Rolling country 2007 thread

The Frank review I mention was of John Anderson's "last album he did before the current one," not Norro's (how was Norro as a performer, Edd?)

I'm wondering what folks here think of Emerson Drive--since they had the number 1 single last week (now #2) with that song about the guy about to jump off a bridge until a homeless man emerges from a box & tells some stories about The War & childbirth. On the 2006 thread someone here nominated "Coutrified" for worst album of the year. Are they really that bad? I could be persuaded that this is Country's version of Nickelback.

"Countrified"

i did, they are unlistenable.

<i>No love for the new Ryan Adams?</i>

Listening to "Halloween Head," and it's a pleasing poppy almost-emo angst thing where he's disparaging or celebrating his own compulsive mental processes, and he yells "guitar solo" and it's actually funny (though not nearly as funny as when Dick Valentine did it on the first Electric Six album). And he's kinda square and clumsily dorky in the way that he's all enthusiastically emphatic in his delivery, which is rather endearing, even if <i>he's</i> not aware of the squareness. Problem is that not only is his clumsiness endearing, it's also clumsy, and brings down what could have been a great little single. Might make a good Tom Petty song.

Speculative purchase of Big & Rich at BestBuy. Comes with DVD advertised as "uninhibited all-access, entirely true story of how Big y Rich are taking over country music." No exclamation.

First tune made me think of a Don Henley solo album. Title track is prob'ly the one I like best, so far. Half the appeal is in the production. "Radio" is so-so, the intro to it is better. But don't they already have an "intro song" in "Coming to Your City"?

"You Never Stop Loving Somebody" sounds like it has Petty's Heartbreakers as the backing band, copping the descending riff off some TP tune. Fine with me because you can never get enough big B3 Hammond and Vox-y guitars.

Two points: (1) I'd been made to think they were a lot funnier than they are here; and (2) for guys who talk about liking their music turned up loud so much, they sure could stand to put more thump into the songs on this thing that allege to fit the bill.

No use for a bluegrass version of "You Shook Me" and I'd disbelieve anyone who says they do. I like "Please Man" lots more than "Loud" even with Wyclef Jean and I no more believe he composed the lap steel and country stuff than he could fly to the moon. Song aches for someone to digitally edit out his break in the middle.

Bon Jovi's Lost Highway initially givin' me the impression I don't like it as much as the Big & Rich LP. Maybe because I like TP & the Heartbreakers a whole lot and this album wouldn't exist without a wholesale cop of the style. It's a game of micron differences between great and just workman-like but those microns add up and BJ is just a bit short on first listen.

"Everybody's Broken" and the title track are the closest it comes to getting it just right. Jon is now phrasing and yelping like TP and Richie's traded in the Marshall stacks for Vox Top Boosts, AC-30s and Matchless amps. One for old time's sake is done on "We Got it Going On" when Sambora breaks out the talk box.

"Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore" rips some of Henley's "Heart of the Matter" (what is it with the Don Henley rips today!?) to set its stage. And Don Henley wouldn't write lyrics like 're in this one. Neither would TP. Too trite even for people who love trite.

Doesn't bring the rock as much as it ought. (Too my ears, a lot of this genre stuff doesn't even when it's insisting it does, so maybe it's me.) If you like were Bon Jovi's been going, you might like this, though. It's pleasant.

"I Love This Town (Say Hey!)" -- gosh, Jon, some don't though, though. Song title really telegraphs it.

Leann Rimes shows up to duet with Jon BJ for "Till We Ain't Strangers" which is where the autotune shows up on J's voice. Which would probably have to be done for anyone dueting with LR.

And "Last Night" is the Henley rip. I was looking at the computer read out and there's some odious, as usual, copy protection shtick on this thing and it makes a hash of the sequence menu.

