Rolling country 2007 thread

Louvin's signing CDs at the Country Music Hall of Fame on 2/24 at 2 p.m. in Nashville, before he heads down to Grimey's. Really grown fond of the record, esp. his take on Jimmie Rodgers.
Now, got to see how Miranda Lambert's new one is...

WHILE ILM WAS OUT:

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

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

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


FRANK:
The Waite is a new album, on which he reworks some of his old songs and
also
covers some other people; you would have read about it on the rolling
country thread, where Xhuxk mentioned it a few times. The duet with
Krauss
(now a Rounder labelmate) is #42 with a weak bullet on the Mediabase
country
airplay chart: a negligible jump of 50 plays nationally over the last 7
days, so my guess is that at most it goes to the mid 30s unless the vid
suddenly takes off on CMT or VH1. On the chart, it's Alison's name atop
the
marquee, not John's. Don't know where the song is on the most recent
Billboard country chart (other than it's not in the Top 25).

Here's the video, if you're interested. Alison walks into the studio,
John's
singing on one side of the glass, she's singing on the other, then
they're
on the same side but on separate mics, looking across at each other, at
the
end of the session they leave, shake hands outside the studio, she goes
off
in one direction (perhaps some stress in her face and a glistening of
the
eyes), he goes off in another direction, he's walking down a narrow
passageway, after a while he turns around, starts to head back, video
ends:

http://mp.aol.com/video.index.adp?pmmsid=1841805&referer=http%3A//music.aol.com/artist/alison-krauss/647/main&mode=1

Set in some southern city, obviously; something about it says New
Orleans,
where I've never visited so I don't know. (Would add another layer of
meaning to the phrase "missing you.") Also, the song now seems better
than
the "tepid" I labeled it in the previous email (or seeing Alison makes
*me*
feel less tepid), though it's not up there with "Highway 61" or "Isn't
It
Time."

DON:
Yikes,
not only
did I read about Waites's Rounder set on RC, I think I have that promo!
Dig I
must. (PS: Elana James's s/t solo debut is hot and cool in all the
right
places. She used to be in Hot Club of Cowtown, but is better off
without them,
seems like.Have to dig up my HC too.)

ROY:
Whenever the sand-free ILM is back--I'm sure it's futile to even ask if
anyone knows anything about an ETA--I'm certain I'll be talking about
the new Pam Tillis, which is shockingly good.

I do not get Rounder publicity. I've been writing about their records
for years--but some I get, some I don't. I'd very much like to hear the
Waite.

CHUCK:

Tillis album is okay. Haven't played it beginning to end, but in the CD changer so far it strikes me a bit too much as a folk-is-better-than-pop move (not that Pam didn't always have a few toes in folk in the first place, of course, and not that folk often *isn't* better than pop, but still.) I keep thinking "Over My Head" is going to be the Fleetwood Mac song and I'm always disappointed when it's not but I wind up liking it anyway. "Down By The Water" seems okay, too, and the John Anderson duet where he talks about purple cows. "Something Burning Out" and "Someone Somewhere Tonight" seem less good, but I haven't had time this week to pay close attention to the thing, so my thoughts could entirely flip-flop.

My country song of the week, my song of the week period, was "One Beer" on the great Dec '06 CDBaby album by Black Angel, since it predicts the Grammy Awards by toasting with one beer both "Mary J Blige the queen of hip-hop soul" and "the Dixie Chicks the queen of Texas soul." (I don't think the nominations had been made by the time the CD came out, but I could be wrong.) Like I said, though, the whole album is great, though I wish the track the steals that tough "Nutbush City Limits" riff ("Kiss It") turned into more of a song, and I wish the song that mentions (pretends to feature?) (*does* feature? though I dont' think so) Dwight Yoakam ("Drinkin' Woman") didn't sound so much like Tom Waits.

Country tune of the past couple days has been on the Detroit Cobras' new *Tried and True*. They never struck me as country before, but every time "On A Monday" (a total rockabilly two-step) comes on, I mistakingly think I love a track on the new Tillis album (which I might regardless, I just don't know yet.) "Try Love" seems fairly country too. But for all I know that might be where the Cobras' country ends; I'm not sure yet. Album is on Bloodshot, so a country move would make some sense maybe. (Bloodshot's doing the new Gore Gore Girls album, too, due out in couple months.) So far my favorite track is "Nothing But A Heartache"; that's an old Motown cover, right? Not sure if the others are covers or not. Problem is with the Cobras I've always gotten tired of their albums rather quickly; their previous one had a good song about eating hot dogs, but it's not on my shelf anymore. Though *Mink Rat or Rabbit* still is. Their singing seems to be improving, but I still tend to think they're no Gore Gore Girls for some reason. Which probaby has something to do with the lack of Amy Surdu's guitar.

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

MATT:
Well, at least you LIKE the Pam T. record, kinda. I don't hear 'folk' in it as much as I hear her beloved 1970s country-rock (which had a lot of folk in it natch) and some weirder stuff. Predictably, my favorite song is "Crazy by Myself," the one written by Matraca Berg; it makes emotional sense to me, even though it really ends up not making any internal sense. But yeah that duet, where they're getting all nostalgic about "Eat a Peach", and yeah the Bruce Robison song, and yeah the whole thing really.

I'm reviewing the new Tin Hat record for AllAboutJazz.com and I think they make a crucial error by going away from their occasionally-country-ish jazz sound. They've hoed down before but the new one is more like freak-folk jazz and That Will Not Stand with this reviewer. It's fine, but it's just not my flavor.

EDD:
yeah, Pam Tillis made a good record I don't find very exciting, which as usual might be the point. The players are all the same a-listers--J.T. Corenflos, who in my opinion is what makes Dierks Bentley cool to listen to, among them--and as Matt points out, the Berg song is real good. I dunno, I find myself totally in sympathy with what they're trying to do, but it does strike me as retro. Very 1974. And so this is her "personal statement" she could not sell to Music Row? She does look pretty good in that pink hat on the insert. All I know is, John Anderson is always good to hear--maybe he's a bit wasted. (Haven't gone back to his Easy Money, except to groove on "Brown Liquor," which the whole record probably should've sounded like instead of Big & Rich's lame-ass ballads. Not their strength. ) So maybe Pam's "austerity" in contrast is better?

