Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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xxposttt (puff, puff, I 'll never catch up) xxhuxx, yes, an indie countrypolitan "revival" could be nauseating, esp since you gotta have a budget, for good studio, good arrangements, conductor (or at least good first chair), good players. Oh yeah, and a real good foreground, the singer if not the song. But there have been some shrewdly small-scale, appopriately intimate coups already. My fave is Kelly Hogan and Mike Ireland doing (really doing) Stephen Merrit's "Papa Was A Rodeo." Happy Hour didn't start til they walked in and found each other. Seems like the template (from before the term?) was Ray Charles' Modern Sounds In Country And Western. (But maybe it went as far back as, say, Tony Bennett's hit covers of Hank Williams songs, in Hank's own lifetime? Patti Page's accent? But those were Adult Pop,Frank escorting the nicely-dressed troops past dose juvies at da gates: what we might think of as proto-Easy Listening.I think Ray might've been the first to gather the choirs and the strings 'round that piano, that voice, that kind of unmistakeably downhome foreground, in segregated times, too). I don't remember hearing the term til the early 70s. But obviously, Chet Atkins had something like that in mind round Modern Sounds time, bragging to an interviewer about how he exposed the Pat Boone fans to Bo Diddley, via the Everlys' "Bye Bye Love" and "Wake Up Little Susie"(they don't sound like Bo Diddley to me, but it's an interesting alibi, from a guy who some critics hated for his slickness(I have no opinion, although I likes me some Everlys). Surely, the Charlie Rich sides that were reissued as Fully Realized after Guralnick revived interest in his prime, might be too intense to be countrypolitan, but drew from it (and from Phil Spector, or mebbe vice versa, re Righteous Bros.), and I guess were a template for Elvis' late 60s orchestral hits. (Good countrypolitan artyfacts on 2004 Thread too)

― don, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 01:49 (twenty years ago)

And I'm not objecting to earthy, I'm referring back to the New Earthy trend, which by 05 could include Jason Aldean, Dukes Of Biohazard, and a whole lot of other folks,many of whom I like, but it was getting overworked (especially the 70s Southern Rock x West Coast Denim Pop Rock references) and that Little Bog Town single just seemed like the last straw: all the self-congratulatory, nay, defiant! downhomieness (guess they're too young to have heard "we say grace, we say ma'am, if you don't like that, we don't give a damn" or ten million other examples)(or maybe they're not country enough too know how "country" they are). And the dramatic vocals just made it worse. But! I've only heard that one song. And who knows, if Tough All Over could show me how to love that damn Vertical Horizon cover, then anything's possible.

― don, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 02:02 (twenty years ago)

xpost Tom Keifer hair-metal:Oh yeah, the USA Network's concert version of the ZZ Top trib (the one I reviewed in Voice) had a rave-up with Tom Keifer, the finale, I think. Prob around on Web, if not on legit DVD. xxhuxx, wasn't Bon Jovi'e "Wanted Dead Or Alive" from a Western Jon was in, Young Guns (AKA Young Buns in my middle school)?

― don, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 07:03 (twenty years ago)

Nah, wasn't that "Blaze of Glory" or something? Which was Jon Bon Jovi solo, I think (I actually reviewed that album for the Voice and talked about Catholic rock!), unlike "Wanted Dead or Alive," which was with his band on *Slippery When Wet,* same album as "Livin on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name", both of which I still prefer.

My favorite song so far in 2006 is "Hair of the Dog" by Shooter Jennings, about him waking up after drinking too much alchohol. My second favorite song on his new album so far is "Little White Lines," which is about him waking up after snorting too much cocaine (and what the cop asks him to shave is his face, apparently), and which has a pretty darn heavy riff, it turns out - definitely seems to rock harder than "Bad Magick," which needs more tune to go with its heaviosity; may well rock harder than the title track as well. Some of the tracks go into totally blatant funk breaks in the middle, too. Definitely a hard rocking Southern boogie album, and a real good one.

Finally kinda made peace with Bobby Bare's *The Moon Was Blue* this morning; after months, I've decided I'll keep the dang thing, though I still find some parts (e.g., "Are You Sincere" where I'm still not sure that "Bobby Bobby Bobby" is what those canned backup singers are chanting and the production of which sounds all scuzzy for no reason I can fathom, the Stereolab-produce-Langley Schools junk of "Fellow Travelers") unbearably kitschy. The cover songs are almost all better than the non-covers. Didn't notice til now that "Shine On Harvest Moon" is basically Western Swing. And "Am I That Easy to Forget" has incidental sounds as weird the ones in "Everybody's Talkin'" (which is a great track), or pretty close to it. And yeah, Bobby may well sing "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" better than Marianne Faithful did.

I talked about James McMurtry's 2005 album, which I guess I'll also keep with reservations, on that No Depression thread. Just wannna add here that, when Joe Ely's voice replaces McMurtry's fairly deadassed one in "Slew Foot," the thing somehow sounds way more alive all of a sudden. Go figure. (I hadn't even noticed on the album cover he was on there, then I heard him, and thought "holy shit, that's Joe Ely.")

