Rolling Country 2006 Thread

second "feel like going home" though i wished that some of the slicked gospel had been replaced with this one song i have on mp3 somewheres called "Don't Tear (Let?) Me Down" that i can't seem to find on any "Best of..." anywhere. it's really soulful though. Rich may suffer the most from having his catalog spread across so many danged labels that they may never be under one stable roof anytime soon.

on kenny chesney's summer time:

have heard his new single, four times in the last two weeks. Once in the c ar back from a family renuion, once when swimming, and twice while eating. When I reviewed the album for Stylus a couple of months ago, I liked it better. Now the time has come for it to be on the radio, there are several reasons why it should be destroyed:

1. The lyrics are really banal. Not only banal, but designed entirely in a lab to be an authentic expression of how the warm months affect the good ol boy in all of us.
2. As for the above, it is shameless in its attempt to enter the canon: Perfect song on the radio/Sing along because it’s one we know
3. None of the really excellent things about summer (ie drinking, all of the copius amounts of flesh on view) are mentioned.
4. Who the hell drinks YooHoo in the middle of July (Alan Jackson, who understands summer hits, knows what to eat from mid June to eary September, in the last great summer song: “Well we fooged up the windows in my old chevy/I was willing but she wasnt ready/So a settled for a burger and a grape sno-cone” ) Listening to Chattahoochee again, reminds me of how pure Chesney is his benders are n Greasy Cheeseburgers as opposed to whiskey, he doesnt really mention beer at all, and any fucking he does is of the wistful lovemaking variety, When Alan Jackson can out dirty you, theres a problem.
5. The closest Kenny Chesney has been to a swimming hole is the local municpal swimming pool (the second time ive heard this, was reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun House, and watching all the boys with very little clothes, wandering around the local outdoor pool, nestled in the river valley, with perfect aqua water and phone booths shaped like plastic shells–there was also a girl with the words paradise lost written in florid pink on her brown bikini bottoms; why the swimming hole, when the light reflects on such chlorinated paradises)
6. I keep wondering when people will notice how calcuated his work is, but they never do. In this weeks People, there are a dozen or so pictures of hsi summer tour, and it looks like Beatlemania, just as in several of his videos (the concert ones, as opposed to the ones shot on a caribbean beach) begin wiht crowds of hungry women, and Kenny annointing them, like the Pope or the Queen. I know that this is one of the functions of modern celebrity, and post Garth its something that we have expected in Country superstars and it should be deconstructed, and Kenny is so good at riding the wave, that hes not the one to do it but I’m bored.
7. Thats the crux of the matter. He is astonishingly popular, and beloved. America laps him up. So there must be something there, aside from his brilliant manipulating of audience expectation, but what is there are simulacrcas of down home pleasures—like Dollywood if Dolly didnt ever write songs about poverty or death.
8. Maybe thats the problem, Kenny is country music for the south of metastized suburbs–and there needs to be work like that. Sure Hank wouldnt ahve done it this way, but Hank’s lost highway is found and paved over. The problem is that though we need texts about the suburbs, written by people in the suburbs, describing the joys people find there, Chesney isnt this man.
9. Or to put it another way, how can you trust a man who claims to be of the people, when he spends 60 per cent of his time in a yacht somewhere near St Barts.
10. So I guess what annoys me the most, here, are silly things that I should have stopped caring out, personae, role, authentic voice, banality, and desire. Things that would have been a virtue on Britney or Rachel Stevens are gratingly plastic in Chesney. If I stopped considering him country and started considering him pop, maybe the previous 9 points would be rendered moot.
11. But his single from last summer: Anything But Mine is one of the great singles of country music, a tender and broken examanation of lost innonce, the longing and desire of first bloomings destroyed by time and geographical inconveince.
12. The song still annoys me.