ROY:
Edd and I talked about this in a non-group email, but I don't hear it
as especially retro; it's less retro than her tribute to her-r-r-r
fa-a-ather from a few years back. And when was the last time she had
Music Row hot and bothered? She's old enough to know better. What I
like most about the album are the songs and the way her voice, such a
cool instrument, gets all the nuances, or maybe it's the other way
around. To me it's more country-is-folk-is-pop if anything, so perhaps
it's not that far from 1974 after all.

FRANK:
On MySpace, listening to the Black Angels, who probably aren't the
Black
Angel that Chuck's talking about, but they do list 'selves as
Psychedelic,
Folk-Rock, Experimental. First track, "Black Grease" starts with the
riff to
"20th Century Boy" which is great but then the voice is more like Jack
White's jangled tonsils - which can also be great but this time isn't
(and
anyway it isn't Jack), and the track hangs back as a lethargic lysergic
drone. 'S OK, maybe. Def Leppard's "20th Century Boy" (on *their*
MySpace
and last year's covers CD) is far better.

OK, went to CDBaby and found the right "Black Angel" - "One Beer"
sounds
like country by people whose first love Stones Stones Stones ahead of
country, and that's fine with me; funny *Exile* murk (that's a
compliment,
by the way, even if the murk is one of the reasons *Exile*'s not in my
top
ten Stones albs [also self-effacement, also shortage of songs]). Not as
good
as the Stones, unsurprisingly, but worth a second listen.

Unrelated to the topic at hand and not in itself related to country,
but I'm
listening to 10 songs I dl'd for the Stylus Jukebox Sophisto-Pop
special
('80s tracks by Curiosity Killed the Cat, Bryan Ferry, Aztec Camera,
the
Style Council, etc.) and with exactly one exception - Sade's "Smooth
Operator" - they are dull dull dull dull, and not just dull but cloddy
(sayeth Simon Frith at the time: Brits can't sing!) (though I'm too
busy to
head to Wikipedia and find out which of these performers are Brits),
but
also a bad choice given the subgenre (ABC has done better stuff than
"When
Smokey Sings"; I have no idea if Blow Monkeys and Swing Out Sister did
anything better than their shitty tracks here, and I'm not likely to
find
out). And doing cloddy music in a style that draws on stuff that had
been
done more smoothly by nonhip anonymous pros in America twenty to thirty
years earlier is not "sophisticated." It may be poignant, it may be
worth
doing, it may even be passionate or pretty in spots (I like the Bryan
Ferry
track "Don't Stop The Dance" reasonably well, and he's done better;
also
like "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz), but it's to
sophistication as
Jewel is to poetry. Bringing my thoughts countryward, when Alan Jackson
went
smooth jazz 'n' blues on his last album there may have been a bullshit
"respectability" element but indeed it is beautiful smooth jazz 'n'
blues,
and Toby Keith basically doing creamy quiet-storm soul (did anyone
outside
of the rolling country thread notice that that's what he's doing?) is
equally beautiful, and Gene Watson doing "What A Difference A Day
Makes"
etc. is better still.

MORE!

FRANK:
Remember the opening scene in *Blazing Saddles* where bosses tell the
black
convicts on the chain gang to sing a work song to help with their
labor, so
the convicts break into an elegant version of "I get no kick from
champagne"? Well, the start of Christina Aguilera's "Candyman" is this
in
reverse: the lyrics start "Tarzan and Jane were swinging on a vine
(candyman, candyman)/Sippin' from a bottle of vodka double wine (sweet,
sugar, candyman)," but the music is a bona fide work-song or march-song
chant (sampled? recreated?). What follows steps halfway between Andrews
sisters swingbrat pizzazz and Stick McGhee's glug-glug party blues, but
doesn't feel retro so much as feels like Xtina being omniverous. Her
voice
still has way more chops than personality, but the songs are getting
personality. I hope Katharine McPhee is taking notes.

CHUCK:
"Since I Fell For You" by Charlie Rich on now: soul music. Third to last track on new two-CD *Essential* set, which is the best album I've heard in 2007 by far if reissues count. This is going to sound completely nuts, but I actually think the opener "Lonely Weekends" is one of my *least* favorite songs on this thing; it's totally great, but strikes me (is this idiotic?) as a fairly blatant Elvis rip, where Charlie doesn't really seem to develop his own real vocal personality until a few songs in. I guess what I'm saying is that, judging from this collection, I prefer him doing soul, blues, jazz (even "Pictures and Paintings," on now, which people on the ILM thread seemed to have mixed feelings about), countrypolitan, maybe even gospel, than rockabilly. In general anyway. Or maybe I just like him doing grown-up music more than teen music. Not that "Lonely Weekends" is (obviously) necessarily a teen song. Anyway, I could go on and on. Didn't notice til today that "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water" is about breaking out of prison. Wonder what is wrong with Charlie's baby (and in turn Charlie) in "When Something's Is Wrong With My Baby" (am I confusing things, or did Marsh or Marcus or somebody say this was a sexual dysfunction song once? Could be.) Wonder if anybody put "River, Stay Away From My Door" on any Katrina playlists. Wonder if there are countrypolitan-hating purists stupid enough to hate "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl." Etc. But the song that really gave me a quiet storm's worth of chills today was "Nice 'N' Easy." which I seemed to recall somewhere deep in my subconscious hearing ages ago, but I'm not sure where (okay, it was on a Charlie CD than Edd burned for me last year, but why do I feel it was something more than that? Like I heard it as a kid or something? Whitburn tells me it did not cross over pop.) Anyway, even more than lots of stuff here, it is what Alan Jackson and Toby Keith want to be, I think.