Consensus upthread is that Travis Tritt is a blue-collar growl guy whose antislick shtick doesn't rock any harder than the slick stuff he's supposedly anti, and his mush stuff is total mush (don't know if that was said upthread, but anyway his mush is total mush). So in general way more potential than achievement, 'cept he's had occasional moments of greatness intense enough to stop the sun. So anyway his new single isn't a skystopper but it's a very nice job, covers a cannily rueful Richard Marx song, "You Never Take Me Dancing" (as in you give me all I want of your money but...), the Marx tune in its time fitting into adult contemporary be-good-to-your-woman land but is just as good now at being a genial country aren't men goof's when they don't understand what women want, which is always. Tritt deepens the blues in the music without losing the song's humor or its modest.

(Other current rock tracks I'm liking, Yellowcard's "Light Up The Sky," which kind of makes me want to kill them for the too-standard pretty emo-boy wail in the chorus, but on its way through the verse, before my homicidal urges take over, there's a rather good catchy walk through the agony of being a young man with, you know, feelings. I also like Daughtry's "What I Want" where Daughtry and guest guitarist Slash heave dark armloads of soil into ear ducts.)

The thing about Bon Jovi's new style is that his yelp (or whelp or whatever it is) flattens everything emotionally, the same half-yearning pang on one song after another. So even if he were singing "Since U Been Gone" or "Come Clean" or "Nobody 'Til You" he'd probably turn them into something half-pleasant and half-irritating and negligible. (And "It's My Life" and "Have A Nice Day" and "Complicated" were viable enough tunes along those lines; maybe Clarkson or Duff or Lohan could have made them very good, though the material Martin and Shanks actually gave those three was better.)(And bear in mind that so far I've only heard the title track on the new Bon Jovi.)

"We Got It Going On," BTW -- the most old Jovi on the Bon Jovi is cowritten and performed with Big & Rich. It's one of the few tunes where they drop the big jangle and go for the old stadium rock. Lost Highway is a bit too much. Could have been two-four songs shorter. They should have settled for less when the playbacks started sounding the same. The duet tune with Rimes, for example, being not that great beyond her great tone.

I'm going to have to have it explained to me why the new Big & Rich isn't so hot. The first two numbers sound great. I don't get any sequencing problems on it. It all sounds very warm and sincere.

And I surely miscalculated when saying bad things about the Bon Jovi and Rimes duet. I was temporarily out of my mind when I said it wasn't so hot. It's really nice.

Man, George, you're making me want to go back and listen to the B&R again, which I didn't think would happen. Maybe I missed something? (I will say, though, that the stuff about them being funny just doesn't apply to the comparatively staight-faced new album, compared to stuff they'd done in the past-- especially the debut, which had tons of punchlines.)

Meanwhile, though, I'm re-evaluating the new Brad Paisley, which I wasn't liking last month and I am liking now. Not sure what changed between now and then, but "Ticks" and "Bigger Fish To Fry" and "I'm Still A Guy" (for starters) are quite entertaining (and, in general, a lot funnier than the new B&R.)

(I mean, if what George says about the B&R album is true, maybe that means they're going the Kid Rock route, where they wind up bypassing the overwhelming persona they started with and stop making jokes and just settle on being crafty country-rock journeymen. Which could be a respectable move, in its own way, and maybe even a route to a more long-run career. Far from convinced this is what's happening myself, but the possibility alone does give me some hope.)

I've never contributed to the rolling country thread. Hi!

I hate to sound like a shill, but I'm digging this woman Stacie Collins. She just put out her disc, The Lucky Spot. It's kind of a honky tonk/Chicago blues/Stones thing. It's a bit on the vintage side, but it's not full blown retro. The band is just rocking. Both Dan Baird and Warner Hodges play guitar. they give the music a bit of that trashy roots rock vibe from the 80s. http://www.staciecollins.com/music.html

crafty journeymen, yep, that's what Big & Rich seem to be, and they are putting their heart into their ballads or slow ones or whatever you call them. I don't have the heart to put on this Hayseed Dixie thing, Weapons of Grass Destruction--they're wacky!!--but I suspect the cover of "Strawberry Fields" is about as worthwhile as Big & R's AC/DC cover. But I mean, you know how it is when artists have supposedly gone Out There as did the Beatles and then they came back to earth (with "Lady Madonna" or "Back in the USSR" or whatever, Rock tunes liken in the olden days)--and that's what I think Big & Rich are ultimately doing. I find a few more things to admire about the record but they're still basically sonic things, arrangements, and not related to the songs or the performances themselves, and they really do sing like some weird version of folkiedom gone wrong, which theoretically I admire, too.