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 14:48 (twenty years ago)

Also, it's possible that, if I heard McMurtry's "Memorial Day" on a car radio ON Memorial Day, I'd love it. I'm sappy like that sometimes.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 14:58 (twenty years ago)

I dunno, an album like Faron Young's "Sings Songs for Country People" or something, it's from about '63, is definitely countrypolitan--backup singers and strings, but all songs like "Black Land Farmer" about working and poverty and such. I guess I need to find out when the term was first used; I assume the method of recording was pioneered by Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins? David Scott who I quote above about the LA hipster revival of countrypolitan is usually pretty on top of these, uh, trends. but the revival has been under way for a while, like that pretty decent Mandy Barnett record done at Bradley's Barn in '99? and certainly, to my ears, Lambchop (another Mark Nevers-related project) is faux-politan for hipsters; I don't care about them one way or another. as far as Charley Pride goes, I always liked his voice fine, but his persona and the overall sound, I think that's somewhat lacking in definition. as I might've said earlier somewhere, I sure admire Stoney Edwards' '72 or so Capitol LP "Mississippi You're on My Mind," where he sounds a bit like Charley but the songs seem a bit more down-to-earth and the overall effect is droller and with undercurrents of real life, like Stoney's ready to get with the "Cute Little Waitress" and is more pissed off than the perhaps not so well-named Pride--OK, that's not really true-- about being a black man in a white man's world, all that. anyway, it's excellent, especially "Hank and Lefty Raised My Country Soul."

xps

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 15:25 (twenty years ago)

xp: And the part in McMurtry's *other* (and not as good) Memorial Day song, "Holiday," where the military veteran in his 40s gets called back up, would probably give me the chills for a second or two.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 15:56 (twenty years ago)

New Drive By Truckers album, due April 25, sounds...dreary. Surprise, surprise. Only 11 song, which I commend, but it still kinda drags on and on. I do find myself not reacting negatively to the sort of songs where the guitars and the high-voiced guy (which one is that? I can never keep them straight) goosh out a nice steady stream of Neil Young and Crazy Horse beauty; there are at least two and a half of those (I think, though don't quote me on this, "Goodbye," "Blessing and a Curse," and about half of "A World of Hurt," the other half of which is a sort of monolouge worthy of, I dunno, early Nada Surf or middle King Missile or some other mid '90s alt novelty rock artistes I've forgotten who used to recite deadpan prose over their singing.) The one track I actually actively LIKE is "Aftermath USA", a blatant Stones rip about (hi Shooter) waking up after a chemically fucked-up night to a trashed apartment with crystal meth in the tub and the kids haven't been to school for weeks. Which makes me not feel so bad about my own kid missing school Friday 'cause he said he had a cold.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 17:49 (twenty years ago)

>worthy of, I dunno, early Nada Surf or middle King Missile<

Both of whom, at least when they recited prose about popular kids and detachable penises, were probably funnier. So no, really probably NOT worthy. (Not that funniness is all I care about. And it does occur to me that titles like "Aftermath USA" and "A World Of Hurt" might mean this CD's supposed to be about current events or something, somehow.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 17:53 (twenty years ago)

Apropos of nothing but pretty funny:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/20ryanadams.html

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 18:03 (twenty years ago)

The cover songs are almost all better than the non-covers.

I think they're all covers.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 19:04 (twenty years ago)

Also, Frank, you seemed to say above that they'd been dropped from Sony; was there an earlier album? Or did Sony never put one out?

Was a self-titled album on Sony/Monument. It flopped.

But it's not just the harmonies that remind me of Fleetwood Mac - it's also some of the melodies, and I swear there's Lindsey Buckinghamness in some of the guitar parts. One day maybe I'll sit down and take notes and pinpoint where.

The circular return-to-drone motion on "Bones" and the song's first blast of vocal harmony are both right out of "The Chain," though this emphasizes to me how much more intense "The Chain" and "Gold Dust Woman" and "Go Your Own Way" and "Dreams" are than anything on The Road to Here. That said, those four Rumours tracks were as intense as anything else from 1977 that wasn't "I Feel Love" or "Anarchy in the U.K." (or "Bodies" or "EMI" or "God Save the Queen"). (That I can think of off-hand.) ("Complete Control" was 1978, wasn't it?) So this is not to denigrate Little Big Town too much, but there is something missing, lack of a killer instinct, so far. But I'm enjoying the heck out of the album anyway, if not the hell, and I like "Boondocks" a lot even when its pandering to the prime audience's insecurities makes me say "Damn their lies."

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

"like a frat boy at Hell Week"

Yeah, this was a good example of the comic overloading of preposterous metaphor that I was praising last week:

Cold as a concrete
Tough as a back street
Like a fratboy in hell week
Babe with a mean streak

Also:

Tough as a dry creek
Sharp as a hawk's beak
Comin' fast as a stampede
Babe, you got a mean streak

Probably deserves inclusion on The Rough Guide to Co-Dependent Relationships Vol. 2. "How to have fun as the victim in an abusive relationship. A special report at 11:00."

This is the song that has the line, "Hey what's the deal with your Jeckyl and Hyde?" Also, if I heard correctly, they go "Hot as my Harley/Burns like a dry heave." Whew! She's really up against it!

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

>The cover songs are almost all better than the non-covers.
I think they're all covers.<

Oops. Guess I should've said: The covers of songs I heard before are almost all better than the covers of songs I didn't hear before.