Speaking of Toby, picked up his 1997 *Dream Walkin'* at Princeton Record Exchange yesterday (along with a bunch of other other $2 to $4 country CDs from the '90s or early '00s: *The Tractors* self-titled [somebody compared them to Big N Rich on ILM a couple years ago, but the stuff I've heard on line is just passing sub-boogie, but who knows], *Coyote Ugly* soundtrack, *Rebecca Lynn Howard* self-titled, Tim McGraw *All I Want* and *Not A Moment Too Soon*). Toby's the only one I've gotten to so far; did anybody know that he did a duet with STING once? Divorce ballad with slight Police-reggae lilt parts called "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying"; not bad. Most of the cuts I liked more than that ("Jacky Don Tucker" about a wild melon-stealin cop-a-feelin' uncle, "She Ran Away With A Rodeo Clown" [we also watched "freestyle bullfighting" out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. last night on TV -- it's fun and the bull doesn't get hurt!), "I Don't Understand My Girlfriend") is upbeat with a sense of humor. Also like "Dream Walkin',", and the uncharacteristically spare and forlorn "Tired," about how life winds up being a drag when, unlike Jacky Don Tucker," you *do* follow all the rules. Way better album than I'd have guessed -- I need to catch up on the rest of his early albums. (Oh yeah, also picked up some $1 vinyl, including best-ofs by Bobby Bare and Crash Craddock -- the latter of whom I'm not sure I've ever heard before -- plus the Jean Knight album with her version of "My Toot Toot" and the Henry Gross album with "Shannon," a hit about his dog dying.)

Also decided I liked Charlie Rich's rockabilly way better than the Detroit Cobras', rockabilly despite raving about the latter yesterday morning. Played all the way through, their new album is sounding thin to me, just like most of their previous ones, as I said. But I'll try more. I'm not sure why I keep hitting a wall with them.

Two other quick things: Frank wondered where Waite's/Krauss's "Missing You 2007" was in Billboard; it's #34 on the country chart, as it turns out. More curious is Big N Rich's "Lost In This Moment" at #41 -- curious because I don't *think* I've heard it (new album due May-ish, apparently), unless it's the song called "Caught Up In The Moment" from their previous album with just a slightly different name.

CHUCK:
Ha ha, the Aguilera lyrics below remind me of Toy Box and Aqua at the same time. (Frank's description does make me want to hear the song, though.)

Tractors' "Fallin' Apart": Okay, unison harmonies; sad sack sense of humor. So I do see a slight Big N Rich connection there. But only a connection to one *facet* of Big N Rich. (Or two.) (Ditto Drakkar Sauna. Who are growing on me. When I like them they remind me of the Holy Modal Rounders. Though I wish they reminded me of Holy Modal Rounders more, and more often. Lalena keeps pronouncing their name "Drunk In A Sauna," for some reason.)

New Detroit Cobras album by the way has plenty of *good* songs ("Leave My Kitten Alone," which has very cool meows; "Green Light," which is good in part because all red light green light TNT songs are good.) But something is missing.

*Coyote Ugly* soundtrack features, in addition to plenty of dancey Leann Rimes apparently, EMF and Snap and "I Need You Tonight* by INXS. The latter funks like "Shakedown Street" by the Grateful Dead or, best version, "Nighttime In The Switching Yard" by Warren Zevon. Which I just realized last week is a train song than sounds like a train, duh; why did that take me three decades to figure out?
(His live *Stand In The Fire* reissue in the CD changer now, by the way. Reminds me that "Play It All Night Long" may well be the best Drive By Truckers song of all time, and Zevon did it a couple decades before the Truckers even existed.)

ROY:
Is this Charlie Rich Essential different from the 2 disc on
Columbia/Legacy: Feel Like Going Home which came out in 97? Amazon and
Allmusic don't list any new Essentials...
Also, you're not completely nuts about "Lonely Weekend" sounding like
Elvis; he was tagged with the Elvis soundalike thing for a very little
while. Didn't take long to leave that in the dust. You gotta get the
Complete Smash Sessions, which documents how he did that most
awesomely.

I love the Sherrill stuff. But you don't have to be a purist to hate
"Behind Closed Doors." Just ask Edd. :)

DON:
Yeah, Toby complained later that the label made him record "a sucky
song"
with Sting, but I thought it was a good track. (Sting kind of stretched
his
thinner voice around Toby's sensitve brawn, which was wise.) As did all
of his
early albums, back to the first, though I haven't listened to 'em in a
while. He
sure did jump from label to label, but it all worked out pretty well,
from this
listener's point of ear, anyway.


CHUCK:
And yes, Black Angel >>> Black Angels. The former are indeed Stones-country, as I said, 90 percent of the time; besides "One Beer," my favorite songs on their newest album (apparently they have three; haven't heard the other two) are probably "O'California," "Shadows," "Soldier Boy, Soldier Girl," "American Wedding," maybe "Goodby Angelina" (about Jolie maybe), maybe "Betty's Farm." As for Black Angels, "Black Grease" is just about as good as they get, either that or "The First Vietnamese War," both from their debut EP; their full-length followup (which I probably talked briefly about on rolling metal last year) was too much of a merely okay thing. Saw them live last year; they were fine. I'd classify them with the Raveonettes in the post-Jesus and Mary Chain sweepstakes; a vaguely interesting drone-rock-pop sound; not very many real songs., Or something. And yes, Def Lep glam it up way better; no comparison.

Tractors seem to be primarly a post-Western-Swing/proto-rockabilly country boogie band transposed briefly to the country charts in 1994. They seem good-spirited in an NRBQ way. Somewhat an anamoly if they got much radio play at the time,, but not as tough as the Kentucky Headhunters, who were more or less the same era. But I like them. Last cut on their album, "Tulsa Shuffle (Revisited)," is dance-remixed Western Swing with party voices in the background.