As for some weird shit from Nashville, this new, basically self-released CD by a duo called Ode Hazelwood is some kind of take on '20s and '30s vaudeville blues/jazz, as if Memphis Minnie and Grandma Dixie Davis got in a studio with some trombones, kazoos and parade drums and did these songs about how the '20s were sexy, fun and ultimately very scary. One song is about how the singer wants to make it in the big old world but finds herself on the 13th floor, another one is about how crossing the river from Kentucky to Indiana is a terrifying prospect. Produced by the same guy who did Paul Burch's last one--which I liked when he was rocking out, by the way, in the manner of the sloppy Faces--and full of pretty accomplished music--so the weird revisionist songs full of 2/2 oompah actually mean something and they (husband-and-wife duo who met at Belmont University and bonded over love for jug-band and Bessie Smith and so forth) actually say something about what could have been merely retro. Good; the singing is also good and once you get acclimated to the somewhat campy aspects of their vibratos (both sing--Joseph and Raven Hazelwood, they call themselves), it all flows right smartly. it's called Radio Noise, they've been playing around town here.

Took time out to watch CMT yesterday. Primarily, for its top 20 countdown but I also noticed they're still burying viewers with reruns of the Dukes of Hazzard, billed as a "farewell tour" which seems to mean the channel is determined to air every episode at least one more time.

Anyway, the lead cut from Big & Rich was in at 10. Bon Jovi had "Make a Memory" at 11 -- one of the tunes I just skip past on the LP, and Lambert was around 9 with "Famous In a Small Town." But what surprised me most was John Waite at 5 with the remake of "Missing You." I'll have to go and check out that album.

New Paisley album is just really uneven; I'm pretty sure that was my problem with it before. Most of the ballads -- especially the Carrie Underwood duet, surprisingly enough (since I like Carrie Underwood) and the gospel one, are as deadly dull as his persona has frequently hit me before. ("Letter To Me" has a fairly interesting talking to his younger self lyric, though, and "Some Mistakes" at least has him singing part of it in a pretty high register.) a And as K. Sanneh suggests in his oft pereptive Brad-and-Toby-can-be-funny-guys piece in this weekend's Sunday Times, Brad's punchlines (for instance in "I'm Still A Guy," which is pretty good but often too dumb and platitudinous to be great -- ditto "Online" and "Mr. Policeman") frequently fall flat and aren't as clever as they pretend to be. My favorite songs are probably "Ticks," "If Love Was a Plane" (best slow-to-midtempo one -- just a really good melody), "Better Than This" (not to be confused with "It Did", which has a chorus that confusingly goes "It doesn't get better than this"), "Bigger Fish To Fry" (which would be better without Little Jimmy Dickens and the other Kung-Pao Dingbats as surely as Big N Rich's "Please Man" would be better without Wyclef Jean) and the awesome closing instrumental "Throttleneck," still the only time I'm truly convinced Paisley's as great a guitar player as everybody says he is. (Speaking of the Kung-Pao Poo Poo Platters, what's with this "Previously" track? If it's the beginning of country albums insisting on have hip-hop skits, I'm pissed off.) Anyway, a good album, sure. But hardly a great one.

"insisting on having..." (among other typos etc.)

"Bigger Fish To Fry"'s conceipt by the way is that Brad has plenty of venial sins but there are lots of people with mortal sins out there for the devil to spend his time concentrating on more. Except Brad's not nearly as Catholic about it as I just was. Again, a really great song -- just would have been better without gratuitous asides by Brad's buddies.