So the high-voiced Drive By Trucker is Patterson Hood, right? At least that's what Xgau tells me. Only place on the new one where his Neil Young and Crazy Horse beauty really hits a dust-storm of paydirt, to my ears, is "A Blessing and A Curse." I've decided not to vouch for "Goodbye," which he might not even sing, or "A World Of Hurt." "Daylight" seems to be an awful attempt at Radiohead (via My Morning Jacket?) style nothingness; "Wednesday" is rote bland alt-country; "Space City" another bore. "Gravity's Gone" is a passable second Stones rip (also mentions coke I think -- actually, seems to be about some sort of high-fallutin schmooze party), but not nearly up to the level of "Aftermath USA," probably the only great cut on here (though I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this).

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

And oh yeah, "Little Bonnie" appears possibly to concern an abused child, though nothing in its music made me want to figure out more.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 20:18 (twenty years ago)

First impression of Bon Jovi's "You Can't Go Home." Who are they kidding? Jon's southern accent is terrible. The music is coug-style southern rock, though with less joy and kick than that description implies. "Just a hometown boy born a rolling stone." Wow! A paradox! One that's only been worked a million times already (and will be milked a million times more, because it's a good one if given any interesting twist, which I don't think this song does, but this is only listen no. 1 and actually I'm copying over notes from a few days ago). Guest singer Jennifer Nettles isn't bad (I thought Sugarland's songs were so-what, which made what they were doing so-what, but I had nothing against it in principle). Jennifer could make a good arena rocker, perhaps, if there's a market for good arena rock. Track co-produced by John Shanks.

Bon Jovi "Have a Nice Day." Doesn't seem particularly country to me, though I wouldn't mind if country did drift in this direction, since this is far better than "You Can't Go Home," and more Shanksy, since this one he co-wrote as well as co-produced. I think - or hope - the title is meant sarcastically, though it will be taken straight by the listening audience, since most people will just ride with this sound and not register irony. The only line I jotted was "We're livin' in the broken home of hopes and dreams." Uh, John/Jon, perhaps you need to call on Ashlee, who can write this family-drama stuff for reals, with feeling (but in that case, you might as well have her sing it).

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 20:58 (twenty years ago)

Bottom Dwellers, *Twang Americana*: Four not-unenergetic, not-stupid Califonians seemingly going for a Bakersfield sound; you can hear love of Buck and Merle in their playing and probably their attitude. But not in the singing, which is just some regular guy from next door, completely nondescript, not quiet but also not anything else, and doesn't engage at all. I made it through a few songs, then quit.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 21:18 (twenty years ago)

Inside Out, *No Boundaries*, from Kentucky I think: I guess these guys want to be George Strait or somebody? Or else maybe some sub-Strait nonentity from the '90s or '00s. Better singer than Bottom Dwellers; i.e., at least with this guy you can kinda understand why he chose to be a singer. Slightly swingier, more honky-tonky rhythm. But fewer hooks, and completely generic and uncompelling arrangements and songs you forget while they play. Also, "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers" does not seem to be the ZZ Top song that Motorhead covered, unfortunately. They improve slightly in "You Are a Miracle," when they stop hicking and start crooning. Still, no personality; perhaps they'd appeal to country fans who prefer country that way, I dunno. Either way, their album title is a lie, and kinda pisses me off.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 21:36 (twenty years ago)

(also mentions coke I think -- actually, seems to be about some sort of high-fallutin schmooze party)

Newsflash: eventually the bowls of cocaine start to work against you. When he gets his nose out of the party favors, Patterson is the high voice singer. I've only heard that Feb 14th track, which I thought was OK but kind of unrealized as southern fried power pop, and I like southern fried power pop.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 21:37 (twenty years ago)

>eventually the bowls of cocaine start to work against you<

Yeah, I'm kinda amazed that hasn't happened to Shooter yet!

Avett Brothers *Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions* makes me sick to my stomach. What is it, "old timey" music for Barenaked Ladies and Moxy Fruvous fans or something? Or maybe the singer got drunk and is wearing a lampshade on his voice. God this thing sucks.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

So, Frank - I hear you ask - who is this fellow John Shanks whom you keep bringing up? (Pauses. Listens for question. Doesn't actually hear anything. Mistakes distant whoosh of a passing car for the question "Who Shanks?")

Let's see, according to the bio on his Webpage, "Before he even graduated [high school], he was in pop queen Teena Marie's band." Then he did whatever he did, which included producing "Breathe" for Melissa Etheridge (I don't even think I've heard this song, but my general feeling is that Melissa oversings songs to their ultimate demise), and from there started writing, playing, producing for a whole lot of others, including co-writing co-producing "Steve McQueen" for Sheryl Crow, a song that is nice but ho-hum in comparison to most of what she'd done previously. Anwyay, songs he's written or produced that one could vaguely call country-related include SheDaisy's "Come Home Soon" and Stevie Nicks' "Trouble in Shangri-La" (which I used to own and right now can't recall, so I don't know how country it is, but it's, you know, Stevie), and maybe can include Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway," which could have been country if it hadn't already been something else. And - now this is where Shanks starts to have a serious country impact - Keith Urban's "Somebody Like You," which lived at number one on the country charts for a couple of months in 2002. Shanks wrote but did not produce it; being Urban's, it's done with an easy touch. Just skips along, rides a nice breeze, probably a lot harder to do well than it appears, but only catches fire for me during Keith's guitar rave-up at the end (which I suspect most radio listeners didn't get a chance to hear). But then, it's not trying to catch fire. It's way more palatable than most sap in the pop country range. Nice. But it has little to do with why I'm now trying to find out whatever I can about Shanks. The why is "Fly" by Hilary Duff, which would have been my single of the year in 2004 if I'd been giving Duff much attention; "La La" by Ashlee Simpson, which was my number three this year and would have been number one if Shanks and Simpson hadn't tried too hard to make it sound tough; and a whole bunch more: all of the crucial Ashlee tracks, and the woman has yet to put out a bad or merely so-so single; "First" and the other tracks that broke Lohan onto the radio; "Come Clean," Duff's first great single; and back in 2001, Michelle Branch's "Everywhere," which preceded Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me"* and Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" onto the airwaves and helped to set a pattern: personal (or personal-seeming) lyrics but with, no matter how pensive the rest of the song, a chorus that wails. So far Shanks seems to do best with the young women (and when Kara DioGuardi is on board as one of his co-writers); he doesn't have just one sound. He's gotten delicate beauty from Hilary and hot fire from Ashlee. I'm not sure what to make of his Bon Jovi involvement. I'd call "Have a Nice Day" below-average for a Shanks single, but Shanks has done worse. He's still a subject for further research.