Speaking of Black Angels, their label, Light In The Attic Records, is reissuing the two '70s albums by Betty Davis, who was married to Miles and dated Hendrix, at least as the legend goes. The label sent me an advance, promo CD that combines both albums, though they're actually being released separatelty. Most of what I wrote in *Stairway To Hell* about the marginally better of the two, *They Say I'm Different,* (which coincidentally is the only one of the two I *don't* own on vinyl now) still stands: She has way too thin a voice, can't carry a melody to save her life, and the songs mostly lack hooks, but when she just the rides the groove, she can be really good, and in songs like "Come Take Me" and "Don't Call Her No Tramp" the groove can get fairly monstrous, almost in a Jimmy Castor Bunch funk-metal way. On the other hand, white rock bands from Nazareth to Foghat to Black Oak Arkansas rocked funkier at the time, in part because they were way catchier and had way stronger singers, so big, deal, right? Though sometimes her big-afro attitude help, too, of course, though not nearly as much as people who wind up reviewing the reissues will pretend, I bet. Funniest song: Still "He Was a Big Freak," where she whips the guy with a turquoise chain. "Steppin In Her I. Miller Shoes" is both a great title and a good track. "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up" and "Game Is My Middle Name" and "Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him" are not as good as their titles. but a few other cuts come close maybe.


EDD:
actually I don't hate "Behind." it's a deserving hit--it's the other
Sherrill stuff on the albums I don't much like. Charlie sings well,
altho
sometimes he sounds depressed, and Sherrill's overkill just isn't my
thing.

CHUCK:

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster: Good rustic thrash playing with plenty of boogiefied groove in it; invariably hard-to-take sore-throat yelling that at its *most* tolerable sounds like Alice in Chains or somebody, which means still pretty shitty (and kind of emo, even). More often the vocals are just ugly, which is a shame, since supposedly the album is a concept album about "the true tales of 1920s gangster Ma Barker and her prohibition era real-life crime family," not that you can tell, and sadly they don't cover "Ma Baker" by Boney M either. They list Willie Nelson among their influences, which is not remotely audible, but the Skynyrd influence might not be total bullshit (or at least less bullshit than in the case of Clutch, Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, etc.), at least as far as the rhythm is concerned. Best track by far is a reasonably lovely guitar blues tapestry instrumental called "The Day Hell Broke Loose At Sicard Hollow." But Wino Weinrich's new band Hidden Hand does this backwoods kind of legend-of-wooley-swamp metal stuff a lot better on their new album, and Wino has a voice.
Flying Eyes from Maryland call themselves "pyschodelic-blooze-rock" at CDbaby; list Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Cream, Doors, Dead Meadow, Radiohead, among their influences, but none of those let you know that Allison Weiner is actually a real good lady singer (from another room, Lalena was liking it and asked if it was a country record); actually, I hear more Grace Slick or Jenny Haan from Babe Ruth or whoever sang for Curved Air (who, okay, I barely remember) in the vocals, or even the Gathering with the goth and metal taken out. Lots of beautiful psychedelic guitar solos, especially in "Song For Empy Rooms," and "Dreaming Eyes Awake," which I think is the best track on their myspace page. My other favorites are "Devastating Fire," which has an extended wah-wah solo coming out of some punchy, sinewy hard rock with real gravity to it, and "Caravan," which progresses from space rock to hippie jazz fusion with non-gloomy words trying to come to terms with dying (or something like that) ,"Also in "Our Blues" a Humvee eats somebody's family, which is not humorless. And the thing about all the solos is that Allison's singing lets them emerge naturally from songs; they don't just stand there and pointlessly noodle into the empty sky.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/theflyingeyes

CHUCK:
So yeah, I count five or six good songs out of 11 on the Pam Tillis CD, a pretty decent batting average -- "Band In the Window" (featuring a gal with '80s hair), "Train Without a Whistle," the John Anderson duet (which seems to be about a couple getting older who may or may not have stopped being a couple along the way as the countryside turned more citylike), "Crazy By Myself" (swings!), "Bettin' Money On Love" (probably my favorite -- a funny football-widow song, as talked as it is sung), maybe "That Was a Heartache" (which is the Robison song). So yup, good album after all, though I'm not sure what 1974 country-rock y'all think it sounds like -- Ronstadt? Or who? Not much rock in at all, near as I can hear. (Playing Rebecca Lynn Howard's 2000 bubble-country debut-I-assume now, and "When My Dreams Come True" feels more rock than anything on the Tillis, easy.)

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

The Tractors can be too kitschy cornball for their own good, but they have some good jokes, too -- So far my favorite is when they start their cover of Chuck Berry's great "Thirty Days" by aping the acapella part of Humble Pie's "Thirty Days In the Hole," get it? And I think I sort of hated "My Baby Likes To Rock It" ("like a boogie woogie choo choo train," gawd) on CMT at the time, but now I like how it kinda sounds like "Sea Cruise" by Frankie Ford. They do New Orleans rhythm pretty well in general. And they have famous friends -- guest spots on the (I assume debut) album from Leon Russell, JJ Cale, Bonnie Raitt, James Burton. What the hell? (Unchecked theory: Are they studio hands who started a country band, to play bars and climb on the charts? That'd explain it.)

EDD:
I hear some GP and Grievous Angel in (Pam Tillis' Rhinestoned): , was what I was thinking of.

So, I keep playing the Dale Watson record. Sort of addicted to "Time Without You" and the amazing "You Always Get What You Always Got" (friend who is deep into AA confirms that this song would go over bigtime at meetings, and says Dale has obviously been thru some shit and come out the other side with help from various Higher Powers and so forth).

"Hollywood Hillbilly" is a bit obvious, or weak--who's it about, Dwight Yoakam? The way this record's played really shows how country of the outlaw kind derives from rockabilly, I mean the chicka-boom here, and the really great way Watson's band gets the two-stepping thing down. To me, this record is a combination of Waylonisms (and late-'60s Cash on the Barrelhead) and the Bakersfield thing, which seems just post-Beatles to me somehow. Was the Bakersfield sound in the '60s a conscious response to the British Invasion?

