Rolling Country 2013

They're ba-a-a-ck...
http://zomgtalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dixie_chicks_001.jpg

... at least for one Greatest Hits show. I'd like to go see most of this:

The Chicks Replace Lady A at the Craven Country Jamboree

Craven, SK (December 26, 2012) - Today festival organizers announced the new Saturday headline act for the 2013 Craven Country Jamboree - the Dixie Chicks.

"We knew we had to find something extra special to replace Lady Antebellum when the band canceled their summer dates due to Hilary Scott's pregnancy," said Kim Blevins, director of marketing. "We are extremely excited that we can offer a taste of country music royalty to the Craven Country Jamboree. And it won't be a regular show - not only will our fans see Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, the three original members, this is a greatest hits package. The Craven date will be one of the only opportunities fans of the band will have to see them live. This is an incredibly special moment for Chicks fans and the Craven Country Jamboree."

The Dixie Chicks are the highest selling female group of any genre. They hold the distinction of being the only country music group in history and the only female group of any genre to earn back to back Diamond awards for selling over 10 million albums. As a greatest hits show, their performance will be one big sing-a-long as with well-loved anthems like "Not Ready to Make Nice," "Wide Open Spaces," "Cowboy Take Me Away," "Landslide," "Ready to Run," "Good-bye Earl," and "Sin Wagon" to name but a few.

The Dixie Chicks join country superstar headliners Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, Scotty McCreery, Phil Vassar, Brantley Gilbert, Doc Walker, Sawyer Brown, Chad Brownlee, Gloriana, High Valley, Small Town Pistols, Jason Blaine, and country legends Randy Travis and Bill Anderson. Also returning is the funniest duo in comedy - Williams and Ree.

"This is the biggest, deepest lineup of any festival in Canada," said Blevins. "We always strive to bring something for everyone from the biggest names in country music, to the best Canadian acts, to amazing classic country, all at the lowest price."

Maines' cover of Pink Floyd's "Mother," first on a West Memphis Three benefit comp, will apparently be the title track of her solo album (out this spring, according to her Tweet). Tuscaloosa's own Ann Powers talks about hearing it the day after Newtown; also streaming here, for a while: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/01/01/168222267/hearing-a-mothers-song-after-tragedy

So who & what did you vote for in the Nashville Scene poll, Dow?

After you, my good man.

Eh, I'll wait til somebody else goes first, then dig mine out. Am definitely interested in seeing other folks' ballots, though.

Maines has been pretty insistent that her solo album is a "rock" project and that she isn't likely to rejoin the Dixie Chicks for anything more than that one-off show any time soon, and Robison and Maguire have reported that they're working on the second Court Yard Hounds album. And I love Maines' voice, but that cover of "Mother" is not my favorite thing I've ever heard.

And if somebody has to go first...

TOP 10 COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:
1. Iris DeMent, Sing the Delta
2. Kelly Hogan, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
3. Todd Snider, Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables
4. Corb Lund, Cabin Fever
5. Little Big Town, Tornado
6. Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me Back
7. Father John Misty, Fear Fun
8. Zac Brown Band, Uncaged
9. Jamey Johnson, Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran
10. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson, Wreck & Ruin

TOP 10 COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:
1. Kelly Hogan, “Plant White Roses”
2. Zac Brown Band, “The Wind”
3. Pistol Annies, “Takin’ Pills”
4. Alan Jackson, “So You Don’t Have to Love Me Anymore”
5. George Strait, “Drinkin’ Man”
6. Todd Snider, “In Between Jobs”
7. The Band Perry, “Better Dig Two”
8. Chris Young, “Neon”
9. Ashley Monroe, “Like a Rose”
10. Matraca Berg, “The Dreaming Fields”

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
1. Chris Young
2. Corb Lund
3. Jamey Johnson

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
1. Iris DeMent
2. Kelly Hogan
3. Kellie Pickler

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2012:
1. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
2. Zac Brown Band
3. Punch Brothers

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2012:
1. Iris DeMent
2. Todd Snider
3. Corb Lund

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS, OR GROUPS OF 2012:
1. Little Big Town
2. Zac Brown Band
3. Old Crow Medicine Show

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2012:
1. Shovels & Rope
2. Father John Misty
3. Humming House

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:
1. Iris DeMent
2. Corb Lund
3. Zac Brown Band

Same ballots I submitted for these singles and albums countdowns, both of which I like a lot. I didn't submit any comments again this year, didn't vote for any reissues because I just didn't hear enough of them last year to feel like I could make an informed decision, and was really tempted to scrap the "New Acts" list altogether due to apathy. Looking over my ballot and my iPod play counts, 2012 was far and away the most "alt" leaning year I've had since 2003, but I honestly just didn't love anything on country radio this year as much as a "Love Done Gone" or a "Little White Church" or even a "Giddy on Up" from the past couple of years.

It's a foregone conclusion that the Jamey Johnson album is topping the poll, yes? I can't fathom anything else that will have the same kind of across-the-board support.

My ballot (had two singles and zero albums in common with jon_oh).

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:
1. Taylor Swift – Red (Big Machine)
2. Jerrod Niemann – Free The Music (Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville)
3. Blackberry Smoke – The Whippoorwill (Southern Ground)
4. Thomas Rhett – Thomas Rhett EP (The Valory Music Co. EP)
5. Darrell Scott – Long Way Home (Thirty Tigers/Full Light)
6. Kip Moore – Up All Night (MCA Nashville)
7. Turnpike Troubadours – Goodbye Normal Street (Bossier City/Thirty Tigers)
8. Kix Brooks – New To This Town (Arista Nashville)
9. Bryan Clark & The New Lyceum Players – Southern Intermission (Rainfeather)
10. Drew Nelson -- Tilt A Whirl (Red House)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:
1. Kacey Musgraves – Merry Go ‘Round
2. Pistol Annies – Takin’ Pills
3. Carrie Underwood – Blown Away
4. Edens Edge – Too Good To Be True
5. Kix Brooks feat. Joe Walsh – New To This Town
6. The Farm Inc. – Home Sweet Home
7. Dean Brody - Canadian Girls
8. Alan Jackson – So You Don’t Have To Love Me Anymore
9. Toby Keith – Beers Ago
10. David Nail – The Sound Of A Million Dreams

TOP (ONE) COUNTRY REISSUE OF 2012:
1. (Various) – Country Funk 1969-1975 (Light In The Attic)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2012:
1. Blackberry Smoke
2. Turnpike Troubadours
3. Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2012:
1. Thomas Rhett
2. Kip Moore
3. Miss Willie Brown

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Jerrod Niemann
3. Lionel Richie

Didn't submit any comments (haven't in years), but here are some footnotes:

-- Guess I decided Taylor's album was more country than the sum of its singles, one or two or three of which I like as much as some singles I did vote for.

-- Decided 2012 albums by Elfin Saddle, Bhi Bhiman, Them Bird Things (whose previous album I voted for in 2011) and Kid Rock (whose album doesn't attempt country until its final three songs) were not country enough to vote for, even though I like them all more than some albums I did vote for, and even though some might actually sound more country in some ways than the Taylor Swift one I voted for.

-- Decided not to vote in the vocalist or songwriter categories; just didn't feel strongly enough about who deserved a vote, and haven't figured out a good way to keep track of who does (for instance, I can never decide if carryover singles from 2011 albums should be taken into account here, and I almost never watch CMT or country award shows much less concerts these days), and I never even got around to hearing the new Toby Keith album. If I had voted, I almost definitely would've named Taylor in both categories, and Lionel Richie and probably Charlie Starr, who sings for Blackberry Smoke, in the male vocalist category.

-- Almost voted for Kacey Musgraves in the Best New Act category, then decided I'd save her for next year, when she has an album out.

Many Hon. Mention albums and many many comments on them and ballot choices are posted in "Rank, Strangers! Pt Dude: The Telling" at
http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com although many are tweaks of RC 2012 posts

13th Annual etc Nash Scene Ballot (Don Allred)

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:
1.The Hobart Brothers and Lil Sis Hobart---At Least We Have Each Other
2. Dwight Yoakam---3 Pears
3. Various Artists---Kin: The Songs of Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell
4. James Hand---Mighty Lonesome Man
5. Iris DeMent---Sing The Delta
6. Giant Giant Sand--Tucson
7. Jamey Johnson---Living For A Song: A Tribute To Hank Cochran
8. Chris Smither---Hundred Dollar Valentine
9. John Fullbright---From The Ground Up
10. Catherine Irwin---Little Heater
(See many Hon. Mentions in Comments, posted below Ballot)
TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:

1. the dB’s---”She Won’t Drive In The Rain Anymore”
2. Tim McGraw---”The One That Got Away”
3. Kix Brooks ft. Joe Walsh---”New To This Town”
4. Charles Esten and Hayden Panettiere---”Undermine”
5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse--”Oh Susannah”
6. Kristen Kelly---”Ex Old Man”
7. Lennon and Maisy Stella--”Telescope”
8. LeAnn Rimes---”Borrowed”
8. Carrie Rodriguez--”Lake Harriet”
9. Willie Nelson---”Roll Me Up And Smoke Me”
10. Willie Nelsom---”Come On Back Jesus”

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2012:

1. Wilco & Billy Bragg---Mermaid Avenue Vol. III
2. The Flatlanders---The Odessa Tapes
3.
4.
5.

(Sorry, forgot to remove the paren about Comments being posted below)

Although I'll mention the xpost Hon. Mentions incl. Kix Brooks, Tim McGraw, Kelly Hogan, Don Williams, Todd Snider, Patterson Hood, Rosie Flores, Janis Martin, Willie Nelson.

Here's mine, guys. I recently wrote a Scene pick on Darrell Scott, whose record almost made my list but didn't, partly because of his voice and partly because the damned thing goes on too long. but the song I mention about why cowboys sing the blues is pretty great, and the arty stuff is cool. I also liked the Kix Brooks record, some of the Casey James was nice, and the Trishas were also good, as was Todd Snider's record, but while I think Todd is a genius, it's just not a country record--I think...and the Janis Martin record was OK, the Wanda Jackson/Justin Earle Record suffered from bad song choices and underproduction...etc., etc. Hunter Hayes' record is horrible except for the single I list here, which I think is inexplicably great..!

and I wanted to list the Flatlanders in my reissue section but instead concentrated on straight country reissues for the most part, not box sets or compilations, in the theory that people oughta get a chance to hear the Jones or Jerry Reed or Glaser Bros. records straight...(side note, Jim Glaser visited the house today for an interview, and what a great singer and a wonderful guy with lots of stories to tell). happy new year, everybody.

Edd Hurt.
>
> TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. Little Big Town Tornado Capitol Nashville
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> 2. Iris DeMent Sing the Delta Flariella
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> 3. Jerrod Niemann Free the Music Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville
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> 4. Dwight Yoakam 3 Pears Warner Bros.
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> 5. Kenny Chesney Welcome to the Fishbowl Blue Chair/Columbia
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> 6. Kellie Pickler 100 Proof Sony Nashville/BNA
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> 7. Edens Edge Edens Edge Big Machine
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> 8. Don Williams And So It Goes Sugar Hill
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> 9. Kip Moore Up All Night MCA Nashville
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> 10. Jamey Johnson Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran Mercury Nashville
>
>
>
> TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. Little Big Town "Pontoon" Capitol Nashville
>
> 2. Kenny Chesney "El Cerrito Place" Blue Chair/Columbia
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> 3. The Farm "Home Sweet Home" All In/Elektra Nashville
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> 4. Jerrod Niemann "Shinin' on Me" Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville
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> 5. Eric Church "Springsteen" EMI Nashville
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> 6. Ronnie Dunn "Let the Cowboy Rock" Arista Nashville
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> 7. Kacey Musgraves "Merry Go 'Round" Mercury Nashville
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> 8. Hunter Hayes "Somebody's Heartbreak" Atlantic
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> 9. Dwight Yoakam "A Heart Like Mine" Warner Bros.
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> 10. Randy Rogers Band "One More Sad Song" MCA Nashville
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>
>
> TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. George Jones The Grand Tour/Alone Again Morello
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> 2. The Sir Douglas Quintet Border Wave Fuel 2000

> 3. Jerry Reed The Unbelievable Voice and Guitar of Jerry Reed/ Nashville Underground Real Gone
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> 4. Bill Wilson Ever Changing Minstrel Tompkins Square
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> 5. Tompall & the Glaser Bros. The Award Winners/Rings & Things Hux
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>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. Jamey Johnson
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> 2. Kenny Chesney
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> 3. Eric Church
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>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. Kellie Pickler
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> 2. Taylor Swift
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> 3. Iris DeMent
>
>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2012:
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>
>
> 1. Zac Brown Band
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> 2. Brad Paisley
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> 3. The Lumineers
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>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2012:
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>
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> 1. Luke Laird
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> 2. Darrell Scott
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> 3. Kathy Mattea
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>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2012:
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>
>
> 1. Little Big Town
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> 2. Lady Antebellum
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> 3.
>
>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2012:
>
>
>
> 1. Kip Moore
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> 2. Edens Edge
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> 3. Hunter Hayes
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>
>
> COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:
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>
>
> 1. Little Big Town
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> 2. Jamey Johnson
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> 3. Iris DeMent
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>
>
Comments.

Little Big Town's Tornado and Jerrod Niemann's Free the Music seemed of a piece in 2012--they appeared to comment on the possibilities of country music in ways that suggest the future of country could depend upon formal and aural innovation as much as has always depended upon songwriting. Niemann's record doesn't contain too many songs that are memorable in and of themselves, and the tropes are firmly in place, including a song about making margaritas. Yet its formal panache and willingness to go for the programmatic effect makes Free the Music a record about country music and its audience--it's a concept record, a modernized version of what Reprise Records used to release back in the heyday of experimental singer-songwriters. The whole thing is extraneous to itself and convoluted in ways that take some getting used to, but its combination of good-old-boy wonderment and true sophistication fascinates me. Meanwhile, Little Big Town's California-cool, Fleetwood Mac-style harmonies and ingenious rhythm tricks and equally inventive guitar sounds don't completely disguise the songs, which do repay repeated listening and which convincingly lay out a post-country vision of country that suggests a healthy distance from the genre's famed heartbreak and pain. "Pontoon" turns the beat around, while "Leavin' in Your Eyes" is subtle, deadly and, yes, a little pained, despite the tricky harmonies.

I respect Jamey Johnson's Hank Cochran record more than I enjoy it--I'll take Jeannie Seely any day, or even Jody Miller, doing Cochran tunes. Johnson's voice carries its own constraint, and that's interesting, but I'd like to hear a little more joy, and the sound of Johnson's album doesn't give that to me. Great tunes, though--I just don't know why he made the record.

Although Darrell Scott sings like a typically self-involved singer-songwriter with a nice feel for country, the Americana stalwart's Long Ride Home impressed me. The songs talked about male angst quite effectively, and Guy Clark and Scott sing "Out in the Parking Lot" like the modern classic it deserves to be. Hidden away on this hour's worth of music is a song about why country boys have got to sing the blues, and Scott's self-involvement makes it go. That's why Americana can be fun sometimes.

The television series Nashville is another soap opera--it suggests that music is always secondary to money and that those who control money, and cities like Nashville, are always corrupt. It doesn't portray its aging star, young thing or aspiring songwriter in any psychologically deep manner. I like the way it seems to say that songwriting is almost as good as sex in town presumably full of both.

Wrote for Nashville Scene

I also liked some of the dB's record, but not enough--they lost their touch along the way. "Send Me Something Real" was the only great track. and Patterson Hood's record is as verbally interesting to me as it is totally musically uninteresting...this year I got way into Jeannie Seely and Jody Miller, and ever more into George Jones, and the reason I didn't rate Jamey's Hank Cochran record higher is what I say above, pretty much, it just lacks joy, and I can't even remember now if Jamey did Cochran's great "Billy Ray Wrote a Song," which Jones did in the '70s, but that is one amazing meta-country tune that is funny, wise and weird all at once...and I definitely discovered lots and lots of great OLDER country, as usual, from Dave Dudley to Jack Greene to Jody Miller and Carl Smith this year, courtesy of the cheap vinyl you can acquire here...

and I forgot to mention an honorable record, Marley's Ghost's Jubilee. pretty good even with a Marty Stuart cameo. and their "It's All Over Now" with Old Crow and Jack Clement beat Wanda Jackson's version on her J. T. Earle thing. the Bill Wilson record is a classic of Waylonism in a somewhat more midwestern mode, for reissues. this last year I managed to interview two of the most elusive Nashville producers, Chips Moman, who really was great, and Bob Johnston, who really was high-profile but perhaps not as great as all that (Johnston produced the late Patti Page's comeback record in the '60s, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." I also met Nashville's premier Minnie Pearl imitator, whom I'd seen do her stuff at a Jeannie Seely show, at a backyard party in my neighborhood--I didn't know there are more than one Minnie Pearl imitator doing her thing in town, but there are.

Country Music Critics Poll ballot 2012

(Regarding my wager at the start of my comments, Geoff emailed me back to point out that Taylor Swift got 7 votes in 2006 for "Tim McGraw." So much for my hubris, and my fact-checking. Fortunately I didn't put up any money.)

Geoff - For the first time ever, I whiffed on the albums list. I enjoyed a bunch of albums but didn't give them enough attention to vote in the category. After 2011's dismal year my listening veered away from country; oddly enough, this year I found way more country songs that I actually liked, while not looking half as hard. My top ten could happily have been a top twenty-five. I did keep my critic's hand in, writing for the Singles Jukebox, which introduced me to several country tracks I wouldn't have heard otherwise. Was a good year for new acts. So I hope you don't disqualify me; and even if you do, keep me on your list for next year, since I hope to be cookin' again.

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:
1. Taylor Swift "Red"
2. Miranda Lambert "Fastest Girl In Town"
3. Charles Esten & Hayden Panettiere "Undermine"
4. Lionel Richie ft. Jennifer Nettles "Hello"
5. Taylor Swift "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
6. Eden's Edge "Too Good To Be True"
7. Eric Church "Creepin'"
8. Kelly Clarkson ft. Vince Gill "Don't Rush"
9. Luke Bryan "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye"
10. Kix Brooks ft. Joe Walsh "New To This Town"

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
1. Toby Keith
2. Luke Bryan
3. Eric Church

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Jennifer Nettles
3. Hayden Panettiere

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2012:
1. Kacey Musgraves
2. Thomas Rhett
3. Eden's Edge

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Eric Church
3. Kix Brooks

(In addition to not voting Top Ten Albums, I also didn't list Top Five Reissues; Three Best Live Acts; Three Best Songwriters -- though Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift would surely have been in the competition if I'd given this category any thought; along with her own "Merry Go 'Round," Musgraves helped write the Esten/Panettiere "Undermine" (Musgraves' own version is scheduled for her alb) -- and Three Best Duos, Trios, or Groups.)

COMMENTS: I'll wager I was the only one of your voters to put Taylor Swift on my 2006 ballot. At the time she was in a world that seemed to reach back and place her (a world of family and God, even if her parents were in the financial industry and her taste in country leaned towards the wild wild left: Dixies and Dolly and Faith Hill), while simultaneously she was stepping into no man's land. Which is to say that she was a teenager, and this split in her was as indicative of that as her setting her songs in high schools and lovers' lanes. I'd say she now lives in Taylor Swift Land, and though she seems as restless and uncertain as ever, the restlessness doesn't have the sociological edge it once did, the question of which part of the world she's to inhabit, and whom she might pull with her. The question whether she'll take country in too pop a direction is probably irrelevant, since she's entirely inimitable. No one else sounds like her, even the ones who work with the same producers. But this is the first year I'm in a quandary over her. It's not whether to vote for her. As long as she's in country's sights and country can't duck her, and she keeps up the quality, I'll vote for her. But I'm genuinely confused by what Billboard did, the week they switched their formula and pushed "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" from almost off the Country Songs chart up to number one; not sure what it was, exactly, their switch in policy when it came to their genre charts. I think it was to count overall streams and downloads wherever those streams and downloads were coming from. Maybe this was just Billboard's capitulating to the fact that they don't know where the sales and listeners are coming from. But I think their genre charts should be a reflection of what a particular market is doing. Personally I'm not going to let a market define for me what country is. But I think *Billboard's* job is to give the readers an idea of what a market is doing. If Swift and what's generally thought of as the country audience have diverged, that's something I'd like to know. And Billboard doesn't seem to have a handle on that anymore.

I will say that "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" has the sort of glorying in self-deception that country lyricists and singers drool over; and even if the sound is fundamentally pop, there's a clarity in the arrangement that likely comes from country. Meanwhile, "Red" is the first time Taylor's written what sounds like an actual teenybopper song, as if it had been created during an elementary school exercise in beginning poetry. That's meant as a huge compliment.

Hayden Panettiere, who as a true teenpopper had thoroughly bored me, suddenly has a bead on my emotions. Talk about finding her voice.

I don't know if "Don't Rush" is a direction for Kelly Clarkson or just a blip. She was confused and feckless on her last two albums, the wrong big blast of this person's and that person's pop rock. And now here she is in '70s middle-of-the-road warmth and pain, and the richness of her pipes returns. And Lionel Richie, who to a good extent defined '70s middle-of-the-road warmth and pain, provides a terrific setting for Jennifer Nettles' half sandblaster of a voice, lushness that doesn't lose its gristle.

Lots of great male voices in country, which is fortunate because in every other genre I pay attention to the men tend to sound ridiculous.

not only will our fans see Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, the three original members...

The original members: Laura Lynch, Robin Lynn Macy, Martie Ervin, Emily Ervin.

their performance will be one big sing-a-long as with well-loved anthems like "Not Ready to Make Nice..."

Beloved in Saskatchewan, maybe. I like it fine, myself, like "Lubbock Or Leave It" even more, but doubt that either is a sing-along fave in the land of country.

Yeah, I shouldn't make fun of people who write promo copy, but they have access to Wikipedia just like everyone else.

But then, I should proofread the name Erwn before posting, shouldn't I?

Erwin

Jeez. Glares at keyboard.

original members: Laura Lynch, Robin Lynn Macy, Martie Ervin, Emily Ervin

Which reminds me that I actually found a coverless used CD copy of their 1990 debut album Thank Heavens For Dale Evans in a charity sale dollar bin a couple months back. Liked it more than I would have guessed, too.

Decided not to count "Oh Susannah" as either country or a single, otherwise it'd be number 1. Here's the Big 3 version. Here's Shocking Blue.

Forgot there was a Jamey Johnson album, therefore forgot to seek it out.

I actually have an advance CD of it I'd been meaning to send you, Frank -- Must still be waiting in a box somewhere. Anyway, fwiw, I didn't much care for it. Seemed really pointless to me, a history-lesson holding pattern by a guy with writer's block or something.

Think the Dwight Yoakam album could give Jamey a run for the Nashville Scene poll money, too, though I may just be out of the loop on such things.

In other news, I really really like the new Gary Allan album -- more than any he's done in a long time. Liking John Corbett's more alt-ish Leavin’ Nothin’ Behind on Funbone and Rose Falcon's 19th Avenue The EP Volume 2 on Universal okay, too. Not a bad start for 2013.

Rose Falcon! 6 5 4 3 2 1, get up! get up!

I was feeling a general 'blah' about writing a ballot this year. I skipped a lot of categories I was feeling ambivalent about, and skipped writing comments to the same old is this country/is that country prompt. But I did enter a ballot that looked like this -

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift - Red
2. Iris DeMent – Sing the Delta
3. Dierks Bentley - Home
4. Justin Townes Earle – Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
5. Corb Lund – Cabin Fever
6. Don Williams – And So It Goes
7. Kip Moore – Up All Night
8. Gloriana – A Thousand Miles Left Behind
9. Tim McGraw – Emotional Traffic
10. Dwight Yoakam – 3 Pears

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:

1. Alan Jackson - So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore
2. Eric Church - Springsteen
3. Josh Turner – Time Is Love
4. Taylor Swift – I Knew You Were Trouble
5. Pistol Annies – Takin’ Pills
6. Dierks Bentley – Tip It On Back
7. Dwight Yoakam – A Heart Like Mine
8. Luke Bryan – Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
9. Don Williams – I Just Come Here for the Music
10. Kenny Chesney – Come Over


COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:

1. Eric Church
2. Dierks Bentley
3. Kip Moore

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Iris DeMent
3. Kellie Pickler

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Iris DeMent
3. Dierks Bentley

<i>Liking John Corbett's more alt-ish Leavin’ Nothin’ Behind on Funbone</i>

I remember thinking the self-titled album he put out several years ago (also on Funbone) was competent enough-- a fairly pleasant mainstream effort, not out of sync with Darius Rucker or Easton Corbin-- but I'm surprised he has another one coming out.