(*On his Webpage he gives himself credit for "additional production" on Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me," but this is not listed on the album notes, which credit Dallas Austin.)

Shanks-related songs I haven't so far heard include Fleetwood Mac's "Peacekeeper," Vertical Horizon's "I'm Still Here," Alanis Morissette's "Everything."

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

Michael Ubalini, *Avenue of Ten Cent Hearts*: Gutbust-grunted *Darkness*/*River* Springsteen without any of the finesse, piling on metaphors that might conceivably be interesting but probably aren't (see title) in a voice that can't pull them off, at least not with no E Street Band backing him up. Dude sounds like he's trying really hard, but spinning his wheels. (Also from California, apparently.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 22:30 (twenty years ago)

This may or may not be America's leading Southern Rock magazine:

http://gritz.net/

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 00:15 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty sure that
I'm the only one who likes
BR-549

but their new record
is quite fun and bluegrass-pop
I am in favor

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 01:11 (twenty years ago)

I still like them. Bluegrass-pop, hmmm...Someone is supposed to be sending me the new record, as I'm writing about them in a couple weeks. I'll report back.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 02:36 (twenty years ago)

on second listen
this is a really good disc
lots of black humor*

*e.g. The opener is a bluegrass hoedown about a hangover ("Poison / Get thee out of me") that calls puke and/or the runs "bubblin' crude", the closer is another hangover song called "Let Jesus Make You Breakfast"; the midtempo AAA-friendly boogie is surprisingly upbeat in tone considering it's about the framing and incarceration of Leonard Peltier; the gospel song with the jordanaires is actually predicting failure ("I know the devil in me will do me in"); etc. I'm in heavy favor of this.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 14:48 (twenty years ago)

At Amoeba Music in Hollywood, they have Laura Cantrell in the folk section. This is wrong.

Yes, this is wrong. Cantrell is country.

― TRG (TRG), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 14:57 (twenty years ago)

BR's been playing around here a lot lately, and every time I miss them. I've heard good things about the record. they were fun to see ten years ago, and I wonder how their personnel changes have affected 'em.

and I dunno, Cantrell is kind of a folkie, but she covers Wynn Stewart honky-tonk stuff. but I think she'd sell better out of the folk section, or the Americana section, altho at Grimey's here she's right in with Can and Captain Beefheart.

xps

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:10 (twenty years ago)

BR's steel player has been on tour with Dylan for a year, but he's back in the fold and wailing away again. The new dude seems to fit right in.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

*Johnny Reb & the Lost Cause* (I guess that's the name, though it says True History...Real Rock! on the back of the cardboard CD sleeve, and Heritage Not Hate on the disc) starts out high-octane low-fidelity rockabilly (more proto-pub-metal style than Stray Cats pompodour style or anything wimpier), sets some tracks to clippity-cloppy hooves, turns into Southern metal in a track or two, but seems to drag a little bit when it goes into purer Civil War reenactment duties (supposedly the guy was connected with some TV reality show called *Sabers and Roses* or something?, which is also a song title here, as are "Civil War Rock," "Confederate Money," "Jine the Cavalry," "Battle of Bull Run," and so on -- some of which I assume are actual oldtime traditional civil war songs, since they talk about bully boys and spell "join" in old fashioned ways), but it swings back into enough Stonesy non-ballad country-rock (including a cover of, uh, "Brown Sugar") for my liking. Maybe belongs in a pile with the J Blackfoot album from last year and maybe the Indian Reservation Marty Stuart one, though not as prog as either of those; shorter and faster and more straightforward songs, and more of them. Johnny Reb's got a passable voice which seems work best in the rockabilly numbers.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:49 (twenty years ago)

Seems TO work best. and reenactment DITTIES (though yeah, duties too maybe.) I'd probably like the CD more if it stopped after those first few metalbilly tracks; 21 songs is way too many. But I'll probably keep it. (Two of the more traditional songs, "Maryland My Maryland" and "I'm a Good Old Rebel," are sung by one John Davidson, not Reb.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:56 (twenty years ago)

OK, here's the results of the Scene's country poll.
y'all are so good, picking Lee Ann. so, what, 7 sorta alt- winners? Fulks, Gauthier, Prine, Nickel Creek, Jimmie Dale, McMurtry? I guess I'm surprised by Fulks's high showing, maybe I'm the only one...?