ROY:
At some point, yeah, but initially it was the other way around. The
Beatles were huge fans of Buck ("Act Naturally" obv) as he was of them.
But he and Don Rich had pretty much gone all electric and established
the classic Bakersfield sound before the invasion

New country albums in my changer now: Lantana (three Shania Twains in one band! sort of! okay not as good at that but still! plus they cover '70s REO Speedwagon!*); John Prine "& Mac Wiseman (okay, I guess I'd like just about anybody singing "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine" and "Saginaw, Michigan" and "Pistol Packin' Mama," and these old geezers sing them real purty I suppose, but most of the other songs aren't that good and even the ones I love don't make this any less pointless I don't think); Little Rachel With the Lazy Jumpers (more rockabilly than jump blues no matter what her cdbaby page implies and just as pointless as the Prine-plus-pal platter no doubt but at least her leopard skin top is more fun to look at, plus "bull ridin' mama" is dirtier than anything on the prine album I think):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlerachelcd

* favorite songs so far: "no tresspassin," "ride 'em cowboy." followed by "country as a city girl can be," "what turns me on." best title on the album, easy: "the juice ain't worth the squeeze," hey tell that to robert plant!

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lantanamusic

So do links no longer work here anymore, or what? wtf?

And okay, Little Rachel's bullridin' song is jump blues, I guess.

I just found this forum by accident trying to find Fred Neil songs - this is a goldmine! I'm happy!!!

I think you have to bracket your links now. Check formatting help at bottom of screen.

Glad RC 2007 is back. Tonight I'm listening to the new Two Cow Garage CD; a Springsteen move that I like, less because of the keybs, and more for the songwriting. Guitars still loud. I do plan to write something about the new Pam Tillis, which is the best country album I've heard this year.

Er, okay, I was probably wrong about Little Rachel, who turns out to be at least as jump blues as she is rockabilly, if not more so. Today I'm for some reason convinced that (at least for the duration of "It's Always A Blonde" and "Bartender Baby" and "Panic Attack") she is considerably more engaging and less offensive than, um, Cherry Poppin Daddies or the Royal Crown Revue (neither of whom I hated as much as most people do) were, but I can't guarantee that opinion will last very long. So caveat emptor.

Meanwhile, on a related topic, "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera (which I have only so far heard in its Ellen Degeneres show performance on youtube version) reminded me right away of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savanah Band at least as much as it reminded me of Madonna circa Dick Tracy (wasn't that when she did her swing-band move?) I like the song, either way. Though probably not as much as most of Cory Daye's Cory And Me album.

Progressing back from jump blues to country boogie (which were always related, obviously) the Tractors turned out to have a commendable populist streak ("The Little Man," "The Blue Collar Rock," "Badly Bent" which is about not quite being broke but being very close) I didn't notice right away.

Rebbeca Lynn Howard's aforementioned 2000 debut-ish thing is, not surprisingly, best at its most bubblegum -- namely "When My Dreams Come True" and the erotically oohed and aahed "Heartsounds," plus the blatant Juice Newton poppabilly of "Tennesee In My Windshield." Most if not all of the rest of the album is slower, however, and is merely okay, though pretty.

I think you have to bracket your links now. Check formatting help at bottom of screen

I see "hyperlink" instructions, but no just plain regular link instructions.

But nope, I will not complain about how damnedably unreadable and user-unfriendly this board has become. That would be unseemly. Though I do have a headache, regardless.

I couldn't get it to work when I first tried it on the SXSW thread, but if you ignore "My Link Title" in the formatting instructions, you can make links:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lantanamusic

http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlerachelcd

cool! assuming this works.

and i am sitll liking little rachel despite my reservations about such retrofied stuff. she has a voice! and hooks, and bawdy words. and gurls singing such stuff is almost always by definition more fun than if boys were singing it.

oops i mean:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlerachelcd

Miranda Lambert's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Like her voice--she really sounds like the manager of the Fresh Foods section of the Dollar General store, and the backing seems about perfect for it. Like the one about being stuck in a dry town without a beer, and she seems sensible, maybe even essentially secular in some ways on the waltz "Love Letters." And I find it cool that the coolest song, aesthetically, on the record is called "Desperation," which advises "there's danger in frustration." She just seems like a total natural to me, which means I'm probably being fooled. Doesn't seem frustrated in the least, buy this woman a six-pack and the most she'll allow is that it's "Guilty in Here," but wonders "is it just me," since she apparently just wants to get out and have a good time in a world where the old 'uns all have a wedding ring and the young ones are just too dumb. She ain't crazy, needs to find a new and better club that suits her really fucking snazzy beats and great bridge on "Guilty in Here," perhaps move out west and make really good sandwiches in a nice, clean health-food joint in a resort town, and keep on shaking it. Fine record.

Charlie doesn't really seem to develop his own real vocal personality until a few songs in. I guess what I'm saying is that, judging from this collection, I prefer him doing soul, blues, jazz (even "Pictures and Paintings," on now, which people on the ILM thread seemed to have mixed feelings about), countrypolitan, maybe even gospel, than rockabilly. In general anyway

to get a full appreciation of charlie rich's rockabilly years, i highly recommend the 2-LP set original hits and midnight demos. not sure if it ever came out on cd or not. but it's loaded with early nuggets demonstrating that he had has his own thing going on even when he was in full-on elvis sun records mode.

Okay, some updated thoughts on sundry stuff:

Little Rachel: Her retro-kitsch meter (including for "Bartender Baby," one of the songs I'd thought I was liking) is starting to inch, maybe inevitably, into the red. I think I will put her CD on the bench for a bit then get back to it.

Lantana: Not as consistently poppy and boppy as I'd hoped (or as their Shania Twain Times Three looks would suggest), but they definitely have their moments. The REO Speedwagon cover is fun. More interesting, though, might be their ability (in "Ride 'Em Cowboy" for instance oddly enough) (Save a horse ride a cowgirl?) to incorporate (often downbeat even) blues sounds without signifying remotely as "rootsy" or "retro". In fact their bluesier numbers frequently seem to be some of their best songs. Hmm...

