Rolling Country 2006 Thread

got several things to assess here, I've been playing catchup for the past week, just can't shake this flu. including the new Hank III, which came today, and the new Rhett Akins. but tonight, excited to be seeing Bettye LaVette!!

Hmmm...heard their new album a month or two ago and didn't think it was that good. Are these the same guys who put out an all bluegrass album of AC/DC covers a few years ago? Or was that somebody else? Either way, seems like a way too obvious shtick that wasn't funny in the first place, being the same kind of joke indie bands have worn into the ground since the Replacements two decades ago, plus like all joke-metal it's completely redundant, somehow missing the fact that you don't need to *make* hard rock funny, because it was funny on purpose in the first place. Anyway, grumpiness over with, I actually thought the two least annoying songs on the new Hayseed Dixie album were their version of Green Day's "Holiday" and an original called "Kirby Hill," mainly because their energy was better when I can't remember a version of the song that's way more energetic, and it's been a long time since I played that Green Day album. "Black Dog," "War Pigs," "Ace of Spades," and a couple other originals ("Mountain Man," "Marijuana") seemed tolerable (once), but the shtick wore out its welcome way too quick. On the other hand, I *can* kind of see how they'd be fun to be in a room with while drinking beer, especially if they cracked wise about *Deliverance* between songs.

Well, yes and no. Looking at the poll again, I see that seven of my albums made the list (which is way more than ever make the P&J list) while only four of the singles. But my four singles were all bunched at the top, in the top six, whereas my albums spread throughout the top 25. But given that I have heard most of the placing singles I didn't vote for, whereas I haven't heard most of the albums, I'm really not in the position to judge whether the singles list was better than the albums. I just normally assume that singles lists are better than album lists.

Got the in-print copy of the Scene; this year it came without a T-shirt, and none of our comments were in the print version. That and no numbers listed with the votes makes this the ever-shrinking critics poll. (And I'm damned if I can figure out why the Scene thinks a boot on the cover would be more enticing than Lee Ann's warm, engaging mug and upper torso.)

Also listening to a pile of Southern soul discovered via CD-baby channels. The album by a jowly guy named Jimmy Taylor leans toward the blues end of things (with lady backup vocals not far from the ones on last year's Bobby Bare album); the EP by the lady named Candis Palmer ("All Men Ain't Dawgs,* since some are electric boogie dawgs apparently) leans toward the disco end; the single by Harold, "Chill Step Party," is steppin' music. He mentions Milwaukee, Chitown, Harlem, and Atlanta in it. More fun than R. Kelly, as far as I'm concerned, but mainly all this stuff obviously has a connection to county music too.

candis palmer, as i said, gets even more disco, but her disco is maybe 1975 where taylor's is 1973. (i think i wrote on the '05 thread that shannon brown's disco sounded 1979, but maybe that was hyperbole; i'm not sure. these two soul singers FEEL more disco.) but even at her most disco, in a song called "don't let someone else come and jingle my bell" or something, palmer gets backed by HARD blues guitar riffs, so the music really rocks. if i had to compare her vocal style to anybody, it'd be the staple singers in "i'll take you there."

the esquire story i was talking about, about tim mcgraw, was mostly good ol boy wanking, but it said a couple of things, he said that he can sing the hell out of any shit, and the only way tht he can ever hit it out of the ball park is to chose decent writers, which is really obvious, but remains unstated, and this was said by an anon nashville exec. the other thing is that he not only outed himself as a centerleft democrat, and he wants to run for senator of tennessee--what do we think about tht, what are his chances?

has anyone heard the new roseanne cash, as well, can we talk about that

And in what may be a stunning upset at the Poptimists World Cup, Trinidad & Tobago are (is?) currently leading their group; if they hold on, this will mean that at least one of highly regarded Sweden and highly regarded England will not pass forward to round two. Paraguay, managed by our own Anthony Easton, may be overmatched, but gutty performances by a duo who seem to be Spanish-language equivalents of Glen Campbell and Bobby Goldsboro are keeping them still in contention.