Chip Taylor's double album, Unglorious Hallelujah / Red Red Rose (And Other Songs of Love, Pain, and Destruction), isn't half bad, considering dude (who wrote "Wild Thing" fer chrissake) cain't saing to save his life. He namedrops Townes and Guy and John on the same track, then does songs called "Christmas in Jail" and "The Trouble With Scientists" and "Daddy, Why'd You Take My Guitar Away?" There should be more Carrie Rodriguez here, although it's always great to hear her come in on harmony like a soft breeze on a hot day.

xpost "almost clever": see Dierks' "How Am I Doin'," too. (Which I like better than "Sometimes I Miss Ya," but they're clearly cut from the same cloth.)

Gonna be a Dierks live set on CMT Sunday night, I'll watch that, and maybe Skyn on Sat, Bocephus on Fri, unless it's the other way around for these two, but def Dierks on Sun. So glad they're still working those tracks from his ancient album, sound sooo nice this summer. Yeah, Fully Realized got its title from Peter Guralnick's opinion of those tracks, he led a lot of us back to all the good Rich 50s-60s stuff, though of course "Behind Closed Doors" got him the ink to do so, like in Rolling Stone. But I dunno if those were the *most* or most of his fully realized work, cos still haven't heard all from that era. The later stuff seems pretty erratic, but the gospel album Silver Linings is pretty good, and its "Milky White Way" is indeed one of Charlie's best ever, like G. says."But I'm bored." Yeah, that's wy nobody bothers to take Chesney for a ride to the autopsy, although I think you and I sawed on him some during one of the previous Rolling years. Think of him as pop, it won't help. Andy, I'd already checked your "Full Nelson," cool. How's that unreleased live album they included?? (PS: xpost Darrell Scott and his Dad were on "Fresh Air" the other night. Mostly good talk, but their own tracks[no duets] sounded okay, except for some of Darell's lyrics, and he's produced an album for Dad, whose name is Wayne, I think)

the thing is, he is capable of great power our friend chesney--and hes huge enough that someone has to critically roll him, but even my desire to fuck him is leaching out--and i have a desire to fuck a slew of dumb good ol boys...

I'm getting down to the wire on this Guy Clark piece I'm working on. I guess my fave of all his stuff is the Chips Moman-produced "Texas
Cookin'." The new one seems a bit willfully insubstantial, and I just can't get past the flatness of the music itself. Talking to him (thru a haze of some, er, "gage" as they once called it, except this stuff made me realize why I have to be careful around "mezz" as they once called it), I got a sense of a guy who is simply not telling you what he knows, and then calling it art. And it is art, I think so, but damned if it doesn't dissipate like those insights you get once the "muggles" s they once called it goes away and you're left with an empty Oreo container. And apparently, his very first cut was by the Everly Bros. on their "Pass the Chicken and Listen" LP, which my buddy's digging out for me this weekend.

I've had Trent Willmon's record on as I do other things, and every song has struck me. Good singing, really intelligent songwriting, and sharp words. Except for that one about spending a night "six feet unde the ground" to make you appreciate life. I mean, come on--can we not make it all so dramatic? We can appreciate life without being quite so portentous about it, seems like; and I find this kind of trope really fucking dumb. But other than that, I think this is gonna be one of the best country rekkids of the year.

Back to Guy Clark...

I listened to the Trent Willmon, and the only song I care anything about is "On Again Tonight," which reminds me of Bon Jovi's "Bed of Roses" but without the Samboran fervor in the background vocals. Willmon's voice really gets multitracked into a searing force on that number. The rest of the time he's pretty useless, sounds like an investment banker.

That "Surprise" song really isn't all that shocking because he's not participating in the S&M, more just aw-shucksily smirking at it, which is nothing new. Toby's "Stays in Mexico" seems a much more transgressive song, cos it condones (doesn't it?) the bad behavior of the characters. (Not that "SIM" would seem at all transgressive on a pop station.)