Sunny Sweeny: Just got this. First impression is that she's got good melodies and some good specifics in her lyrics (right now she's busted down in Lufkin, wherever that is, and her baby is waking up in Morgan City, wherever that is, and I probably got the names of the towns wrong, and she's heading out to Abeline etc etc), but her voice might be a little too small and squeaky a bit too often. Though not in the Lufkin Morgan City Abeline song come to think of it (which would be "East Texas Pines.") Also not in her good cover of the great "16th Avenue," previously associated (at least to me) with the still-underrated (and never small and squeaky) Lacy J Dalton.

Renegade Rail: Another cdbaby band (link below), blistering Missouri hard rock country. Maybe even blistering grunge country -- "Need For Speed" makes a riff similar to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (i.e., feels more like Nirvana than like the Kingsmen or Boston or Sisters of Mercy to me) swing; vocal chorus in "Crazy" seems to possibly owe its grunty technique to Alice in Chains or Temple of the Dog or somebody, though I can't think of any Alice or Temple songs I like this much. So far I'm thinking: great guitar player, great rhythm section, passable singer. Who has yet to get in the way.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/renegaderail3

oops, I will get used to this eventually I promise. (I'm adaptable!)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/renegaderail3

Renegade Rail's "Evening News" (sad lovely Southern Rock, closer to Marshall Tucker than to grunge) is intriguing: Seems to be maybe pro Iraq war, sung from the point of view of a soldier who's been overseas two years and is counting his "five days and a wakeup" (that's real Army short-timer talk! I remember!) til rotating back to the States (must've been written before tours of duty were extended?), and how the TV news never notes that they're doing a good job over there. "We fought the fight, we're almost done" seems somewhat deluded, to say the least. "We made the good guys free and the bad guys turn and run" also. But I like the mood of the song, and how it's probably better than Husker Du's "Turn on the News," and how the line "without my soldiers angels we're all done" reminds me of Beyonce'. (Also, it never mentions Iraq, so why should I read that into it? Hard not to.)

A couple final notes about 2000's Rebecca Lynn Howard (most of the copyrights on which are 1997 or 1998, I now notice -- maybe it took the CD a while to hit the streets?): I also like "You're Real," pop-country r&b with Motown bassline and smooth-jazz sax parts and " Move Me," fun big-voiced Urban Cowboy-style country pop about looking for a guy in blue jeans. Also, one of the bubblecountry tracks raved about above, "When My Dreams True," turns out to have a light but undenaible funk lilt to it. Lyric that kinda creeps me out: "Jesus, Daddy and You," about three kinds of love.

Little Rachel ...is considerably more engaging and less offensive than, um, Cherry Poppin Daddies ... Meanwhile, on a related topic, "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera...

...turns out to be the song that mentions cherries poppin'. Decided I like it about equally with "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, and more than "Bird Flu" by M.I.A. But it's more Bette Midler doing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" than Dr. Buzzard doing "Cherchez La Femme," I think. Which is to say: Not all that far from Little Rachel after all. Best thing about Christina's song is the "sippin on a bottle of vodka double wine" chant done by the soldiers in the video at the beginning and in the middle; they've got more punch than she does (which is not to suggest she's punchless.) Avril's song meanwhile is hey hey you you get off of my cloud get into my car Mickey you're so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey, but not nearly as good as that implies, and not as good as most of the songs on Skye Sweetnam's debut album, either. (Not that this has anything to do with country, I guess.) M.I.A.'s song is...a confusing mess. I dunno, maybe I need to hear it more. As of now, I'd say it doesn't rank with her best stuff. I guess I'd prefer if had more of a tune to it.

Back in country country, Sunny Sweeney's album is growing on me quickly, and though I have reservations about her little girl voice, it's bigger than I'd thought. "Next Big Nothing" is funny. Lacy J Dalton cover is really great.

(Though to the Christina song's credit, its sound does seem to open up beyond retro kitsch as the song progresses. So yeah, it's better than Avril's, I guess. Which is probably the most reigned in of the three. M.I.A.'s song hits me as art grandstanding, basically. Albeit art grandstanding bombarding you with beats, which counts for a lot, obviously. I do like it, just don't love it. Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting.) (And yeah, this all belongs on the teenpop thread. But I lost that thread's plot ages ago, and every time I try to catch up, it loses me again.)

So anyway, has anybody heard Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" yet? I'm not finding it on cmt.com, and the live performance from the Dunkin Donuts Center (!?) on youtube is inaudible. Very promising title, though!

Can't contribute to the country musings herein, and should probably just stay off this altogether (and WILL stay out of it after this, promise), but I feel like saying something about the Aguilera/M.I.A./Avril records Chuck discusses above (in part because I'm trying to properly "review" them and am struggling). "Candyman" is the sort of song I feel I should hate on principal, but in fact, I do like it. It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle," probably because it does remind me so much of Bette's version of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (with funnier words), and I guess because, similarly, it sounds like a glam-by-assocation kind of song (though I guess you'd have to say glam-twice-removed-by-association) in that Midler made the Andrews Sisters seem like glam icons (Roxy Music's backup singers even dressed like them). It was like boogie woogie (as a sub-genre, I mean) very briefly became one of glam rock's many sideshow attractions, similar to how Cabaret made the Weimar Republic seem totally glam. (This would probably be a good place also to say something about Mika's "Grace Kelly" and the Killers's "Read My Mind," which fall into yet other wings of glitter rock--not to mention Fergie's wonderful "Glamorous"--but I digress). Like Chuck, I thought the M.I.A. was a complete mess at first, didn't hear any melody, etc., but now it's totally working for me. Chuck says, "Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting." This happened for me, sort of--the video actually provided that context in a way (not quite the same as hearing it outdoors amongst real people, granted), and it warmed me up to the song a lot. Not only is there almost no melody, there's also no chorus--it's a pretty outrageous song, all beats and artillery and bird sqwawks. I'm coming around to the Avril song, too, but don't have much to say about it--I think i just really like the delays on her voice in the chorus, and I imagine it'll be a pretty huge wedding anthem this year, and for me that's a very good thing.