I don't care for the lead single from the new Gary Allan, but I've always been a bit puzzled by his and his label's choices of singles. Definitely one of the Q1 albums I'm most looking forward to.

Weird, I don't remember hearing Corbett before, but I wouldn't call him mainstream. Closer to, I don't know, the Springsteen side of Steve Earle or something, with Tex-Mex honky tonk quasi-outlaw folkie parts But he sings better than Earle, and (being alt-ish) writes better than he sings. (Not sure if he acts better than Earle, but I did like him in Northern Exposure -- didn't realize he'd played Chris Stevens until I checked his Wiki page just now. I am clueless when it comes to actors' names, even if I'm seen all six seasons of a series they were on, apparently.) Also, both Corbett and Rose Falcon sing songs on their new records where Communion figures prominently (Corbett's is called "Cocaine And Communion"), which to my mind makes them examples of "Catholic Country" we talked about on Rolling Country a few years back, even if some Protestants call it communion, too. And sure enough, Corbett, at least, did attend a Catholic high school in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Liked Earle on The Wire more than on Treme, fwiw. (Prefer either to his music, though I'd probably pick up Guitar Town if I saw it for a buck.)

And I wasn't blown away by the first single off the new Gary Allan either. It's not bad, but it's not much more a standout track on the album than "Shinin' On Me" was on Jerrod Neimann's album last year.

As for Corbett's title "Cocaine And Communion," go ahead and scoff. (I kind of did.) But somebody had to do it.

On second thought, I may be jumping the gun to say Corbett writes better than he sings. More likely, he's just on the right side of competent for both. (And he might actually sing too well to be "alt-ish," come to think of it. His voice might be more mainstream than his song themes, though the latter could probably fly with Jamey Johnson or Eric Church -- I'm not sure whether people would call those two mainstream or not. Which is not to say Corbett's as good as either of them.)

Also not sure why I can never remember the "i before e except after c and in reinforce" rule where Niemann's name is concerned.

Also, um, duh, there's also the little fact that JOHN CORBETT DOESN'T ACTUALLY WRITE HIS OWN SONGS. (Not sure why I was assuming he did -- Guess he just sounds like a singer-songwriter. But on his new album, at least, he gets exactly zero co-songwriting credits, even. A fellow named Jon Randall, whose name I should probably recognize off the top of my head but sorry I don't, gets the most credits. Not that that makes me think any less of the album. But it partly explains why I skipped voting in the Nashville Scene Best Songwriter category this year.)

Xhuxk, Jon Randall was Lorrie Morgan's husband in the late '90s. not sure if that was pre- or post- her hot chicken days (she used to have a hot chicken place out on I-40 just north of town). they had a hit in the late '90s as a duet I can't recall at the moment, and I also seem to remember Randall doing a solo LP on Asylum back then called something like Coffee and Cigarettes or something, perhaps it had hot chicken in the title. and as a songwriter, he wrote "Whiskey Lullaby" that Paisley and Krauss did back a few yrs ago. I've got the Corbett record here, need to check it out.

I couldn't bring myself to add a Most Pathetic category, as I've done some years, because, after reading descriptions on or linked from this thread, I wussed out on listening to 2012 albums by Big & Rich and Hank Jr. Not that I'm protective of prev Top Ten artists per se---no prob relegating Toby and Willie and Kelly Hogan and Pee Hood to Hon. Mentions this time---but B&R and Jr. just seemed like they would be Too Pathetic. Hey, maybe I'll make that a posthumously added category to the blogments, when I do listen (I feel like it now, what the hell). Another belated addition may be Most Promising: John Fullbright (whose third album debuted in my Top Ten, so he's not Best New by Himes' rules, apparently). And Jerrod, who (my Hon Mention comment in a nutshell) is excitingly distinctive when good, leaks grey (not even gray) pablum when bad: even for generic radio bait it's boring. Mind you, he's good mostly, but the bad tracks are just numerous and so-bland-they're-distasteful enough to keep it off my Top Ten. Still, he's a trip, and here's hoping he does some kind of electro-Caribbean duet with Miguel or they inspire each other a bit more anyway. Would also like to hear Gary LeVox's subliminal twang wending its high lonesome crossover way around Jennifer Nettles' upfront pungent country goodness---a little of them both (though certainly a bit more of her) goes a lone way with me, but... say 2 minutes, 20 seconds--yeah, might sound right! (also agree with Frank re musical redemption of Hayden P., and that's what her character Juliette is all about). Yeah, Todd Snider's Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables is a bit too consistently cranked for my Country Top Ten, as it is for Edd's, but listen anyway!

reading Xhuxk above on Jamey and history-lesson Hank Cochran project, and that's kind of the way I feel about it, plus I just think Jamey's voice is too inexpressive to really convey what I, at least, love about those old-tyme country tunes Cochran was so good at. Xgau gave the Jamey album a high grade, I placed it at the bottom of my poll because I do think it's an honest attempt to redo those tunes, but I'm just not sure beyond that why he did the thing. I also happen to know most of them from other versions, with Cochran's one-time wife Jeannie Seely being the greatest exemplar in my book of Cochran's tunes, with "Don't Touch Me" being Seely's biggest hit. (Jeannie Seely I think is one of those country singers who are just a corn silk away from being great--almost as soulful as Wynette, and I also really like her beleaguered-housewife thing.) Jamey and Willie doing "Everything but You" just doesn't come close to the fleet swing of Willie's great '60s version, which I believe was collected on something called Face of a Fighter, and for me, the slightly bent and serrated pitch Willie brought to his recording is far superior to the plodding way Jamey interprets it. So I dunno, perhaps just another good-Nashville move designed to make history play dead instead of come alive. Also interested to hear more from Frank about Hayden...OK, she is a fascinating character on the TV show, and I find the sequences with her and her football hubby and his snooty Nashville family pretty close to the way upper-class folk here have always regarded country music, but on the other hand, I'd find it even more interesting if a similar upper-crust (upper middle-class) family were yee-haw and open enough to just have a good time with the music. Anyway, I'd recommend the Seely greatest hits album that appeared in the early '70s on Monument to any serious student of country, with the caveat that her albums are mostly real good too, even the ones with big hang-dog, forgotten country star Jack Greene, who was a real good singer in a Ray Price mode and made the slight jazziness of his style fit in perfectly with the balladeering Greene also specialized in.

Agree, Dow, that the Niemann album is uneven, in terms of a few songs being more generic than the rest. Just don't think I heard any country albums last year that were less uneven (Taylor Swift's included). Which is to say, every time I put it on, I was surprised by how much Jerrod's more generic songs (and I count "Shinin' On," which has bigger fans than me here, among those) were not tune-out material for me.

Rose Falcon EP is more marginal than I thought -- five perfectly tolerable songs, but I've yet to notice a really good one. I.e., Frank will be disappointed to learn that nothing comes close to "Up Up Up." (Still have that 2003 teen-pop CD, by the way; I should put it on again sometime.)

foregone conclusion that the Jamey Johnson album is topping the poll, yes? I can't fathom anything else that will have the same kind of across-the-board support

Dwight Yoakam album could give Jamey a run for the Nashville Scene poll money

Also, Kellie Pickler, right? (And if enough stubborn voters put Taylor Swift at #1, she could be right up there, maybe.)

The Jamey Johnson support actually makes me unreasonably grumpy, to be honest. Just seemed like the laziest kind of "here's what country sounded like back it was nutritious and real" record anybody could make. And I'm somebody who ranked both his previous albums pretty high. But Edd is right -- he's just too stiff a singer to justify remaking all those old songs in one place. Completely pointless, seems to me.

Well, the guests are good, JJ doesn't get in the way, the production is appropriately eerie---for the gently twisted themes, the touch of Miss Havisham and "A Rose For Emily", the candles still lit at the table, by the bed, in the museum of love and music---the songs, incl ones unheard even by xgau and certainly by me, are now at hand. I really should track down Jeanie Seely etc, but this works on its own. And I'm not nec. awed by Great Old Man shit: not by Nelson & Price's Run That By Me One More Time, Nelson Haggard & Price's Last of the Breed, or even From Lefty To Willie (should listen to that one again, prob all of 'em).

I don't know if "Don't Rush" is a direction for Kelly Clarkson or just a blip. She was confused and feckless on her last two albums, the wrong big blast of this person's and that person's pop rock. And now here she is in '70s middle-of-the-road warmth and pain, and the richness of her pipes returns.

otm. I listened to this quite a lot during the holidays.

I actually found the cavalcade of legendary guests annoying, too -- The kind of self-important grandstanding that generally hits me as fishing for a Grammy, and all the more disjointed to listen to because of it. But different strokes, obviously. Maybe it would've clicked if I'd spent more time with it; just seemed like there were more interesting, less stodgy records out there to focus on. For me, at least, Lionel Richie re-inventing his own songs as country (which I still wound up deciding was too spotty and redundant for my Scene ballot) seemed way more useful and fun. Liked Lionel's singing more, too.

I somehow completely forgot about that---not much promotion, or just me? Will check. I meant To Lefty From Wiilie o course, but would check From Lefty To Willie, especially if recently recorded...

Just you -- and country radio. According to Billboard it sold 1.07 million copies in 2012 -- ninth biggest selling album of the year in the U.S. overall, and fourth biggest selling country album (behind Swift, Underwood, and Luke Bryan.) Album went #1 country, but exactly zero singles off it hit the country chart. Figure that out.

Oops, sorry, my bad -- "Deep River Woman" feat. Little Big Town got all the way to #60 country. For one whole week.

with Cochran's one-time wife Jeannie Seely being the greatest exemplar in my book of Cochran's tunes

Edd, I'm guessing you're being figurative here, but the first time I glanced at this I was excited to think you had a book out.

Alfred, I do think Kelly Clarkson's "Einstein" was a good little go-fuck-off pop tune that got lost amid her duller elephant stomping.

Edd, I don't own a telly, so I've never seen Hayden in actin'. Back in her teenpop days she was a strong voice with no personality. Might have just been a problem with material, in that it didn't have personality, not even a generic one. Pleasing melodies would have been a help.* Her voice was too predictable, rising where you'd expect a rise, wailing where you'd expect a wail. A lot of fly balls to short right field, none falling in for hits. Whereas "Undermine" is a sharp line drive through the gap. Swings and connects on the first pitch.

*I never made it to any album tracks, though, so I don't know if there's anything ace hidden somewhere.

Frank, thanks. Hayden's character is, along with Deacon's, the most interesting in the Nashville show. My colleague at the Nashville Scene, Adam Gold, has been doing a good weekly wrapup of the show for Rolling Stone. I'll check out "Undermine." Some commas would've made my comment above re Seely a bit less ambiguous; no book, but I am working on getting a country column for the Scene underway this month, hoping it'll begin running w/ Himes' country poll. Working title for it is "Between My House and Town," the title of a pretty obscure George Jones Musicor-era tune (one of the Jones recordings that proves, vocally, he was just as pop as he was country, if you ask me, hardly any flourishes at all, sung straight except for a little shiver at the end that is a lot like what Jerry Lee or Gary Stewart would've done, only not as well.) But I digress: As for the Scene poll, I predict either Jamey or Dwight will top it, with Iris DeMent running a close second.

upcoming country:
Katie Armiger Fall into Me Jan. 15
Darius Rucker True Believers Capitol Nashville Jan. 22
Gary Allan Set You Free MCA Nashville
The Mavericks In Time Jan. 28
Tim McGraw Two Lanes of Freedom Big Machine Feb. 5
Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison Cheater's Game Feb. 12
Greg Bates s/t Republic
Paisley Wheelhouse April 9
LeAnn Rimes Spitfire Curb April 30
Randy Rogers Band Trouble April 30

I Am Jaida Dreyer--Canadian singer who wrote "Fall for Me" for Sunny Sweeney. Charted a couple of tunes--#55 and #57, says here--last year: "Guy's Girl" and Confessions." Don't think I ever heard either one of them.

and Kristofferson, Randy Houser, Emmy Rossum have records set for release in first half. I've never heard a Kristofferson album that was even listenable, let alone notable, so whatever.

There's also a new Ashley Monroe album (Like A Rose) slated for March 5.

And a new Dale Watson album (El Rancho Azul) January 29, though he seems to becoming (or maybe he's always been) one of those guys who churns out one album after another so quickly that it feels like a chore to even try to keep up. (Also plays in bars here in Austin at least every other week, seems like. Probably I should go see him sometime. But I have definitely seen his fancy tour bus a few times, parked in a residential neighborhood adjacent to ours, when I've been out on a bike ride.)

Xhuxk, I remember seeing Dale Watson in Colorado a few years back--always puts on a good show in his Buck Owens-esque mode. Every once in a while he records something that seems a bit better than his average...I guess the one I do occasionally go back to is From the Cradle to the Grave, 2007, with "You Always Get What You Always Got" a nice track, written by Chris Scruggs and his mother, Gail Davies, along with Chuck Mead, the main guy in BR549 and a pretty decent kinda post-Buck/Beatles/Stiff Records kind of Nashville power pop guy. I didn't vote for Old Crow Medicine Show this year because I basically can't stand them, and I saw them on stage this year and really disliked it intensely, but Mead and Gary Bennett opened up for them in the re-formed BR549 and I thought they sounded pretty great, more Beatles Kountry than I remembered them. But I do like Old Crow and Marley's Ghost and Jack Clement's take on "It's All Over Now" on Marley's Ghost's Jubilee, not bad at all. Old Crow strikes me as really uninflected hootenanny stuff that seems lifted from Public Domain, but maybe I need to go back and listen again...

Words I used to describe that Dale Watson album on Rolling Country 2007 (I just checked): "leaden," "ponderous," "dreary," "dull," "Johnny Cash type atmosphere." Which is to say, I didn't like it much, at least at the time. The one I did like (made by Nashville Scene and came real close to my Pazz & Jop ballot, if I remember correctly) was his previous one, Whiskey Or God, from 2006 -- which actually had a sense of humor and sense of energy to it that I haven't heard him match since. Though, as I say above, I've become less motivated to keep up with the guy.

Xhuxk, yeah, Dale Watson is just fairly high up in my retro-country category, and the "psychological" country-trauma songs on From the Cradle were just kinda lame. that tune I mention just has the best guitar lick and hook on that record, kinda even uptempo. But if he had gone for novelty-Cash a la "The Frozen Four Hundred Pound Fair-to-Middlin' Cotton Picker" or Dave Dudley/Del Reeves/Sovine truckers' country throughout, maybe that woulda been a good covers album.

Unlike Jamey Johnson, and you know, it's kinda funny to imagine Jamey doing Del Reeves or Dudley or Jim Nesbitt (author of "Truck Drivin' Cat with Nine Wives"). but if you're gonna give the People back '60s country, that's a big part of what it was. But the big time stuff wasn't like that, they went for the Hank Cochran-level, commercial, songs, except it was done in that streamlined, studio-tooled Nashville way and respected your intelligence, more or less, without being so solemn about that whole thing.

Anyway, people think stuff like Watson is "real country," and OK. but Dale never appeared on his own Del Reeves Country Carnival '60s TV show in a leisure suit looking like Jerry Reed fused into Dean Martin, and singing his truckin' hits and "Gentle on My Mind" for variety.

You can see that all done better any nite of the week on Lower Broadway via the Don Kelley Band, Nashville's hottest-pickin' country retro truckin' Buck-in covers aggregation.

Yeah, the mid-60s interplay between country, esp. Southwestern, and British Invasion was appealingly suggested, not too heavy-handed, on 3 Pears, at least as I heard it, and I think Yoakam, in a recent World Cafe interview. mentioned Buck Owens as a constant inspiration over the years. Speaking of Beatles Kontry, always liked their version of "Act Naturally", which led me to other thangs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnyzOl5-P2k

Watson's voice and material begged comparison to Cash on that '07 album, and he seemed too pleasant a fellow for the dark side: imagine what Cash could have made of "Yellow Mama", about Alabama's old faithful 'lectric chair (named for the yellow streak along the cracked center of its seat). Agree that if he stuck to the novelties etc, would have fared better. Nobody should try to be so much like Cash, Dylan, Miles, Joyce, etc. Geniuses/indelible stylists are a pain that way.

Edd, I've a couple of Jeanie Seely LPs I've picked up over the years which never made a huge impression on me, though I remember liking them well enough - I'll give them another go. Any particular recommendations for records of hers to look for? Similarly, any Jody Miller recommendations?

Speaking of Swift--from OK, Is This The Worst Piece of Music Writing Ever?

this isn't about the camille paglia piece specifically but about this amazingly stupid junior high school paper-level response to it in LAist

http://laist.com/2012/12/06/camille_paglia_rips_hollywood_a_new.php
text:
Camille Paglia isn't known for being polite or couching her feminist arguments in niceties. In an opinion piece for The Hollywood Reporter, she keenly rips Taylor Swift and Katy Perry brand spanking new assholes, calling the singers "insipid" and "bleached-out" and saying that they and their ilk are ruining things for young women.

The piece itself is a little scattered, beginning by talking about how Perry and Swift are so bland as to vault feminism back about 60 years, then moving on to talk about how young middle-class white girls have sex these days without being considered rebellious, and wrapping up by saying that there aren't enough roles in Hollywood for older women in their 40s and 50s.

But in between all that, Paglia makes the correct point that watered down performers like Swift and Perry don't provide particularly interesting role models for girls, insofar as they seem to be more reflections of what society wants them to be than expressions of their own true selves.

The only catch? There are always artists like Perry and Swift out there, and they will probably never go away.

See, not everyone is a Camille Paglia. Some people take their music cookie-cutter because they are cookie-cutter themselves. And here's the thing -- that's OK. Just like not everyone will grow up to be a lawyer or a doctor, not everyone has the eclectic taste of a punk rocker, or a hip-hop head, or a connoisseur of electronic music.

In other words, some people like bland because they are bland. Writing a takedown piece of stars like Perry and Swift, who are harmless for all intents and purposes, just seems kind of unnecessary.

original Paglia piece here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/taylor-swift-katy-perry-hollywood-398095

Seems like Swift's ever-massing target audience identify with Swift as somebody bursting out of the cocoon, fighting the good and necessary fight as each and every girl-to-woman does, regardless of Feminism-per-se's landmark victories. Paglia and her critic should see this as the obvious pitch, whether they like the songs or not. Dunno wtf deal is w Perry.

― dow, Friday, December 7, 2012 5:46 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she has a dazzling smile

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, December 7, 2012 5:50 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The 93 writers from all over North America who voted in the 13th annual Country Music Critics’ Poll named Eric Church Artist of the Year, Singles Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year. Jamey Johnson’s “Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran” was voted the year’s Best Album, followed by albums by Dwight Yoakam, Iris DeMent and Kellie Pickler. Kacey Musgraves was named the Best New Act.

There are other winners: Little Big Town scored the #5 album and the #2 single and were voted best group. Miranda Lambert, last year’s big winner, was voted Best Female Vocalist and the #5 and #9 best singles. Jason Aldean was voted Best Live Act and the #4 Artist of the Year. Taylor Swift, the #3 Artist of the Year, was the subject of much discussion in the accompanying essay and voters’ comments. Johnny Cash has the #1 and #8 Best Reissues.

The issue will go live at this link tomorrow morning:

http://nashvillescene.com/nashville/from-eric-church-to-jamey-johnson-2012-found-country-music-in-a-holding-pattern-and-searching-for-role-models/Content?oid=3230383

Anybody heard the new Rimes album? So glad "Borrowed" came out just in time for my Singles.

Country Poll results out today. Puttin up pt. 1 here, thru Reissues...

no surprises for me at the top. Americana takes up a lot of the bottom half, from Kelly Hogan to Carolina Drops to Shovels and Rope, Miller/Lauderdale, Old Crow. Justin Earle. Marty Stuart? Alan Jackson. Rodney Crowell. good, quality artists...Jerrod Niemann at #24....

Albums

1. Jamey Johnson, Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran (Mercury)

2. Dwight Yoakam, 3 Pears (Warner Bros.)

3. Iris DeMent, Sing the Delta (Floriella)

4. Kellie Pickler, 100 Proof (19/BNA)

5. Little Big Town, Tornado (Capitol)

6. Taylor Swift, Red (Big Machine)

7. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives: Nashville, Volume 1: Tear the Woodpile Down (Sugar Hill)

8. Alan Jackson, Thirty Miles West (EMI)

9. Jason Aldean, Night Train (Broken Bow)

10. Rodney Crowell and Mary Karr, Kin: Songs by Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell (Vanguard)

11. Zac Brown, Uncaged (Atlantic/Southern Ground)

12. Kip Moore, Up All Night (MCA Nashville)

13. The Time Jumpers, The Time Jumpers (Rounder)

14. Carolina Chocolate Drops, Leaving Eden (Nonesuch)

15. Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, Wreck & Ruin (Sugar Hill)

16. Dierks Bentley, Home (Capitol)

17. Justin Townes Earle, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot)

18. Don Williams, And So It Goes (Sugar Hill)

19. The Avett Brothers, The Carpenter (Universal Republic)

20. (tie) Corb Lund, Cabin Fever (New West)

20. (tie) Lionel Richie, Tuskegee (Mercury)

22. Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, Buddy and Jim (New West)

23. Willie Nelson, Heroes (Legacy)

24. Shovels and Rope, O' Be Joyful (Shrimp)

25. Carrie Underwood, Blown Away (19/Arista)

26. Jerrod Niemann, Free the Music (Arista)

27. Kelly Hogan, I Like To Keep Myself in Pain (Anti-)

28. Jason Eady, AM Country Heaven (Underground)

29. Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me Back (ATO)

30. John Fullbright, From the Ground Up (Blue Dirt)

Singles

1. Eric Church, "Springsteen" (EMI Nashville)

2. Little Big Town, "Pontoon" (Capitol)

3. Kacey Musgraves, "Merry Go 'Round" (Mercury)

4. Alan Jackson, "So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore" (EMI)

5. Miranda Lambert, "Over You" (RCA)

6. Eli Young Band, "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" (Republic Nashville)

7. Pistol Annies, "Takin' Pills" (Columbia)

8. Carrie Underwood, "Blown Away" (19/Arista)

9. Miranda Lambert, "Fastest Girl in Town" (RCA)

10. Don Williams, "I Just Come Here for the Music" (Sugar Hill)

11. Band Perry, "Better Dig Two" (Republic Nashville)

12. Chris Young, "Neon" (RCA)

13. Dierks Bentley, "Home" (Capitol)

14. Brad Paisley, "Southern Comfort Zone" (Arista Nashville)

15. Hunter Hayes, "Wanted" (Atlantic)

16. Taylor Swift, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (Big Machine)

17. Josh Turner, "Time Is Love" (MCA Nashville)

18. Taylor Swift featuring The Civil Wars, "Safe & Sound" (Big Machine)

19. Ashley Monroe, "Like a Rose" (Warner Bros.)

20. Jamey Johnson and Alison Krauss, "Make the World Go Away" (Mercury)

Reissues

1. Johnny Cash, The Complete Columbia Album Collection (Columbia/Legacy)

2. Various artists, Country Funk 1969-1975 (Light in the Attic)

3. Flatlanders, Odessa Tapes (New West)

4. Waylon Jennings, Goin' Down Rockin': The Last Recordings (Saguaro Road)

5. Jerry Reed, Unbelievable Guitar & Voice of Jerry Reed/Nashville Underground (Real Gone)

6. Hank Williams, The Lost Concerts (Time Life)

7. Woody Guthrie, Woody at 100 (Smithsonian Folkways)

8. Johnny Cash, Bootleg Vol. IV: The Soul of Truth (Columbia/Legacy)

9. Various artists, Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard (Tompkins Square)

10. Mel McDaniel, Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On: His Original Capitol Hits (Real Gone)

Who are these people? Likely I'd like any of them? (I'd look 'em up myself, but I'm lazy, plus I want opinions not facts.)

13. The Time Jumpers, The Time Jumpers (Rounder)
24. Shovels and Rope, O' Be Joyful (Shrimp)
28. Jason Eady, AM Country Heaven (Underground)
30. John Fullbright, From the Ground Up (Blue Dirt)

One of them almost has the same last name as me!

I finally got Church's Carolina, from which I'd only heard "Smoke a Little Smoke." It's damn solid – the guy's been consistent.

and in reissues...that Mel McDaniel one slipped past me and that's got to be good.

Country Funk is one I gotta get. Good selection of stuff, not all that country, but good.