And as for that "Six Feet Under" song, I am sick unto death of songs telling me to live like I was dying. I'll live as selfishly and short-sightedly as I want to, idiot country sages. Every time I hear "Live Like You Were Dying," I wistfully imagine Tim McGraw as Luis Bunuel, dismissing the "crowd of imbeciles who find the song beautiful and poetic when it is fundamentally a desperate and passionate call to murder."

That said, Milsap's "A Day in the Life of America" is a little reductive.

Maybe not exactly condones it, but the characters don't suffer the wages of cheatin', they get reassured that it "Stays In Mexico."("Characters" especially because I'm thinking of the video, where they do get stressed out, and sometimes *look* like, "OMG this is the last time Ah swear," but then they get back into it--and sort of an implied possibility of a sequel, or even a longterm arrangement, like in the movie Same Time Next Year, which would be a good subject for a country song: basically it's cheatin', but then again it's stable.)

Paula's wedding was just beautiful, and I got so filled up with appreciation for my life and my family that I nearly exploded like the Fourth of July. Paula is named for her godfather, Paul English, my drummer and best friend of forty years. And when the minister asked, "Who gives this bride?" I cracked everybody up by saying, "Me and Paul." That of course is the name of one of my best songs, which celebrates the forty-plus years Paul and I have been together on the road. Come to think of it, counting Paul, I've probably been married five times. Like I said, cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other. The Tao Of Wille, p. 141

I love that mexico song by george straight, i sould be mildy offended by the colonial aspects, and the fake spanish, but the video and the song are soft spoken and tender

writ by Merle, which fits with the mildly offensive-to-us colonial aspect x the tender (Buffett couldn't get away with it, and neither could Toby,probly?)

Question for NYCers: Are there any open mics in the city that are country friendly? A friend of mine is there for a few weeks, he has his guitar and he's a decent Lefty-style singer and songwriter looking to play out for a night.

Lefty like Fidel or Frizzell? Both? That would be cool. I heard part of a James Talley feature on Nick Spitzer's Public Radio show, "American Routes" (think that's the way he spells it, since always starts with, "You're traveling on etc"). Mostly what I heard was "W.W. Daniel And The Light Crust Doughboys," with James tugging at the rhythm like a well-raised farmboy, tuggin at his father's sleeve, and urging him, not too loud, to please come 'n' see this powerful band over hyere. The Jeffy Jeff micro is in CharLoaf today, with Fred Mills' Rare Grooves column on the Big Mack label, latest in the Eccentric Soul series of Numero, who also brought us Ladies From The Canyon (prob best reviewed by Edd, who also discovered several of the Ladies now living and grooving in Nashville). And(the one of these that's as long as it should be) Grant Britt on the Carolatan Festival, which is Latin rock etc, local and otherwise (good interview with a guy from Los Amigos Invisibles, for inst). You'll see links to those on the left margin of my thingette: http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:52232/

Not really relevant but I thought I'd mention that I bought a good (possibly European) disco version of "Ghost Riders In The Sky" from a record stall in Reykjavik, Iceland on Saturday.

I was listening to that "Ladies of the Canyon" CD when in NYC - a friend of mine is another contributor - and it sounds terrific.

>Question for NYCers: Are there any open mics in the city that are country friendly? <

Is that CashHank one still going on? I'm not sure, but it used to be at the Buttermilk Bar in lower Park Slope, so maybe check there, Roy?

I mean, I THINK that's where it was. If not there, somewhere close to there. (I never actually went myself, since I got priced out of lower Park Slope.) Otherwise, this article might give you some ideas:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0545,gottschalk,69776,22.html

Gracias! That def helps....