(Sorry to butt in. Back to the country talk, which I enjoy reading btw, not that I'm even remotely successful at keeping up with it all.)

It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle,"

Me too! I liked "Ain't No Other Man" or whatever it was called last year "in theory" (i.e., the beats) (i.e., I totally understood why other people liked it), but really could've taken or leaven it myself. Didn't get "Beautiful" at all.

Avril's bleacher beats sound more glam to me than Christina's bugles though.

Now if somebody could hijack this thread back for country, that'd be great. (Which reminds me: Where are Don, Edd, Matt, Andrew, etc. this week?)

So anyway, has anybody heard Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" yet?

it's billy joel's "uptown girl"! as sung by dwight yoakam!

it's good, not great, on first listen. then again, inasmuch as he's probably human, there was no way he was going to follow up white trash with money with anything but a disappointment. and it's not a crushing disappointment at all. it rocks and it's catchy. it's just a bit by-the-numbers and ordinary.

by "ordinary," i mean (a) as plumbing-as-sex-metaphor songs go, you've heard it a thousand times before and you know exactly where it's going, and (b) it's missing some of the ambition of the arrangements of both the rockers and ballads on white trash.

but it's a good country-rock song.

Thanks, FCC. And so, speaking (in most cases) of "just a bit by-the-numbers", here are some album-tracks-that-sound-like-album tracks that have inexplicably (for the most part) hit the country chart as singles in recent weeks, and the order in which I like them (I just re-listened to them all):

1. Montgomery Gentry – “Lucky Man”
2. Eric Church – “Guys Like Me”*
3. Little Big Town - “A Little More You”**
4. Taylor Swift – “Teardrops On My Guitar”
5. Kellie Pickler – “I Wonder”***
6. Alan Jackson – “A Woman’s Love”

* - this would actually be better if it weren't for the sappy stuff about rich girls like you who like poor guys like eric (speaking of "uptown girl').
** - sleazy porn-photographer subtext with this one, I'm now noticing.
*** - thought this was about her dad; apparently its her mom instead

(Mom-who-abandoned-her, in the Pickler song's case. I think. In the youtube clip from The View, she can't make it through the song without crying.)

(And no, the Little Big Town song does not hold a candle to Andrea True Connection's "More More More," Van Morrison's "Blue Money," or the Fabulous Poodles' "Tit Photographer Blues." But I still like it pretty well.)

I'm here...I'm here. They axed me to re-register, so that's me, "whisperin' edd." my tribute to bill anderson. wonder if anyone else has heard the miranda lambert, which I really like. just got something new by martina mcbride but haven't had the heart to play it yet. and the new nashville-recorded jorma kaukonen record, stars in my crown is nice, the old jefferson tuna picker can't sing a lick but sure plays nice, does a good original called "fur piece rag" on which he doesn't sing, and does all right by rev. gary davis.

6. Alan Jackson – “A Woman’s Love”

Also, I just wanna say that it was boring-assed generica like this (mostly on the second half of the record) that made me underrate AJ's album last year.

Haven't heard the Miranda; is there somebody I can ask me to send me one? And yeah, Martina McBride came yesterday, and I haven't worked up the nerve to put it on, either. (I didn't like her covers album at all, for one thing.)

More highlights of Renegade Rail's album: "Just You and Me," marriage song, apparently the "single" (by Frank Kogan's reasonable definition) since it's first on their myspace page -- melody swiped from "Let Your Love Flow" by Bellamy Brothers; "If This Ain't Texas" chunky fuzzy riff at start swiped from "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits (still the best thing about that still-annoying song); "Time Machine," Commander Cody/CDB-style talking blues about going back in time to hang with Marilyn Monroe and Jesse James and Johnny Cash and Ronnie Van Zant and get high with Jimi Hendrix; "Moonshine," tough Southern rock about what its title says; "Fat Girls and Weed," both of which they are in favor of (the latter in other less woozy songs too), and unlike Toby they're not a wingman taking one for the team; "Red Dirt," funky Skynyrd-woogie rock about going town to town on the road where "you won't hear no Mr. Mom, or songs about buying shoes" (the former clearly a Lonestar swipe, right? not sure if the shoe-buying line is aimed at Kellie Pickler or who, however); "Not Here For a Long Time," more good outlaw country-rock with excellent guitar parts. Like I said, Mike Munsterman's voice is just average, but I still like this album a whole lot.

More Lantana highlights, often complete with high-maintenance-woman personality: "Country As a City Girl Could Be", she watches "Hee Haw" (do reruns even exist anymore?) on her satellite TV and drawls in French and teaches her friends how to honky-tonk ballet, cute though the music in this particular cut could afford to be cuter; "I Ain't Your Jailer," interesting denial-of-roleplay title, basically don't blame the gal singing if you feel tied down, buster; "Everything," high-maintenance (or not?) Shania rip where they've got simple needs but if you wanna buy them a brand-new house they won't complain; "You Know How It Is," one of my favorites, a more blatant Shania rip with powerchords topped by a unison shouting chorus that almost reminds of "Tubthumping," I swear; "Savin' It Up For Saturday Night" working-for-the-weekend two-step dance country with slight cajun undercurrent maybe; "What Turns Me On," starts with a really tough Muddy Waters style blues riff then turns into the best faux-Shania on the album, about a perfect guy who's "a marathon shopper/A coffee bar hopper/he can sit through the ballet or even the opera...Put the toilet seat downer/Serve supper, do the dishes even clean the kitchen up/He can't do enough" then back and forth between Shania-pop mode and blues-mama mode; "Feel Like Rockin' Tonight," blatant hair-metal glam-pop move with a party going on in the background. Plus lots of attractive photos to look at on the CD cover.