Tim, the Seely Greatest Hits on Monument is the place to start. It's probably easier to find the original LP than the '93 CD these days. but her masterpiece is Thanks, Hank! with songs written by...Hank Cochran, her husband at the time. But you know, despite the cover versions of "Harper Valley P.T.A." and "Wichita Lineman" (but Seely actually does a definitive version of "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife" on 1968's Little Things), all her Monument LPs are worth hearing, high-grade shit: The Seely Style, I'll Love You More, Little Things, Jeannie Seely, and then the '72 Jeannie Seely's Greatest Hits, on Monument. On MCA I like the album Can I Sleep in Your Arms/Lucky Lady, really good late-era novelty-soul country, and she's in a bed in a barn on the cover and looking her sultriest. And for what it's worth, one of her biggest successes was the 1970 single with Jack Greene, "Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You," which for updated '66 Beatles guitar move and giant hook is hard to beat.

Tim, as for Jody Miller, the best single LP she made is probably The Nashville Sound of Jody Miller, 1969, I believe. she was maybe known as a singles artist, with her "King of the Road" riposte, "Queen of the House," but the album of the same title is real good almost-country of the '60s. I've found just about all her Epic Billy Sherrill-produced LPs here for practically nothing in good shape. Depending on your taste for almost-schlock country morphing into the mechanized '80s, you may really like Miller's 1977 Here's Jody Miller, Nashville Kraftsmen at work. I think it's pretty great. another one that shows her pop range and somewhat surprising taste in material is '76's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Recorded in Nashville, strings by Bergen White, horns arranged by Bill Mcilhiney, the guy who played one of the trumpets on Cash's "Ring of Fire" or something. dunno if she's on CD in any significant way or not.

Xhuxk, the Time Jumpers are a western-swing boogie-jam band, revivalists. Kenny Sears is the main guy, a fiddler, and Hoot Hester has been a member, I believe Vince Gill is now? Shovels and Rope: here's my 2011 Nashville Scene critics' pick on them:

"Cary Ann Hearst possesses a country voice with a built-in bluesy ache, and she writes songs as if she instinctively knows the difference between wasting her gifts and selling out. She's a big talent, as evidenced on the 2008 full-length release Shovels & Rope, a collaboration with husband and musical partner Michael Trent. Sounding desperate but loose about it, Hearst and Trent covered Charlie Feathers' "I Can't Hardly Stand It" in magnificently creepy fashion and wrote a few themselves. Shovels was a lo-fi affair guaranteed to appeal to No Depression listeners and other guardians of authenticity. Still, Hearst essayed some amazing girl-group pop on last year's Are You Ready to Die EP — the title track was worthy of Jackie DeShannon. Touring under the Shovels & Rope moniker, Hearst and Trent make beautiful, idiosyncratic music together: Their harmonies manage to sound both spectral and full-bodied."

actually, I still need to hear last year's Shovels and Rope, I guess, don't remember checking that one out.

Here's my Shovels & Rope preview, later pasted into RC 2012 and my Scene comments blogged on http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com followed by RC 2012 comments on Fullbright, also adapted for Scene comments and the blog round-up:

Also like these guys I previewed; go see 'em:
Shovels & Rope are Americana singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent, a committed couple who never settle down, or settle for less than true love and cheap thrills. 2012’s O Be Joyful tracks risky ramblers teaming up, learning the mixing and measuring of pleasures. Thrills-wise, when Hearst later calls, “Come down here and make some sense of it all,” she’s affectionately addressing someone known as Wrecking Ball. Appropriately so: after all, Hearst sent “Hell’s Bells” prowling through True Blood’s third season, and S&R’s sly, Southern Gothic beauty travels many a moonlit mile.

John Fullbright's From The Ground Up also has me evangelistic 'bout it. Call this wide open spaces/ex-dustbowl/Oil Age southern gothic or just past that. First song is like Randy Newman's "God's Song" and then some: He gives us the stuff to party with here, then He (or whoever's representing) got a hang over cure, if you can hang with that (party again, way out of or in the core of bounds). "Jerico" founds him heading east to find his destination all fallen down, but bury him in the vines, he wants to rise and be the trumpet sound all around the walls )which have to rise and fall again for him to do so). Oh, but he's a badass by day who prays at night, when the world disappears and he has to confront his fears, has an unmarked car, wants to keep things unscarred (or looking that way), only flies so far. some things are nowhere to be found, but that's not nec bad: he might want to be a rich man in a big house where he can't be found--rich or poor, no matter how loudly he testifies, is always ready to take off again. So many shadows, such appetite, eh "Fat Man" (caricature taking on a life of its own). Another for Miranda Lambert or LeAnn Rimes to consider, though the orig should be on the radio right now: "This is not reflection/Reflections are true/This is just me/Me wantin' you/Sweet silver mem'ries/Me wanting you", and the music starts another upward arc, then back to its perch, but as always (so far) with the talons to ride cows, whales, whatever you got. Strong, clean-cut voice; there's more to the boy next door than previously thought. Kid's got charisma, look out.

yeesh some typos on the caffeinated Fullbright, no wonder Himes didn't quote it ( except not really: when he used to quote me, he included the typos)

Any links to previous nashville scene country polls?

Try the previous ILM Rolling Country threads -- I'm guessing at least the past several would have a link to that year's poll, around this same time in January. (Whether the links are still active, though, is another question.)

thanks for the Shovels and Rope update, Dow.
link to last yr's Poll:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/in-a-year-ruled-by-miranda-lambert-and-her-pistol-annies-eric-church-and-hayes-carll-country-music-returns-to-taking-itself-a-little-less-se/Content?oid=2743147

Found in the vinyl bins:
Charley Pride The Best of RCA '69
From Me to You sealed '71 with "Piroge Joe"
Compton Brothers Yellow River
Jack Clement All I Want to Do in Life '78

Edd, the Jeannie Seely LP I have is "Little Things", which I've now dug out and am enjoying it very much, especially side two. Bits of the record remind me of the Sammi Smith Mega-era stuff I love so much. Thanks! I seem to be making fairly regular trips to the US these days and it's always good to have something to look out for.

Yeah, Sammi Smith! Also: it's good to have something vs. the cloying/pro forma salute to hometown values, but (from my blogged Scene ballot comments)
Kacey Musgraves, "Merry-Go-Round" : "If you don't have two kids by 21, you're done." The first line is the best, then conformity and distraction go down the hill, to fetch a point made over and over. The small town in the video looks pretty good when it's gliding by, reminding me of my Granny's town, with an actual walk-in movie theater, where I used to sit through all-day Western fests. Don't remember a frame, but now the place is an arts center: walk by and hear kids strumming, warbling, to karaoke and Garageband beats. Getting ready for talent shows, reality shows maybe, and one of these days, some of them just might want to be the next Kacey Musgraves. But if so, they're less likely to be fired up by this droning, heard-it-all, mostly we-meaning-yall "confessional", than, for instance, whatever she may do with "Undermine," which is very fine, when serving as the creative breakthrough for TV's young and restless Nashville pop-country starlet Juliette Barnes, AKA Hayden Panettiere.

Yeah, McGraw had a much more potent antidote to the obligatory pandering:
More boldly cautious is the speculative survey taken by "The One Who Got Away." A long shot success, now everybody wants some, incl everybody in the once chilly hometown, Cub Scout leaders included. "Now you tuck your scars up under your dress, like an American girl", oh hell yes. No gilt-edged guilt, self-pity, lashing out, peacemaking, "closure", just flying round in the big room. And it's even a single!

Yeah, Dow the "what happened to my hometown" trope in country. Kenny Rogers and "20 Years Ago" at least 30 years ago, right?

I guess it's the Springsteen influence that is part of what Geoff is writing about in his Country Roundup.

I need to read it all again, but did take a look at it and the comments. Holly Gleason bemoans the the whole thing, another guy complains that Richard Thompson is English, but he's Americana. "Rootlessness" seems in there somewhere, and also, the opposition between Good Influences in country and Bad Ones like Olivia Newton-John. Frank's question about the split in the audience, between Taylor Swift Country and Real Country, or however you break that down, gets at it pretty well. I think country music left Jones, Kitty Wells, Billy Sherrill, and those guys behind a loong time ago, myself.

theNashville show lays it out better than anything in the Scene poll. the young thing, the pop star, is really the one searching for authenticity. she has the mom in rehab, the shoplifting, all the things poverty and provincial Southern life can do to you. She sees the snooty Nashville family--they woulda hated Webb Pierce and George Jones but maybe liked Jim Reeves, back in the olden days in Nashville, and their social anxieties and piety have blinded them to more bracing aspects of popular culture--for what they are, leaves it all at the altar. Reyna James is just the old-time, good old, half-facing-forward half-back '80s and '90s country, a big old girl with a way with middle-class heartbreak.

What little "Americana" there is in the show is in the songwriting team--where do they end up but Austin, where whats-his-name meets his brother as the prison gates roll open. As Dow says, everyone has scars, everyone needs "closure," therapy--the pressures of even small-town life in America are immense, everyone knows someone who got shot at the mall. Everyone has a daughter who left Alabama for Seattle and Denver, and won't come back as long as her gun-toting father keeps that handgun in the house, or continues to support the Republicans.

The old stuff--Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard's 1966 hit song for Bobby Bare, "The Streets of Baltimore," gets it back when American industry was more important than Information Moving or Finance--says some of the same things at a less complicated level.

I may not make the time to read any poll essays this year, and I'm just skimming the Scene comments, but was delighted to see Anthony Easton, in wondering about how "Pontoon" snuck up on him with its appeal, saying, "it's mostly the craft." If it were you saying this, Don, I'd know the pun was deliberate. I can't tell with Anthony.

I'd say the divergence I was talking about wasn't between Taylor Country and Real Country (no matter how ironically those terms are meant), but between the country market and Taylor, a divergence I hadn't seen in the past; though maybe there was something of a drift during Speak Now.

Jiyoon and Gayoon of the great K-pop girl group 4minute are billing themselves as 2YOON and have just released a country-dance-pop (or something) EP called Harvest Moon. I'll report back when I hear it. In the meantime, there's the single, "24/7," which forapper over on K-pop 2013 calls a mess -- certainly has more of a mashup sensibility than a country sensibility. The first vocals you hear are a rap. My thumb is wavering but in the up direction. Jiyoon's climbing-and-falling wail in the prechorus is the best part (shows up first at 0:28 thru 0:33), though I'd more likely envision Robert Plant singing it than Miranda Lambert. There's a teaser with a very problematic cultural stereotype that unfortunately I find funny (and sounds more like Steppenwolf than Hank Williams). I'm sure 2YOON dance better than any of their country or rock counterparts.

I would like the EP to be great, so that on next year's ballot I can list Shinsadong Tiger, Kim Da Hoon, and Lee Sang Ho as Country Music's Three Best Songwriters Of 2013.

(xhuxk, you've got a Shinsadong Tiger song on your 2012 P&J ballot.)

The great thing about McGraw's song is he (or "you", who may be trans, with the line about having scars and being the American Girl, tho basically he's stoically talking about the price and process of success) refuses closure, unless it can mean confirmation: he doesn't sound surprised to see all the people who treated him like shit now cheering him on and swarming around him.

Having now listened to Harvest Moon, and done some searching for writer and producer credits, I discover that (1) no songs other than "24/7" even remotely pretend to be country, (2) I actually couldn't find any producer credits, but if Shinsadong Tiger and Kim Da Hoon had anything to do with the thing (as some Hallyu website claimed, but which I now doubt), it would be as producers, since they're not in the writers and arrangers credits that someone posted on Omonatheydidnt. Not that I necessarily trust such information, but my ears certainly don't hear anything of the quality of "Lovey-Dovey" or "Trouble Maker" or "TTL." There is a pretty good lite-metal power ballad, "Why Not," written by Thomas Troelsen and Remee, a couple of Danes who've done good work with SHINee and SNSD and Corbin Bleu and f(x), and also by Robbie Nevil, who as a singer did music that I've utterly forgotten but that other people like and as a writer had a hand in many of the worst of the High School Musical tracks, all of this being neither here nor there for Rolling Country. Also, while I'm still being somewhere but not here or there, Lars Aass and Ole Henrik Antonsena, a couple of Norwegians, are on the credits of "Black Swan," the third of the three good songs (out of five) on here, and they once helped M2M write "Everything You Do." And one of the two M's - Marit Larsen - went on to have occasional countryish moments including my country track of the year in 2006, not that that's relevant to 2YOON.

Which leaves us with "24/7," which is rolling in country signifiers and instrumentation while still doing a fine job of feeling K-pop and not country. It stomps along, it wails, it grins. It is resolutely and deliberately silly, but with a serious theme, and I quote (though I'm not sure whom I'm quoting): "The title track of the mini album, '24/7,' is about pulling ourselves out of the monotonous routines that we go through 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in order to seek a free, exciting life. It is a song that has an exciting intro and fun atmosphere. It combines the liveliness of country-pop with Gayoon's high notes and Jiyoon's powerful singing into a wonderful harmony." The video has a hen, a chicken, a pig, a mechanical bull, and a boombox. So, funny hunny as usual in the land down south of the 38th parallel. The track doesn't have the how-did-he-pull-that-all-together amazingness that Lee Sang Ho seemed to be going for, in imitation I'm guessing of his colleague Shinsadong Tiger. But my thumb is veering up to match my gullible smile, about a 6 or a 7.

Oh, the mechanical bull is actually a mechanical sheep, unless it's a bull in sheep's clothing.

Do mechanical sheep dream of the beautiful shepherdess, who plays the gatta, bagpipe of her native Galicia?
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169639816/a-bagpipe-slinging-spaniard-finds-a-home-in-new-york-jazz

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/01/17/cristianapato_nimg_7966_wide-d8e27c2404aa3f64c66a0b70d6bd05135e637a8f-s4.jpg

Musically and video-wise, "24/7" is pretty agreeable, but not hardly country at all. A long article about K-pop may still be on the New Yorker site--I'm tempted to call it in-depth, but don't know if anybody who knew anything about the subject would agree.

New York City has a country station for the first time in 17 years:
http://www.nashfm947.com/about/

awright! Sounds good, thanks.

Jewly Hight on Gary Allan in Nashville Scene. Make sure to read the comments on Jewly's comparison of Allan to Neil Young.

who plays the gatta, bagpipe of her native Galicia.
It's spelled gaita, Don. .

(Knew something seemed familiar about the boom-claps in "24/7." Subdee points out that there's more than a passing resemblance to Hannah Montana's "Hoedown Throwdown" -- though boom-clap aficionados will notice that, while Hannah goes "Boom boom clap, boom de-clap de-clap," 2YOON go "Boom clap, boom-b-boom clap." Think 2YOON provide more juice overall.)

That Nash FM website is a catastrophe.

How so? I'm listening to it now, still sounds OK (clear sound, typical contemporary country programming, minus OD of commercials on my local stations)

So anybody heard the new Allan? Hight's passing descriptors seem promising.

the station might be great (can't listen, i'm in the UK) but radio stations really need to have more than an "about" page on their web site! like.... what are they playing now? what shows do they have? what's their schedule? anything exciting coming up? etc

I've got a review of the new Allan coming out in Rolling Stone -- I like it a lot, think it's his best in years, though its first half beats its second half. (Wrote up the new Tim McGraw, which I like less, there too.)

Liking the new Ashley Monroe even more than the Allan. And I just got an email saying Kacey Musgraves' album is out March 19.

yeah Tracer they could use info on the web page; maybe it's coming--hopefully with an app to make it more playable for far-flung hopefuls--but what is this deal with US vs UK listening on the Web--like I can't listen to some BBC stuff; related legal issues?

very hopeful about Ashley and Gary; skeptical vs. hopeful about Musgraves (see my above re "Merry Go Round" vs. "Undermine")

Marco Club Connection Names Top Ten Country Dance Club Hits for 2012
(Nashville, Tenn. – Jan. 7, 2013) Little Big Town and Eric Church topped the list of dance club hits in 2012, according to the Marco Club Connection’s 9th annual ranking of Country dance favorites.

Every December, the Nashville-based company surveys a panel of nearly 250 club owners, DJs and dance instructors from across the country to compile its rankings. Overall votes by the panel determine each song’s placement on the list.

Bobbe Morhiser, Manager of Venue Marketing, states “This year's top ten contains a number of young, fresh talent. I'm proud to see new music impacting the club and dance community so quickly. We also saw a few ballads in the top ten, which is a switch from the surge of remixes seen in previous years. Proving that a great song will thrive in a high energy dance setting just as well as a dance remix.”

The Top 10 listing for 2012 is as follows:

Little Big Town – “Pontoon”
Eric Church – “Springsteen”
Kip Moore – “Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck”
Luke Bryan – “Drunk On You”
Easton Corbin – “Lovin’ You Is Fun”
Dustin Lynch – “Cowboys And Angels”
Parmalee – “Musta Had A Good Time”
Toby Keith – “Beers Ago”
Florida Georgia Line – “Cruise”
Carrie Underwood – “Blown Away”
Morhiser added, “There was a positive trend in this year’s voting. New artists Rachele Lynae, The Lacs, and Levi Riggs were all well represented in the voting, illustrating openness among the dance community to new and compelling music, whether it be from a major label, or an independent.” A complete archive of Club Connection’s Top 10 Country Dance Club Hits by year can be viewed at http:www.MarcoClubConnection.com.

About Marco Club Connection: A division of Nashville-based secondary radio promotion company, Marco Promotions and The Aristo Media Group, Club Connection specializes in marketing dance club singles to nightclubs and dance venues across the country. Club Connection maintains a national database of more than 240 venues and world-renowned dance instructor contacts, reaching more than 200,000 club patrons each weekend. For more information, visit: www.MarcoClubConnection.com.

sorry, it's http://www.MarcoClubConnection.com

They're educational on the floor too! http://www.marcoclubconnection.com/dance-steps/

Okay, those of you dismayed by my incompetent exercise in "boom clap" genealogy will be relieved to know that 2YOON were likely copying their "boom clap, boom-b-boom clap" not from Miley, who did a different boom clap, but from other people, such as m-flo, who did the same boom clap, boom-b-boom clap ("Miss You") - and m-flo may have been copying a previous boom clap, boom-b-boom clap. Of course, boom claps go way back (here's Crooked I from the mid '00s, but he's not doing the specific boom clap, boom-b-boom clap in question); for all I know the first boom clap appeared the year after the invention of the timpani, which is 18th century or earlier, says Wikip. Someone here who actually knows something about hip-hop or country might want to enlighten me.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

This looks interesting--I'll have to pull out the copy of Diana Trask's Miss Country Soul I bought years ago for 99 cents:

"Various Artists - Country Soul Sisters CD/2xLP (Soul Jazz)
A celebration of feminism in country music. Country Soul Sisters charts the rise of female singers in country music from 1952 to 1978. As well as country legends Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tanya Tucker and Tammy Wynette, Country Soul Sisters also features artists such as Bobbie Gentry, Nancy Sinatra - who also made country music but existed outside the traditional Nashville framework. Also highlighted are country soul music protagonists such as Jeannie C Riley, Diana Trask and Barbara Mandrell. Far from the traditional conservative image of country music this album features songs whose lyrics deal with female empowerment and subjects that include child prostitution, abortion, death and angels, workplace sexual exploitation, small town bigotry and more. Includes 68-page book with extensive sleevenotes, photos, etc."

"Miss Country Soul" is pretty good, by my reckoning, but "Diana's Country" is better: I love the version of "The Choking Kind" on that record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE0hAdRm8JM

The Soul Jazz comp is really a primer on female country singers from Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made" (included) along with Trask, Jody Miller...and the concept of "country soul" is dubious at best. There are a couple of Wynette LPs from the '70s that are a bit more "soul"-influenced. Norma Jean doing Swamp Dogg's "She's All I Got" is interesting. "California Cottonfields" is just a plain old country standard. I recently saw a Del Reeves or Wilburn Bros. show re-run on the RFD Channel, and a forgotten female singer in go-go boots was doing Tony Joe White's "Willie and Laurie Mae Jones," which was a kind of country-soul signifier back then, since it's about a white sharecropping family and a black family, and not a tale of Togetherness at all. I can only imagine Kitty Wells singing "Delta Dawn."

Dolly Parton — Don't Let It Trouble Your Mind
2. Lynn Anderson — Fancy
3. Jeannie C. Riley — I've Done A Lot Of Living Since Then
4. Bobbie Gentry — Reunion
5. Tammy Wynette — Tonight My Baby's Coming Home
6. Jean Shepard — A Satisfied Mind
7. Nancy Sinatra — Get While The Gettin's Good
8. Tanya Tucker — California Cotton Fields
9. Sammi Smith — Saunders Ferry Lane
10. Connie Smith — If It Ain't Love
11. Jean Shepard — Two Whoops And A Holler
12. Billie Jo Spears — Mr. Walker, It's All Over
13. Patsy Cline — Ain't No Wheels On This Ship
14. Barbara Fairchild — Color My World
15. Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty — You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly
16. Jeannie C. Riley — Harper Valley PTA
17. Jody Miller — A Woman Left Lonely
18. Kitty Wells — Delta Dawn
19. Diana Trask — Show Me
20. Norma Jean — He's All I've Got
21. Bobbie Gentry — Ode To Billie Joe
22. Bonnie Guitar — Tender Words
23. Barbara Mandrell — Husband Stealer
24. Diana Trask — I'll Never Do You Wrong
25. Kitty Wells — It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

Chris Willman on C&W and the NRA

http://popdust.com/2013/01/29/sandy-hook-does-country-music-have-a-gun-problem/

Country soul: I'd add "Son of a Preacher Man" and prob other Dusty; Freda Payne's "Band of Gold", Aretha's "With Pen in Hand", "The Weight", prob others by her (didn't she contribute to Rhythm & Country & Blues & Western? May not be exact title). Several, if not all from Stacy Fairchild's first album. Gladys Knight's "Rainy Night In Georgia." If incl guys, Al Green's "Together Again" and "For The Good Times", OC Smith's "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp"--well yall can guess the rest (seems like guys did most of the more obvious choices)

rather not get into gun control here; I did way much on ILE

Yes he is raggedy, but right (also Left) often enough to suit me:
JANUARY 30th, 2013 - New York, New York - Steve Earle is set to release his new album The Low Highway on April 16th via New West Records. The 12-track set is the anticipated follow up to 2011's Grammy Award-nominated album I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive and is the first billed as "Steve Earle & The Dukes (And Duchesses)." The album is also the first to feature "The Dukes" band name since 1987's Exit 0. The Low Highway features his live band consisting of Chris Masterson, Eleanor Whitmore, Kelley Looney, Will Rigby and Allison Moorer and was co-produced by Earle and Ray Kennedy (whose production partnership known as the "Twangtrust" was behind Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road). The Low Highway is Earle's 15th studio album since the release of his highly influential 1986 debut Guitar Town. It will be available as a single compact disc, deluxe CD/DVD set, digitally, as well as 180 gram vinyl. The album track "Calico County" from The Low Highway is streaming now at RollingStone.com.

Between the opening title track and the reflective closing of "Remember Me," The Low Highway is very much Steve Earle's road record, and one that has seen many miles. Earle states in the album liner notes, "I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view. I've seen a pretty good chunk of the world and my well-worn passport is one of my most prized possessions, but for me, there's still nothing like the first night of a North American tour; everybody, band and crew, crowded up in the front lounge, eating Nashville hot chicken and Betty Herbert's homemade pimento cheese, swapping the same tired old war stories half shouted over the rattle and hum of the highway. And I'm always the last one to holler good night to Charlie Quick, the driver, and climb in my bunk because to me it feels like Christmas Eve long ago when I still believed in Santa Claus. God I love this."

The Low Highway also features "Love's Gonna Blow My Way" and "After Mardi Gras," two songs Earle co-wrote with Lucia Micarelli, his co-star in David Simon's original HBO Series Treme. Earle played a recurring character, Harley, a street musician who mentored Micarelli's character Annie during the first two seasons. The songs were written specifically for the series and an additional song written by Earle for Treme, "That All You Got?" was performed by Micarelli's character with the Red Stick Ramblers during the third season premiere. All three songs are included on the new album and appear in recorded form for the first time here. Earle's previous composition written for the series, "This City," garnered both Grammy and Emmy Award nominations in 2010.

On February 19th, Steve Earle will release via his own E-Squared Records label, a limited edition 7 inch of the album tracks "Burnin' It Down" and "That All You Got?" in support of Independent Music Stores. The record is available on red vinyl and is a limited edition pressing of 1,000. Each cover has been hand-signed by Steve Earle and is hand-numbered.

In addition to the release of The Low Highway, Steve Earle also signed a two-book deal with Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group last year. The first will be a memoir and the second a novel. Earle's memoir, the book he swore he would never write, will be a literary work in three acts. The first section will focus on meeting Townes Van Zandt and the complicated friendship and music mentorship that ensued, taking place in Texas and Tennessee. The second section will center on bottoming out in Nashville, culminating in a prison sentence, during which Steve got clean. The heart of the third and final section will be recovery, starting around the recording of the masterful album, Train A Comin'. The novel is a work of historical fiction and will tell the story of a runaway slave who survived the battle of the Alamo. Earle previously released a collection of short stories, "Doghouse Roses (2002, Harper Collins) and his critically acclaimed debut novel, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Of the novel, Patti Smith stated "Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit and cinematic energy he projects in his music. I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive is like a dream you can't shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades."