This weekend: Randy Travis, Travis Tritt, Big & Rich (w/ Cowboy Troy) and Alan Jackson.

my ten-year-old niece's favorite song on her current favorite record, Carrie Underwood's debut, is the one about Carrie scratching up her cheatin' boyfriend's car.

got lotsa catching up to do, as usual; my mother's taken a real turn for the worse, is getting hospice care, and we're not expecting her to live out the month. very bad.

finished writing about Guy Clark. I decided that I did sort of miss what makes him good. I quite like his first record--it's indeed a minor classic--and I am fascinated by the obsessive Chips Moman production, and the way Guy mostly glides thru it, on "Texas Cookin'," which seems a bit overcooked to me, sorta Barefoot Jerry or Little Feat demi-funk-country. not as glaringly wrong for the artist as Chips' work with Gary Stewart, but not right either, exactly. I ended up liking some of "Dublin Blues" quite a bit--the western swing stuff is nice. and I do think he rates pretty highly as a songwriter, in a way, but I guess I still find it boiled down to...what is the point, exactly, of boiling down so much? I found a copy of the Everly Brothers' "Pass the Chicken and Listen" which has the first Clark song cut, '72, "Nickel for the Fiddler." the way the Evs do it, it becomes very abstract, and sort of the dark side of "Bowling Green." what's strange about that song is the way that young and old finally manage to agree on what is country music (it's what's happening in the park, or on the lawn) and the way "everybody's ruined," which I guess means everybody's stoned or drunk. In other words, Clark seems tied to a specific countercultural cozmik-cowboy moment, laconic; so I don't get much sense of expansive life from things like "LA Freeway" but do find his song about growing old on the first record, and yeah, "Desperados Waiting on the Train" (a song so famous now that it never gets mentioned by its correct name!), to be pretty sly, more than meets the eye--ironic, in short.

And when I talked to Guy, he told me a funny anecdote about how Ricky Skaggs, who did his "Heartbroke" and took it to #1 in '82, wouldn't sing "bitch" in that song, "because he couldn't bear the thought of his mama and daddy hearing that word on the radio!"

more on Trent Willmon, I think, is coming--I like that record and want to spend more time with it. And I'm currently trying to figure out if I love or hate Linda Ronstadt's collab w/ Cajun singer Ann Savoy. Genteel?

Really looking forward to your Guy piece, Edd. My thoughts go out to you and your mom.

Elsewhere: I'm liking this Eilen Jewell record, Boundary County, on a sub-divsion of Signature Sounds. Her voice and songs give off a low, soft light, and her blues are more like lullabyes, but I don't mind that. Some might find it a bit polite or minimalist, but those tones and 'tudes have long been a part of country.

so sorry about your Mom, Edd. I know how all that can be. Did you hear Guy on Heartworn Highways, relaxing (and competing) among friends? I really like his pirate song. Aargh, yall! Heard Ronstadt and Savoy on Prairie Home, a bit stolid, would like to hear Ann without Linda. Good Cajun-based ballads were better femme-voiced by Balfa Toujours, although I think they've broken up now. But prob tracks posted somewhere. Saw the Wreckers last night on something, Tonight Show, I think. The focus seemed to favor the blonde, but not emphatically, maybe it's just me, though same impression of the video. I do think Michelle Branch seemed at ease, and well-suited to be part of a band effort, as with Carlos & co. (nice track from his album, and saw them on several shows, promoting it for quite a while). And the present duo gained a lot from their good band. Dunno how the album is, though the songs I've heard seem basically kinda bland, but anybody who likes Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, the new Dixie Chicks, SheDaisy, etc., might like the album too (me too hopefully)Tim, who do you know that was on Ladies From The Canyon??

I hope it's Shira Small. Her cut on that compilation is so great.

la freeway is one of my favourite country songs, and coat from the cold has a comforting sadness...looking forward to it as well

When CNN was tracking that white Bronco they should have shut up and played "LA Freeway."

Don, sorry I was unclear, I know one of the people who helped to dig out some of the material rather than one of the artists. It's a fantastic fellow called Keith who has a habit of digging out outrageously obscure classics - often private press stuff. In this case I think he was involved in sorting out the Mary Perrin material, possibly some others.