And, right on cue, the day after I described the Paraguayans as like Campbell and Goldsboro, the Time-Life classic country Sweet Country Ballads CD arrived through the mail, featuring our heroes Glen ("By the Time I Get to Phoenix") and Bobby ("Honey"). This is appropriate in so many ways, especially given that my Pazz & Jop commentary was all about Pazz & Jop's - and my - inability to come to terms with ballads. The antho has also done me a service by reminding me that the first Top 40 I song I ever loved was Skeeter Davis's "The End of the World," and that one of the first 100 Top 40 songs I ever liked was George Hamilton IV's "Abilene." And that even after having listened to "Detroit City" 20 times in the last several months, I still love "Detroit City" the 21st time.

Also has Ray Price's "For the Good Times." What intrigues me is that this full-scale stringed-up and orchestrated sorrowful ballad doesn't remind me nearly as much of Johnny Ray as do the two old honky-tonk tracks of his I'd mentioned upthread. In the honky-tonkers he seems ready to ramp up into Johnny Ray–type blazing teardrops, whereas "For the Good Times" sounds more conversational and intimate, like Sinatra.

(Can teardrops blaze? I think Johnny Ray proves that indeed they can.)

What I know of Tennessee politics amounts to about zero, so I can't predict. What's McGraw's political organizing and experience been so far?

I think everyone who participated in the Country Critics poll is due a paper copy of the Scene, assuming they have your mailing addy.

Pazz & Jop gets posted online around midday (Rocky Mountain Time) this coming Tuesday, January 31.

I suspect most of the fireworks that my Angolan team will ignite in the Pop World Cup are in my banter with the hapless lunatic attempting to forge a talentless Iran squad into something that can avoid base humiliation (I refer to one Mark S). We go head to head week after next (ha, and I might easily think that something to do with football would be among the few areas where I wouldn't be laughably outmatched! Shame this actually has almost bugger all to do with football...).

For The Good Times has to stay conversational because it is so hard to wring a tune out of it. Even Al Green struggled.

I like the Rosanne Cash album. It's therapy, sure, but the songs feel necessary and the memories deeply recollected ala Wordsworth. I'll write about it more after I finish a review of the Amelia White album, Black Doves, which I also like, but not as much (the title track, though, is good anti-war imagism; someone tip off Christgau).

Roy, as our resident Ray Price expert, what would you say about "For the Good Times" in relation to whatever else he was doing around then?

i know this isn't the right thread to defend the replacements on, but i'm not sure what this means unless it's a reference to their kiss cover -- and i'm pretty sure they did the kiss cover because they were (like a huge percentage of the white male population of their age) big kiss fans. and i think their version rockx. you're most likely right about hayseed dixie, tho. i've never listened to them because i've been put off by their shtick. (but if alison krauss ever makes the '70s hard rock album she's threatened, i might bite.)

meanwhile, in case anyone's wondering, neko case's new album is a.) pretty good and b.) even less a country record than anything else she's done. and i think i like her better without the twang affectations. she's a torch singer, and she can do country torch as well as any other kind (and gospel too, there's a great gospel tune on there), but her natural affinity is for a kind of noirish pop that falls somewhere between owen bradley and david lynch. (and the album still has some duds, but i think maybe less than the last few.)

Brownsville and Cub Koda whether they know it or not. But only Teenage Head comes close to being as crunching while any style from the first five or so BS albums is in the same area. Standard but always astute observation in "Stone Cold Sober" that the object of assessment was more lively, intellectual and fun when a drunk, as opposed to a teetotaler. A band that could do justice to "The Martian Boogie."

"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9" is also a fair Van Halen/DLR rip, only superior.

not just "black diamond". ever see them in the mid '80s, or hear that *when the shit hits the fans* tape? they used to drunkenly cover foreigner, BTO, you name it. which was vaguely cute, at the time, but it set up this "ha ha we're an indie band covering this stupid '70s song" routine that zillions of bands, from soul asylum on down, wound up taking up. the fact that none of them (sorry, including the replacements) wrote songs as smart as foreigner or bto apparently didn't make the joke any less funny for lots of people. i still consider it idiotic.

but anyways...