A protégé of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Earle quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez and countless others. 1986 saw the release of his debut record, Guitar Town, which shot to number one on the country charts and immediately established the term "New Country." What followed was an extremely exciting and varied array of releases including the biting hard rock of Copperhead Road (1988), the minimalist beauty of Train A Comin' (1995), as well as the politically charged masterpiece, Jerusalem (2002) and the Grammy Award Winning albums The Revolution Starts...Now (2004), Washington Square Serenade (2007), and Townes (2009). His previous album, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (2011) was also Grammy Award nominated.

The Low Highway Track Listing:

1.The Low Highway

2. Calico County

3. Burnin' It Down

4. That All You Got?

5. Love's Gonna Blow My Way

6. After Mardi Gras

7. Pocket Full Of Rain

8. Invisible

9. Warren Hellman's Banjo

10. Down The Road Pt. II

11. 21st Century Blues

12. Remember Me

There's an LP House Of Joy from The King Cake Band that from the sample clips on Amazon sounds quite good; a blues and country band, more or less. Singer and lead guitarist is Mike Bloomer, whom I knew a bit in high school (he was younger, went to nearby Parish Hill when I was at E.O. Smith, then went to E.O. Smith after I graduated). Then as now he was a good, no-bullshit guitar player. I like what I think of as the clarity of his singing, though I'm not sure what I mean by the word "clarity."
Good, direct guitar playing (though I'm not sure what I mean by the word "direct," either: has bite, doesn't kill you with sustain, but uses enough for a sense of emotion). If you search YouTube for "King Cake Band" you'll find a number of live clips, several of which are collected at the tubeguru2000 site. They sometimes use two drummer/percussionists.

The country guest shots on this should be okay....and I wanna hear any track feat. Allan Toussaint.
JOHN FOGERTY’S NEW RELEASE
WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE
AVAILABLE MAY 28th
ON VANGUARD RECORDS

FOGERTY’S NEW RECORDING OF HIS CLASSIC
“BORN ON THE BAYOU” WITH KID ROCK
WAS USED IN NFL NETWORK’S COVERAGE OF
SUPER BOWL XLVII

ALBUM AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
ON ITUNES AND AMAZON!

JOHN FOGERTY’S much-anticipated album WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE will be released May 28th on Vanguard Records, his first for the label. Beginning today (February 4), the album is available for pre-order in both the iTunes and Amazon stores. One of the album’s highlights--FOGERTY’s immortal swamp rock smash hit “Born On The Bayou” which the legendary rocker has recorded with Kid Rock—was used by NFL Network in their coverage of Super Bowl XLVII fittingly played in New Orleans.

Wrote a Song for Everyone tracklisting:

1. Fortunate Son (with Foo Fighters)
2. Almost Saturday Night (with Keith Urban)
3. Lodi (with Shane Fogerty and Tyler Fogerty)
4. Mystic Highway (John Fogerty solo)
5. Wrote a Song for Everyone (with Miranda Lambert feat. Tom Morello)
6. Bad Moon Rising (with Zac Brown Band)
7. Long As I Can See the Light (with My Morning Jacket)
8. Born on the Bayou (with Kid Rock)
9. Train of Fools (John Fogerty solo)
10. Someday Never Comes (with Dawes)
11. Who'll Stop the Rain (with Bob Seger)
12. Hot Rod Heart (with Brad Paisley)
13. Have You Ever Seen the Rain (with Alan Jackson)
14. Proud Mary (with Jennifer Hudson feat. Allen Toussaint and the Rebirth Brass Band)

Produced by FOGERTY, one of rock’s most important artists and a national treasure who’s sold over 100 million records, WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE is a celebration of his iconic songbook and a collection of 12 classics and deep tracks from his remarkable canon of hits as well as two brand new songs, “Mystic Highway” and “Train of Fools.” [yadda yadda]...As FOGERTY explains in a cover story in the current (January/February) “Legends” issue of American Songwriter: “I encouraged each of these artists to come up with their own vision of my song, rather than just redoing what I’d recorded in the past. I was hoping they’d have some different twist so it would be fresh, so I’d have to work, too. I wanted it to be something new.”

WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE marks FOGERTY's ninth studio solo album since disbanding Creedence Clearwater Revival. Mixed by Bob Clearmountain, it was recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville except for "Proud Mary" which was recorded in New Orleans with AllenToussaint and the Rebirth Brass Band... FOGERTY has performed with the Sound City Players, the all-star band assembled by Dave Grohl to play the music created for the film and other classics, at recent shows at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Hollywood Palladium.

JOHN FOGERTY will tour in 2013 and look for him to be at this year’s SXSW in Austin (dates/events TBA).

More interested in this:
Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell's Old Yellow Moon Out 2/36, Confirm Tour Dates with Richard Thompson Electric Trio
Richard Thompson's Electric Out 2/5
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell will embark on series of tour dates this March with co-headliner Richard Thompson. The tour is in celebration of the duo’s new collaborative album,Old Yellow Moon, out February 26, 2013, on Nonesuch Records.

Old Yellow Moon is a duets album featuring four songs written by Crowell as well as interpretations of eight songs including Hank DeVito’s “Hanging Up My Heart,” Roger Miller’s “Invitation to the Blues,” and Allen Reynolds’ “Dreaming My Dreams,” among others. The album may be pre-ordered now on iTunes and in the Nonesuch Store, where orders include a limited-edition autographed print of the artists along with an instant download of “Hanging Up My Heart.” Richard Thompson's new album, Electric, produced by Buddy Miller, will be released February 5 on New West Records.

Harris is a 12-time Grammy winner and Billboard Century Award recipient whose contribution as a singer and songwriter spans 40 years. She has recorded more than 25 albums and has lent her talents to countless fellow artists’ recordings. In recognition of her remarkable career, Harris was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. Old Yellow Moon is the follow up to her’ acclaimed 2011 release, Hard Bargain, which debuted in the top 20 on the Billboard 200 chart. Associated Press called it “gorgeous” and said Harris’ “silvery soprano is in fine form,” while USA Today called it “exquisite ... her unmistakable soprano, at once grainy and ethereal, still wraps itself around a lyric with an angel’s delicate warmth.”

Crowell is a multi-Grammy-award winner whose songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Norah Jones, Etta James, and Grateful Dead among others. His 1988 breakthrough Diamonds and Dirt generated five #1 singles and a Grammy Award for the song “After All This Time.” His critically acclaimed works The Houston Kid, Fate’s Right Hand, The Outsider, and Sex and Gasoline were followed by the 2010 release of his memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks. Last year, Crowell released KIN: Songs By Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell. The album made its debut at #1 on the Americana and Country Rock album chart and spent 3 weeks at #1 on the Americana album chart. His honors also include an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award and membership of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Richard Thompson, a recipient of BBC’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Mojo’s Les Paul Award, was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen of England’s 2011 New Year Honours List. He was also recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting by the Americana Music Association. Thompson’s songs have been recorded by Robert Plant, REM, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, and many others.

Also, here's their new version of "Hangin' Up My Heart": tight, fast, rueful, resolved nice steel guitar (YouTube sound, but not too bad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NEjg2eL8SQ&feature=player_embedded#

Dow, I saw Emmylou and Crowell at last week's tribute to Jack Clement.

Here's my shortie on pretty good Fleetwood Mac-and-cheese country trio Blue Sky Riders. Featuring the country-rock pioneer Kenny Loggins.

rat nice---hope the Clement concert will be an album, or a something (must check YouTube; ditto for Blue Sky Riders). Thanks!

Thanks for posting that, dow - turns out I'll be holidaying in Chicago when that show comes through, so I'll be able to go along. Although I'd been vaguely checking listings for Chicago venues I know, it hadn't occurred to me to see what was going on at the Symphony Hall. I can be Snooty McRootsy for the evening. Good news!

13. Have You Ever Seen the Rain (with Alan Jackson)

would listen

Yeah! Also, Bottom of the World is Terry Allen's new album, after 14 years. Anybody heard it? The most info I've found is here:
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Terry-Allen-s-on-top-with-Bottom-4203310.php Has some pix of his art too.

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/17/33/72/4046521/3/premium_article_portrait.jpg

Listening now to a live set, archived on KUTX. So far, so good: spare, quiet (Lloyd Maines and a few others backing Allen's keys); no drums, but good rhythm http://kutx.org/musicarchive/terry-allen-at-kutx-1-18-2013-11am

Finally posted about Neil Young's Americana over on my livejournal, along with thoughts about "Hey Joe" and Niela Miller, whom we discussed a little bit back on Rolling Country 2009.

Van Ronk's version of "Mean World Blues" has been floating on my headbox since the early 70s; so glad Neila's acetate finally came out as an LP/download on Numero, though I still don't have it--have heard her pre-"Hey Joe", which has its own appeal. Young has said he heard Rose's versions of "Hey Joe" and others when Rose came though Canada with the Thorns, a drumless but apparently sufficiently folk-rocking combo, as Young remembers hearing them in the early-ish 60s. But how does Shocking Blue pertain?

Sorry, Niela not Neila.

what do we think of Lady A's "Downtown." Their best single since "Need You Now"?

Don, Tim Rose is the connection to both "Hey Joe" and "Venus," and the two songs have parallel compositional stories. (If that's what you're asking, why I wrote about both in the same blogpost. If you're asking whether Shocking Blue had a role in Neil's decision to use "The Banjo Song" as the basis of his version of "Oh! Susannah," I have no idea.) No need to repeat here what I wrote there.

(And I'd rather people read the way I unfold the story on my lj than have it all diagrammed and explained for them here, which would spoilerate it further.)

I just now re-read your post, once again got how Tim Rose relates to "Hey Joe" and "Susannah", but once again don't see anything about him doing "Venus", but once again infer that you mean he did that before they did, or did something they based it on/ripped off. So basically we're somewhere on the same page. Anybody heard the new Ashley Monroe? Really wondering about that, esp. w title like "Weed For Roses" and "Monroe Suede."

Ah, finally spotted melody's resemblance to this beloved (by me) mid '80s MTV hit meaning Bananarama's cover of Shocking Blue's "Venus", which you explicity say, not just imply, sounds to you like Young's Rose-derived "Oh Susannah." So I should've done more than infer your point.

I still need to read Frank's Neil/Niela/"Hey Joe"/"Venus" thing. I turned Flash off on my Firefox browser, where I've got the livejournal blog bookmarked, and keep forgetting to check it out when I'm using Google Chrome.

Meanwhile, here are 1000+ words I wrote about Mindy McCready yesterday:

http://www.spin.com/articles/mindy-mccready-dead-37-suicide-remembrance

And yes, as I say somewhere above, I have heard the Ashley Monroe album, and I really like it a lot. That and the Kacey Musgraves are probably my two favorite albums of 2013 so far. Actually more surprised, though, by how much I've been liking the new Mavericks album, which is one of the most beautifully sung country albums (or really, any albums) in recent memory. Rhythms are Latin-derived throughout; vocal melisma moves from Latin to, eventually, completely over-the-top Middle Eastern, in an eight (!)-minute long song near album's end. Weird thing is, these guys have never really hit me before -- I've got a greatest hits CD from 1999 which I've always liked but never really loved. So I don't know whether I've just missed the boat in the past, or whether sounding this adventurous is a new thing for them, which they're permitted to do now that their big country-hitmaking years are now in the distant past. (Though it looks like "Born To Be Blue," the first single from the new album, has actually gotten to #46 country, their highest chart placement since 1999.)

Yeah I knew you mentioned the Monroe, was curious about details; will def have to check Gary Allan and even Mavericks, whose very late-blooming is most unexpected and kind of inspiring. This is on McCready is the kind of perspective the music rarely gets in such circumstances. I need to check more of her stuff. For those of us who don't want to have to sign into Spotify via Fecebook, here's a couple of original albums and several collections: http://www.myspace.com/officialmindymccready/music/albums

Should've said perspective incl foregrounding of the music is what we rarely get in such circumstances.

Jason Waldrop, a friend of mine from college, reviews AKA DOC POMUS for Blue Railroad.

I wouldn't call Pomus's work "country," but this thread seemed the best place for the link. And Elvis's Pomus/Shuman-penned "Little Sister" is the sort of rockabilly that's now in the DNA of country.

Jason works the lucky card/return the favor trope well, builds it as he goes, it clicking in strong when Dion shows up (which I won't spoilerate for you).

First I've heard of Blue Railroad; it looks good, has impressive interviewees (Paul Simon, James Taylor, Lieber & Stoller, Chrissie Hynde, Billie Joe Armstrong)(not that I know if those artists are impressively interesting while being interviewed).

getting that Mavericks album now

Paul Zollo of Blue Railroad is the best interviewer of songwriters that I've ever read. It probably helps that he's a fine songwriter as well.

Pomus made the country and other "rootsy" elements available for voices from wherever, as Till The Night Is Gone demonstrates.
Tracks:
1. Lonely Avenue - Los Lobos
2. Boogie Woogie Country Girl - Bob Dylan
3. Viva Las Vegas - Shawn Colvin
4. A Mess Of Blues - John Hiatt
5. This Magic Moment - Lou Reed
6. Blinded By Love - B.B. King
7. Young Blood - The Band
8. There Must Be A Better World Somewhere - Irma Thomas
9. Turn Me Loose - Dion
10. I Count The Tears - Roseanne Cash
11. I'm On A Roll - Dr. John
12. Still In Love - Solomon Burke
13. Sweets For My Sweet - Brian Wilson
14. Save The Last Dance For Me - Aaron Neville

what do we think of Lady A's "Downtown." Their best single since "Need You Now"?

This could totally be an Everclear song! That's a compliment, by the way. (And it's not the first contemporary country song to remind me of Everclear -- Jerrod Niemann has had a couple, at least parts of songs here and there -- though it might be the most blatant. I always wondered, back when he was making good albums, why Alexakis never took his stuff to Nashville. Maybe he did, and he just never told anybody.)

Southern Rock Opera's "Dead Drunk and Naked", reminded me of Everclear, while sounding fairly country, or (alty) Southern Rock, when that was purty close to Country, not too long after the Millenium: wrote something about the guy in the song " The next morning, he's bouncing Everclearly down the street" (in B'ham, as I pictured him off-page: looking like Alexakis, with peroxide hair, fashionable stubble, nice suit with a few stains)

Wanna say Everclear's played some shows w Truckers(?)

Nice interview & new music excerpts (full live-in-studio version of one on this page too) from Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell. Like Parsons, he knows not to get in her way. Her voice sounds a little rougher, fuller (good).
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/02/173163451/emmylou-harris-and-rodney-crowell-staying-low

And now they're singing some of the new tracks, ending the first hour of this weekend's Prairie Home Companion. maybe posted somewhere soon. Emmylou: "We're gonna do a honky tonk shuffle." It's "Invitation to the Blues," in an arrangement the Texas Tornadoes might approve. They'll be back in the second half (hope to hell they don't have to sing w Kellior).

Chrisgau's reviews of the Ashley Monroe and Kellie Pickler (a year late!): http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=2e1c6a79-8d7a-4f0c-8d8d-9e3007b42f4f

I think he should've switched the grades. My take.

Your take on Monroe is much more edifying and edified. He thinks this is her first album, and seems to think co-writes are a sign or limitation, but he already said she's better off, in a group, so maybe she knows that and that's why she's mainly known for co-writes and one-off duets and the occasional trio (Jack White re-worked a Raconteurs song with her and Ricky Scaggs)
Re your mention of "chicanery", Satisfied never did come out anywhere near the same year as the original version was promo'd, but several of us RC irregulars did end up Nash Scene Top Tenning "Satisfied." But return with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear:

New in town: Ashley Monroe, small, intense, blonde; looks and sounds in there between needy McReady and latterday Womack. T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
― don, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 17:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, I really like the single, "Satisfied." More demure than Miranda, with a sweet voice that reminds me of Kasey Chambers, but she doesn't play the little girl card too hard. She's, what, 19? I hope the single gets a push, as country radio hasn't been happening for me of late. Every song I like seems to be from last year or the year before.
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 18:13 (6 years ago) Permalink

don -- cute lil ashley monroe came into the office yesterday. has the sharp nuance of dolly. she's 19 and i really wanted to hate her but could not.
― katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Thursday, 6 April 2006 18:58 (6 years ago) Permalink

Ashley Monroe "I Don't Wanna Be," first track on her album Satisfied. Strong vibrant accent, maybe Kentucky or Tennessee (not that I know shit about accents.) The voice is strong, the slide guitar is strong. The lyrics are a bit incongruous in relation to the voice: a woman without a man telling us that for all the time men can be disappointing and fail to mow the lawn or take out the garbage, she'd rather be with a man than be without. My one-song first impression is that this woman could be due Lee Ann Womack–size respect, though I'd like more interesting lyrics.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 6 April 2006 20:43 (6 years ago) Permalink

chuck what say you of ashley?
the lyrics weren't cringe-worthy but they did make me tilt my head into the upright and locked "huh" position considering she's 19 and she did the majority of the writing for this album when she was 17 (and sometimes younger). i guess that's a popular ageist complaint, but at the same time its hard for me to invest in her sincerity in lovers lost, etc. when she's my lil cousin's age. and i'm a dour old lady at the age of 24!
― katie, a princess (katie, a princess), Friday, 7 April 2006 13:19 (6 years ago) Permalink
>chuck what say you of ashley?<
first impression (i.e., two and a half songs in to her album)? she sounds kinda slow and lacks bounce, and i'd take many of the unknown cdbaby acts on this thread over her easy. also, i think it's rather odd that she says desperate housewives both complain about their husbands no longer mowing lawn AND that the grass is always greener on the other side. this implies that lawnmowing increases green-ness, which is certainly not always the case. (my opinion may well change, though.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 7 April 2006 18:15 (6 years ago) Permalink
Album seems to finally wake up a little from its torpor toward the three-quarters mark (i.e., track #8, the song where the guy's calling her from san jose or whatever's happening -- though the one after that, where she does the eddie rabbit talking blues things and gets wacky like a shania for ONE WHOLE SECOND, isn't really working for me despite being not slow, maybe not even midtempo), but I gotta say there's something tastefully teacher's pettish about ashley that's bugging me. she's hitting me like a nostalgia act, and not in a very fun way. she needs leann womack's producer or something (unless she already has her; I didn't check). I dunno, probably she'll click eventually, that's how these things work. Right now, though, she's honestly having trouble holding my attention. (But yeah, I can imagine the Good Taste Brigade loving her. Which is maybe why I'm resisting.)
― xhuxk, Friday, 7 April 2006 18:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

On my way to Ashley, sidetracked by Black Sage. They remind me of a countrypoprocking Wide Right: robustly uncommon "everyday people." Also like WR in seeming at first to veer from sparse to spare, but turn up the bass. So far, Leah Archibald grabs me a bit more, because she's confrontational like that (re sex and death, for inst, but Black Sage's Kathy deals with those too)thx xhuxx
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 19:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

Okay, Ashley: funny how Black Sage, those lovable no-budget back room locals, pick up the tempo, while Monroe’s moneyed mentors produce Nashville tracks whut don't know how to sustain initial interest---so many ballads, so much time. The neediness sounds convincing enough. Reading the bio after listening, re what "she still sees as an idyllic life," before her father suddenly died when she was 11 ("often the age of puberty for today's youth", says Dr Joyce Brothers), and how her family went "into freefall" after that, and "with few friends among often callous classmates," how she could look so hungrily at taken-for-granted, supposedly sweet deals of ungrateful married women. And covering Kasey Chambers' "Pony," with come-hither-when-I'm-legal drawlpretty much to the tune of Peggy Lee's "Fever"), before stalking the guy (who has a grown woman, way ahead of her)to verses that sound like Neil's "Old Man," before reaching out, falling short, trailing with a few more notes anyway, in "Satisfied."(But in between she's still sounding young and damaged, she's been "Used, passed around")Then she does find a guy! Who's as little ol' as she is, and "That's Why We Call Each Other Baby," goo-goo--but he's--Dwight Yoakam, old, bald, and a dirt sandwich (this last according to Sharon Stone). Oh man. Lucinda's "It's Over" is faster, but needs some false stops or something to go with it's thing about she can't let go. Not enough titles provided so far, but there's one that is faster and works like that should: a Terri Clark-type blowing up her self-image of poor poor pitiful me like Harry Smith's headlines, til it's lying in the street, underneath a white sheet (do a video of that). And she's in the back of "Hank's Cadillac," making him drink his coffee black, cos you just gotta make that next show, be fair to the folks, but it's not working, she's clutching his little skinny carcass to her bosom, and--oh god,maybe this thing will brainwash me, but right now it's dropping most of these High Concepts. At least "Hank's Cadillac" has some narrative. The one that sounds like it's intended to be the followup to "Satisfied" makes the usual sargasso seizure irrelevent, cos (as with "Satisfied") the chorus sounds so nice, I don't need to go anywhere else.
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 21:58 (6 years ago) Permalink
And speaking of so much time, it ain't out til June 27. So maybe it will brainwash me by then.(Thaat's why Country Majors release things so slowwly, now I get it...)
― don, Friday, 7 April 2006 22:02 (6 years ago) Permalink

I mentioned in another group in which I'm a member that xgau has an unexpected...sensitivity about the self-sufficiency of country artists. He often dwells on writing and co-writing on country artists.

Actually more surprised, though, by how much I've been liking the new Mavericks album, which is one of the most beautifully sung country albums (or really, any albums) in recent memory. Rhythms are Latin-derived throughout; vocal melisma moves from Latin to, eventually, completely over-the-top Middle Eastern, in an eight (!)-minute long song near album's end.

Sold! At least to the extent that I will check it out, at least that one song, am in fact streaming it right now. Funny, I never really click on this thread, but for some reason Alfred's new handle + the recent talk about the Eagles seemed to prime me to do so, and now I feel I have been rewarded.

Also, xhuxk, I read your Mindy McCready obituary. I was not familiar with her and what I checked out of her music didn't pull me in, but you certainly can write. But you, and others, knew that.

Thanks Rudi! Now if only Spin would get my Ashley Monroe/Kacey Musgraves piece up...

I listened to the Mavericks album. I ended up liking "Ven Hacia Mi (Come Unto Me)" better than "(Call Me) When You Get to Heaven." I don't think I feel whatever it is I'm supposed to feel from their slow burn songs, which seems to be where they spend a lot of their time.

Is "Ven Hacia Mi" a cover though? Sounds familiar even to me, though I couldn't say where I would have heard it before.

I found a review that referred to the first song as sounding Cuban. I guess the Cubans invented ska along with everything else. Oh I get it, maybe it's the trumpets. (This critic should have tried a little closer to the border than Cuba for a source.)

As far as Spin, maybe try walking into the editorial offices with a shotgun.

God damn it that Mavericks record is tearing my heart in half and handing it back to me with a smile and a beer.

Now if only Spin would get my Ashley Monroe/Kacey Musgraves piece up...

if spin doesn't, maybe car and driver will.

Me on Ashley and Kacey:

http://www.spin.com/reviews/ashley-monroe-like-a-rose-kacey-musgraves-same-trailer-different-park?utm_source=spintwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spintwitter

really love the ashley monroe - "used" and "you got me" are my favs on a couple of listens. POW opening lines to the album, too. gonna check out kacey musgraves too (great review, chuck) but it doesn't seem to be on uk itunes and i can't ~find it~ anywhere either yet

Actual Musgraves release date, at least in the U.S., is next Tuesday -- So just give it a few days, Lex.

Ashley Monroe is pretty damned great. That makes four great country albums I've heard this year: Mavericks, Gary Allan, Monroe, and I'm counting Carrie Rodriguez here too because Give Me All You Got is freaking amazing. I'd put Emmylou Harris/Rodney Crowell here too but it's not grabbing me yet. Can't wait for Musgraves.

Haven't heard the Rodriguez -- Remember being meh on her stuff last time I listened to her, but it's been a few years and it's possible I never really gave her a fair chance in the first place. Might check that out, if I find time. I've heard people say good things about the upcoming LeAnn Rimes album too. And I can personally vouch for the new Pistol Annies, due out in May, which by my count so far has at least five great or near-great songs (out of 12) on it. Guess that makes Ashley Monroe my artist of the year so far.

