies and doomlords, headed up by Kimee’s husband, Scott Massie. With members involved from Storm King, Veniculture, Agnes Wired For Sound, Moonstation Burning, Vulture, Deathcrawl, Complete Failure, Hero Destroyed, Filth On Demand, Secant Prime, Emay, Crown Of Eternity, Torrential Bleeding, and more, this ensemble has produced a soundscape tailored to create a heavy meditative space in order to spread the benefits of yoga to people within their own art and music communities: people who may battle depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug addiction, trauma/PTSD, phobias, dark passengers, etc.; those who may not feel they fit into typical yoga classes; the people who, in all rights, may most need the balance and release of yoga to return to and lead rich, fulfilling lives.

This project consists of two releases. The first will be the BLACK YO)))GA DVD/instructional video, Asanas Ritual Vol 1, directed by Joseph Stammerjohn of Eyes To The Sky Films, containing a full one-hour yoga class, stylized and set to their original score. The second release will be a CD version of the soundtrack on its own. Both releases contain plenty of bonus features and will be available in stores and online by the first of October via Screaming Crow Records.

Asanas Ritual, Vol. 1 Track Listing:
1. A Wandering Through
2. The Dark Places In Our Lives
3. Carmentis
4. Hungry Ghosts
5. Negative Confession
6. Lament
7. Nest Of Thorns
8. Loopholes In The Universe

I only have the audio part of the promo, will have to visualize.

Dow, haven't heard Lucinda's record. As for Cook's, I think it drops off some over the last couple-three songs, but is paced really well previously. "Slow Pain" and the London song and "Methadone Blues" are my favorites, so far, and while I like the way the sonics often support her inward vision, I'm not sure that the outward part of it registers as strongly as it could, though I like the bit about the "famous rock drummer" in one tune, if I'm hearing that right. "Straightjacket Love" works because of its structure--she's a humorist--but don't know if it cuts as deeply as she intends it, which I could say about the whole record. The obvious antecedents are Emmylou and Lanois, seems to me, and the third Big Star record, which she probably heard back when she was with Tim Carroll. But overall, this is her best record to date and represents a leap forward, though, again, the songwriting per se is perhaps second to the aural design. Sings really well but I don't really hear these as "songs" even in the contemporary-country sense. Could "Slow Pain" make it on reg'lsr country radio? Dunno. No doubt this will top the Scene's country poll next year.

Kinda diggin Paul Cauthen's "Still Drivin'," another entry in the Sturgill/John Moreland/Margo Price '70s-country sweepstakes. Cauthen's old group, Sons and Fathers, pulled typical "eclectic" faces at 'Mericana (soul,rock 'n' roll, country-rock) but got weighed down by the harmony singing, with David Beck. "Still" has a lotta musical detail and a groove unafraid to be not-quite-all-out, and Cauthen makes something of his Waylon-isms, Tommy Overstreet geetars, wherever this comes from. Album, My Gospel, is out October. Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGCPVL5QDG8

Wrote about a couple of country thangs this week. Water Liars, who have just gotten better over the last 2 records, here. And two old guys, Dale Watson and Reverend Horton Heat.

Will check out Cauthen, and speaking of John Moreland, he plays Newport Folk tomorrow at 1:15 PM Eastern, on NPR's live stream: http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2016/07/22/486910594/were-off-to-newport-folk-festival

I do like the Cook album; with her voice and instincts, I think she would have to try awfully hard to make a record that wasn't identifiably country, even if under a broader alt- umbrella. But I don't hear it as any less country than the Maren Morris album, which I like but find overpraised to a pretty absurd degree. I can't imagine Cook, who remains pretty far under the radar even among the other country music writers I know, topping the Nashville Scene poll ahead of Sturgill Simpson (also drawing some traditionalists' ire for its production), the Margo Price album (with much higher-profile press and promo), or that Dave Cobb compilation album (which I found, unsurprisingly, too timid in Cobb's production choices). And Miranda's album is due before the year's end, so I'd imagine that everyone is fighting for second place, anyway.

Lucinda's album is my favorite of hers probably since Car Wheels or Essence, but it also seems to have been forgotten already because of its early release date.

Have seen quite a bit of chatter about this having been a weak year for country. I only sort-of agree. There have been plenty of albums that I've thought were worthwhile, but nothing that I've found to be truly outstanding.