Price had been recording with orchestras since at least 1964, so the overall approach of "For the Good Times" was well established for him by 1970. It's the first track on side one of the album of the same name (Columbia 1970), I think the first Kristofferson song he recorded, with "Help Me Make It Through the Night" the first track on side two. In the late '60s, what really starts to change, at least to my ears, is his singing: He's in complete and total control of his voice, and so he's figuring out more and more about the kind of singer he can be, what country music means to him (turns out, it means more the bedrock rhythm and the melodic concision, as opposed to themes or twang or whatever), sculpting and caressing notes, drawing out phrases like the longest bow on the longest string, then seamlessly returning to the deep spoken lines. Throughout this period he's negotiating sonic country signifiers--some tracks have more pedal steel or fiddle or pronounced acoustic guitar (the track that follows FTGT, "Gonna Burn Some Bridges," opens with pedal steel lick and twin fiddles) others, like FTGT, have only that insistent, steady underlying Nashville Sound rhythm. But by 1970 country audiences were ready. "For the Good Times" went #1 Country and #11 Pop. The whole album is really good. He reinterprets "Crazy Arms" and "Heartaches By the Number" in full Sinatra mode. If you haven't heard his version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night," you'll be surprised at how fast it is. He doesn't get the song the way Sammi Smith did. But "Cold Day in July" is totally crushing.

"Country music is often called music for grown-ups, and no record better illustrates the point than Ray Price's 'For the Good Times'. The foundation is Kris Kristofferson's song, which is every bit as complex and conflicted as any real-life adult breakup.

'Don't look so sad,' Price begins. You figure he's comforting a woman to whom he's just delivered bad news. But as the scene unfolds, you learn that he's getting the bad news; she's leaving him, and the song is his attempt to get her to go to bed with him just once more. You know, 'for the good times.' Price could have delivered these lines in all sorts of ways. He could have sung as if the man were unable or unwilling to let go. He could leave the man wallowing in self-pity or nostalgia, or he could have let the man believe he just needs someone to help him make it through the night. It could have been a last ditch effort to get her to stay, or maybe he's just a creep who wants to get laid. The miracle of Price's delivery--he croons elegantly in one breath, all pathetic in the next--is that he never allows us to choose between these interpretations. Kristofferson's words and melody and Price's delivery combine to let the man be all these things at once. No wonder Price has frequently gone out of his way to identify 'For the Good Times' as among the best songs he's ever sung.

The reason he even has to point this out at all is the record's arrangement. Its clopping drum and tic-tac bass are unmistakably country in feel, but the problem for some listeners is the Cam Mullins string arrangement intertwined with that pulsing rhythm--as every purist knows by heart, string arrangements don't belong on country records. Whatever. There's really no accounting for such reactions, particularly to a record like 'For the Good Times', where the strings so clearly aid both the singer and the song. It's true that on some records strings are needlessly stitched onto perfectly serviceable country rhythm sections (think of those Frankenstein monster overdubs of Hank Williams's hits), but that's not the case here. 'For the Good Times' was clearly conceived with an orchestra at its center. As a result, the strings give the song its mournful tone and sonic thrust; they suggest, in their call-and-response with the singer, all the history that stands between this couple. Most of all, they assist Price in his seduction even as they point to the man's inevitably lonely future.

Because she's going to tell him no, right? 'Don't look so sad', he begins. Every time you hear Price sing those lines, you wonder anew just what it is he has done to make her give him that look. Has he moved to hold her in his arms as she was packing to leave? Touched his lips to her neck as she pulled away? 'Make believe you love me,' he purrs, then pauses ever so slightly before adding 'one more time'. And that's where you finally understand why her eyes have filled with tears--she's remembering all those nights when making believe was precisely what she had to do." -- David Cantwell

I must say this sounds like a good mix of self-congratulatory and wretched.

Not something I'll listen to a lot. It ain't party music but it's effective.

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/shawnmullins/albums/album/246377/rid/5941940

Don't own the album anymore, though. May listen to his new one; may not. (By the way, 9th Ward Picking Parlor in New Orleans is also where Jan Bell records sometimes, I think == can't remember whether that Maybelles album from last year was recorded there or not.)

the Maybelles did record their album at 9th Ward. I think if I remember right that Jan Bell mentioned to me that the owners of 9th Ward PP had moved operations to Kansas? Iowa? someplace like that. I like the Maybelles better than Mullins, altho I kinda keep playing it in the changer to see if I like it more than I do right now.

listened to the Hayseed Dixie records--yawn, not really all that much fun. they were fun live, not as fun as this Memphis Jug Band/blues-with-snare/acoustic geetar/standup-bass act I caught at Billy Block's Western Rodeo revue: many of their songs were about twelve-step programs and women who love you even when you drink too much, I think they were called something like Delta Southern. Gus Cannon becomes a Friend of Bill. and right, they did "Kirby Hill" which was the best thing I heard. just one of those things that don't translate onto record, and pretty one-joke.