Nate Cavalieri on spin.com also gave Caitlin Rose's new album 9 out of 10 last week, by the way, which really surprised me, since when I'd just listened to it and wrote up something short on it for Rhapsody, it barely held my attention at all. I'm told she has a bit of a critical following in the U.K.; no idea why. Anyway, here's my mini-review:

http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/caitlin-rose/album/the-stand-in

And here's Nate's very different opinion:

http://www.spin.com/reviews/caitlin-rose-the-stand-in-ato-rca

NEW PISTOL ANNIES???????? OMGGGGGG I had no idea

encouraging to hear it's so good

the single is out! i am dropping everything and getting ON THIS

Musgraves is streaming here--March 19 release, so prob til 18th. Better to listen straight through (can pause o course) rather than track by track, cos might get brief NPR IDs w the latter
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/10/173745915/first-listen-kacey-musgraves-same-trailer-different-park Still down on the first single (see comments upthread, from Nash Scene ballot), but she's got fine stuff on Nashville-the-TV-series soundtrack, so I'll keep an open mind. Will read xhuxk's review after I've had time to listen to this, ditto Monroe (on her MySpace, for those, like me, against having to access Spotify via Fecebook)

Carrie Rodriguez' Give Me All You Got streaming here http://www.carrierodriguez.com/albums I'm mainly familiar w her live, as duet vcalist/multi-instrumentalist w Chip Taylor, on her own Live in Louisville, and backing Jeff Bridges on Austin City Limits (good set, might still be on the ACL site or YouTube). This is good, track by track, but sometimes a bit slow for me--she always seeks some cool distance from/for perspective on emotional chaos, even says "I gotta get a little bit bored/To get to the core", in "Brooklyn", a non-boring song about what she seems to consider a good ol' boring place. Its wry turns of phrases and tempo suggest a friend who dances around the core, and checks in for confidential updates: allusive, but I get the drift pretty quick. This approach lso works well on the first single, "Lake Harriet," a rueful hop-skip, like Prine in good folk-pop mode (she doesn't sing too much like Prine, which is fine by me). Likewise the other one she wrote without collabs, "Whiskey Is Thicker Than Blood", but the slower ones are growing on me too, I think (shoulda put the headphones on sooner).

Not that I really had time to listen to that whole thing, but she got me, which says something, even for the slower ones.

anyone heard the new Shooter Jennings? I dipped out on him after Black Ribbons, was kinda curious

Listening to Shooter right now on Spotify. First song is prog as hell!

Okay this is a great album too. "Mama, It's Just My Medicine" is total Steve Miller Band groove; "The Low Road" is dirty country stuff; "Outlaw You" is a great rant against wanna-be outlaws with baseball caps, totally influenced by Ike Reilly but also just a rowdy good time.

finally listened to the Musgraves, still streaming on NPR til Tues. 19th release, or maybe they'll take it off on Mon, so mebbe better listen again tonight--howsomever, can already tell it's not gonna thrill me, might get a little further into art appreciation though. Can hear why Ann Powers mentions it in terms of novelists like Ellen Gilchrist, also bout Willie as early hero, so this is also kinda organized like his Phases And Stages. There, Side One was how the woman experiences the break-up, and its aftermath; Side Two was her man's experience. Here, she mopes and sometimes hopes, all around a nowhere/everywhere town (full of drained cliches), 'til finally takes off for Side Two (with wisecracks from a blessedly other, though still cliche character's POV, in "Blowin' Smoke"), thence to mope and hope in a bigger town, and eventually, actually get pissed off enough to crank it up in "Step Off", and keep some of that energy to burn in "Keep It To Yourself" (would pick this as a single). Said energy even sparks "Straight As An Arrow", even though it's way into her aphoristic tendency--again re the Nelson thing, ditto, the "conversational" delivery Powers mentions, but usually minus Nelson's simple-subtle turns, as writer and vocalist. And the song seems even better, or even more okay, when its rallying of the troops, especially incl herself, leads to "It Is What It Is"--"'til it ain't, then it's gone". Which, for the narrator, is the spark of a crucial, hard-won insight: acceptance of small potatoes is actually acceptable, if you also accept that small potatoes will soon be gone-- and that's part of their appeal. ditto for some one-night stands, like this 'un, which inspires her most appealing singing. So, I'm cautiously optimistic about her, as she would approve, apparently, hopefully. But don't turn up your nose at vocal support and co-writes ,kid, unless you get offers from Mindy Smith or Kacey Chambers, speaking of reflexive/anemic etc

caramonica on musgraves & monroe

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/arts/music/new-albums-by-ashley-monroe-and-kacey-musgraves.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Heard Will Hermes reviewing Musgraves on NPR radio last night--he had a line about "some are saying Musgraves is the future of country music but to me she sounds like the present." He was not being critical with that. It was part of a very favorable review. He focussed a lot on the lyrics, maybe too much.

Of course that line I paraphrased was about the music and the lyrics. Some discussions of "Follow Your Arrow" just seem too predictable to me--liberal critic likes country song lyrics that kind of reflect his/her view. Not sure about the best way to avoid that type of phrasing, but it can be done.

to change subjects for a moment: Luke Bryan's "Buzzkill" is my song of the week.

There's a "Blues You're A Buzzkill" song on the next Pistol Annies album, too -- Must be country's new buzzword. Anyway, that Bryan song didn't kill me, but maybe it'll grow on me. Here's what I briefly wrote about his new album a couple weeks ago, when Rhapsody's usual country critic was on vacation. (Usually I stick to metal for them these days):

http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/luke-bryan/album/spring-breakhere-to-party

Sons of Fathers: harmonizing semi-acoustic country rockers, or at least unexpectedly robust in this video (on headphones anyway)
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-615/1554276/sons-of-fathers-roots-and-vine-exclusive-video-premiere

Kind of surprised how lovely the Holly Williams album is. Are we supposed to not like her?

Will check it out; heard her early stuff, which was good, though seemed more folkie than country, in a mellow, rueful way---relatively recent performance on (I think) The Tonight Show was tougher, sharper (good with her band). Several albums on her MySpace, where I just now finally listened to the new Ashley Monroe. Can see how xgau wandered into the weeds with this'un, mumbling about co-writes. There is something maybe a little mediated, a tad distanced, somewhut writerly 'bout it, allowing, sometimes inviting more contemplation or wandering than putting actual sonic experience up front. The opening title track does this well, writing-wise: she's sitting in a diner, musing over sad beginnings, but instead of just confirming all this with a sad present tense, she comes out of it all "like a rose"--not smelling like, nothing so triumphant, but we're quietly invited to consider: nice smell, purty flower, goes away in the winter (or does it? see Emmylou's Roses In The Snow), got thorns, can be cut, have its petals scattered, or presented in very meaningful ways, like with dung coating, aflame etc. Very cool, although the music melts away. "Two Weeks Late" and "Weed Not Roses" come off more like reviewer-bait, or too conceptual here, although the trad update does work for "You Ain't Dolly/You Ain't Porter." Hell, I'm carping: most of the tracks do grab me right off, they just don't take me that much further--although "Used" does, as she starts rushing the beat and/or cramming more words in: she's used, sure, but take a chance on her baby, some things get better with--don't call it age, just listen to her saga. "The Morning After" is the one to reach a peak early and keep me there, as her voice hovers--yeah, I'm carping; most of it's good, but she needs more than seven (out of nine total) tracks to wow me, with this overall so tasteful, perfectly reasonable spproach. Not that I should expect a 26-year-old pro to channel the prodigious ghost town waif-with-questor/stalker-tendencies of the ironically titled Satisfied. But for all its suit-imposed stumbling blocks, that still seems like a more compelling set, so far. Although I do like most of this (which will prob grow on me). and looking fwd to whatever she brings to the new Pistol Annies. Also, she's a way more dependable writer than Musgraves (gasp!).

"Like A Rose": we're invited to fill in the blanks, that is. Who does this? Miles Davis etc, but who now. Thanks Ashley.

Been listening to the Kacey record--so far, I'm underwhelmed more than I'm impressed, but I do think she can write...words, the music isn't doing it for me. Just got the new Paisley in the mail, haven't spun it yet. I'm working on my country column for the Scene, and hope to have it up and running pretty soon.

Xhuxk mentioned Caitlin Rose: "Nate Cavalieri on spin.com also gave Caitlin Rose's new album 9 out of 10 last week, by the way, which really surprised me, since when I'd just listened to it and wrote up something short on it for Rhapsody, it barely held my attention at all. I'm told she has a bit of a critical following in the U.K.; no idea why."

She's always been a cause celebre in the U.K. Because the English are convinced they know what country music is, perhaps? And Rose represents what they think is "countrypolitan." Maybe there is some kind of connection, but countrypolitan was generally not so tasteful, was it? Super-schlock. And Rose is just too polite to traffic in anything so potentially dirty.

I've followed her since her first EP, seen her play around town. What I kinda can't get is why anyone would think she sings country--as Xhuxk points out in his review, it's pure indie, she don't put out vocally like a real country singer would, seems to me. I think she sounds like the Roches or someone like that, and if she were as good as, say, the McGarrigle Sisters, I'd be able to listen to her. Or Bonnie Koloc or any number of folkies. She's also a local hero in town--I just find it pale and wan myself.

Musgraves' "Stupid" has to be my favorite track on the new album, though--words match music, such as it is, and it does communicate stupid effectively. I also am interested in the backing vocal commentary technique on the record, and the whistling on "Follow Your Arrow" is a nice touch. Her songs don't provide any contrast in the verse-chorus way, seems to me, they're perhaps too straight and that's OK if that's what you're into. As a technique, quite savvy and appropriate. To my ears, the banjo shit she includes is also nicely doleful, the outward sign of some kind of muffled ambition and provincial greyness that the whole record follows to its logical conclusion. Perhaps the way she shuffles cliches in "Silver Lining" is symptomatic of some kind of fatigue--"hoo hoo hoo, ooh-ooh," in that song, says more to me than all the words previous. Irony. I hear the record as ready-mades done with deliberate fatigue, all tired out. The ricky-tick chord changes in "My House"--the one that accompanies the "chorus" bit when she sings the words "electric" and "wagon" bothers my ear every time I hear it, there's just something uncommitted about it--are a nice change and I like the deadpan way she sings it and the way everything drops out before the very end. Some kind of new minimalist country, and what I'm taking away from it, apart from the words, which are good, is a kind of ambivalence in the music itself, as if she is inhabiting two distinct worlds--one where stuff develops and has shadows and shading, as in the chord changes of "Merry Go Round," the other where it's pure stasis. So maybe she's some kind of genius after all.

The difference between Kacey and Caitlin Rose is the difference between someone actually trying to express some kind of alienation or disquiet, by holding back, and someone simulating emotion via all the slide guitar and organ parts and tricky little bridges--the very things I was saying Musgraves' record lacks--without having anything much to say, unless you think songs about how playing a particular record equals emotion equals emotion itself. Rose never gives me the feeling of truly letting go--her throaty voice stops short of cutting through the instrumentation. So here's maybe a good example of the limits of formalism and musical knowledge itself, both of which I'm a fan of in the right context--"Pink Champagne" has some real nice shit in it, harmonic structure that is elegant and even sophisticated, but it's not only less interesting than the work of someone who really knows how to manipulate those augmented chords and so forth, like Judee Sill or the McGarrigles or Randy Newman, it's far less interesting than Musgraves, and far less in the true line of country music, no matter how much people want to say it's a modern version of countrypolitan...I mean, Mandy Barnett is a formalist in her Owen Bradley mode, but even she sings full-out in her most formalist moments.

if rose weren't from nashville and didn't have some pedal steel, wouldn't 'americana' (or just plain rock, or indie) be a better fit? there was a ton of her sort of sound in the 'americana' bin at my old college radio station.

i'm still in love with 'stupid'. the notes edd picks up on (tired out, muffled ambition, provincial grayness, etc.) seem like the main point of the whole album to me. and generally the songs read like admissions, whereas e.g. ashley monroe's 'weed not roses' somehow sounds like it's performing fuck-decency debauchery, perhaps aware (perhaps not) of how tired and joyless its catalogue of let-loose behaviors and props sounds (not just, let's get wasted and let loose, but a square / provincial idea of what that entails: let's just do it all at once, get drunk high cuffed to the bed etc.) and perhaps not canny enough to capitalize on that suggestion of joylessness to make it amount to some kind of admission that a relationship in need of that particular way of letting loose, imagined with that sort of excess, might not be repairable or even made more bearable by the debauch. in musgraves i get more notes that are like: what use is there in pretending things aren't how they are?

yes, if she'd really delved into muffled ambition, growth vs stasis as Edd puts it, mixed motivations, coming from a depressive background---she gets some mileage out of all that, and could turn out to be her great subject, but meanwhile, like xgau says, I get tired of those shine-it-on homilies, and "playing it safe." Another uneven album that could've been a strong EP (sure are a lot of those), especially if she'd bothered to include "Undermine", but maybe that was somehow too competitive with the Nashville soundtrack version (or she didn't wanta invite comparisons with that album and this).

And now, time for something suffiecently different: the mind-mine-meld of two old hippies, male. Todd Snider's Time Itself: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker, now playing at Snider's MySpace, like most of his other albums. Starts out calmly receciting his parents' warnings about going nowhere with that no-count guitar, and then musically refutes them, not with a merry axe, but a genially robust honky tonk/cathouse piano, which he can well afford to hire. In the same sociable way, he gives an anti-pity party for his brand new ex, advising her to get real about always picking men (pickers or not) who are bound to leave soon. It doesn't come off like sexist self-justifcation here, because he seems disarmingly evenhanded about it, and because I had to admit I was picking women who were bound to leave--once I did that, and learned to pick women who knew they were picking men like that, cool, back in the day, and these of course are back in the say songs. Also, other songs extend his candor to his own reckless tendencies, incl, sometimes, candor, incl not only tomcatting and substance abuse, but even musical slacking, which didn't always need pointing out in Walker's original tracks, but as he reminded us, "Just be glad you don't have to hear/The take after this." Not too much reliance on nudge-nudge-wink-wink in the delivery of Snider's own tightly loose/loosely tight crew, although "Sangria Wine" should not be 4'50", and there are few takes/song selections I could do without. But overall, pretty good.

"Stupid" inspired good writing here! It's my favorite track.

As for Monroe the final track is too arch for mh taste; neither Shelton nor Monroe sound particularly ivested in history.

maybe that's deliberate? it's about karaoke contenders, more hollow-bodied than Dolly/shorter than Porter, they know enough enough history to trade those musical zings, which have their own history amidst the hits (which will prob not be joined by this track)

my fave two songs so far on kacey musgrave's album are "keep it to yourself," which strikes me as a pointed rebuke to the booty-call fantasy of lady antebellum's "need you now," and "it is what it is," which de-romanticizes the same booty-call fantasy in a very different way, saying basically "come on, let's do it, but don't get your hopes up, dude."

yeah, great closer, especially.

Her functional voice works in that context.

my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map," but i'd say it's another instance of "words match music"—it's got this lovely drifting quality, and the lyrics lack the detail of the rest of the record because there is no detail to pin.

she could have titled the album Famous in a Small Town.

Boy, I am sure glad I weighed in on Musgraves' and Monroe's albums early; if I'd waited, I'd be too overwhelmed by everybody else's opinions by now to come up with one of my own. That said, this is an interesting discussion -- I'd been thinking since I first heard the thing that the (comparatively) weaker part of the Musgraves would've been the middle section (more or less tracks 6 through 10), so I didn't expect people would be singling those out as their favorites. Also don't get preferring Monroe's slower/quieter songs to "Weed Instead of Roses" or the Blake Shelton cover (the latter of which, by the way, hadn't been added yet back when I got my advance CD -- so it sort of was an EP at first, almost.) But then, I wouldn't -- ballads almost always take longer to really sink in for me. (These are still my two favorite albums so far this year, though -- no more uneven than any others I've heard, and I've heard plenty. Including, yeah, Pistol Annies.)

the other thing about "it is what it is" is it's such a dead-ringer for a rayna jaymes song i'm surprised i haven't heard her sing it yet.

xp Blake Shelton duet I obviously mean. (And obviously preferring that cornball thing to her slow ones just means I'm opting for energy over emotion as usual. Or comedy over tragedy. But again, I do realize that emotion/tragedy is frequently better at long distances, even when the fun stuff wins the sprints. So we'll see.)

The duet is fun! Are there any references to The Voice that I missed? Hope so; talent shows are still an underexploited subject. Would be great to have some of the Nashville kiddies get herded onto to such a show-within-the-show by some of those biz savants (incl. Rayna, now that she's signing 'em to her very own new label)

Guess I should also point out that Monroe's "Used" has already had seven years to sink in for me. Which probably qualifies as long distance. I like it fine, but if it hasn't killed me by now, it probably ain't gonna.

I haven't heard any killer country this year---but I still need to check out the Mavericks, eh?

If it's on a major, that may well be the only unsolicited major label country CD I've received since your Voice editorship, xhuxk---one of the many things I took for granted.

The Mavericks album is so much fun.

this needs to be emphasized

my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map"

Funny, but I find "Back on the Map" to have the strongest lyrics on the album.

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"my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map," but i'd say it's another instance of "words match music"—it's got this lovely drifting quality, and the lyrics lack the detail of the rest of the record because there is no detail to pin."

yeah, on Kacey, the banjo is really a depressed banjo part in "Back." Also notice the way the drums start to skip unsteadily when she sings the line about something steady. she's got this built-in response--it's obviously a song about stardom--to her commentary on how fame leaves you behind. "Keep It to Yourself" is banal compared to this. For all the record's angst, I like "My House" because it's a distanced take on those old country tunes like "Milwaukee, Here I Come" or those duet tunes where the duet partners would go from city to city in their old cars and live on love. She may just have an innate sense of the way the chord changes meet your expectations in this one, but even here, it's just a bit compressed, tense, somehow. All so simple, a little chug-a-lug at the end.

I thought my favorite, Dandelion, was the weakest Lyrically!

I know this isn't by any of the big hitters on this thread so far, but I think it's pretty hard to ignore the excellence of the new Terry Allen record "Bottom of the World." He's a semi-legend, but unlike many semi-legends he's far from boring; his voice ain't purty or nothing but songs like "Emergency Human Blood Courier" and "Hold On to the House" are like poking the open wound of America with a sharp stick.

OH SHIT of course DOW already covered this, sorry dude

I'm a Lubbock (On Everything) fan in long, long, long standing (esp. "Truckload Of Art" and "F.F.A.") even if I stupidly sold my copy back in the late '80s, but I'm sad to say I couldn't get half through that new Terry Allen album -- Just felt painful to listen to, though the title track didn't seem awful. (Fun fact: His 1983 -- thought it was a year later actually -- album Bloodlines was the first album I ever reviewed for the Boston Phoenix, who I freelanced for through the rest of the '80s. I didn't like that one much either.)

In other news, I'm going to go against the grain here (unprecedented!) and confess that I actually think "Back On The Map" has easily the dullest, most lifeless music on Musgraves' album. Which isn't to say it's necessarily my least favorite track -- feel like there's something going on there, in the lyrics and otherwise, which Edd and others do a yeoman's job explaining above. Just really wish it had a hook or two, so it wasn't so damn much work.

Curious if anybody here has heard the new Blake Shelton or Band Perry albums. I didn't, yet, though I've seen them getting some good notices.

Less crankily, the two alt-country/Americana-ish albums I do kind of like lately are these:

Shinyribs – Gulf Coast Museum (Nine Mile) -- he's in the Gourds, who've never done a thing for me, oddly enough, though I actually liked his previous album Well After Awhile a couple years back too. Leans toward the, uh, Dr. John/Little Feat/Hirth Martinez end of country, I guess. And this time he covers Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes.

Maggie Rose – Cut To Impress (RPM Entertainment) - Kind of a blues-belting Lacy J. Dalton type badass country-rock gal. Two songs about murders: "Preacher's Daughter" and "Looking Back Now." Also like "Hollywood," which draws not always trustworthy but halfway entertaining parallels between living amidst California glitz and living in a Southern hicktown, claiming they're not so different after all.

New Jason Boland and the Stragglers album, produced by Shooter Jennings (don't have the name handy -- my copy's in the car gathering pollen dust) seemed to have lots of history lessons on it. So maybe he watches the History Channel a lot. Some seemed theoretically potentially interesting too, but so far the music isn't interesting enough to make me care.

Heard on the radio here this week that Dale Watson wants to start calling his music "Ameripolitan" from now on. He says Nashville has co-opted "country," so he can't be that anymore, and "Americana" is too rock these days (which is news to me actually). So he came up with an even dumber name, I guess. Apparently there is a radio show involved too, somehow, but I've been too bored by him in recent years to investigate further.

The Blake Shelton album sounds EXACTLY like you think it would, no matter who you are. It's got some good stuff and some stuff that doesn't work and lots of energy but maybe not enough and some pretty parts but then they get boring. Most memorable thing is the song about his Grandpa's Gun, which is for shootin' and worshippin' and suchlike. Hmmm.

Actually I just remembered that I (mini)-reviewed a different Terry Allen album that I like (and still own) -- plus Cracker covering his best song -- for the Voice 10 years ago:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-08-26/music/music/full/

See, I don't mind the fact that Terry Allen can't really sing -- his songs still work for me, plinky-plonky piano and all. (NB: I also like Waylon Jennings, even though he often cannot sing either, but I draw the line at Kris Kristofferson, because ugh.) I decided a few years ago that <i>Juarez</i> is the greatest American concept album, and I'm still gonna stand by that.

I still haven't heard the new Allen (or either of yall's faves), just the live broad linked upthread, w some of the new songs. Forgot to check the one you reviewed there, xhuxk, but that's an intriguing description. Yeah, liked Cracker's Countrysides too, especially their non-campy cover of "Sinaloa Cowboys", about drugs and brothers; it's one of Springsteen's best musical mini-movies.

Inviting description of Juarez too; must get that and Lubbock (On Everything). The best really out-there Texas album I've heard is Jo Carol Pierce's Bad Girls Upset By The Truth. (although I'd also count one by the Mountain Goats, blanking on the title--they were just visiting, but they really got it).

I'm a Lubbock (On Everything) fan in long, long, long standing ― xhuxk

Didn't know Terry Allen had a new release out; thanks

Country loving folks should not ignore the new album by Mexican band The Bright (not really a very Googlable name, ustedes). It's called Estados; it's on Spotify and maybe some other places too. Very country-psych, and includes a lovely cover of "Jolene."

What does everyone else think of the new Brad Paisley song with LL Cool J? I think it starts off OK, but LL's verse sinks it. Plus, when they start the choral part I just think it's a rehash of his last single, where they started singing "Dixie."

I hate that "Dixie" chorus so much.

I hope I'm wrong but the first third of Wheelhouse is the dullest music Paisley's recorded in years.

I have been way too afraid of that song to come anywhere near it. Still trying to hold desperately to my LL fandom but dude is making it VERY difficult (for about 15 years now).

He's good on NCIS:Los Angeles Keeping it country, Kimberly Williams-Paisley is good as important minor (?) character on Nashville.

I knew it--"Those Crazy Christians" had to end up twisting the knife on the guy singing. Those crazy Christians are instead of being outside on a nice day are at the bedside of a dying friend, and, also, "What if they're wrong/right" line in there. Nice sound actuality of a church service in there. Paisley's Wheelhouse has some fun. vocal things at the first of "Beat This Summer" (the fun. vocal things happen again in the record). Glitch-country-rock-banjo thing at the beginning and throughout.

"Outstanding in Our Field" has a Roger Miller sample and a rock 'n' roll guitar lick. lines about Clara Belle and the cafe and the carwashing and the keg. "I Can't Change the World" finds Brad flipping channels while his wife is fixing a brick wall in the back yard. They kind of ripped off "Across the Universe" kind of extended-phrasing thing on the chorus--but he can change her world, just after she mixes up the Quik-Krete and makes dinner. Jesus will look down from the same level as the powers that be.

I do kinda like the electro-beat and mock-classical electric lick and the way the program music mimics the tension of the song, of "Karate." But here's an example of what's wrong with this record--OK, now would a guy really be "chasing" "Cuervo" and "Tecate" in a bar or is this a clumsy way of saying he's fucking around? No, he's really drunk and knocks her around. And wait, Charlie Daniels comes uneasy riding into the song. So it's a joke song about domestic abuse, fair enough, it's basically a comic universe...?

"Southern Comfort Zone" just also seems under-imagined to me. Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace call the South "the land of cotton" which is the wheelhouse of the title, "Dixie" is heard, Grand Ole Opry ads, and it's kind of like a bright tenth-grader creating his own Pro Tooled song at home about Southern Heritage, but tweaked by professionals, as in the chorus, which is about the only good thing about the song. The stealings from U2 or whoever are interesting. And "Harvey Bodine," Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace again, is another comic tune about dying, with whistles, and a defib machine, and I think you could maybe hear how the thing is just spoiled by what I perceive is an uncertainty of tone that pervades the whole album, and I'm sure that Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace had the idea of couching "Harvey" in terms of a Monty Python sketch. Taken piece by piece, some of this works, but the combination of whimsy and kitsch emotion is pretty hard for me to take. "Tin Can on a String" really isn't bad, Paisley/Ashley Gorley/Lovelace, pretty straight.