One of my Nashville friends turned me on to Kelsey Waldon. She just dropped a new single yesterday. Paired with the last one, I have some pretty high hopes for the album.

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

Jon, ao you think Margo Price has more fans among writers than Elizabeth Cook does? I honestly don't know; my impression is that Cook has been a cause celebre since Balls back in '07, and that Welder, which made #3 in the 2011 Scene poll. I think the poll contains a lot of Americana stuff, with Jason Isbell at #2 this year and Rhiannon Giddens, James McMurtry, Emmylou and Rodney, John Moreland, Joe Ely, Dave Rawlings Machine and the Bottle Rockets all making the list. I did see a big Margo Price billboard on the interstate outside Nashville, too, so there's that. Americana is big business.

I've got a few thoughts on Cook and Price and country: So far, I rate what Cook did on her new one a bit higher than what Margo Price does on Midwest Farmer's Daughter, which just seems like a well-done re-creation of an idea of '70s country. I suppose this is my common complaint about Nashville's attempts to do up country for a new era with the work of Sturgill and Margo and Elizabeth Cook, too, that there's a built-in deflector in the music, if you find it underwhelming then you're not on board with the noble project, if you like it immoderately you're guilty of making a fetish out of that old stuff. What Jason Isbell sings about has something to do with what younger folk, in the South and maybe elsewhere, see as a vexed populist tradition, just as what McMurtry sings about has links to the critique of macho that I suppose had something to with old-time country, too, but neither one of them has much to do with what the core audience of country wants today, which includes the (kinda soft-edged and not very specific) music of Chris Stapleton, seems to me. I like Isbell and McMurtry, but musically they're working so far in the realm of readymade that I can't connect totally with either one (though McMcurtry's last one did take some musical chances). So I guess what Cook does on her new record is a kind of intellectualized version of the sonic and musical ambitions of current country and that's what makes it interesting, along with her ability to write lyrics that play off her "celebrity" and "troubles being famous and the attendant rehab of it all." And as usual, the very idea of country music in this era is part of the problem Price and Cook have--it would take a genius to figure out just how much the limitations of country help these two and how much they impede them in their search for some kind of new expression.

Meant to say above, that Cook's Welder, which made #3 in the 2011 Scene poll, was also considered a real breakthrough, and in some ways it was--whatever you made of the ballyhooed production by Don Was (retro retooled, in my estimation, not uninteresting), the songwriting was pretty sharp and funny.

Going for what I called her "sonic grid"---that dark, spare, hard-edged but flexible framework for the throughline of her narrative themes---has some of the same appeal as Stapleton and Erich Church's recent albums, something of a Jamey Johnson atmosphere too, but I doubt that she expects as much radio play as they've gotten. The main challenge is writing about this stuff at all, without going into lurid imagery or therapyspeak, or seeming evasive. Her current solution seems to be just to begin in the middle, to tell it like she might have told it then, in her most self-aware, lucid and candid moments. And maybe she's still in the middle of it, for all we know--but I have the impression (because the self-awareness etc is so sustained here) that she's been through some kind of therapy, with whatever lapses experiences or still possible, and of course the idea is to know yourself to be a recovering addict, present tense, no matter how long you've been sober. So, while these songs may not be the deepest, as Edd prev. mentioned, this is how far she's gotten writing-wise (with anything she'd want to show us now, at least).

"with whatever lapses *experienced* or still possible", I meant.

@Edd

Personally, I like Cook's album more than Price's; I don't think Price's voice is strong enough to carry some of her rowdier material, and the production overpowers her at times. But, at least among the writers I follow and interact with, Price has significantly more buzz. She's also received far more attention in the general music press and has had more noteworthy promo gigs (all of the late-night shows, SNL), and her team has actively been promoting her among Grammy voters. It seems to me that she is really being embraced as this year's country act (along with Morris) that non-country writers are going to bat for. I'd be legitimately shocked were she to place below Cook on the Nashville Scene poll.