(Kelefa's John Mayer analogy for Paisley -- i.e., heartthrob with guitar chops -- made a lot of sense. But right, Mayer's otherwise much-evidenced sense of humor has yet to show up in his music, apparently.)

im looking forward to the new paisley, because of his jesus shit. the sex stuff, and the nostaliga stuff ive always found toxic, and he doesnt realy hve a sense of humour, though he thinks he does, but man does his realtionship to jesus is brilliant.

watched best little whorehouse in texas on cable last night, and im always suprised at how good it is, like a cornpone, fosse number, with some of parton's best material (esp sneaking around on you and hard candy christmas)

Decided I'm not digging the remake of "Missing You" with Alison Krauss so much. She's a better singer than John Waite but it takes the edge off the original version. He tries to shovel it back in but only has half the face time. Still a good song but I'll keep the oldie.

There's better stuff than that on Waite's new album though George (as Frank and I both suggest upthread):

FRANK:
Just posted this on my mice pace profile as my song of the day (loved the Babys cover as well; thought the "Missing You" duet with Alison Krauss
was tepid, though not bad):

let's just end with the song of the day for February 16, 2007, John Waite's "Highway 61 Revisited." It's a full-scale Chess blues reimagining of the song, as grimey and forceful and funny as a Muddy Waters track, but of course w/ Dylan's collage-and-paste comic terror words, sung by Waite with no attempt to sound the least bit Chicago but instead using the same late '70s-early'80s high-pitched hair-rockpop delivery he'd used back in his late '70s-early '80s high-pitched hair-rockpop heyday. So it's impassioned and ingratiating while the blues grinds away underneath. He lets loose with "Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah" at the end. Inspired. I can't say I was expecting this.

[Not that I ever paid enough attention to Babys-Waite-Bad English to have fully formed expectations anyway]

CHUCK
That John Waite album is pretty good. And yeah, the Babys updates "Isn't It Time" and "Head First" rule. I think I also liked "New York City Girl," "St Patrick's Day", and especially "The Hard Way" (which sonically earned its title as I recall), none of which I'd ever heard in any version before. But I think I marked the tracks I liked most on the advance copy I sent to Frank, so I can't be completely sure.

CHUCK
John Waite album sounds like if Keith Urban liked Johnny Thunders, I decided. (JW even hears JT's "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" on the radio in "Downtown"!)..well, *solo* Thunders. I prefer the Heartbreakers, but I'm not complaining. (Also, Urban and Thunders might even have certain addictions in common.) High point of "New York City Girl": guitar solo. High point of "St. Patrick's Day": When you can hear the marching band drums in the background.

The "Previously" on the Paisley album is a recap of some of the Kung Pao skits--this is at least his fourth album in a row (including the Christmas album) to have one. I was listening to this one and wondering why George Jones didn't make it this time. (Clearly I have too much time on my hands.)

Well, now you have my interest. I like my Babys records and "Head First" and "Isn't It Time" come off the best of them. "Union Jack" is due for a revival, too, although it might be to British. I've written for a Brit pub for a number of years though so the concept of getting banged up to "'allo, 'allo, 'allo" in a chorus of a mini-rock opera has always been pretty neat.

Wading through a large pile of unsigned or indie country-leaning Southern/roots/dad-rock; could take weeks or months to develop concrete opinions about any of these, but anybody who wants to jump the gun by listening to the websites should be my guest:

Black Angel from California: New album O'Santabarbara supposedly even more Stonesy followup to their quite Stonesy and quite good and confusingly similarly album-covered-and-titled O'California, which I wrote about upthread. 17 songs, including a bunch over five minutes long, so this one will defintely take a while to get to:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=122952494

Catfish Willie from Missouri: Jim Morrison vocals in a very tough John Lee Hooker riffed biker-country context? Beyond that, I dunno yet. 16 songs, so it could take a while. "Piece of It All" and "Road Dog" sound real good so far. This is the band here I'm most interested in George's opinion about, I think.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/catfishwillie

Chooglin' from Minnesota: So far I like their "I'm Your Man"-style hard garage burner "Treat Her Right" and their lovely "Free Bird" style garage jam "You Sucked The Life Out Of Me Baby" better than their James Brown rip "Do It Do It," but we'll see. Only 10 songs, so not that much work. Name via Creedence:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/chooglin