Likewise looking forward to Edd's Guy Clark piece: "LA Freeway" was on the not-so-great country channel on IcelandAir this weekend, and it reminded me how much I like his voice. And sorry to hear the bad news about your mum, Edd.

Is it just me or does the new Allison Moorer album have the worst guitar sound in recorded history?

Edd, sorry to hear about your mom.

I think we can count Ramms+ein's "Te Quiero Puta!" as "metal country," since it's got Hollywood mariachi horns and is sung in Spanish. The phlegm and the crunch do really well for the music, and Ramms+ein find the ominous within Mexico's florid melismas (and of course find the comedy within the menace). In this album - Rosenrot - Ramms+ein sound as if they're coming much more from pop and folk rather than the romantico-"classical" that many other retch-metallers draw on. But Mexican music is good for joining those two influences - classical and folk - owing to the gypsy-flamenco-ultimately-Middle-Eastern-derived chordings, good for "minor"-key "darkness."

(This post was somewhat inspired by the conversation about "Stays In Mexico.")

Related thought: has there been much that one could call psychedelic country coming from country-identified (as opposed to country-rock-or-alt-rock-identified) performers? I mean sonically. I'd think Mexican music could be an entryway.

(Obv. I already know about Big & Rich. Any others?)

This year's Shooter Jennings has fewer bad songs but fewer very good ones than last year's. I think that his music has to go to extremes to work, since his voice is so sketchy that he's got to push over the top to get across at all. There's nothing on the new one with the sleaze-metal gut punch of "Daddy's Farm."

(But I'll listen to this alb more to see what penetrates.)

ive realised that chattachoe is one of the best written songs like ever, its brilliant in its construction. i love it

Edd, my thoughts are with you and your mom as well.

My mailbox seems to be experiencing a country drought in recent weeks, though I just got the new Randy Rogers Band CD today; maybe that will help (I liked their/his last one). I talked about the Rammstein LP earlier on the metal and world music threads, and yesterday I just sent in an MTV Urge Informer metal blog on it, emphasizing "Te Quiero Puta!" (my favorite track) in all cases. Right now Sons and Daughters' "Johnny Cash" from the Optimo *Present Psych Out* mix CD (also featuring Chambers Bros, Hawkwind, Skatt Bros, Arthur Russell's Dinosaur) is on; I forget who Sons and Daughters are, but this track somewhat reminds me of the Mekons' country-ish stuff but with a more Kraut-rock drone to it (so yeah, psychedelic, but obviously not what Frank's looking for). My favorite song on the new Shooter album is still "Hair of the Dog." I think I gave "Chatahoochie" a 7.5 or 8 out of 10 in *Radio On* when it first came out, and if I gave it an 8.0, I probably overrated it. (Best thing about it is its surf riff, which I wish surfed more.)

Keith Anderson's "XXL" is a dead ringer for XTC circa '87. the guitar lick is straight off that Todd Rundgren record they did.

I believe you, Roy, on Allison's record. I thought her last record was one of the most needlessly doleful things I've ever heard. the tempos, they was for shit. she doesn't seem to have a record-making knack.

and yeah, Shira Small doing Donny Hathaway or whatever, on "Wayfaring Strangers," is one of the best things on that record. I still quite like Caroline Peyton's, and the Priscilla Quinby one about the lure of the sea. Andy Beta caught up with Small in New York. His LA Weekly piece is darn good; between the two of us, we found a lot of the Ladies.

It's been a strange year for country. Last year seemed so various, so diverse, so full of (to my ears) fresh stuff that came from somewhere kinda new. I have yet to hear Shooter's record, and have been so harried trying to even listen to, and write about, what I have to, that I'm still anticipating really attending to Trent Willmon and the Dixie Chix. But apart from the Chix, has this year seemed a bit disconnected somehow, a bit lacking in drama? Or is it just me?