I agree whole-heartedly about Isbell's aesthetics; he's my favorite contemporary songwriter by several orders of magnitude, and I love his singing voice. But I preferred the production on his first three solo / 300 Unit albums to that of the two that have been embraced by a fairly large audience. I certainly don't begrudge him the success and voted for both of those albums on my Nashville Scene ballots in their respective years, but the sameness and safeness of the production among him, Stapleton, and the majority of these Americana troubadour guys has been boring me for years. Acts like Lambert, Church, and Little Big Town typically take more interesting risks in that regard, and "Vice" is a good example of that.

prefer isbell's more (sorry, but) "literary" songs. decoration day, live oak, etc. last record was forgettable but for a couple songs that were memorable only for being too maudlin for even me.

really like miranda's voice on the new one.

Price's album is okay for a while, but the Loretta Lynn gloss gets to be more distracting than retro-gratifying especially since the actual LL popped up with a sparky new album (incl. robust chesnuts), inconveniently and prob unexpectedly enough. Maybe MP will modify her approach next time. Surprised at some of the enthusiasm, like xgau, who can be pretty good on country, preferred her debut to Cam's, for instance.
Speaking of xpost Dave Cobb, conceptual compilations are not quite his best move (are they anybody's?). but as usual, he tailors the production to the artist on Lori McKenna's The Bird and the Rifle---title track may be more sparse than spare, but that's the way she wrote it. More often, the arrangements and sound design are just polished enough to reflect emotional undercurrents (and tunefulness), carefully guarded by candid, succinct, sometimes blunt, occasionally harsh (but going for judicious, not kneejerk-judgmental) words.

The arrangement is timed to go with emerging, perhaps reluctant degrees of empathy w both fules in "Old Men Young Women": kind of a head-shaking, been-there perspective---she's, what, 47 now, after all.

Not that she's incapable of sentiment---would have been interesting to hear her version of "Girl Crush", which she wrote; she does include "Humble and Wise", a hit for Tim McGraw (didn't somebody on Nashville cover this set's opener, "Wreck You"? If not, they should). And in "All These Things" she lets the shiny imagery run and run through her fingers. But soon enough, she's waking up early enough to slip away from a reunion, leaving a couple of good goodbyes, especially "If Whiskey Were A Woman, " which is also a note to self, to get real about her own limitations.

How did I miss her all this time? Powers' intro cites Bittetown as a particular focal point of creativity and critical acclaim, way back in '04. And here's xgau:
Unglamorous [Warner Bros., 2007]
Sobriety can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially in a Nashvillian who claims in so many words she expects ecstasy. If she joked around or liked to party, it might give her country goodness the wiggle room every way of life needs. But she does like to rock, and there's no denying her eye for out-of-the-way details or her ear for a decent tune. Of several believable love songs, I'll take the full-bodied "Witness to Your Life" over the spartan title tune. Of several believable unlove songs, I recommend "Drinkin' Problem" to Al-Anon. A-

Anyway, this is still here 'til the 29th:
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/21/485899363/first-listen-lori-mckenna-the-bird-the-rifle

Bittertown, that is. And "Girl Crush" is a co-write (with the same team who worked with her on one of those good goodbyes, as Powers points out).

Greil Marcus on a Nashville singer, Tomi Lunsford, from his Real Life Top 10 column:

4. Tomi Lunsford, “Go to People,” on Come on Blue (Speedbank) From a Nashville singer, on an album where her steps sometimes seem hobbled, a tune that could have been written by Guy Clark: with Pete Finney on pedal steel as if he’s less playing the song than overhearing it, a where-are-all-my-friends lament that’s sultry, delicate, sly, even sinister.

And an old No Depression review of her High Ground.

"Go to People" is pretty sly. I hear what the No Depression reviewer was getting at when he compared Lunsford to Terry Garthwatie--the almost-jazz, conversational aspect of her singing.

obsessed with this lydia loveless song

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/26/487352477/songs-we-love-lydia-loveless-out-on-love

obsessed with this lydia loveless song

That is a remarkable song. The melodic contour of it really gets under the skin.