Dollar Store from ???: On Bloodshot Records with some connection to the Waco Brothers, who I've never seen what the big deal was about, plus Replacements comparisons, so usual alt-country concerns apply. But "Twisting in the Wind" sounds like a decent little Tex-Mex farfisa tune so far and "In The Gravel Yard" is a nifty Jason and the Scorchers facscimile about prison and "Star" has a serviceable chorus and "Dying Light" a good dark guitar opening, so these cowpunk revivalists seem kinda promising:

http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/dollarstore/307

Shoestring Strap from California: Haven't put this on at all yet, but Mudgrass is a good title:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/shoestrings2

Tumbelweed Junction from Arizona: Put this on briefly a couple weeks ago, and it struck me as weaker than I'd hoped, though maybe that just means they need a bigger production budget. I have hopes since their guns on their CD cover look outlaw indeed and the clothes make them look like they'd be a bad-ass norteno group. But "Hot New Country" just seemed like the usual whining about how country was better in the old days, ho hum, especially since plenty of hot new country kicks harder than this:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/tumbleweed2

On second thought, I'd say Dollar Store definitely aren't gonna cut it. Just your usual alt-country and Westerberger lukewarmness, for the most part. Though their Tex-Mex track "Twisting in the Wind" does have a little bit of Skynyrd's "What's Your Name" in its intro, I just figured out. But their Jason and the Scorchers stuff sounds closer to the Scorchers after their great debut EP than Scorchers on said debut EP, and usually they don't even scorch that much.

Shoestring Strap aren't impressing so far, either: Too much hokum, not enough mud, in their bluegrass, and as with Dollar Store, their singer is no great shakes. But "Don't Forget Who You Are" by Tumbleweed Connection (opening track on their CD) turns out to be a decently stern and dark attempt at Montgomery Gentry standing-one's-ground as a cold one comes on.

Tumbleweed JUNCTION I mean. (Isn't Tumbleweed Connection an old Elton John LP? Which reminds me that I heard a little bit of Elton oubucking the broncos in the rodeo-do crocodile rocking in the boogie-woogie of Toby Keith's new album a few weeks ago, and didn't make note of it until this second.)

Catfish Willie -- kind of like Omar & the Howlers without the major label production.

I'd have edited/tossed four or five tunes for the CD. Less is more and since Catfish is one of those tuneless singers (I've no problem with tuneless singers when it fits the style and this does) with one affect --the slow numbers, or anything meant to convey weariness or emotion, don't do anything for me.

I like the fast clippers -- he's best at frenetic -- and intro instro -- Why Come? Ditto for Catfish Stomp. City Dump, Let Me Pass, Piece of It All in descending order.

Accurate in the vintage sound for raw Chicago R&B play it fast through a Fender Bassman turned all the way up. It's a real stretch to compare it to CCR, not so much Black Oak Arkansas meets RL Burnside.

new Terri Clark pushed back until next year--as I thought, they seem to have realized they didn't zackly have the tunes. I still like "Tough with Me," though.

they've been having these Saturday afternoons with country songwriters, at the Country Music Hall of Fame downtown, and yesterday it was John D. Loudermilk. In his old '60s pictures, he wore big black horn-rimmed glasses and looked like a cross between Peter Sellers as Claire Quilty and Stan Frieberg as a Southern hipster. Now he looks like the hippest Baptist ex-pothead you could imagine. He talked a little bit about his career, spirituality and Edgar Cayce, and when he played his "Break My Mind" and "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" you heard not only where Gram Parsons and Kristofferson and Newbury and those guys got a lot of their shit, you could also hear the '50s turning into the '60s--the sheer charm, specificity and freshness of his songs is really quite remarkable. And he did "Tobacco Road" and made it sound sinister--he never was poor but he did hang out in the red-light district in Durham, N.C. where he's from. Pretty amazing, him and his guitar. Dylan really didn't have too much on John D.

tumbleweed connection is the best of the elton goes country expriments, and one of the better anglonashville confections

Tumbleweed Juntion are growing in on me, or at least the first half of their album or so is, especially "Don't Forget Who You" are and its fellow Monkey Gentry pinch-hitter "Girl Why" and the fugitive song "I'm On The Run". Their album seems to lose steam after the sixth song or so, though; diddyboppy "Hot New Country" (where they miss Hank and Willie and Waylon, but say at least there's some pretty girls now and that's okay) just sounds tired.