I still think Jamey Johnson and Blaine Larsen have done the most interesting stuff this year--newcomers rule?

and Xhuxk, I sent ya a Charlie Rich burn yesterday.

nah, the music isnt v. interesting, but the lyrics have a poigancy, a poetry---pyramid of cans in the pale moonlight, thats a john darinelle/bill callahan moment, but less self concious

no, it's not just you, edd, I've been complaining about the drought (quantity and quality) of "major" label country releases all year, and notice that xxhuxx has been way into the cdbabyverse all year too.Good tex-mex-metal country is Sir Douglas Quintet's "Baby, It Just Don't Matter." No bluster (so maybe it's really not metal?), just cool swagger with the power chords, cos it really *don't* matter. He ain't madatcha. In terms of something truly psychedelic, mind-expanding, vs. psych, as subgenre tag (most of dose reissues), mine got expanded a bit by Willie Nelson's Country Music Concert, recorded in the 60s, I think, at Panther Hall in Ft. Worth. The theatrical phrasing, in writing and delivery, that tended to get crowded by strings etc on the Chet Atkins studio albums, seemed to blssom in spare, clear stage setting, before a live audience. The revelation was that he could get so deep into the paranoid male psyche, and come up with something so lucid, so dark, so fun. Fade away and radiate, in the halflife of the "Half a man, you made of me." "If I'd been born with only one eye, I'd have only one to cry with, " so is the glass half empty or half full or both? Him and Hank, whom I also discovered about the same time, and related to the John Lennon of "Yer Blues" and his best tracks on Sgt. Pepper's ("I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved": who talked about stuff like that in rock songs then, who talked about it period? and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band).

I think some of Porter Wagoner's stuff has psychedelic tendencies and I think Waylon's phase-shiftered guitar would be impossible without psych music. I'll have to think about this some more.

Tom T. Hall's song about the man who drank the morning dew? Can't remember exact title, but he described it as "pantheist," and I mention David Allan Coe's early acydde fFolke tendencies in this thing I still need to put on freelancmentalists.

"I Washed My Face In the Morning Dew," which Cash renders absolute on that Tom T tribute.

Thanks.(I would be the one to think he *drank* the Morning Dew, with something added, that's just my projection.) Anybody (lurkers, come forth!) got any thoughts on Willie? I gotta finish the lead this weekend!

what do you want to know about willie, i wrote a book proposal about him once, and then a peice about the whole gay thing this year, and other bibs and bobs

I am quite possibly the only person on earth whose favorite Willie Nelson album (*Night and Day,* Pedernales Records, 1999) has no vocals on it. (I probably mentioned that before, but I'm mentioning it again just in case. It's totally true.)

Anthony, I think my favorite line in "Chatahoochie"'s lyrics is when he drops her off early but doesn't go home; are there any other songs (any genre) where that very common occurence actually occurs? (My least favorite line, which Alan sings way more often, is where "it gets hotter than a hootchie-cootchie," which may well be an actual idiom used in real life by some people but makes me cringe every time regardless.) In general: I'd like the song more if Kenny Chesney was singing it. Somehow Kenny strikes me as more likely than Alan to skinnydip and/or strip down to bathing trunks at a fishing hole. (That doesn't actually happen in the song though, does it? But it's probably implied. I think in the video, jet-skiing was somehow involeved. But what do I know, I grew up with a backyard swimming pool, so swimming in mudholes has always made me kind of squeamish.)

And for your Darnielle/Callahan comparison, I wouldn't know, not until somebody livelier than Darnielle or Callahan starts singing Darnielle's and Callahan's songs, but Darnielle IS the person who was writing the MTV Urge metal blog before me, so maybe that counts.