Albums

1. Lee Ann Womack: There’s More Where That Came From (MCA)
2. Rodney Crowell: The Outsider (Columbia)
3. Robbie Fulks: Georgia Hard (Yep Roc)
4. Marty Stuart & the Fabulous Superlatives: Souls’ Chapel (Superlatone/Universal South)
5. Gary Allan: Tough All Over (MCA)
6. Brad Paisley: Time Well Wasted (Arista)
7. Dwight Yoakam: Blame the Vain (New West)
8. Mary Gauthier: Mercy Now (Lost Highway)
9. Patty Loveless: Dreamin’ My Dreams (Epic)
10. Miranda Lambert: Kerosene (Epic)
11. Bobby Bare: The Moon Was Blue (Dualtone)
12. Dierks Bentley: Modern Day Drifter (Capitol)
13. Martina McBride: Timeless (RCA)
14. Neil Young: Prairie Wind (Reprise)
15. Gretchen Wilson: All Jacked Up (Epic) 16. Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell: Begonias (Yep Roc)
17. James McMurtry: Childish Things (Compadre)
18. Merle Haggard: Chicago Wind (Capitol)
19. John Prine: Fair & Square (Oh Boy)
20. Deana Carter: The Story of My Life (Vanguard)
21. Trisha Yearwood: Jasper County (MCA)
22. Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Come on Back (Rounder)
23. Nickel Creek: Why Should the Fire Die (Sugar Hill)
24. Bobby Pinson: Man Like Me (RCA)
25. Shooter Jennings: Put the O Back in Country (Universal South)

Singles

1. Lee Ann Womack: “I May Hate Myself in the Morning”
2. Brad Paisley: “Alcohol”
3. Miranda Lambert: “Kerosene”
4. Dierks Bentley: “Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do”
5. Gary Allan: “Best I Ever Had”
6. Shooter Jennings: “4th of July”
7. Patty Loveless: “Keep Your Distance”
8. Toby Keith: “As Good as I Once Was”
9. Mary Gauthier: “Mercy Now”
10. Trisha Yearwood: “Georgia Rain”
11. James McMurtry: “We Can’t Make It Here”
12. Gretchen Wilson: “I Don’t Feel Like Loving You Today”
13. Dwight Yoakam: “Blame the Vain”
14. Rodney Crowell: “The Obscenity Prayer”
15. Gretchen Wilson: “All Jacked Up”
16. Robbie Fulks: “Georgia Hard”
17. Keith Urban: “Making Memories of Us”
18. Bobby Pinson: “Don’t Ask Me How I Know”
19. Merle Haggard: “Where’s All the Freedom”
20. Sara Evans: “A Real Fine Place to Start”

Reissues

1. Charlie Poole: You Ain’t Talkin’ to Me (Columbia/Legacy)
2. Johnny Cash: The Legend (Columbia/Legacy)
3. June Carter Cash: Keep on the Sunny Side (Columbia/Legacy)
4. David Allan Coe: Penitentiary Blues (Hacktone)
5. The Band: A Musical History (Capitol)
6. Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways: The Very Best of Emmylou Harris (Warner Bros./Reprise/Rhino)
7. Doug Sahm & the Sir Douglas Quintet: The Complete Mercury Recordings (Hip-O Select)
8. Various Artists: Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows, 1926-1937 (Old Hat)
9. Rosanne Cash: Seven Year Ache (Columbia/Legacy)
10. Shel Silverstein: The Best of Shel Silverstein: His Words, His Songs, His Friends (Columbia/Legacy)

Artists of the Year

1. Lee Ann Womack
2. Marty Stuart
3. Brad Paisley
4. Alison Krauss & Union Station
5. Rodney Crowell
6. Keith Urban
7. Gary Allan
8. Gretchen Wilson
9. Dierks Bentley
10. Patty Loveless

Male Vocalists

1. Gary Allan
2. Dwight Yoakam
3. Marty Stuart
4. Brad Paisley
5. Merle Haggard
6. Dierks Bentley
7. Alan Jackson
8. Robbie Fulks
9. George Strait
10. Rodney Crowell

Female Vocalists

1. Lee Ann Womack
2. Gretchen Wilson
3. Patty Loveless
4. Martina McBride
5. Trisha Yearwood
6. Alison Krauss
7. Miranda Lambert
8. Sara Evans
9. Mary Gauthier
10: (tie) Shelby Lynne / Caitlin Cary

Live Acts

1. Keith Urban
2. Alison Krauss & Union Station
3. Marty Stuart
4. Brad Paisley
5. Big & Rich

Duos and Groups

1. Big & Rich
2. Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell
3. Alison Krauss & Union Station
4. Brooks & Dunn
5. Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives

Songwriters

1. Rodney Crowell
2. John Rich
3. Robbie Fulks
4. Mary Gauthier
5. James McMurtry

Instrumentalists

1. Jerry Douglas
2. Brad Paisley
3. Chris Thile
4. Kenny Vaughan
5. Keith Urban

New Acts

1. Miranda Lambert
2. Shooter Jennings
3. Sugarland
4. The Wrights
5. Hanna-McEuen

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 18:42 (twenty years ago)

OK, here's the results of the Scene's country poll.
y'all are so good, picking Lee Ann. so, what, 7 sorta alt- winners? Fulks, Young, Gauthier, Prine, Nickel Creek, Jimmie Dale, McMurtry? I guess I'm surprised by Fulks's high showing, maybe I'm the only one...?