In my "Southern Comfort Zone" blurb a few months ago I noted that the strain of reaching different audiences finally showed. I'm thinking whether it belongs on the album; instead, it serves as bookends.

I started a thread. Figure he needs his own by now: Anticipate Brad Paisley's "Wheelhouse"

Right after Paisley I put on Jonnny Fritz' Dad Country, at basically the other technological extreme from Paisley. I'd say as a combination of Tom T. Hall and Michael Hurley or whatever, Fritz/nee Corndawg has something about 30% of time time on this record. As a singer, he's lousy, but bravely makes it halfway work a lot, I give him credit for that, and in "Goodbye Summer" he asks the Older Lady he's just picked up to "swing by a CVS, I left my contact solution at home." In "Ain't It Your Birthday" he drives 250 miles in the middle of the night to see his ex and their kids, but she blocks the driveway, which prompts Fritz to meditate on stardom and "all the money they're trying to give me just so sign a couple compact discs." And "Suck in Your Gut" takes a realistic look at the mini-stardom Fritz has presumably enjoyed.

Sometimes the quick little half-assed country tunes he's lifted from wherever work, sometimes his singing is truly funny, and I think he's kinda funny, really. He's trying really hard to be casual and I give him credit for that concept, but he's no Michael Hurley or Hall or Jack Clement or Billy Swan--all his grandaddys, none of whom would have necessarily sung in public about going down there "where her belly ends and her legs begin," altho the bit about her "writing down her numbers on the wrappers of their Almond Joys [truckers she meets that is]" is good. I give it a B minus.

I miss the songs about stuff ("Ticks," "Water").

"Just to sign a couple compact discs."

Yeah, Alfred, Paisley has lost his songwriting touch, seems to me. The extended apology that's in the booklet may contain some clues, though.

I reviewed the Paisley for Rolling Stone (maybe or maybe not coherently -- only had 110 words, and I'm not even sure if all of those made it into the mag; haven't seen the review in print or on line, though I did see it quoted on Wiki already), and I agree with a lot of what's being said here. Just a really mediocre mess of an album, ambitious in its way but totally confused about it; though then again, wasn't his last one pretty mediocre too? I've kind of stopped expecting much from the guy. Best cut is probably "Karate," though he's obviously done much better than that, and I'm not really sure what Charlie Daniels is doing on there (rapping, I guess, sort of -- if so, has anybody mentioned that three songs on the album have rap parts of some kind?) Cool J duet is well-meaning maybe but full of dumb false equivalencies (uh, gold chains do not equal iron chains, guys) and embarrassing escape hatches, and gets worse when Cool J comes in. (By the way, is calling the confederate flag a "red flag" a thing? I'd never heard that before.) Not really sure why the album deserves its own thread here, to be honest -- there have been way more interesting county albums this year. I'm kind of done thinking about it, myself.

I only got through a couple songs on that Johnny Fritz album; at least when he was calling himself Johnny Corndawg last time, I got through the whole thing a few times before chucking it. I get that he's aiming for Hurley (hadn't thought of Hall), but he's just not good enough at it. Who he really reminds me of Jeffrey Lewis, this precious "anti-folk" annoyance in New York a decade or so ago; with a dirtier mind maybe, but with singing this horrible it just hits me as cutesy-poo. If anything, I've become even less tolerant of inept vocals like that lately.

New Band Perry album is not bad, not great. Think I like "I'm A Keeper," "Forever Mind Nevermind," the single "Better Dig Two" from last year obviously, maybe the title track "Pioneer." Maybe others will sink in, but the track I really love -- one of my favorite rock songs of 2013 -- is "Night Gone Wasted," which really could almost pass for a Slade hit from the mid '70s. George Smith had compared Kimberly Perry's belting to Noddy Holder a couple times circa the first album, and I could sort of hear it, but this time I really hear it. Just a huge jolly shouted stomp. At first I could've sworn she'd sneakily changed one of the words in the line "I'll have you home soon and then I'll tuck you in bed" (a la Smokey Wood in "Everybody's Truckin'"); pretty sure I was wrong about that, but the song still shakes the rafters.

Also should add that Paisley implying that those crazy Christians are somehow more likely to help him if he ever needed help than, oh I dunno -- those crazy Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or agnostics or atheists, I guess -- really pisses me off. Wanted to work get that into the RS review, but I couldn't figure out how.

"Night Gone Wasted," which really could almost pass for a Slade hit from the mid '70s

at the ACM awards tonight, they played "done," which could almost pass for franz ferdinand's "take me out." unfortunately, kimberly perry was having a really hard time putting it over live.

Not really sure why the album deserves its own thread here, to be honest

This was kind of unfair, I guess -- There's obviously a whole lot going on on the record, even if most of it is fair-to-poor. I just prefer to have all the country talk on one thread; I tend to avoid one-album threads in general. But that's just me, obviously.

I do like "Death Of A Single Man" okay, fwiw. And the short instrumental that apparently has at least three different names --the download the label sent me called it "Onryo," but the promo CD that came in the mail titles it with what I assume are two Japanese characters.

I like "Officially Alive" despite not having a damn clue what he's so excited about.

I saw that The Band Perry performance, and there's one immediate link to glam there, which is that it took me a minute or two to nail down the bass player's gender.

Stevie Wonder doing "Sir Duke" with Hunter Hayes? was it? on ACM over the weekend was pretty awful in its way, and pissed me off as much as the Paisley record does. On FB, I've read that Dave Marsh had bad things to say about "Accidental Racist" on his Sirius XM show, and comments so far have been about 60-40 against Paisley so far. He should team up with the guy from the Meat Puppets, whose new album, Rat Farm I think does some of the same things country is trying to these days, and Curt Kirkwood would make a good foil for Paisley on guitar.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/08/showbiz/country-music-awards/index.html

gretchen wilson's "still rollin'" sounds an awful lot like jackson browne's "running on empty." i kinda like it.

First spins cont.:
Gary Allan, Set You Free---at least half is primo. esp “It Ain’t The Whiskey” (yeah, if only it were, if only one's problems could get with a Program), but then again, the usual shields, however discounted, do take their own toll, and the hole takes a lot of sunshine, tequila, nearby young people, and “Sand In My Soul”; then in “Hungover Heart”, the longer he’s dry more he remembers being her man, goes w dangers of removing those shields, crutches(but also spends sometime begging and suffering from comparison with "Love Is The Drug"); “One More Time Around”, if that’s the title, in orbit w slight phasing and supple beat, worn and yet fresh; “Drop”, even more genre-bending country adventure, watchout Jerrod! “Bones”, good tight Southern Rock. Some others lag, or a little vague re sustaining momentum--so far.
Holly Williams, The Highway---like Allan, a balancing of and on and way in the polarities, of black and white as color, vitality and focus ahead of weariness and meltdowns, by a nose, most of the time, or at least it's a draw (I like more of this than Allan's album so far, but he's got more musical and maybe emotional variety---but she's younger, and looking back keeps curving into the present and immediate future more frenetically, also like that she writes and sings from POV of different ages, gender and other roles). Still, gets a bit soggy and predictable toward end.
Marshall Chapman, Blaze of Glory---vivid small group sound, Tony Joe or other late 60s/early 70s grooves: dig the bass guitar merging with and separating from the left side of the electric piano; Stones-era Coodery guitar, but mainly as punctuation; translucent, somewhat androgynous vocals; not too much of the Boomeristic musing one might expect from a poised 65-year old. "Call The Lamas" even seems like it could have been a groovy crossover Top 40 hit, or gotten her on The Smothers Brothers show anyway.

This weekend's Prairie Home Companion is from Lubbock, featuring Ashley Monroe, the Flatlanders, Buddy Holly's big brother Travis, who gave him some tips re music, and Peggy Sue, who also taught him a thing or two.

Pistol Annies not grabbing me like its predecessor.

I almost definitely like it more (just more energetic, over all), but that's partially because the first one didn't take too long to cool on me once I finally realized how slow most of it was. Plus, the only thing I really love on the first one, in retrospect, is "Takin' Pills"; not sure which other songs on the debut I like more than "Hush Hush," "Being Pretty Ain't Pretty," "Don't Talk About Him, Tina," maybe "Dear Sobriety." That said, I wouldn't say I like the new one all that much more than the new Band Perry or Lady Antebellum albums.

Keep going back and forth on the new Kenny Chesney. Favorite track is probably "Must Be Something I Missed," where he's attempting vocal jazz like Gary Allan in "Drop," which Don mentioned 3 posts (and almost 3 weeks) up. Some of the rest is pretty cringe-worthy, but that doesn't necessarily make it unpleasant to listen to, or uninteresting to think about. There's probably an essay to be written about what that album says about country's current relationship to reggae.

By the way, in case anybody who cares missed this, I wrote 900 words at the link below on country rap before rap existed (i.e., '70s on back to the '20s -- either 1920s or 1820s, depending how you slice it.) And if you keep scrolling, you can read another 3000 or so I wrote about hickish hop and/or hoppish hick from Trickeration, Malcolm McLaren, Bellamy Brothers, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Crucial Conflict, Kid Rock, Toby Keith, Britney Spears w/ Ying Yang Twins, Big & Rich w/ Cowboy Troy, Gretchen Wilson, Trace Adkins, Colt Ford w/ Nappy Roots, Jason Aldean w/ Ludacris, and a bunch of dumb new bands. (And other writers wrote interesting stuff about other songs, too.)

http://www.spin.com/articles/rap-country-uncomfortable-history-accidental-racist/?slide=1

I'm liking the new Pistol Annies album.

I've started to soften.

was definitely initially disappointed by the new pistol annies - starting to soften and i definitely like it but as a collection it hits much less hard than the debut - the songwriting just seems more content to paint broadly rather than specifically

http://arts.state.al.us/actc/1/radioimages/braxtonoldpic00pixel.jpg
Braxton Schuffert, of Hank Williams' Drifting Cowboys (wrote and recorded w Hank, also his own releases) died last month at the age of 97. Some lively tales in this interview, with a bit of his own singing, as well as Hank's. His voice reminds me of Ira Louvin's "boy contralto," but richer and like Schuffert's more at ease in his own skin. So, he's no tortured genius, but he's not bad, it seems (will seek out some more). 28 minutes, 38 seconds. Can stream or (where it sez mp3 Audio), download, without subscribing to the podcast etc:
http://arts.state.al.us/actc/1/radioseries.html#braxton2

Why does Bryan — a 36-year-old Nashville crooner with solid-though-not-spectacular vocals, whose songs are relentlessly catchy, but tackle standard country fare — elicit such hysteria? It could be because of the dynamic dual character he has created through his music. On one hand, he’s the ultimate guy’s guy, dedicating about half his material to drinking beer with buddies, partying on spring break and watching girls in bikinis. Then, a minute later, he is the ultimate Romeo, wanting nothing more than to take the love of his life out to the country for some romantic off-roading or a picnic for two in the woods.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/luke-bryan-masters-the-two-sides-of-his-country-music-persona-at-wmzq-fest/2013/05/19/9047fdfa-c0a3-11e2-9aa6-fc21ae807a8a_story.html

He's not unique in having these traits though, is he?

I don't think so -- Sounds to me like what lots of male Nash-country tries to do these days.

So...has anybody made it through the new live Eric Church album? Just seems premature to me, don't see the point after just 3 studio albums, but I've noticed a couple people raving about it. Did jump ahead to "Smoke A Little Smoke" to hear it briefly transform into Sabbath's "Iron Man" at the end, presumably a commercial country first but I'm not sure I care that much. The other tracks I've made it through just mostly sounded like rehashes of studio versions. Maybe I need to pay closer attention, but I don't know whether I'm motivated enough. So maybe somebody else should.

Did make it through the imminent debut album by the Henningsens a few times -- A lot of it's just fair, but "Darrell," "Sittin' In An Airport," the single "America Beautiful" and maybe 1 or 2 other things seemed at least a little better than fair.

I listened a lot more than usual before posting this on What Are You Listening To In 2013? As I mention at the end, could easily imagine several of these tracks on a Chicks album; maybe all of 'em, with a tweak here and there (or even without, considering how much classic etc rock makes it into mainstream country these days, and has for some time):

Natalie Maines--Mother Philosophical/romantic/musical companionship on the fly (as much momentum as a midtempo set is ever gonna get) while she pushes herself out of the nest, finds exhilaration and ongoing inner/outer struggle--that increasingly familiar bed "down at the Silver Bell," around a couple of hairpin turns, sounds like, can be like a prison cell, if you draw the shades down just little too far, and yet maybe that's part of the appeal, the kink of it (thought of this again watching latest Mad Men ep, re Draper finally getting too greedy up at the Sherry-Netherland). "Vein in Vain" is even worse than its title, but otherwise she unerringly selects, sequences and sonically illuminates songs written by singers who don't get to me very often: Vedder, Waters, Jeff Buckley, Jayhawks, her co-composer/producer/accompanist Ben Harper, for that matter, Harper and his crew sail jangle 'n' drone right on through 60s/70s (and Dixie Chicks) nostalgia, almost as unlikely as aforementioned midtempo momentum, in my experience.
"Mother" teaches me not to stumble over somewhat Spinal Tappy verses, on the way to what she makes into a glorious chorus--okay, Waters redeems himself here as a writer, but she sings it as a self-aware mother and daughter "Mother's gonna put all of her fears into you", climbing to "safe and warm", which have never been further, in awestruck, scary beauty (thee sublime, ay), from "comfortably numb." So now it also honors what Waters may have been glossing: Larkin's "They fuck you up, mum and dad/They may not mean to but they do/They fill you up with all the faults they had/And add some just for you/As they were fucked up in their turn/By fools in old-style hats and coats"--get back, Daddy Pink!. "Trained", with Harper as Jagger to Maines' Michael or Janet, doesn't even need a literal cowbell to be an effective answer song. "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" is the swoonworthy extended killer, and she does respect Buckley's original rendition when she should, without imitating his Son of Tim acrobatics. "Come Crying To Me" (which didn't make it onto the last Dixie Chicks album, amazingly enough, so maybe the extended hiatus is well-desserved) here is like the Pretenders covering Tom Petty, in a really great way, though could well imagine it as some kind of "Rollin' In The Deep" radio OD. "Free Life" is another cumulative dazzler.

― dow, Thursday, May 16, 2013 10:25 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also, re illumination respect, etc., several of these could and prob should fit the Dixie Chicks, so not like a rawk-off to them or their still-loyal fans.

― dow, Thursday, May 16, 2013 11:08 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gonna miss Kenny Chesney's upcoming local football stadium concert with Eli Young,Kacey Musgraves, and Eric Church but 2 of my nieces will be there. Woulda been interesting to check out

so is the new George Strait worth bothering with? "I Just Can't Go On Dying Like This" is terrific.

Don't know, but his record company is trying hard to get folks to hear it:

George Strait turned 61 on Saturday. Today, he gets a belated birthday present: His single Give It All We Got Tonight hits the top of USA TODAY's country airplay chart, giving the country great the 60th No. 1 single of his career.

Give It All We Got Tonight, written by Tim James, Phil O'Donnell and Mark Bright, is Strait's 115th single.

Strait's record label, MCA Nashville, made the single the subject of a unique marketing push called 60 for 60, enlisting the assistance of fans and fellow artists to get the single to the top of the chart by his birthday.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/05/20/george-strait-sixtieth-number-one-hit-give-it-all-we-got-tonight/2326951/

He's second to Vampire Weekend in album sales for the week

At the runner-up position is King of Country George Strait with "Love Is Everything", moving a close 125,000 copies in its initial sales week in the chart. It may have fallen short of the top spot in its debut but Strait's new album sets a couple of new records for the legendary country artist.

"Love Is Everything" becomes Strait's 18th top ten album, tying him with Paul McCartney for the fourth most top ten albums in history among male artists, after such music greats as Frank Sinatra with 33, Elvis Presley with 27 and Bob Dylan with 20. It also gives Strait his 25th No. 1 album in the Country Albums chart, further strengthening his hold on the record for most No. 1's in this category.

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00060577.html

I've heard a collection of his first 50 Number Ones, and liked about half, which is pretty good, considering how much shading can get shaved off the ol' persona on the way to the toppermost. His specialty is aging gracefully (incl. discreet updates) and always has been, seems like.
Speaking of considering how much classic etc rock makes it into mainstream country these days, and has for some time, guitar and drums provide most of the interest on Tim McGraw's Two Lanes of Freedom, although I do like all of the Cinemascopic windshield title track, including the bit about God watching (approvingly, sounds like) from "the skyblue ceiling", as the singer and his baby cruise the grand illusion, the nice warm Sunday sundae, anyway. Self-awareness at least keeps "The Book of John" from bathos: he knows how little can be preserved by the family pictures found in an almost-thrown-away "spiral-ring book", but he enjoys 'em anyway. He knows he's coming out of his "Mexicoma", and is very refreshed by it, thank you. Also like the "Sunshine of Your Love"-brushed "Truck Yeah", and the Stax-Volt x modern country "Let Me Love It Out of You", despite the title, which is also in the chorus, and still doesn't kill the vibe.

But jeez, most of it's bland rehash.

Sorry--been trying to ration the posts, but baby I'm bored.
Alfred and xhuxk were right about the Mavericks' In Time. It's almost the only country album to grab me and hold me almost all the way through the first spin: a killer, a chiller. Pistol Annies has been growing on me like carzy, but it and the country-enough-for me Maines took a little while). The other immediate ingredient, believe it or not, is Old Yellow Moon, by senior citizens Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell. Theme set rat off, by "Hanging Up My Heart", which here especially stands for hanging up my hang-ups, hanging my tears out to dry, fuck my feelings if they get in the way (when I don't want 'em to). Good rhythm, especially but not exclusively serving up honky tonk shuffles like "Invitation To The Blues," chased with with "Black Caffeine" and "Bluebird Wine", for inst. The only utterly resigned-sounding interlude is "Open Season On My Heart", and even that is about getting out of the house: "I hit the street, the fireworks start." "Spanish Dancer" brings a woman an unexpected encounter with shades of youth, incl. fear, self-awareness, self-consciousness and desire: a bouquet. But time really has passed, and she knows "he's just a man." Still--Spoiler Alert--she returns his gesture/overture in kind (what the hell). Also dig the way "When We Beautiful" opens and closes with "Guess you had to be there." And the way she can sooo sing along with or behind or ahead of the more restrained/limited yet expressive Rodney, while they're never too far apart.

"When We Were Beautiful", that is.

The e-vent that kicked off this year's thread, with more details. Guess the electronic dance party is countryonica, since all the live acts are country. ? Dang I'd like to go.

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a/images/2011_CravenLogo_lighter_sm.jpg
KENNY CHESNEY, TIM McGRAW, THE DIXIE CHICKS,
RANDY TRAVIS, PHIL VASSAR, SCOTTY McCREERY,
BRANTLEY GILBERT AND MORE
SET FOR CRAVEN COUNTRY JAMBOREE

The World's Greatest Country Music Festival set for July 11 – 14, 2013;
Weekend tickets available for $179 until June 1st at cravencountryjamboree.com

Craven, Saskatchewan (May 27, 2013) – The Craven Country Jamboree continues to astound with the amazing lineup set to play the World’s Greatest Country Music Festival from July 11-14, 2013 in Craven Saskatchewan. Once again, long-time weekend hosts, Williams and Ree, will serve as festival ambassadors.

“This may be the lineup to end all lineups,” said Troy Vollhoffer, executive producer. “We are always proud to bring the biggest and the best acts that are available, but this year I think we’ve outdone ourselves. The lineup is deep with a great mix of young, classic, and a trio of superstars. There is definitely something here for everyone. It’s going to be an explosive show in 2013.”

Tickets are still available at $179, but they won’t last long. Ticket prices will increase to $199 on June 1st. Visit cravencountryjamboree.com to purchase tickets and camping.

Thursday, July 11 (Beer Garden kick-off party)
8:00 pm – Williams & Ree
9:00 pm – Phil Vassar

Friday, July 12
4:00 pm – Small Town Pistols
5:30 pm – Sawyer Brown
7:00 pm – Brantley Gilbert
9:00 pm – Tim McGraw

Saturday, July 13
2:30 pm – High Valley
4:00 pm – Williams and Ree
5:30 pm – Randy Travis
7:00 pm – Doc Walker
9:00 pm – The Dixie Chicks

Sunday, July 14
1:00 pm – CKRM Big Talent Contest Winner
2:30 pm – Bill Anderson
4:00 pm – Gloriana
5:30 pm – Chad Brownlee
7:00 pm – Scotty McCreery
8:30 pm – Kenny Chesney

About Craven Country Jamboree:
The Craven Country Jamboree is the longest running music festival in Canada offering an amazing experience on the same picturesque site for over 30 years.

In July, fans enjoy world-class entertainment and quaint prairie charm. The festival attracts super stars like Kenny Chesney, George Strait and Taylor Swift, and features new Canadian talent each year.

Besides the main stage talent, the Pump Roadhouse beer gardens features fun local acts to the thousands of people attending each night. As well, there are plenty of ther activities to keep fans entertained like bull-riding demonstrations, a hypnotist, a song-writers circle, and Circus Electronica, an electronic dance party.

Across the river, the Craven Country Jamboree can accommodate 8,500 campers, easily becoming the third largest town in Saskatchewan each year.

With its storied history, famous performers, and friendly appeal, the Craven Country Jamboree puts Canada on the map on the world stage of festivals.

For more information, visit Craven Country Jamboree at www.cravencountryjamboree.com.

From Miranda Lambert News--dig Oklahoma benefit concert on NBC tomorrow night:
http://mirandalambert.s3.amazonaws.com/media/newsletter/archive/2013/05/27/h.jpg
MuttNation Foundation is working with Miranda’s good friends American Humane Association Pedigree Adoption Drive and North Shore Animal League America for the tornado victims and pets in Oklahoma. Cleveland County Fairgrounds at 615 E. Robinson Street in Norman, OK is setup as shelter. OKCLOSTPETS.org also features lost and found pets. You can donate to the effort to assist in this and other pet related rescues at MuttNationFoundation.com.

Miranda will also join husband Blake Shelton, Reba, and Vince Gill for a telethon “Healing In the Heartland: Relief Benefit Concert on May 29, 2013 at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. The concert will be televised at 9PM (ET/PT) on NBC.

I know it's from last year but what do you guys think of Blake Shelton's "Drink on It"? I just heard it on the radio last night. I like the guitars on it: the lines themselves as well as the tones and production. Does his other stuff sound like this? Anything else I should check out if I like this?

Eric Church, Gary Allan.

Oh yeah, my country-loving friend is always talking about Eric Church. Where do I start with him? This year's album?

Home is my best to my ears, but the last one has "Ain't Killed Me Yet" and "Smoke a Little Smoke."

his best too

and of course I meant Chief.

for Gary Allan check out Tough All Over

as for Blake Shelton, my favorite album of his is Pure BS

Lee Hyori's new album starts off with a goofball quasi-bubble-country track, "Holly Jolly Bus" that's not nearly as fun as 2Yoon's goofball quasi-country "24/7," which I talked about upthread. But Hyori's nongoofy "사랑의 부도수표," which Wikip translates as "Bounced Checks Of Love," is a nicely smooth bit of western swing that edges into rockabilly. "Bounced Checks" is written by blues guy Kim Tae Chun.

Will check those out later.

Ann Powers writes about who you would expect here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/06/06/188997881/country-musics-year-of-the-woman

oh lord

Would anyone mind putting together a top 5-10 songs of the year so far?

More wtf from Korea, Sunny Hill's "Darling Of All Hearts," sorta Irish folk-country flight-attendant pop.

John - Unfortunately I've only got a top two so far, and one's a Korean track that's letting us know it's only pretending to be country, while the other is a Miranda Lambert single that had its first album appearance two years ago:

1. 2Yoon "24/7"
2. Miranda Lambert "Mama's Broken Heart"

I remember Alfred saying that "Mama" sounded rote back on the album, then hit him as a single. Me too; I passed over at first because it was an obvious toss-off, just Miranda's basic shtick: a deliberately distanced and formalized vignette from someone else's life, with a straw-man mom and a totally bogus generational conflict. Fashion-model rockabilly. Maybe all the distance is what inspires her to lay into it full throat while sounding unforced in the process. Helps that it's in and out after only a couple of minutes, wham-smash-gone.

Hayden Panettiere's "Telescope" would be my number three, except it's probably too last year.