(Okay, now I can't get this mental image of Kenny C skinnydipping out of my head, and it's more disturbing than I thought it'd be. So forget I said that. But I'd still say pulling off "Chatahoochie" requires a degree of non-stiffness that Kenny's more capabale of than Alan is. It SHOULD be a great record, but it just isn't, quite. And I say that as somebody who actually owns the jukebox 45 of it!)

its not disturbing me as much as turning me on (and as i wrote about in my new country thing, im not sure that kenny has the pleasure down...frankly, though he does hve the nostalgia...i cant imagine any of the nu country superstarts from muddy swimminghole it, or skinny dipping, they strike me as too suburban for that)

peter north, in my local paper this morning, talked about Jackson as a concert performer, versus Tim McGraw, and apparently he is unable to seduce stadiums, i dont know what this means, but yeah...

(i also really like burger and a grape snow cone)

someone should email jd and ask him to record this

so speaking of swimming in dangerous waters, i just got back from the laundromat (gotta get back up there in a couple minutes or somebody will take my clothes out of the washer -- that place is ruthless!), and the adult contemporary station or whatever it is that's always on there (they play "time after time" and keith urban a lot, but also "promiscuous") played that jimmy buffet song about lothario guys being landsharks: "fins to the right, fins to the left, and you're the only girl in town"; is it called "fins"? it was never actually a HIT, i don't think, and i don't own any albums by jimmy though probably i should, and i don't know when the last time i heard it on the radio was, so at first i didn't recognize it, but it sounded great, and yeah, probably better than most of kenny's imitations of the guy. anyway, it reminded me that i'd been meaning to ask about a line from the ann powers chesney review that anthony linked to above; i find the claim below *really* intriguing, but i'm not really sure what ann means by it, mainly because i'm not sure how she's defining "bohemian" below (it *does* make me want to read what else she's written about bohemianism, though, like maybe in her book she put out a few years ago, where i get the feeling the topic figured prominently); anyway, i have no doubt whether she meant for this to be a provocative statement, and it's possible nobody else even noticed it, but still: can somebody explain to me in what way jimmy buffet embodies the word "bohemian"? is the idea something like you're bohemian if you can afford to sit around in flip-flops sipping margaritas and eating cheeseburgers in paradise, and work on your creative endeavors? or am i totally missing something? anyway:

>the video montage that preceded his performance did mention the word "bohemian" (a word Jimmy Buffett, to whom Chesney's often compared, actually embodies)<

i mean:

i have no IDEA whether she meant for this to be a provocative statement

Todd Snider's "Guaranteed" qualifies as psychedelic in a Yardbirds-raga way, though Snider may be too alt to be "country-identified" per se.

I haven't been connecting big to country this year, but I'd assumed that was just me, that I was distracted by other music, not listening to enough radio, got my key supplies cut off in April (Village Voice duplicates arriving courtesy of xhuxk, records sent by obscure cxxntry dudes at the urging of xhuxk, etc.). I still haven't gotten to the Carbon Leaf, Sam Roberts, Cindy Smith, Linda Ronstadt, Kris Kristofferson, and Van Morrison, or the Fahey tribute, and need to hear more than the first few tracks on the (somewhat promising) Bernard Fanning, Ashley Monroe, and Tea Leaf Green and on the (not-so-promising) Shawn Mullins, Grace Potter, Rhonda Vincent, Tom Brosseau, Demented Are Go (and few of those are the core of country music, anyway).

The following I've listened to only once, so any resemblance to actual reactions are a coincidence:

Th' Legendary Shack Shakers - Rousing polka-gypsy-blues-country clatter but too emotionally detached for all the cacophony, though could make my ballot if albs don't come pouring into my PO box.

Yonder Mountain String Band - More entertaining than I'd expect from rustic-decor folk-club country, but still kinda meh. The banjo kicks. It's hard to stop a banjo from kicking.

Julie Roberts - Warm voice, as you know, but this tends towards So-What-Ville.

Ralph Stanley (Carter Family songs) - This reaches me despite the man's elderly throat. Songs can't be beat.

Blazing Country - Sits home around the stodge fires, but I remember (this was a few months ago) finding some of this touching.