Albums

Singles

Reissues

Artists of the Year

1. Lee Ann Womack
2. Marty Stuart
3. Brad Paisley
4. Alison Krauss & Union Station
5. Rodney Crowell
6. Keith Urban
7. Gary Allan
8. Gretchen Wilson
9. Dierks Bentley
10. Patty Loveless

Male Vocalists

1. Gary Allan
2. Dwight Yoakam
3. Marty Stuart
4. Brad Paisley
5. Merle Haggard
6. Dierks Bentley
7. Alan Jackson
8. Robbie Fulks
9. George Strait
10. Rodney Crowell

Female Vocalists

1. Lee Ann Womack
2. Gretchen Wilson
3. Patty Loveless
4. Martina McBride
5. Trisha Yearwood
6. Alison Krauss
7. Miranda Lambert
8. Sara Evans
9. Mary Gauthier
10: (tie) Shelby Lynne / Caitlin Cary

Live Acts

1. Keith Urban
2. Alison Krauss & Union Station
3. Marty Stuart
4. Brad Paisley
5. Big & Rich

Duos and Groups

1. Big & Rich
2. Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell
3. Alison Krauss & Union Station
4. Brooks & Dunn
5. Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives

Songwriters

1. Rodney Crowell
2. John Rich
3. Robbie Fulks
4. Mary Gauthier
5. James McMurtry

Instrumentalists

1. Jerry Douglas
2. Brad Paisley
3. Chris Thile
4. Kenny Vaughan
5. Keith Urban

New Acts

1. Miranda Lambert
2. Shooter Jennings
3. Sugarland
4. The Wrights
5. Hanna-McEuen

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 18:44 (twenty years ago)

sorry 'bout the double post.

just scanned Geoffrey's essay--here's his main point, I suppose...

*....they returned country music to its roots. No matter what its instrumentation, country has always distinguished itself from the conformist optimism of mainstream pop and the rebellious optimism of rock ’n’ roll, the religious pieties of gospel music and the secular pieties of folk music by embracing the weaknesses and wounds of human nature. By and large, only the blues have shown a like honesty.*

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 18:54 (twenty years ago)

Country also distinguishes itself by embodying each and every one of those generalized qualities--needless to say, but I had to say it anyway. I mean, that's what's interesting about country, at least to me--not just the embrace of weakness and wounds. Nietzche would have hated that version of country.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 19:03 (twenty years ago)

johnny reb second-thougt ammendments:

1) the rockabilly isn't always all THAT hi-octane, or all that raw, or all that metal, or all that pervasive. Just sometimes.
2) my favorite songs so far: "i can always count on you (to let me down)" ("gimme three steps" times "who shot sam" or one of those rockabilly george jones songs); "civil war rock" (ubangi stomp boogie woogie in a ubangi style); "confederate money" (as in "your love is like confederate money"); "i rode with j.e.b. stuart" (hard-kicking metal boogie with a manly sore throat -- "sabers and roses" is the same genre, but doesn't kick as hard, though it goes into a nice dobro or mandolin or dulcimer or something break in the middle); "ghost ride" (punk rock stretching toward boogie, and it mentions hagerstown, the maryland city that kix and the left came from, and this sounds more like the left than kix, and has somebody riding their ghosty horse into town and yelling "hurrah for the confederacy!" in the middle. also, it is track #11, not track #10 as erroneously stated on the cd sleeve); "Custard's Luck" (more catchy slimey stones-riffed biker rock; what does "come on you wolverines" mean in a civil war context?). Also there are okay Stones slimers about rebel girls from new york and Southern girls. Some of the more trad and stately and sometimes acapella'd history-lesson stuff is good too ("shadow of the south" is lovely), but i am a rockerist if not a rockist when it comes to country and it will probably take that stuff longer to sink in.
3) the hooves don't clip-clop; they gallop. and there are probably muskets on there somewhere as well.
4) i still can't tell if there are any songs about being a yankee.
5) in "brown sugar" mr. reb ANNUNCIATES, so you can tell she tastes good not just dances good, and he's not a schoolboy but he knows what he likes. still...um, interesting cover choice, to say the least.
6) "maryland my maryland" must be old because it says "the gentlemen were gay" and rhymes that with "philadelph-i-ay."
7) oddly, 22 songs is not nearly as excessive as I at first thought.

In other news, Michaelangelo Matos emailed me this link last night. I never heard of this guy before, and I'd have thought it impossible, but when it comes to keeping up with country, this guy may well leave everybody on this thread in the dust:

http://countryuniverse.blogspot.com/

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 19:58 (twenty years ago)

damn, you ain't kidding about the dust. John Corbett?? singing about Carrie Fisher, reprising his role as hitman in that NYC restaurant movie, now as a western gunslinger? wow.