2Yoon's "24/7" might be my overall single of the year so far, but I don't know that I consider anything beyond its opening notes (which definitely are) "country," or at least I've never thought of it that way. Could change my mind though. Beyond that, here's a very rough running list of my favorite country singles of 2013 so far (at least I think all these can qualify as "2013 singles" -- somebody correct me if I'm wrong), leaving out several regional Mexican and Southern soul singles conceivably at least as country as "24/7":

1. Taylor Swift – 22
2. Ashley Monroe – Like A Rose
3. Miranda Lambert – Mama’s Broken Heart
4. The Henningsens – American Beautiful
5. Kacey Musgraves – See You Again
6. Mavericks – Born to Be Blue
7. Pistol Annies – Hush Hush
8. Kacey Musgraves – Blowin’ Smoke
9. Lady Antebellum – Downtown
10. The Band Perry – Done
11. Jason Aldean – 1994
12. Carrie Underwood – Two Black Cadillacs
13. Lady Antebellum - Goodbye Town
14. Johnny Solinger – Rock n Roll Cowboy Man
15. Mavericks – Back In Your Arms
16. Lauren Alaina – Barefoot and Buckwild
17. Brandy Clark – Pray to Jesus
18. Toby Keith – Hope On The Rocks

"1994"!!

wait Jason Aldean recorded a tribute to Joe Diffie? I thought I was the only person who still cared about Joe Diffie.

I feel so much less cool now.

That's what I thought, too! And nostalgia for 1994, besides -- That song cracks me up. Maybe my favorite Aldean single ever, too.

By the way, I should also mention that that list is probably too long: I should really call it "the list of all the country singles I've liked even a little bit so far in 2013." Gets pretty marginal starting with #13 (though I was actually sad to see how low "Goodbye Town" was rated on Singles Jukebox -- It's not great, but I definitely like it way more than several singles that have done better on there lately.) And I'd expect there might be several better country singles than those I've missed, since I basically never listen to country radio anymore.

that's how I feel about "Goodbye Town" too, although not the cool, terrific "Downtown" (maybe they need to write a concept album about city life).

Actually, Golden has a much clearer and better "Downtown" sequel on it, called "It Ain't Pretty." (I actually reviewed the album, positively, for Rolling Stone, but as far as I know they haven't run it yet.) "Goodbye Town" reminds me more of the loneliness I felt in Kix Brooks' "New To This Town" last year, though I think he pulled it off much better. The Lady A song is still quite pretty to my ears, though.

Trying to stick to "official" singles, in as much as that still carries any weight, my current t5 for the year would be:

Sturgill Simpson, "Life Ain't Fair and the World is Mean" (lands about halfway between Waylon Jennings and Dwight Yoakam)
Laura Bell Bundy, "You and I" (yes, a Lady Gaga cover, but a perfect fit for her country-as-drag-revue POV and, production-wise, more Shania than Shania has been in well over a decade)
Kellie Pickler, "Someone Somewhere Tonight" (obviously not as great, vocally, as the version of the song from Pam Tillis' last album, but still very well done)
The Band Perry, "DONE" (basically re-cuts Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" with a guit-jo, which was a great idea)
Charlie Worsham, "Could it Be" (which sounds like Diamond Rio)

Not really impressed by a lot of singles this year, honestly, but it's been a ridiculously strong year for albums. Top 5 at the moment would be Simpson's High Top Mountain, LeAnn Rimes' Spitfire, Jason Isbell's Southeastern, the SteelDrivers' Hammer Down, and Kelly Willis' & Bruce Robison's Cheater's Game.

While listening to the first stanza of "American Beautiful" -

She puts her boots and bandanna on
She has a hankering for Rolling Stones
She likes her vegetables home grown
A lot like the boy waiting out in the truck

- I got an image of Mick Jagger with his personal parts augmented by a cucumber stuffed in his jeans. Not sure I'd call any of it home grown, and the signifiers are a mess, but that's country in the '10s.

Speaking of noncountry, I'm listening to the new album by Schoolly D's favorite artist Tom Keifer. On a quick skim it seems very good; none of it makes any effort to register as country, but it's full of riffs that a lot of male country singers would love accompanying them (and for those of you who weren't paying attention in 2002, Andy Griggs had himself some Keifer licks in the excellent Keifer collaboration "A Hundred Miles Of Bad Road").

Kellie Pickler, whose meh album a lot of you liked last year, won "Dancing With The Stars" last month.

Oh yeah, I like that Tom Keifer album as well. Not allowed to call him "metal" anymore obviously (I think a law finally passed on that a few years ago), so I was hoping I could move him over to "country," but that doesn't really work either. I guess it's just "rock," though rock fans don't care about him much anymore either. Real good album, regardless.

And the new Kellie Pickler single, fwiw, struck me as even more meh than her last album.

Regarding that Sunny Hill track, Mat (who's Norwegian, though I think he's living in Seoul at the moment) points out over on K-pop 2013 that the Irish elements I was noticing might actually be Swedish, and that at one point featuring artist Hareem is playing a Swedish Nyckelharpa - which I guess is five times* as expensive as the pennywhistle he also plays. The pennywhistle is generally Irish, right? (Also sometimes Scottish, and British, and then South African.)

Says LOEN Entertainment in the YouTube description:

The song has a Bohemian polka-rhythm along with Jungle and Rock feelings with it as well.... the musician 'Hareem' joined as a session to make the music even more fun. The greek bouzouki, nyckelharpa, Drehleier, and the Irish Whistle is personally owned by Hareem himself. These instruments are rarely found in Korea, and in this song they make the polka even much more fun to listen to.

And polka makes it country! Or Mexican! And Bohemia makes it folkie!**

*Okay, bad joke, false cognate. "Nyckel" doesn't mean "nickel," it means "key."

**Okay, 'nother bad joke.

Actually, I hear more polka oompah than rockabilly in the rhythm of "Mama's Broken Heart" -- There's something Central European about it, to my ears.

Haven't listened to my Cinderella albums in something like 15 years, not even sure what box the cassettes are in; but if Keifer no longer counts as metal, so much the worse for metal. He can still approximate that high hysteria turn-of-the-'60s-into-'70s pitch that comes from nowhere else.

Also, new Keifer alb, The Way Life Goes, sounds more like what my fallible memory says Long Cold Winter sounded like than like what Fallibility & Crew attribute to Heartbreak Station, which is good since Mr. Fallible Frank far prefers the engaging former to the relatively respectable and austere latter.

Do you think "Mama's Broken Heart" might have some English Music Hall in it too? --Maybe "too" is the wrong word, since I wouldn't be surprised if the polka crazes of the 19th century embedded the rhythm in places as scattered as the West Indies and the British Isles and northern Mexico and from there into the American south.

When I first heard Dwight Yoakam's "Population Me" I immediately thought of the Kinks' "Harry Rag."

Yeah, music hall in re: the Lambert song doesn't seem out of the question to me. But it's that Germanic gasthaus cabaret drinking song swirl or whatever that I really notice (not that drinking songs and music hall are musically exclusive by any means, obviously) (and not that I'm any kind of expert, myself.)

As for the Keifer album, the late '60s/early '70s rock I hear on it seems a lot closer to the Faces or (sometimes country leaning) Stones or even Joplin than to, say, Iron Butterfly or Blue Cheer or Blues Image or Bloodrock or Rare Earth or Uriah Heep or Deep Purple. So I'm guessing metal heads, at least these days, would hear it as a lacking a certain elephantine riff density that has increasingly been considered a metal requirement. (There may be moments of elephantine density here and there; I'm not sure -- My advance CD's back in the car player now, inspired by this thread, after being on the shelf for a month or two -- but if so I don't really remember any. But believe me, I'll take any excuse I can to slot is as metal for Rhapsody readers if I can convince myself it qualifies, so I may be open to persuasion.) Obviously it sort of qualifies as metal merely on the basis of Keifer being grandfathered in as the leader of what was once considered a metal band (Dug Pinnick of King's X's latest solo album, which isn't is good as Keifer's but which I still like pretty well, is grandfathered in partly for that reason, but it also seems heavier to me), but the late '80s might be sort of a historical blip in that bands like Bon Jovi (and maybe Cinderella), who probably wouldn't have been heavy enough to be considered metal before or since, were.

I'm not saying that era were wrong -- and metal fans are ridiculous, in that Blue Cheer, Heep, Purple, etc., are these days widely referred to as "proto"-metal, which is absolute historical revisionism but I've shamefully taken to using the phrase now and then myself just because of how it's so widely understood. Anyway, I'm not sure I'm right about this, but I'm guessing Keifer's new one might feel even less metal (i.e. less heavy) than Cinderella did on even their earliest albums. (Long Cold Winter is easily my favorite too; always was. And right, Heartbreak Station was their respectable blues-rock move. Debut Night Songs, a lot of it an AC/DC rip, was arguably their most metal album, and this year a sort of doom metal band from Ohio, Robot Lords of Tokyo, even covered the title cut.)

By the way, seeing how I'm off on this metal tangent, I should mention that I've also noticed a aural intersection between jiggy Irish and Scandinavian folk rhythms in regards to Irish (Cruachan) and Scandinavian (Korpiklaani from Norway) forest-troll folk-metal bands in recent years. (Lots of drinking song rhythms in that music, too. In fact, in Korpiklaani's case, almost all the songs are about drinking.)

("Mutually exclusive," I think I meant in that first sentence. Though maybe "musically" works too.)

Uh, second sentence. (Oh never mind.)

Frank/xhuxk/jon_oh -- Thanks!

not saying that era were wrong....Jeez. Lots of ungrammatical incoherence in that post.

Anyway, now I'm noticing a few tracks on the second half of Keifer's The Way Life Goes that might approach the heaviness of, say, Stone Temple Pilots or the less muscular side of '70s Aerosmith ("Mood Elevator," "Welcome To My Mind," "Ain't That A Bitch," "Babylon" -- possibly "Solid Ground" or "Cold Day In Hell" on the first half too, though those are probably stretching it even more), but that's as heavy as it gets. Nazareth's Dan McCafferty conceivably still a vocal inspiration too. But I'm still doubtful about calling it metal, by current definitions at least. Also don't hear a "Gypsy Road" on the thing. But I can still see this being Keifer's best album in a quarter-century regardless (and I say that as a weirdo who actually Pazz&Jopped Still Climbing, which peaked at #178 in Billboard, in 1994, though I do remember thinking that a weak year at the time.) If I did count The Way Life Goes as either metal or country, I'd say it would have a good chance on making year-end top 10s in those genres. Probably not my favorite new "rock" album I've heard this year (I'd put it behind Corsair, Mustasch, probably Voivod, and especially the Thin Lizzy spinoff Black Star Riders -- all more metal -- so far), but close.

Since Lady A's "Goodbye Town" was mentioned...I think this might be one of those cases were I realize none of us hear music the same, but this song, which I'm not sure I like all that much overall, has one part, the last minute of the song basically, when he starts riffing about memory and how she's going to think about him someday, that always stuns me because it sounds so much to me like the Scottish band The Blue Nile, especially songs on Hats like "The Downtown Lights". I need to listen to those songs again side by side to see if I'm crazy, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Ashley Monroe was set to play here, but the date got cancelled, because she's opening up for Train. Train.

She may deserve such a fate, judging her recent so-smooth-she's-a-stiff appearances on TV. Yeah, it's just TV, and could be nerves, but seems like complacency. Although on Prairie Home Companion, with no cameras, she did muse, "Sometimes I think I'm a 90-year-old man in the exterior of a 26-year-old female." Garrison: "Uh...well...while we're...considering that, could we have another song--?" So, maybe we'll get more such (hopefully in song) from this oracle whose huge waif eyes now sport painted lampshades, keeping stoic watch across the fields.
And might also have something to do with "Being Pretty Ain't Pretty", one of those Annie Up songs with unusual themes. Sure, there have been some books, like The Beauty Trap, and outbursts on every side of the screen, even in these "post-feminist" times, but I can't think of other musical examples, in any genre (oh yeah: Ani, India.Arie, years and years ago). There must be others, but not very often.
"Dear Sobriety" ia a seemingly new kind of cheatin' confessional---but does it have to be addressed to "Sobriety"? Reminds me of Fogerty saying that when he changed "Somewhere dowon the road" to "The old man down the road", the whole song came into much stronger focus for him. S
"Don't Talk About Him, Tina" is just about perfect, especially because the singer, Tina's friend gets more anxious than confident with the memes, maybe infectiously so, while trying to bolster Tina's courage and maybe her own) with drink may well have the opposite effect--ditto the title refrain, which could be like "Do not think of a purple cow", but is still good advice, cos I'd be trying to figure out how to take my leave as gently as possible, while keeping an eye out for her irate ex, if I met her and she was talking that heartbreak stuff, however philosophical(ly obsess, as these things tend to sound, too soon after)Ends in suspense!
"Trading One Heartbreak For Another"--dreading her son's pain and blame for the breakup--how many women have gone through this, why have I never heard a song about it---could nevertheless just seem like a premise for a TV screenplay, if not for the delivery--like Frank said about that xp solo Lambert track. This 'un achieves what one Music Row writer described as a country ideal of "dramatic stasis." Which sounds like a contradiction in terms, 'til you find your life floating in a shotglass, stuck inside a mobile or Mobile. (Patterson Hood's tried for this effect, but doesn't always use his def-sub-Annies vocal limitations cannily).
"Loved By A Workin' Man", though atyoically conventional as written, is also strikingly completed by its delivery: muscular music, confident vocals---so not really uncharacteristic, 'cos this lawwng drink o' refreshment's what they're always looking for, despite the other stuff.

(I'm trying to listen to every album mentioned on this thread, and singles too--so far digging Rimes, most of Maggie Rose, Willie. the aforementioned Mavericks, Marshall Chapman--also must listen again to Holly Willliams and Gary Allan)(sorry about typos)

Holy bovini! It's been Armato & James week on the two ilX threads I pay any attention to anymore, what with me finally picking up on Chuck's cue here and listening to Kacey Musgraves' "See You Again" and learning that it really is "See You Again" and then over on K-pop 2013 finding a controversy over whether Tahiti's new "Love Sick" is a ripoff of "Potential Breakup Song."

Not sure of the Musgrave track's provenance. Seems to be a legit release, on a small Texas indie - anyway, is available on iTunes and Amazon – though I don't know if it has Kacey's endorsement. She seems to have recorded it at age 18 or 19, which is pretty young except she'd done three albums already and likely had appeared on Nashville Star as well. It's not getting much attention. The A-side, "Apologize" (the Tedder song?) isn't even streamed on YouTube.

Jon_oh, thanks for alerting us to Sturgill Simpson. The album really is good hard bitter country from someone resolved to be left-behind and to resent it. So doesn't work as well as music criticism than as music, but I'm sure Simpson'll take that tradeoff.

It's been out well over a year, but I've really been digging Fred Eaglesmith's "6 Volts". It's got a nice Stones/DBT vibe... doesn't sound much like his previous couple albums which are are a little over produced.

I love eaglesmith's "johnny cash" on that album. simple, stupid, angry and great.

YES

News from Cary Baker---would like to check that autobio too:

BUCK ’EM, A DEFINITIVE TWO-CD SET OF BUCK OWENS’
MUSICAL EVOLUTION FROM 1955–67, DUE OUT NOVEMBER 5
ON OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
Fifty-song collection forms companion release to the book
Buck ’Em: The Autobiography of Buck Owens
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — If someone thinks they’ve got a cooler Buck Owens collection, we’ve got two words for them: Buck ’Em! As the newest release in its continuing and acclaimed reissue campaign, Omnivore Recordings is proud to announce Buck ’Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) — an anthology of a different kind. The fifty tracks here virtually define the Bakersfield sound, from the beginning of Buck’s recording career to the end of the classic Buckaroos lineup (Don Rich, Tom Brumley, Doyle Holly, and Willie Cantu), the period that established Owens’ biggest hits and influence as a hard-edged alternative to increasingly slick Nashville production. The collection will hit stores on November 5, 2013.

Eleven #1 hits are included, but in true Omnivore fashion, “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” “I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me),” “Sam’s Place,” and “Before You Go” are in their original mono single versions. Live versions (including some from the historic Carnegie Hall concert) of “Act Naturally,” “Buckaroo,” and “Together Again” are featured and alternate versions of “My Heart Skips A Beat,” “Where Do The Good Times Go,” and “How Long Will My Baby Be Gone” make their U.S. CD debut. With the addition of a previously unissued version of “Under The Influence Of Love” and the CD debut of Omnivore’s sold-out Record Store Day single “Close Up The Honky Tonks,” this collection shapes up to be indispensable to not only fans of Owens and the Buckaroos, but any fan of classic country music.

Beginning with three Pep Records sides from 1955-56 through 1967’s triumphant tour of Japan, Buck ’Em! tells the story of Buck Owens like no other release has. The set will be released as a companion to the upcoming Buck ’Em! The Autobiography Of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe, coming November 5 from BackbeatBooks, an imprint of Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group. Featuring liner notes taken from the book, detailed session information, and rare photos, Buck ’Em! looks to be the audio release that every discerning country music fan will want for Christmas. (Good thing it also contains the original mono single version of “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy”!)
Buck ’Em! works as a great introduction to the new Buck Owens fan, and a fascinating listen with some new rarities for the longtime one. It’s hard to believe this much music came into the world in only 12 years, but Buck ’Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) proves it was not only Buckin’ possible, but Buckin’ incredible.
DISC 1:
1. Down On The Corner Of Love
2. Hot Dog
3. There Goes My Love
4. Sweet Thing*
5. Second Fiddle*
6. Under Your Spell Again*
7. Above And Beyond (Alternate Version)
8. ’Til These Dreams Come True
9. Foolin’ Around*
10. Nobody’s Fool But Yours (Early Version)
11. Under The Influence Of Love (Early Version)
12. Keeper Of The Key
13. Goin’ Down To The River
14. Fool Me Again
15. My Heart Skips A Beat (Early Version)
16. Sweethearts In Heaven*
17. Love’s Gonna Live Here*
18. Down, Down, Down
19. Act Naturally (Live in Bakersfield)
20. Ain’t It Amazing Gracie? (Original Version)
21. Close Up the Honky Tonks (Early Version)
22. Truck Drivin’ Man
23. I Don’t Hear You24. Hello Trouble
DISC 2:

1. I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)*
2. Don’t Let Her Know*
3. Buck’s Polka
4. Playboy
5. Cryin’ Time*
6. I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail*
7. The Band Keeps Playin’ On
8. Gonna Have Love*
9. Before You Go*
10. Getting Used To Loving You
11. Gonna Roll Out The Red Carpet
12. Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy*
13. We Split The Blanket
14. Sam’s Place*
15. (I’ll Love You) Forever And Ever
16. In The Palm Of Your Hand*
17. Pray Every Day
18. Together Again (Live at Carnegie Hall)
19. Buckaroo (Live at Carnegie Hall)20. Where Does The Good Times Go
(Alternate Version with Strings)
21. The Way That I Love You
22. Adios, Farewell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long (Live in Japan)
23. We Were Made For Each Other (Live in Japan)
24. Heartbreak Mountain
25. How Long Will My Baby Be Gone (Alternate Version)
26. The Girl On Sugar Pie Lane *Original Mono Single Version / “Sweethearts In Heaven” performed by Buck Owens and Rose Maddox
“Under The Influence Of Love” previously unissued

Anybody heard this stuff?

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a/images/B_R_RemixBundle1a_lrg.jpg

BIG KENNY'S ELECTRO SHINE RELEASES NEW MUSIC

New Bundle of Big & Rich Remix Tracks available

Nashville, Tenn. (September 4, 2013) – Big Kenny, one-half of multi-platinum country duo Big & Rich, is continuing to push boundaries with his ELECTRO SHINE music project, where he brings together an eclectic fusion of beats, instrumentation and feel-good lyrics. On September 3rd, a new installment of Electro Shine Remix tracks was released on Glotown Records, including “Party Like Cowboyz” and “Born Again” from Big & Rich's latest release, Hillbilly Jedi.

“I've decided that it's time to get everybody dancing again! It's time to start celebrating life, no matter how much BS we keep enduring in the world. I want to throw big dance parties and get us all to know one another and make new friends. John (Rich) and I had such a huge hit and success with our dance remix of "Save a Horse," I was inspired to try some of the Electro Shine sounds to my favorite new B&R hits, “Born Again” and “Party Like Cowboyz.” Now lets crank up the tunes and dance. It's a great way to meet girls,” says Big Kenny.

For those passionate “out of the box” EDM, country and hick-hop music lovers, ELECTRO SHINE has more for your listening pleasure. ELECTRO SHINE’s debut EP, The Hits Vol. 1, that features a love of “Muzik Without Prejudice,” the mariachi inspired and pop infused “Electro Country Shine,” the feel good dance anthem “Hope Chant,” electronic country and rap anthem “Star,” and three versions of “Dance Upon The Solid Ground,” the up-tempo jam ingrained with twangy fiddle, banjo and electronic melodies is also available at all digital retail outlets: iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Rhapsody.

"Electro Shine is going to be a great way to introduce country to the Electronic Dance world, which is so huge now. And a great way to introduce the Electronic Dance World to Big & Rich and Electro Shine," adds Big Kenny.

In addition to the recordings, soon to be announced will be the ELECTRO SHINE touring show. The Vegas-style show under a big top tent will include singers, musicians, rappers, dancers, badass beats, aerialists, lights, lasers, psychedelic great visuals, and even little blue flying winged cherubs! An experience that could be best described as a musical circus, hosted by Big Kenny, where a collision of EDM, Americana, Country, Reggae, Rock, Pop, and Hip-Hop will create the vibe and party atmosphere that will keep everyone inspired and on the dance floor.

About ELECTRO SHINE:
ELECTRO SHINE is spearheaded by singer, songwriter and producer Big Kenny of Big & Rich. The farm boy from Culpeper, Virginia, powers the engine behind the madness of ELECTRO SHINE and has the passion and vision to propel it into an unforgettable experience. The ELECTRO SHINE sound is truly something that hasn’t been heard before from what might typically be thought of as an unlikely pairing.

For more information about ELECTRO SHINE, connect digitally at:
www.electroshine.tv
www.youtube.com/electroshinetv
www.twitter.com/eshinetv
www.facebook.com/electroshinetv
instagram.com/eshinetv
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a/images/07_16_13_BK_ES_Promo_861.jpg

I still want to believe, cos this solovision still roolz:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-10-04/music/wurlitzer-dawgs-out/full/

Wonder if Kenny knowz any of theez guyyyyz:
http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-05-25/music/the-groovegrass-boyz/full/

It's on Spotify...it's not very good.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/florida-georgia-line-the-duo-changing-country-music-one-party-song-at-a-time/2013/09/26/6477d338-254a-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html

Jack Daniels and group prayer, what else

I assume Willie's duets w Mavis, Dolly, Sheryl, Miranda, Shelby, Carrie, Emmylou, Tina, etc., etc., newly recorded for the aptly titledTo All The Girls..., due Oct. 15, will be on Spotify, but what the heck, Amazon's already streaming the whole thing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=pe_500800_33438110_pe_epc_/?ie=UTF8&docId=1001088031
Haven't had time to check it yet, but I really enjoy his prev. 2013 release, Let's Face The Music And Dance. Unlike several albums from recent years, it doesn't shuffle different approaches; it's small combo country & swing, closer to Django than Bob("Nuages" and s couple others have me craving another all-instrumental set). What the hell, if Aldean's heavy emphasis on arena rock is country, so's this. His voice and guitar are smooth and sandy in all the right places, and Sister Bobbie's 88s co-star, enforcing the speed of thought.
I would like some fiddle, though Mickey's harmonica mans the fiddle function, but when I want the literal, and in the same style, can chase this with Rendezvous With Rhythm, the latest from Hot Club of Cowtown. OK, it's not quite the same, no traces of Bob etc., but damn Elena's voice is so very come hither, and if Aldean etc.

Elana, not "Elena"; damn! In case you missed her distinctive solo album (w HC guitarist Whit strictly in tow), it's had a good effect on subsequent HC, I think : http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-03-27/music/a-dylan-co-conspirator-swings-out-of-the-past/

Like most songwriters in Nashville, McAnally works with a web of collaborators. His immediate circle includes Brandy Clark, Josh Osbourne, Trevor Rosen, Matt Jenkins and Matt Ramsey, and extends to Luke Laird, Natalie Hemby, Jimmy Robbins and Ashely Gorely. Their writing sessions are gruelingly frequent. In 2012, McAnally was writing as many as eight songs a week.

The only way to maintain that sprinting pace is through co-writing. “I wake up every day thinking, ‘I just can’t do it anymore.’ There’s nothing left to say and I’m completely dry,” McAnally says. “And then I get in the room with somebody and they say the right thing, and I’m on again.”