Willie Nelson (Cindy Walker songs) - Heard this in extreme background while I was packing; I'd probably listen more for the songs than the singer, at this point.

Parnell and DBTs I've already mentioned, ditto for Shannon Brown, who's a pop babe and a rocker and who could well make my ballot.

Carrie Underwood - Need to borrow this from the library again to see what all the crowing is about. I thought it was nice, but I never swooned.

Ryan Adams - Starts rockabilly but then goes to layered stillness. This will take more listens for me to figure out.

Electric Boogie Dawgz - Don't know if they'd count for country; unreconstructed rock 'n' roll barfucks, but "unreconstructed" misses the point of r'n'r which is supposed to deliver me from days of old. But I actually get a big hooting good time out of this.

Jace Everett - Thought it wasn't bad, but I've subsequently forgotten what it sounds like.

John Rich reissue - Straight-up pop country. Proves he shouldn't do pop country straight.

Country song of the year for me is still noncountry Marit Larsen's "Only a Fool," which has the feel of a nice little throwaway. There's no indication yet that EMI plans to market the album anywhere but Norway, though I can't imagine they won't.

In hot weather my CD player has trouble playing CD-R's, so I've only caught snatches of the Bubba Sparxxx, but what I've heard seems nowhere near the country he'd incorporated last time out. 'Cept there's still some country boy in his cadences.

Can't guess what Ann means by "bohemian" (and I've not heard much Buffett). Back in a Wodehouse novel from the '20s the milieu of a NY boxing gym was referred to as "bohemian," and maybe one can use the term for any restless quasi-artistic non-9-to-5 environment; but in my own usage, you can't be more than several degrees of separation away from Village or Brit-art-school quasi-intellectual hipster freak artsy-fartsies. I'd call Shooter and Willie and (certainly) Kristofferson, and maybe even Coe and Kid Rock and Big Kenny and John Rich, as "bohemian" before I'd call Buffett bohemian. But maybe this is because I don't know enough about Buffett.

Jace Everett sounds like roots-AM country, real compressed song forms, zillions of guitar overdubs so sorta like Burton Cummings (and he sings kinda fakey, overdone, like prime "Stand Tall" Burton in a way), some very interesting textures there. but conceptual kick, no way.

I'll go back and read this: so Ann Powers is calling Jimmy Buffett a boho? He's a species of boho, for sure, dumb shirts and all. A tanned bohemian.

a lotta people love Radney Foster's new one, I think it's kinda like one of those third-level Marshall Crenshaw albums like "Mary Jean and Nine Others."

I miss the stuff that came via Xhuxk, too. Frank, Tea Leaf Green: I did a short preview of them for the Scene, and talked to the lead Tea, the keyboardist. They're way into '70s rock (he told me, "I mean, I can't think of one single bad rock record from 1972!"). They have long intstrumental passages that are jam-band via some circuitous route that includes Genesis and Steve Hackett and "Firth of Fifth," and Spirit and the Band. One song about John Brown, many others about the California landscape, getting back to nature, one really interesting one about being in Mississippi and watching TV somewhere and seeing California wildfires burn and wishing somehow that Mississippi would too--some weird take on southern history and travel and so forth that tells me they could be a good band. I mean, there's too much fucking piano, all those jam-banders take after Chuck Leavell and Bruce Hornsby. And the songs could be sharper. But they're onto something--rarely can I attend to something like this, but I found their instrumental sections actually tryin' to signify something, and it just furthers my opinion that jambands are full of confused white people who almost get the notion of the demi-funk they're attempting. And my Pat Metheny/Bill Frisell theory of Mid-American Pseudo-Homily and Gothic, all those pentatonic demi-jazz notions. Cool jazz and prog rock and whatever the Allman Brothers did, and the fucking Dead--I dunno, I'd just as soon read Art Pepper on jail ettiquette and think dark thoughts about the fate of Kool Jazz.