*"Custard's Luck" (more catchy slimey stones-riffed biker rock; what does "come on you wolverines" mean in a civil war context?)*

ah, I remembered this from my LSU days reading about the Late Unpleasantness (so Custer becomes Custard!):

The name James Kidd (1840-1913) is not altogether unfamiliar to Civil War aficionados, particularly to those with an interest in Union cavalry operations. A twenty-one-year-old University of Michigan student from Ionia, Michigan, Kidd enlisted in the federal army and managed to recruit a company of cavalry that was accepted as Company E, 6th Michigan Cavalry, with himself as captain. Brigaded with the 1st, 5th, and 7th Michigan cavalry regiments, the Michigan Cavalry Brigade distinguished itself under the leadership of its first commander, Gen. George Armstrong Custer. "Custer's Wolverines," as they were popularly known, gained renown as one of the finest volunteer cavalry units to serve in the eastern theater, fighting in more than sixty battles or skirmishes. By war's end, the Wolverines had served in the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac and under Sheridan in his Army of the Shenandoah....

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 20:27 (twenty years ago)

Redhill, self-titled 4-song EP, wow, totally excellent blue-eyed soul country by a five-person band from Detroit of all places, references to the Drifters ("Rooftop"), beats from Bo Diddley ("I Can Make It On My Own"), lady singer with a warm and powerful voice, pop enough for suburbia, plenty of swing (even the jazzy kind) in the rhythm. I hope they win all the Motor City Music Awards they just got nominated for.

CDbaby.com is the future of music, I swear.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 20:41 (twenty years ago)

EP's first song "All Night Long" ("we're not 21 but we still can walk that walk...ain't gonna buy a single drink as long as there are men cause the girls gotta get out every now and then") is TOTAL girls- night-out country exactly like Frank was looking for. Singer Julianne sounds like KT Oslin! No horns credited, but I think I hear some. And "Rooftop" is built on that same Latin beat the Drifters used to use; it's a blatant rewrite of "Up On the Roof," clearly, and lovely.

― [email protected], Wednesday, 18 January 2006 20:47 (twenty years ago)

CDbaby.com is the future of music, I swear.

Remarkable, isn't it. Beats hell out of myspace even though a lot of the acts are kind of forced into doing duplicate pages for that service by the tyrannical hype of its benefits.

― George the Animal Steele, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:15 (twenty years ago)

And now I'm playing Copperhead *Live & Lost*, which George mentioned upthread, and which he burned for me. Holy shit this rocks. The singer has this great squealing '70s midwestern hard rock voice (Head East? early REO, maybe?) and a rhythm section and guitars to match. I always forget how complex this kinda music is til I actually hear it.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:37 (twenty years ago)

Copperhead is totally ruling on that CD. Carswell is the guy's name, I think, and he does sound a bit like Terry Luttrell from the first REO album. On the live cuts he picks up some of the style of Ricky Medlocke only in a slightly higher register. According to some press I was able to glean fron the web, Tom Dowd produced about half of it. Also, the band has been around awhile, thought they were going to make it big when they got a song on the soundtrack of "Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man," a Mickey Rourke/Don Johnson film. When that turned out to be a total bomb, although entertaining on Saturday afternoon TV, it didn't quite happen.

If tweren't through CD Baby, it would have been missed. I don't think I saw a copy of it anywhere in meatspace.

― George the Animal Steele, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:46 (twenty years ago)

By the way, what Alex at countryuniverse.blogspot.com says about BR-549 kinda sums up my past feelings for them (though I've yet to hear their new one, which I could wind up liking for all I know): "BR549 After The Hurricane -- Nice enough. But they still sound like the kitschy downtown Nashville retro act they started off as many years ago." (Personally, I never liked them much as a kitschy retro act.)

Fourth song "I Can Make It On My Own" on that great Redhill EP is lyrically a post-breakup survival anthem a la, well, "I Will Survive," or "No Guilt" by the Waitresses or somebody: "Saw you with your new hootchie mama/Have you introduced her to your head-case traumas?," sung to a Diddley beat (go ahead, sing along). The drums and guitars at the start are Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" into George Michael's "Faith" (both of which were Diddley chillun all along).

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 18 January 2006 23:51 (twenty years ago)

Tom Russell, *Love & Fear*: Grumpy-old-guy film-noir alt-country folk, drags on eternally, people who like tom waits more than I do will like this more than I do, and as you'd guess he can be a total sap (or at least he seems to be when talking about stolen children or whatever), but he probably writes even better than james mcmurtry, or at least he seems to when he's halfway un-comatose enough for me to pay attention, which means at least three tracks here: "The Pugilist at 59," "Stealing Electricity" (about a Mexican immigrant being electrocuted at the border I guess, and Russell does western union dit dit dat morse-code noises a la the Five Americans which is pretty cool but gets sappy when he says that's also the sounds two people's hearts make when they fall in love), "Four Chambered Heart" (a la a crocodile's; both this one and the pugilist song have stuff about growing old and not talking to your college-age kids anymore which I'm guessing might be autobiographical.) And yeah, maybe Geoff Himes is right in his Nashville Scene poll essay when he says since alt-country's best attribute is its songwriting, Nasvhille types should *cover* alt-country songs more; I loved Gary Allan's version of a Todd Snider song once, so I'll buy that. (Don't know if I'll buy that the only difference between Lee Ann Womack and Caitlin Cary is their production budget or whatever, but I'll let that one slide.) Anyway, the main thing about the Russell CD, which I bet *No Depression*ites totally embrace, is the old story: Too many words, not enough music.