...

McAnally typically writes a song with two other writers, whose publishers will each have at least three pluggers, meaning there’s always a minimum of nine people hustling to find a song a home.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/11/05/how-does-a-song-get-from-shane-mcanallys-guitar-to-country-radio-explaining-the-complex-process-in-the-making-of-a-country-hit/

companion article to above blogpost

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/shane-mcanally-writes-real-country-songs-with-major-commercial-appeal/2013/11/04/37ea950c-4580-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html?tid=gog_ent_article_grid

McAnally has helped write monster hits (Lady Antebellum’s “Downtown,” the Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two”) and superlative sleeper cuts (Ashley Monroe’s “Two Weeks Late,” Randy Rogers Band’s “Fuzzy”) — all very different songs with varying degrees of bittersweetness.

“That internal ache is the starting point of country music,” McAnally says. “If it’s a happy song and I can still feel sad in it? That’s my favorite. Pop does that a lot right now. Both of Miley Cyrus’s singles, “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball.” [Katy Perry’s] “Teenage Dream.” . . . Those songs are sad to me, even though they’re, like, UNGH-UNGH-UNGH!” (He pumps his fist overhead like Arsenio Hall.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/brandy-clarks-debut-album-is-a-stunner-but-will-anybody-hear-it/2013/11/05/04be0ea8-4656-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html

http://www.npr.org/event/music/241888300/ashley-monroe-tiny-desk-concert

Monroe, Clark, Lambert all starting to reach NPR audience

I like them AND Florida-Georgia Line

yeah florida georgia line's singles have all been pretty good so far. i know they exemplify frat-country and so i should be against them or whatever but i like the songs. *shrug*

^^^Yes

Good example of McAnally's point: Brandy Clark's "Hungover", with her steady rise through the eternal shade of her hubby's sub-Easter Island headload (no matter how many steps she climbs, still got to mind the gravity, feel the pull)(she still cares; can't tell him to buzz off or get out of the way, even). That's the 12 Stories track that keeps finding its way to replay in my own head, but still not sure about the album as a whole. (Several--prob a majority/plurality--of keepers, duh, but so far she and Monroe and Musgraves seem more effective as team players--co-writers and demo/live mini-set singers--than on their own whole solo studio albums. I'll keep listening, though).
Just now spent the morning with that xpost Buck 'Em: The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1961), out yesterday and already on Spotify, unlike some. Can def see what the Beatles seem to have learned from him (and maybe even vice versa--ditto the Everlys?) also rec to fans of buckskin Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Dwight Yoakam of course. What I didn't expect, aside from his own apporach to rockabilly, which sounds like no one else I can think of, is his own apparent influence, the Louvin Brothers---even aside from overdubbing, or maybe singing with Don Rich or somebody, he can go it alone, go from Ralph's legato tenor to Ira's "boy alto" (or damn near) and back (and forth), but with his own droll soul, while exploiting sentiment and accent: stretching, bending, adding syllables, leaning out from the beat. There's at least one---blanking on the title, after listening to 50 tracks at one sitting---where he chortles and complains like uptempo Hank Williams on the verses, yelps like the Louvins on the chorus. (Mostly: mono singles, with some alt versions, punctuated by a few live shots, and a couple of great instrumentals: "Buck's Polka", which doesn't bother with accordions or fiddles, and "Buckaroo", kissin' cousin to Lennon-McCartney's "I Feel Fine", which doesn't bother with feedback---more like these, please!) I'd probably just keep 35-40 out of 50, but hey.

Did ya watch the CMA Awards tonight?

Kacey Musgraves - 2013 Anticipation

some comments here

Given up on awards shows, at least for now; the commercials are getting me claustrophobic, or agoraphobic, strictly speaking (both, as the dread marketplace presses me). Thanks for the link, but I'm putting off getting back to Musgraves. On Veteran's Day and free Spotify, when I don't wanna spend any unpaid-holiday money and have nothing better to do, I've just now listened to Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War. Think I might should listen more before saying much about it, but it's mostly, maybe all, good-to-great Top Ten bait, with hardly anything seeming merely mopey(perhaps a few where they're just killing time before or after the battle, but those fit too). Tracks:
1. Take Your Gun And Go, John Loretta Lynn
2. Lorena Del McCoury
3. Wildwood Flower Sam Amidon
4. Hell's Broke Loose In Georgia Bryan Sutton
5. Two Soldiers Ricky Skaggs
6. Marching Through Georgia Old Crow Medicine Show
7. Dear Old Flag Vince Gill
8. Just Before The Battle, Mother / Farewell, Mother Dirk Hamilton & Steve Earl
9. The Fall Of Charleston Shovels & Rope
10. Tenting On The Old Campground John Doe
11. Day Of Liberty Carolina Chocolate Drops
12. Richmond Is A Hard Road To Travel Chris Thile
13. Two Brothers Chris Stapleton
14. The Faded Coat Of Blue Norman Blake
15. Listen To The Mockingbird Stuart Duncan
16. Kingdom Come Pokey Lafarge

Disc 2:

1. Rebel Soldier Jamey Johnson
2. The Legend Of The Rebel Soldier Lee Ann Womack
3. The Mermaid Song Jorma Kaukonen
4. Dixie Karen Elson & the Secret Sisters
5. The Vacant Chair Ralph Stanley
6. Hard Times Chris Hillman
7. Down By The Riverside Taj Mahal
8. Old Folks At Home / The Girl I Left Behind Me Noam Pikelny & David Grisman
9. Secesh The Tennessee Mafia Jug Band
10. The Battle Of Antietam T Bone Burnett
11. Pretty Saro Ashley Monroe
12. Aura Lee Joe Henry
13. Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier AA Bondy
14. When Johnny Comes Marching Home Angel Snow
15. Battle Cry Of Freedom Bryan Sutton
16. Beautiful Dreamer Cowboy Jack Clement

Uh-oh, that paste didn't catch some duet partners:
Richmond Is A Hard Road To Travel--Chris Thile & Michael Daves
The Faded Coat Of Blue--Norman & Nancy Blake
Listen To The Mockingbird--Stuart Duncan & Dolly Parton
Pretty Saro--Ashley Monroe ft. Aubrey Haynie
(Nor did it get Steve Earle's final "e", but he'll live.)

No L.L. Cool J or Brad Paisley on it?

Maybe they declined---like Neil Young and Springsteen coulda been on The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams---and originally, Bob Dylan was given the opportunity to do the whole album, but he declined (said it was too great a responsibility). Would've liked to have seen what Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, Gary Allan, Sugarland might've brought to the table, in that case or this---but mebbe they declined too.

I'm kinda squeamish about songs about the Civil War tbh

anybody own the new Kellie Pickler? What I heard sounds pretty solid but the songs aren't as sharp as 100 Proof's.

Will check the new Pickler; good review in recent Rolling Stone. Here's Emmylou & Rodney's whole Nov. 2 Austin City Limits show,(they'll be on ACL's Americana awards show too)Still got the good Geritol:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365109950/

Okay, just listened to Pickler. I hope 100 Proof is better; I'll check that too. So far, mainly digging "A Little Bit Gypsy", which seems a little bit Bangles in the writing & vocals, with mainstream country pop's now nearly obligatory 70s arena rock guitar; "Buzzin' "; "Closer To Nowhere" ("Out where the stars get crowded, but we can get just as lost in your car in the driveway", or something to that effect); and "Someone Somewhere Tonight" (first steps, first kiss, everything else to be thankful for--but also, simultaneously, other someones getting last rites, trying to make it though the bottle tonight; living in prison, etc.) A candlelit boudoir arena ballad, risking buzzkill---but not getting out of prison may mean not getting run over by a truck, so count that too, She's so sweet, totally unconvincing as a badass. Well, the one about selling the ring her cheatin' fiance's still payiing for could work, but goes nowhere past the first couple verses, like many hits, but in, this case, the chorus isn't strong enough to keep the static sparky. Yeah, "Bonnie and Clyde"--they're prob her matching malties!

I'm def not liking this Pickler as much as the last one.

Haven't heard it yet.

Caramanica in the New York Times re Florida Georgia Line live:

They started out with one that perhaps only dedicated listeners would appreciate, Lil Troy’s Houston-rap hit “Wanna Be a Baller.” Then it was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop,” a cheap ploy to snare the casual listener. After that, TLC’s “No Scrubs,” 50 Cent’s “In da Club,” Juvenile’s song about derrières with an unprintable name, and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” After that, Mr. Ford rewrote Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” as a country song, and everyone rapped along.

Wait — what?

That a country band can drop a string of hip-hop and R & B songs into its set (as opposed to ones by Alan Jackson and George Strait) and no one bats an eye — indeed, the audience cheers — says everything you need to know about the disruptions that have been shaking country music lately. Quite suddenly, Nashville is a hip-hop town, whether it likes it or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/arts/music/florida-georgia-line-at-best-buy-theater.html

From original hick-hop (which has been around, now and then, for a decade or so, maybe starting with Toby Keith and the Groovegrass Boyz) to adaptations and straight-up covers.... oh well, I'll check it out.

The Florida-Georgia Line album though is not straight-up hick-hop

I meant I'd be more interested if he'd reported that F-G's doing original hick-hop, as Toby etc. started doing a long time ago, than just throwing in some covers (as some other country pop biggies now routinely add arena rock chesnuts). Okay by me, but c'mon, suddenly, Nashville is a hip-hop town, whether it likes it or not? It's just a nod to the (multi-)generational appeal, mutual congratulations on what we all came up hearing with and still like. They could also cover something from Dark Side of the Moon, another family favorite down here.

But yeah, I'll check out the shows on YouTube and the album on Spotify.

saw this on the Year-end Critics Poll 2013 thread:

TheBoot.com - Best Albums of 2013
http://theboot.com/best-albums-of-2013/

01 Keith Urban 'Fuse'
02 Kacey Musgraves 'Same Trailer Different Park'
03 Luke Bryan 'Crash My Party'
04 Brad Paisley 'Wheelhouse'
05 Ashley Monroe 'Like a Rose'
06 Patty Griffin 'Silver Bell'
07 Kenny Rogers 'You Can't Make Old Friends'
08 Sheryl Crow 'Feels Like Home'
09 Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell 'Old Yellow Moon'
10 Joe Nichols 'Crickets'

haven't seen anything here about toby keith's drinks after work. like all his recent albums, it's about three-fifths good to great and about two-fifths not. i love the title song, which musically reminds me of john mellencamp circa the lonesome jubilee and lyrically is, well this is toby keith, so it's about exactly what you think it's about: asking a girl at the office out for a drink. (though apparently he didn't actually write that one.) "last living cowboy" is a fun merle haggard-y throwback whose protagonist is 87 years old and "all the way drunk half the time." i have no need whatsoever for the deluxe edition's "margarativalle" cover featuring sammy hagar, especially when the non-deluxe version already gets the jimmy buffett vibe down perfectly with "i'll probably be out fishin'."

so much music to listen to, so little time (for me lately)

TheBoot.com - Best Albums of 2013
01 Keith Urban 'Fuse'

This is interesting to me. I found that album disappointing for some reason, and I really enjoyed his last couple.

Yeah, and I'm surprised to see Patty Griffin's Silver Bell on there: recorded with a 2000 release in mind, incl. originals beautifully covered by the Dixie Chicks--but otherwise, it's mostly, um, art-rock, for lack of a better term. Her meant-for-2013 American Kid would be a better fit, (but what the hell, they're both excellent).
Jason Isbell's Here We Rest often relied on the words, and some live versions were even shakier, but onSoutheeastern, he's got his tuneful tightness back (playing a lot of the mostly acoustic instruments himself; the 400 Unit plug in on cue and on point, but don't get co-billing). Time to put the spotlight and the pressure back on himself--the voice was never a problem, which was a problem. No matter how wasted and/or woolgathering he got, could always release a few more of those high lonesome sweet bluesy Lowell George notes, and tell himself everything was still okay and not okay, in that alone-together way.
The words are better too, deep and horizontally active enough, back and forth in time and space--the richest lode is the opener, "Cover Me Up", with some kind of imaginative but not imaginary although certainly motorvatingly metaphorical invalid, with strong lungs, calling for "medical assistance, or a magnolia breeze", while he and significant other are riding a flood in a cold house "I ain't chopping no wood...hang up your wet dress" and get that cover workin'. This is also very tender-sounding, since the lonesome monster is now ready to face whatever reality may and will surely bring--whole album's known knowns wed to known unknowns: very family values, very commuting-community-minded, very country in its way.

Outlaw country singer Wayne Mills dies in bar shooting

Nashville justice

or not

So I was just now flipping channels, and got hooked by Rich At Night, which I thought was an agreeably non-specific, holiday special, cos the philosophy employed was "everyday's a holiday", in honor of Americans who make and fix stuff, mentioned pretty often, in between "Hail Yeah" and "Yee Haw"---but it's actually (also) the premiere of John Rich's new talk show on TVGN,, from the streets and futurestar bars of Nashville to the house (some would say "building")in the bar of JR ("I'm the only one who can kick me out, and it's only happened a couple times so far"). He makes up songs from gruesome audience holiday tales (assisted by Wayne Brady, who's surprisingly okay). Rich also takes Gretchen Wilson to sing (guess what) with one downtown bar futurestar-by-night, kindergarten teacher by day, Becki McLeod, who's got a strong voice and her own tracks posted, but I haven't checked 'em yet. Wynnona Judd belts good, Kicks Brooks and Big K materialize briefly (non-simultaneously, alas)--it's more TV than music, but a good combination of wired and laid-back, with all commercials corralled into reasonably occasional, reasonably timed appearances, so far.

Everytime I thought Rich was gonna veer into a Tea Party rant, he didn't (so far).

oops forgot (not strictly necessary, but vs. soggy weather)
http://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/d21/unsecured/media/2178772909001/201311/983/2178772909001_2855249188001_XtraJohnRich3TVGN-26635-797x449.jpg?pubId=2178772909001

http://www.cmt.com/news/cmt-offstage/1718073/wanted-songs-about-southern-guys.jhtml

hmmm, hadn't thought about this

Help. Need a couple more singles (and more than that would be good), or else I'll whiff altogether on my Country Critics Poll. This is what I've got so far. I haven't been listening enough.

1. 2YOON "24/7"
2. Miranda Lambert "Mama's Broken Heart"
3. Kacey Musgraves "Blowin' Smoke"
4. The Civil Wars "The One That Got Away"
5. Luke Bryan "That's My Kind Of Night"
6. Sturgill Simpson "Life Ain't Fair And The World Is Mean"
7. Gwen Sebastian "Suitcase"
8. Charlie Worsham "Could It Be"

(I like most of the Sturgill Simpson album more than that single, by the way.)

@Frank_Kogan

"Railroad of Sin" was also an official single from the Sturgill Simpson album, if that helps. I have it on my ballot.

"Borrowed" and "Gasoline and Matches" were the '13 singles from LeAnn Rimes' album, if that was to your liking.

"Borrowed" is great, but think it was released in very late '12? So, by poll's very strict rules, doesn't qualify (I did list it for '12). Frank, have you considered these, from Gary Allan's real good Set You Free?
"Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)"
Released: September 17, 2012
"Pieces"
Released: February 25, 2013
"It Ain't the Whiskey"
Released: September 23, 2013 (my fave of these, though some album-only tracks are even better)
Also, maybe:
Dylan's "Pretty Saro"
Natalie Maines "Mother" (think it and her album will both make my ballot; ditto the Allan alb and maybe "It Ain't")

Frank, 4 of your top 5 made my ballot (which I sent yesterday.) I either never heard or barely remember your other 4.

Other singles you might consider (all of which I like, to widely varying degrees):

Regulo Caro – Empujando La Linea (El Minilic)
Lady Antebellum – Downtown
Taylor Swift – 22
Mavericks – Born to Be Blue
Pistol Annies – Hush Hush
Toby Keith – Drinks After Work
Jason Aldean – 1994
Ashley Monroe – Like A Rose
The Band Perry – Done
Gary Allan – It Ain’t the Whiskey
Kacey Musgraves – See You Again
Kacey Musgraves – Follow Your Arrow
Ashley Monroe – Weed Instead Of Roses
Chris Stapleton – What Are You Listening To?
Sheryl Crow - Easy
The Henningsens – American Beautiful
Carrie Underwood – Two Black Cadillacs
Eli Young Band – Drunk Last Night
Randy Houser – Runnin’ Outta Moonlight
Cassadee Pope - 11
Brandy Clark - Stripes
Lady Antebellum - Goodbye Town

Oops, sorry about including "Every Storm"!

Well, yeah: the Keith, Pistol Annies, Mavericks--maybe "Truck Yeah" too

love love love the toby keith single. love love the brandy clark single (but was her "what'll keep me out of heaven" not a single?). well yeah to both ashley monroes too.

if you're down with timely reissues…

https://soundcloud.com/secret-seven/blaze-foley-cold-cold-world

"Stripes" was the only official single from the Brandy Clark album; "Like a Rose" was first released last November but didn't get a video until this Spring. "You Got Me" was also officially pushed to radio, though radio didn't bite.

Thanks, everybody.

Chuck, I don't think I remember everything on my singles list either. Well, don't remember "Could It Be," and someone's asleep 10 feet away from me so I won't go immediately to YouTube and listen.

I haven't yet figured out if "See You Again" is a reissue or where it came from (seems to've been recorded several years ago). Not that I pay much attention to Geoff's strict date-of-release* rule, which is a dumb rule (P&J does much better by recommending year of impact and allowing boundary jumpers, so more accurately gauging a song's actual critic support). I don't think he strictly enforces it anyway. And a video release counts as a release.

Taylor will sometimes release the same single in more than one year, a promo download release in Year 1 and a big-splash release in Year 2.

*I told him back in '03 that the only time I worry about date of release is when I'm in jail.

"And a video release counts as a release." I mean, I count a video releases as a release. Don't know what Geoff does.

I feel fine counting Musgraves' Miley cover (presumably recorded who knows when) as this year because Rhapsody carries it only as the lead cut of a 5-song/multi-artist EP called Stars Of Montana supposedly released (or at least added for streaming) on 18 Jan 2013 (and, like you Frank if I remember right, I count lead cuts of EPs as singles by definition.)

Taylor Swift "22" came out as a single March 12, 2013, according to Wiki. (No idea whether it had charted as a download previously.)

Keith Urban "Come Back To Me" guys!! It's so haunting and still and every line is breathtaking. 'I wanna hold you but I don't wanna hold you back'. Written by Brandy Clark/Shane McAnally/Trevor Rosen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwanePAsIX0

oh wait i guess that isn't a single w/e

the label that released that compilation w/ musgraves's "see you again" cover on it (triple pop) says it was released in 2008. itunes says the same.

OK thanks. Rhapsody actually lists the label as TuneCore, whatever that is (one of my top 10 P&J singles, a Southern Soul song, has the same label listed), but I'm going to take your word for it and assume that opens up a slot on my Top 100 for something non-Musgraves. ("See You Again" didn't make my Nashville Scene ballot anyway actually.)

tunecore is the most prominent of the services that lets any artist or label self-distribute ther work to online services. it's mostly unsigned artists, but some smaller labels use it too (as well as a few bigger artists who are over the whole label thing). don't know if they have ther own label on the side. maybe some people who use them enter "tunecore" as their label 'cause they've got nothing else to put in that box.

A few more pretty-good-or-better singles I forgot to list above:

Lauren Alaina – Barefoot and Buckwild
Lee Brice - Parking Lot Party
Brandy Clark – Pray to Jesus (came out months before the album, lead cut on a 3-song, uh, TuneCore EP -- possibly a demo version)
Toby Keith – Hope On The Rocks
Mavericks – Back In Your Arms
Willie Nelson feat. Mavis Staples – Grandma’s Hands
Johnny Solinger – Rock n Roll Cowboy Man
George Strait - I Got A Car

As well as stuff already mentioned, I'm quite partial to the McAnally-penned "Fuzzy" by the Randy Rogers Band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NreVs1e4GM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_udpQffCt4Y

How do people feel about Eric Church's "The Outsiders"? AFAIK Al hates it, but that's all the talk I've seen about it.

So I relistened to Charlie Worsham's "Could It Be" and it drifted into the sunlight and off my list (though he does an okay cover of "Gangnam Style"). Working my way through your recommendations. Toby Keith sings best; Chris Stapleton sings worst but has the best song, and he'll probably get the nod for not disappointing me (in that I don't think I've heard anything else of his ever). I'll probably decide that "22" is country eligible (though it makes no effort to convince me it is). This still leaves one spot to fill, and I'll give these more of a chance. With Gary Allan I keep feeling "He's been there and done that," which I realize isn't much of an explanation for why I've gone meh on him recently, given that I regularly fall for freestyle and disco rehashes from South Korea.

Do u Spotify? I do, now that we don't have to sign in via Fecebook. I thought the same about Allan before hearing the whole album a couple times. But if you're not into albums, may not help (the whole Drinks After Work seems amazingly good so far, compared to my expectations, anyway).

The extra, self-written track on the new Keith album is pretty.

Pretty sure Stapleton is only the worst singer on those lists if you never got around to Solinger.

And Gwen Sebastian does an okay "The Fox" (as in "what does the fox say?"), actually.

And I might well not cringe at Sturgill Simpson so much if I didn't now live in Central Texas, where there is actually a "Texas country" station where every song sounds every bit as stodgy as he does. Fwiw, the one song in that style that might've made my single ballot if in fact it was a single is "Electric Bill" by Jason Boland (whose album was way too hard work to get all the way through otherwise, though I'm pretty sure I did once anyway.) Though admittedly there are plenty of songs in that style I haven't heard -- I've developed an increasingly low tolerance since moving here. (PS: I have no idea where Simpson is actually from, but judging from what I've heard he would fit right in.)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/every-country-song-was-the-same-in-2013

Perpetua links to a Youtube mix made by an EW writer who likes Jason Isbell and Brandy Clark but mocks mainstream country cliches re trucks, dirt roads, and beer

Isbell and Clark have sung about all three, o course. Not spotting it now, but somebody on here favorably mentioned Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison's Cheater's Game---thanks so much! Lots of catchy contemplation, and it just now held its own on Spotify, even with laptop headphones vs. a very proximate boombox blasting a cathedralful of Christmas music. Also sounded real good beyond that battle, when I listened to the whole thing again. Any other album rec's? (Think I'm okay w singles).

My backhanded 800+-word defense of a few dumb (or maybe not) songs

http://www.rhapsody.com/blog/post/defending-bro-country

Thanks for that! I'll have to check out the whole Crash My Party when I have a little more time. Bryant seems like a romantic bastard, eh---and/or smart enough to know which side his beef gets the mustard on--guess some Southern boys really do learn to say "Thank you Ma'am" to Grace---judging by how truly fervent he sounds marching to "That's My Kind of Night" and getting (somewhut ride my prOny imagery at times but still sincerely) thrilled to see her drinking that "Beer In The Headlights", and gosh she can "Crash My Party" anytime, never mind another night with the boys. These are all a little too long for me, but they're not for me (anyway I'll listen more).
Lee Brice! "Ain't no party like the pre-party, And after the party is the after-party" is a true sing-along chorus, I have to give it up to that! Very cool range-wise to see it's only another song away from "I Drive Your Truck," a true fallen-bro (or maybe fallen Dad?) anthem, also very good to sing along to, for my own imaginary (much-missed) bro. The one in between is "Don't Believe Everything You Think," which is certainly good advice, even if the song itself is a corny how I met yore etc.
"Cruise (Remix" is fly when Nelly takes over, though I'm not thrilled by F-G's ownautotuned Mac and cheese. Sarah Buxton's on another track eh, I'll check 'em all.

garth brooks tributing billy joel with "allentown" and "goodnight saigon" at the kennedy center honors. kinda great.

Took me a month to catch up on year-end lists, but 2013 was a fine year in country. Stand outs for me were:

Kacey Musgraves - "Merry Go Round", "Keep It to Yourself", and "Follow Your Arrow"
Sturgill Simpson - "Life Ain't Fair and the World is Mean"
Ashley Monroe - "Like a Rose" and "Two Weeks Late"
Dean Brody feat. Lindi Ortega - "Bounty"
Brandy Clark - "Stripes"
Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison - "Leavin'"
Jason Isbell - "Elephant"
Guy Clark - "My Favorite Picture of You"
Kellie Pickler - "Buzzin'"
Pistol Annies - "Hush Hush" and "Don't Talk About Him, Tina"
The Band Perry - "DONE."
Caitlin Rose - "Only a Clown"
Patty Griffin - "Go Wherever You Wanna Go"

"Bounty" didn't get enough praise. Helluva song.

Thanks, and come on over to RC 2014 for more lists etc.