Listening to xpost Tomi Lunsford's Come On Blue on Spotify, and so far have 0 clue why Marcus hears it as "sometimes hobbled", though with 12 unhurried tracks in 37 minutes, there's a lot to take in: the turns in her phrases, arrangement and maybe rhythmic sense(s) have kind of an oops upside the head effect, which seems deliberate, though maybe something about impulse control too, another theme. See, right off, she's cheerfully acknowledging that things get kinda wild around her, but she's hoping you'll keep an open mind and come see her again, the good Lord willin' and whether the creek rises again or not during tomorrow night's cocktail hours. The playful and versatile aspects of her musicality do remind me of some Terry Garthwaite tracks on her solo debut, more than with Joy of Cooking, but the voice and lyrics make me think about what if Janis Joplin had reached middle age, bumping along in her dusty urban sprawl country excursions, the ones she began near the end, via "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes-Benz."
"Go To People" finds her noting that the light's green but she's sidelined, not used to driving, but all her go-to people are gone; for instance, she had "a couple in town, but one got married, and the other got drowned." Oh well, take a headache pill, check her dog in the backseat, he's turning into a cat and giving pithy advice, so seems like he can be go-to too, at least for now.
But she's socially concerned as well, wants to see all dreamers taken care of, and reminds us that "Jesus Was A Union Man", a jumpercablestronica affirmation.
What a trip. Back to listening.

Speaking of xgau on McKenna, now there's a whole new column(didn't realize she's got ten albums):http://noisey.vice.com/blog/robert-christgau-lori-mckenna-expert-witness
His Spotify list for The Bird and the Rifle only shows the title track, but I heard the whole thing on there this week (his Spotifys for some others do incl. all tracks, apparently).

I like McKenna's record. Very detailed singing, and the co-writes prove they're all working real hard to be observant. Far better than Margo Price's record, which just traffics in rather stale '70s rock-country modes--McKenna makes something of the restraint of country.

Another thing I picked up on via Marcus' "Real Life Rock Top 10" column--a truly fucked-up 2015 interview with Steve Earle. I've never understood the appeal of Earle, but I've also recognized some of his undeniably good ideas, his ambition, and I also kind of liked his recent blues album (which has elements of old-school Jansch-style folk-blues guitar in it, and also benefits from his undeniably crack band). Anyway, he makes this rather amazing claim about the origins of blues--this sounds like someone from 50 years ago, before anyone did the research:
"As far as we know, and it’s the beginning of recording so there wouldn’t be recordings that predated it, but there is tradition and people have done the research and I’ve done the research.
There aren’t earlier versions of those Robert Johnson songs that anybody knows about, so as far as we know, the entire genre of the blues as we know it, every bit of it, is based on one Robert Johnson song or another, which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it. There’s not one single thing that’s not really based on a Robert Johnson song. I mean the whole twelve-bar, sixteen-bar modern blues thing—it’s all based on Robert Johnson."
The entire thing is here.

Wow, pretty cray, and I don't mean Robert. He talks a lot, and much of it's posted, but never seen/heard him that off before. Typically overdoing the research, I listened to most of his albums up through I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive. when covering his tour behind that record and the same-titled novel: liked most of what I heard, and a fair amount since; settling into the autumnal makes the scroungy vocals even more noticeable, though they're countered and blended fairly well on Colvin and Earle.

The first Trio album is the best, right? Haven't heard much since, but kind of interested in this box, incl. prev. unreleased.

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a/images/6f48d1d2-7d66-4408-9722-34238513f52f.jpg

Much more info here:
http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a&id=c1e6b695f9&e=2d74d5e1e7

and here's the new video of "Wildflowers" (alternate take)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeDTV487S5c

Sunny Sweeney says she's got new music on the way---Thank Hank, cos my likely Nashville Scene ballot Top Ten still has *several* vacancies:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIqsSFHAZTg/

Kelsey Waldon's album is streaming at NPR. It's damn nice.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/04/488238618/first-listen-kelsey-waldon-ive-got-a-way

Couple of Nashville guys getting some attention in the 'Mericana side of things: Bill Eberle, who's been cited as up-and-comer by Rolling Stone, got a new one you can hear here. Best track so for is "Trayvon Martin Blues," which takes ramblin' as first principle and doesn't nosedive too much by the end of its five minutes. Reminds me a bit of fellow folkie Jake Xerxes Fussell or maybe Nathan Salsburg, but Eberle does wear his heart on his sleeve.
Similarly, Andrew Leahey--a journalist for RS and others--takes Rhett Miller's aren't-women-somethin' shtick and turns it into Tom Petty, sorta. His new one, Skyline in Central Time, is a bit soft around the edges, aims to please but has interesting flecks of "angst," and I'm not sure the riffs-meets-songs aspect of his music is fully worked out, which may mean, as with Eberle, it's not pointed enough to really engage me. "Little in Love" is tol'able Rhett Petty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dyNx1XB8pg