Liking at least a couple select tracks on the Shoestring Strap CD, too: "I Ain't Right" dances a perfectly serviceable hoedown, and "Memphis At Midnight" sounds convincingly, sweetly strung-out. So maybe the rest will grown on me, or maybe not.

Meanwhile, been tentatively dipping my toes into the new White Stripes album. I definitely approve of those wacky new outfits they're wearing, for whatever it's worth. Some of the album is better than the rest; details eventually (or anywhere else you look this week I'm sure). All I want to say now is the melody in "Effect and Cause" sure does sound a like the "two-step quick-step and a bossa nova" dream sequence of "I Can Dance" by Leo Sayer to me.

"will groan on me," I didn't mean. (And I also didn't mean ingrown toenails, though they do seem to be some kind of subliminal typo theme in that previous post.)

Shoestring Strap are actually sounding better in general, the more I play them. Good sense of jig rhythm, in general, and if they don't sound like they roll around the mud like their title suggests, they also don't sound as squeaky clean as most bluegrass hits me. Drive-all-night cocaine country of "Memphis At Midnight" is still the key track, I think.

Have had Willie Nelson's Songbird sitting in my apartment for the last seven or eight months without listening to it, since everything else I've heard by him this decade has bored me, and I don't even know the classic Willie all that well, so maybe I just don't get him. But I spun Songbird today and like it quite well. Maybe the guitars have more bite, maybe the material is better, maybe his voice connects to the material more deeply, maybe I connect to his voice more deeply. Didn't realize the title track was the Fleetwood Mac song - may never have known the name of the Fleetwood Mac song, actually, even though I own it, since for me Fleetwood Mac (Lindsey-Stevie era) has five songs I care about and I don't notice the rest, even though I usually like the others well enough.

As for what's grabbing me about Songbird... er, his thin friendly voice is the same as usual... not sure, really.

saw elizabeth cook last night at the living room in ny. her album balls didn't do much for me -- her voice sounds annoying on record, which i think has been mentioned by multiple posters above, and the production is kind of lifeless -- but she really came alive in person, and her songs came alive with her. it's exactly as retro as advertised, but it's got a good ol' rock and roll bar-band kick to it, which was helped tremendously by tim carroll's telecaster playing last night. she's got an easy, graceful way with a ballad. and she can tap dance. which you just don't see a whole lot of these days.

maybe his voice connects to the material more deeply

That was my experience. Adams should get credit for setting the stage and tone for that to happen, if not for picking the songs, can't remember if he did that or not, though I'm guessing he did.

In other news: Bon Jovi has the number one album in the country. I haven't heard it. Should I?

Roy: No.

By the way, BJ wouldn't have outstripped the competition (White Stripes, Paisley) by such a country mile if they hadn't pulled this stunt where fans were forced to buy a digital copy of the album to get the first crack at seats for the upcoming tour.

You want a Tom Petty LP and can't wait for a new one, get Lost Highway. As I said upstream, it's not bad. Could have cut a few tunes for the sake of tightening and the song with Leann Rimes on it is very good. I don't understand the choice of video single. The single isn't one of the better ones on the LP and it's mopey compared to the general sound of the whole thing.