By the way, this has been discussed before, but looking over the top 500 singles of the '90s to '05 on that countryuniverse.blogspot site, and I've only begun to do so, I'm kind of surprised by how many singers I now associate with alt-country apparently had actual radio country hits in the early '90s when I warn't paying attention. Carlene Carther, Leeroy Parnell, I forget who else. He's making me curious about lots of singers and songs I never heard or never thought about before. Don't always agree with him (his interpretation of "Gimme Shelter" in his #2 album of 2005 Kathy Mattea blurb is completely nuts, and he apparently has no use for Miranda Lambert at all), but he's got lots of interesting ideas. So who the hell is he?

― xhuxk, Thursday, 19 January 2006 15:25 (twenty years ago)

If you're too lazy to look at the link:

>Mattea has the moral authority to cover "Gimme Shelter" and "Down On The Corner" - she's been a walking illustration of the virtues of peacemaking and creating art for pure joy that those songs respectively celebrate.<

Rape, Murder. It's just a shot away.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 19 January 2006 15:30 (twenty years ago)

For instance (as an example of singers he made me interested in AND current alt-country people who apparently used to be pop-country hitmakers though I didn't know it), Joy Lyn White. I dissed her album on the '05 thread (and in my Nashville Scene ballot comments, though thankfully Geof didn't print that part), but I was way wrong. "Girls With Apartments in Nasvhille" is still my favorite track on the album; working-woman-rock song of the year probably. I'm always a sucker for such stuff, and if it had been a single, I would've considered naming it on my Scene ballot. But there there are plenty of other good tracks here, and Joy's voice is as Martina McBride as it is Lucinda Williams, so what the hell was I thinking? I guess the songwriting hit me as generic, which I swear most of it is, though not "Just Some Girl" ("her skin is not like milk/her hair is not like silk/she's just some girl"). And obviously not the cover of (I'm pretty sure) Warren Zevon's cover of the Yardbirds' "A Certain Girl" as "Certain Boy." But how come nobody told me "Good Rockin' Mama" opens with garage-punk organs that make it sound like the 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me" and lead up to a garage-punk rave-up guitar climax? Or that the opener, "Keep This Love Alive," sounds like a rewrite of whichever track on Richard and Linda Thompson's *Shoot Out the Lights* ("Don't Renege On Our Love", maybe?) sounded like a rewrite of Link Wray's "Rumble"? And Joy's got a cool '60s-pop/maybe girl-group sound worthy of Deana Carter going on elsewhere, espcially in "Love Sometimes" and "Victim of Love" (great oh la la la la's in that one). Did fans of this album point all of this out last year? If so, I wasn't paying attention, and I am an jerk for it.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 19 January 2006 16:56 (twenty years ago)

yeah, Joy Lynn's pretty good, and I too love "Girls with Apartments in Nashville" (the song and the girls too). better than Amy Rigby, probably; JL's album took me a long time to appreciate, though, unlike Deana's. but I can't seem to find it at the moment, must be at my storage space...and is "Certain Girl" the old Ernie K-Doe/Toussaint song? how does the interpretation of "Gimme" tie in with Geoffrey's comments about sinning in '05? I dunno. but I agree about alt- and songwriting, Gary Allan's take on "Alright Guy" is really good. I think things are opening up in Nashville, lines becoming a bit less thickly drawn between alt and whatever, and I guess one of the things I try to imply in my whatsiz-essay on pop and country and pies is that mainstream does alt- better than alt or something. I ain't no Francis Bacon these days...

and been listening steady to Townes Van Zandt. I suppose I like the talking-blues aspect of him best of all, he basically talks his way thru the London concert from mid-'80s, and he's really charming, even turning the Elvis movie tune "Song of the Shrimp" (which Frank Black did sorta cool and sorta half-assed on last yr's "Honeycomb") into a mock dissertation on songwriting ("I can't believe this, now it gets worse...Jesus, just let me finish the thing...what were they thinking, now the shrimp is talking??") and talking his way thru "Pancho and Lefty." but there's something in his singing and speaking voice that gets you after a while, something basically good-humored and bemused at his own obsession with mortality, which somehow seems like a joke to him. at the same time, he's a bit boring, a bit samey, and I'm not sure about his allegories and poker tales, altho he has one strange sorta Hawthorne-like death song about a witch living in a hole. so I haven't quite gotten to the point of making up my mind--I do know the damned tempos are too slow for my taste--but I'm basically won over. and shit, Townes is the granddaddy of alt- as much as Gram or Gene Clark or Don Everly or the Flatlanders or...

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:43 (twenty years ago)

> is "Certain Girl" the old Ernie K-Doe/Toussaint song? <

Yeah! I'd forgotten that's where it dated back to; I've got in on one of those New Orleans compilations on Rhino, now that you mention it. (The Yardbirds did cover it though, right? Or am I just dreaming?)

& Joy Lynn definitely has way more music in her music than Amy Rigby.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 19 January 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

Damn, that psychedelic Myanmar album didn't even place on the reissues list.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 19 January 2006 23:48 (twenty years ago)

I thought about mounting a defense of Joy Lynn White when she was taking fire last year or whenever, and wish I had. I guess I just didn't know how to respond to the digs against her Lucinda-ness. I mean, sure, there's a comparison there, but Joy Lynn is a fantastic singer, wholly different ball park from Lucinda's desiccation. I think her phrasing is more Dylanesque than anything, which is striking, maybe sui generis, for a pure country singer (cause she's that too). Bummer that she didn't make the Scene poll. I can't be the only one who voted for her.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 20 January 2006 00:17 (twenty years ago)

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