Rhett Akins, "Kiss My Country Ass" begins well--great slide and acoustic guitar that's ominioso and pretty rockin'. but, "I ain't scared to grab my gun and fight for my land/If you don't love the American flag, you can..." basically, it puts me in mind of a band of total drunks going off to fight terrorism, which might not be a bad idea come to think of it. but, some fine slide/guitar solos, great Stonesy piano licks, some great post-Allmans flatted-fifth riffs snaking around. basically, the record really swings and rocks, and I actually quite like "I Love Women (My Mama Can't Stand" which mentions "Daytona tans" and "redneck women who ain't afraid of Jim Beam" and uses a modified chicka-boom two-beat structure. one thing about Nashville records, you generally get a lively rhythm-section dynamic, and here the steel/guitar combination is light and not overbearing. good 'un. and in general, almost every song has a really good riff, like "The Trouble with a Woman," except I am not sure if his out--the trouble with a woman is gen'l'y, usually, a man--means that he's just on the make or if he cedes power. and the rest of it talks about bird dogs and how playing sorority parties made him realize that he's not the kind of guy to take orders from suits, altho he's fine with taking orders from George W. Bush.

I'm not sure, I might find Rhett more authentic outlaw than Hank III, which I am still absorbing. but he's going for a thin sound, he has a thin and weird voice, and he uses a lotta echo and reverb to I guess cover up the fact it seems to have been recorded in a room with wooden floors and walls. starts out with a brief reprise of the Louvin Bros.' "Satan Is Real," and so far I find it a bit samey over the long haul. haven't yet listened to the second disc.

xps

the Maybelles did record their album at 9th Ward. I think if I remember right that Jan Bell mentioned to me that the owners of 9th Ward PP had moved operations to Kansas? Iowa? someplace like that. I like the Maybelles better than Mullins, altho I kinda keep playing it in the changer to see if I like it more than I do right now.

listened to the Hayseed Dixie records--yawn, not really all that much fun. they were fun live, not as fun as this Memphis Jug Band/blues-with-snare/acoustic geetar/standup-bass act I caught at Billy Block's Western Rodeo revue: many of their songs were about twelve-step programs and women who love you even when you drink too much, I think they were called something like Delta Southern. Gus Cannon becomes a Friend of Bill. and right, Hayseed/De-seed did "Kirby Hill" which was the best thing I heard. just one of those things that don't translate onto record, and pretty one-joke.

Rhett Akins, "Kiss My Country Ass" begins well--great slide and acoustic guitar that's ominioso and pretty rockin'. but, "I ain't scared to grab my gun and fight for my land/If you don't love the American flag, you can..." basically, it puts me in mind of a band of total drunks going off to fight terrorism, which might not be a bad idea come to think of it. but, some fine slide/guitar solos, great Stonesy piano licks, some great post-Allmans flatted-fifth riffs snaking around. basically, the record really swings and rocks, and I actually quite like "I Love Women (My Mama Can't Stand" which mentions "Daytona tans" and "redneck women who ain't afraid of Jim Beam" and uses a modified chicka-boom two-beat structure. one thing about Nashville records, you generally get a lively rhythm-section dynamic, and here the steel/guitar combination is light and not overbearing. good 'un. and in general, almost every song has a really good riff, like "The Trouble with a Woman," except I am not sure if his out--the trouble with a woman is gen'l'y, usually, a man--means that he's just on the make or if he cedes power. and the rest of it talks about bird dogs and how playing sorority parties made him realize that he's not the kind of guy to take orders from suits, altho he's fine with taking orders from George W. Bush.

I'm not sure, I might find Rhett more authentic outlaw than Hank III, which I am still absorbing. but he's going for a thin sound, he has a thin and weird voice, and he uses a lotta echo and reverb to I guess cover up the fact it seems to have been recorded in a room with wooden floors and walls. starts out with a brief reprise of the Louvin Bros.' "Satan Is Real," and so far I find it a bit samey over the long haul. haven't yet listened to the second disc.

xps