Another good Petty (as written and performed by someone else) is Jason Isbell's "When The Well Runs Dry," which may or may not have something to do with his marriage and time in Drive By Truckers (both over). Dated 2006, with the whole band, apparently outtake from A Blessing And A Curse, which coulda used it. Also good tracks from his solo debut, my review of which will show up soon. Bloody good, much more consistent than their last couple albums (at least), although most of 'em perform on it (kid's got some hooks):
http://www.myspace.com/jasonisbellmusic"> http://www.myspace.com/jasonisbellmusic

speaking of Drive By Truckers, the upcoming Bettye LaVette collab with them and David (father of Patterson) Hood and some other Muscle Shoalsians sounds really interesting, all about how Betty(e) wished her Child of the '70s Muscle Shoals record from the early '70s was shelved and what it did to her career. Heard a song off it, and it might actually be the best thing I've ever heard her do. the record is set to be called The Scene of the Crime...

should be, wished her Child had not been shelved...

I posted this on an RL Burnside R.I.P. thread but in case you missed that, I am adding it here:

http://www.nmshillcountrypicnic.com/07_press_release.htm

2nd annual North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic celebrates the legacies of departed North Mississippi blues legends including R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Othar Turner

Extended to Two Days, June 29-30, 2007

Last July’s inaugural North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic was a resounding success, drawing over 1,000 people to a rural site in Potts Camp in Marshall County. The festival demonstrated the vitality of the contemporary blues scene in North Mississippi, and in light of the tremendous public response this year’s event has been extended to two days. Potts Camp is located off of Route 78, about halfway between Memphis and Tupelo.

The festival celebrates the legacies of departed North Mississippi blues legends including R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Othar Turner, and the festival will once again feature many of their children and grandchildren. These include Duwayne Burnside, and his band the Mississippi Mafia; the Burnside Exploration, featuring Cedric and Garry Burnside; David Kimbrough; the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, led by Othar Turner’s 17-year-old granddaughter Sharde Thomas.

Other "second generation" acts returning to the event include Kenny Brown, R.L. Burnside’s longtime guitarist and "adopted son;" and the Reverend John Wilkins, son of pre-WWII recording artist Robert Wilkins, whose song "Prodigal Son" was covered by the Rolling Stones. Also returning to the festival are soul-blues legend Bobby Rush, Jimbo Mathus and Knockdown South, T-Model Ford, Cary Hudson with Blue Mountain, Jocco Rushing with Fried Chicken & Gasoline, and John Barnett.

100% agreed on the Isbell, dow, I just got it a few days ago but I'm already thinking top 10 for the year possibly. he's just such a creative lyricist (I love the premise behind "Shotgun Wedding" and "Dress Blues" is beyond-words good, hard to think of too many better songs about soliders EVER), a fine singer, and unlike Patterson Hood and (sometimes) Cooley, he can write a damn tune.

Indeedio on all counts, Nashville Scene Top Ten for sure, and strong possibilty for others. Not many songs continue to unfold in thought like his.While writing the review, I went back and listened to the ones he contributed to Truckers albums; all good, but the breakthrough to current level seems to have been "Goddammed Lonely Love." Actually, he may be past that now: no actual need for every line to jump at you, like in "G.D.L.L.," cos of unified effect. Could use a little more noise, but maybe that's just me. I don't think anything ends too abruptly, like several songs on A Blessing And A Curse (The title track, for inst). was just thinking about the album where they back Betty, Edd, and I think she's the one I heard interviewed, who grew up in a bawdy house or something, and who makes a point of a secular POV, and further adapts (changes words of)contemporary material to accentuate: the opposite of Blind Boys' adaptations of Waits, etc.

As somebody who once used to have to wear dress blues to certain parades and other formal officer functions (and who hated it), I'll be surprised if I don't like Isbell's soldier song. And as somebody who has had very little use for everything the Drive By Truckers have done post-Decoration Day, I'll be surprised if I wind up liking the rest of his album much. But (if and when a copy falls into my lap), I hereby promise to keep an open mind.