Not big on original Rhett or Petty will check, def also Kelsey Waldon. Folk-country duo Kacy & Clayton pretty appealing so far on Pickathon live stream:
http://livestream.com/pickathon/events/5911922?origin=stream_live&mixpanel_id=138c362e53432-0be39e05d-6f1b264b-c0000-138c362e535e&acc_id=4906583&medium=email

Now they got a band behind 'em: kinda Great Speckled Bird---Ian & Sylvia w Nashville cats, mixed results---also reminding me to remind yall that Henske & Yester's Farewell Aldebaran is finally being reissued legit & remastered (my fave track is the tuff cosmic folk-dronin' "Raider").

Got some groovy hooks, need to invest in electronic tuner for faster modulation however

Slow-singing x fast-waltzing "Nottumun Town"--it works!

Okay, gonna have to check their 2016 album

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2644526771_10.jpg

Dow, I do like some Rhett solo stuff, Petty not so much. Peoples ought to remember that Judy Henske took Billy Edd Wheeler's "High Flyin' Bird" into the charts a couple years before Richie Havens turned it into a hippie jam.

And can't say I ever really got into Henske and Yester's Farewell--though I do like Judy Henske in theory and in the movie Hootenanny Hayride and on the live 1966 album she did with Jack Nitzsche.

"High-Flying Bird"! Really?! During recent discussion of her on Hipster Kisses thread, I linked some Unterberger liner notes for Whiskeyhill Singers etc., but didn't notice that info. Wow.

xpost jeez, bad shade of orange, sorry----now they're covering Sir Doug's "Dynamite Woman", sounds cool

Here's Brent Cobb, Dave's cousin, doing "Solving Problems" from forthcoming Shine On Rainy Day. Yikes. Sententious and contemptuous of the common man in one mumble-peg-sung package set to a post-Mr.Bojangles Genteel on My Mind acoustic guitar sequence. "As they come and go/Like those wannabes on Music Row," of course he's read T.S. Eliot. His cousin produced.

Here's the Brent vid, in the Tennessean's story.

Kelsey Waldon's album is streaming at NPR. It's damn nice.

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/04/488238618/first-listen-kelsey-waldon-ive-got-a-way

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever)
Yes indeed. Although don't agree w Powers' intro: "deadpan"? She's right that it be a pan full o' feeling, but Waldon sounds pretty upfront emotional, without ever emoting---she's still indignant when she thinks about people who have fucked with her, or tried to, but mainly impatient, cos she's on her way, so get out of it---unless you've got some endearing young or old charms; she can take a detour while looping back to where "Life Moves Slow", although she's only passing through and doesn't slow down that much herself, and what she really likes about it is it's where "folks still speak their minds": her true roots, or the ones she wants to claim.
Although, like zpost Lori McKenna, she can still relive-live the spooked early displacement in a hometown, like "I couldn't be what my friends wanted me to be"---even aside from what her parents etc. expected. This is "There Must Be A Someone (I Can Turn To), where she's reaching way back to perhaps commercially, even culturally premature country-to-rock-folk etc crossover tendencies of the Gosdin Brothers' original, from an album they made before the one with Gene Clark. This would've been good on that, but anyway, as Powers mentions, the Clarkless Byrds did cover it too:
(who sings on this track?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymX4CWXwwas
Whole thing has spare, denim jacket, Byrdsy, pre-Eagles, electric country-folk appeal, not too trad and certainly not too fancy, though as with Honeycutters, who I talked about upthread, could use a little vocal variety, like occasional duet or harmonies. Steel guitar and maybe 12-string, sometimes, for the rhythm guitar---especially like that they both get more to do on "Travelin' Down That Lonesome Road", over a dark drone, and Waldon's voice is fuller and more projected than usual. Bass and drums always good, esp. on headphones.
As with xpost Tomi Lunsford's album, this is in the old LP ratio: here we get 11 songs/38 minutes and change---doesn't get me going like Lunsford's, but it's pretty good.

(Powers thinks Waldon's own "Dirty Old Town" is a honky-tonker whose title must have been inspired by The Pogues. Yeah, they did a good version of the late-40s-written Ewan MacColl song, but it was already a folkie staple.)