Otherwise, I wound up like Tumbleweed Junction more than Shoestring Strap. Even though their song "Hot New Country" makes me cringe as much as any country song, famous or otherwise, I've heard this year, TW get a real Montgomery Gentry-like mean-old-neighbor get-offa-my-lawn gravitas into most of the tracks on Outlaws Forever, and hard guitar chords to match (though better recording would make them kick harder), and they sing convincingly about being working men and getting laid off and then getting lazy and trying to get their wives to go back to work instead, not to mention running from the law and whatnot. Shoestring Strap are a lot more laid back and apparently emotionally healthy, and it seems the only time they're running is when they're running down the road trying to loosen their load (though it's never that exciting, and you don't get the idea they drive too fast), and the only workingmen they seem to aspire to be are the ones on Workingman's Dead, and there are moments when that influence helps their strings and slides jam almost as fluidly as say Tea Leaf Green, but more often they get too laid-back ethereal indie-rock alt-country for their own good. Though again, I do like the strung-out cocaine song. And they also have a 20-second regional Mexican snippet called "No Estoy Correcto (Ahorita)," which is gratuitous but nice.

(Not to suggest that being strung out on cocaine is emotionally healthy, but maybe I like them better when they hint they might not be.) (And speaking of apparent drug fiends, this has nothing at all to do with country, but I've actually been liking the new A.R.E. Weapons LP, after hating their second one.)

I aspire to be like the workingmen on Working Man's Dead too, insofar as that involves customized Porches and Hippie Chick Nation (As for the rest,"Heroin's something to look forward in the rest home," said Garcia, after he supposedly got scared straight.)Otherwise, I'd probably like Tumbleweed Junction better. Holy carp, this You're Gonna Miss Me soundtrack is basically a lazyman's trip to the canon, in terms of familiar titles, but listening grabbed me by the neck and slung me down the bowling lane, one more tyme in thee be here NOW. (80s tracks keep invading 60s and unidentified decades, in a totally effective way.) "Two Headed Dog" or "Bloody Hammer" would be perfect mixmates with "Dress Blues"(even though the latter is country), in terms of all the frustration and futility and blood in the corner of the eye of everything, and soulfulness too, busting of the country(As in genre and we the people.)I gotta go see Roky on tour. (That collection, on Trance Syndicate, maybe? Came out a year or two ago, seemed to make a case for him as a father of acid folk,in terms of 12-string tapestries of anguished devotion detoured into itself, but plenty moving)

"customized Porches"? "Porsches"? Ah'll take either.

Found it: on Shout!Factory, I Have Always Been Here Before, two discs, and it includes "You're Gonna Miss Me" etc. etc., as well as the compulsively privatized (yet musically attractive)outreach mentioned above.

hi everyone, happy Freedom Day! Don, I had the Roky 2-disc a couple years ago, and you know, I like the Elevators stuff but frankly found most of the later Roky kinda like John Fogerty with no money--certainly no Porches or hippie chix (altho the doc makes it clear that he and his mom were pretty, er, bonded). but then I hear he's terrifying, and good, live, still is. but maybe I am wrong about the later stuff.

enjoying Bluegrass Elvises by Shawn Camp and Billy Burnette. They pull this off, rock on out, and I guess actually remind us forcefully that EP turned into everything and nothing but was specifically post-country in '54 except no one talked like that back then. They sing great, and they don't really sing bluegrass, and they play blues licks, great ones, on stuff like "Hound Dog," so perhaps I like it simply because it doesn't try to be bluegrass. The CD insert features a shot-out TV set.

I actually prefer Roky's metallic turn of the '80s stuff (circa "Bermuda"/The Evil One/The Runes) more than anything but the very greatest (i.e., "You're Gonna Miss Me" or "Fire Engine") 13th Floor Elevators songs, but he lost me after "Don't Slander Me" in '85 or so, and I never really got his Buddy Holly/Tex-Mex type stuff. That 2-CD set is useful though, if only because I stupidly purged too many of his earlier records whilst previously moving.

Playing new Gogol Bordello now; sounds really good, and I was under the impression that they'd started to spin their wheels. Maybe not, or maybe they're just spinning them so fast and drunkenly that I don't mind. Favorites so far include "Wonderlust Kids," "Alcohol," "American Wedding" (Eugene Hutz seems perplexed by crazy American tradition of having to get up so early to prepare) and twirling dervish East-European instrumental "Super Taranta!" I'm still waiting for a Borat collaboration, however.