So I'm watching this Dixie Dregs Live At Montreux 1978 DVD that came in the mail this week (I'll be surprised if I actualy get through the thing --music DVDs are hard to get through in general, especially the live ones; what the hell are they for, anyway? and they make even less sense in the age of youtube than they did before), and the bald bassist (I guess -- they never shine the camera on him when the music's going) with the beard, whoever he is, just introduced a song called "Patchwork" as "avant-garde country music, something that's unique to us." Sound like, um....bluegrass jazz fusion, I guess. So how unique was it, Don or Matt or somebody? And in this band, is that a fiddle or a violin? And who was their audience? (The well-behaved audience on the DVD, older than I would've guessed inasmuch as its been shown, may well be more a Montreux audience than a Dregs audience, but what do I know? Did these guys reach Southern rock fans? Or were they more likely to hit prog fans?) (Which intersects at...Kansas fans?) (Next song, bald dude introduces as "a couple old country melodies that we stuck together to give the guys something to jam on." Sounded like he said it was called "The Wabash," but the DVD cover just calls it "The Bash" instead.)

right now she's busted down in Lufkin, wherever that is

Uh, in the Piney Woods, duh. Which explains the song title being "East Texas Pines." Seeing how I was just IN Lufkin the week after Xmas (true story -- Lalena's got family down there; we went four-wheeling and thrift-shopping), you'd think I'd have remembered it when Sunny Sweeney sang it.

Next to the Piney Woods one and the Lacy J one, my favorite on Sunny's album (which comes out March 6 on Big Machine, apparently, though its self-release has apparently been on cdbaby since at least late last year) is probably the auctioneer-tempoed fast-talk hoedown "If I Could." I also like "Slow Swinging Western Tunes" (especially the lovely instrumental jam at the end), and the Iris Dement cover "Mama's Opry" has enough lyric details to make me kind of understand for the first time why so many people like Iris Dement (who I don't remember ever having Sunny's energy, though this is not one of Sunny's more energetic songs, and I'm not going to pretend I've ever tried all that hard with Iris). "Here Lately" is nice too. "Next Big Nothing" and "Heartbreakers Hall of Fame" are okay, but somehow wear their cutesy classicist country cleverness on their sleeves too much not to grate on me. Worst song may well be the Jim Lauderdale duet.

let's see, the Dixie Dregs. They were plenty popular down south when I was growing up, Chuck. I suppose they were unique, I believe you mention Kansas and I know I had albums by both groups. I knew plenty of people around here, southern dope-smokers into bluegrass and so forth, who loved the Dregs. And David Grisman. But what was the first hip southern-fried instrumental post-fusion group, marketed as a group? Because I'm tellin' ya, Buddy Emmons on his solo shit from around '70 where he jazzes it up, that's certainly much the same thing. You had Barefoot Jerry, and Charlie Daniels was thought to be somewhat "jazzy" and "progressive" because he had those fiddle-guitar interlude things (again, the Kansas comparison is apposite), plus people knew he had played with Dylan so he was a dope-smoker. That Crazy Backwards Alphabet Soup or whatever that record is, with those former Beefheart musicians, the one where they cover Z.Z Top, is the spiritual descendant of the Dregs' efforts. And yeah, CMT or someone apparently still runs Hee-Haw reruns.
xp

Did these guys reach Southern rock fans? Or were they more likely to hit prog fans?) (Which intersects at...Kansas fans?)

that intersection was literal, as dixie dregs guitarist steve morse joined kansas in the '80s. (or is that what you were saying?)

yeah, I thought I remembered that about Steve Morse. and now I remember another kind of similar group--Sea Level. but they were more about piano, right, sort of Charlie McCoy Tyner shit I think. And the Allman Brothers' instrumental on "Eat a Peach," the side w/o Duane, was also "fusion." They weren't strictly from the south but Little Feat did a cool instrumental on Time Loves a Hero, "Day at the Dog Races" I think it was. I don't own those original Charlie Daniels records--did he do instrumentals? And then there was Area Code 615, too. Clarence White tripping out on "Ode to Billie Joe" is cool, too. What other southern-fried boogie instrumentals from the '70s and early '80s are there, there have to be more.

New Martina McBride, which I'm trying to digest in small doses, appears to have at least a couple commendably detailed story songs ("Beautiful Again," about a girl I think; "Love Land," about a lady I think) with a likeably spare piano-based sound that's not hitting me as particularly "country." In the background, they sounded sweet, catchy, not off-puttingly timid. Not sure if I'll like them more or less when I pay more attention to the actual words...

Charlie Daniels was thought to be somewhat "jazzy"

Well, isn't it "The South's Gonna Do It Again" that has sections that sound exactly like Glenn Miller?

And then there was Area Code 615,

I know nothing about these guys except for "Fox Chase," which a popular sample on some old-school rap records*. Were they otherwise any good?

* =

http://www.the-breaks.com/search.php?term=area+code+615&type=0

btw, song I still love on Little Rachel's album: "Panic Attack," appropriately crazed-sounding wild-dame rockabilly with Jerry Lee boogie piano, Little Richard screams, Hasil Adkins cigar-box guitar clank, and funny words.

...or a funny title, anyway. As Tony Soprano could surely tell you, there are not nearly enough songs about panic attacks in the world. And I'm realizing that one thing that sets Little Rachel apart from the Cherry Poppin' Royal Crown Big Daddy Voodoo Nut Zippers (or even from Hot Club Of Cowtown, who I always wanted to like but who let's face it sound way too polite and reserved for their own Western swing good, even when covering Aerosmith's great "Chip Away At the Stone" for crissakes), is that I can actually imagine the Gore Gore Girls or Detroit Cobras or Texas Terri liking and identifying with Little Rachel for her big raunchy voice (which is capable of doing the sweet jazzy numbers justice as well. Sounds like she might appreciate Keely Smith or Anita O'Day as much as Big Mama Thornton.)

More flip-flopping on the flat-foot floozy like a floy floy!: Um, not sure what Keely/Anita-style jazz-vocal tracks I was referring to when I made that last post over 12 hours ago (during which time nobody else has posted on this increasingly lonely thread, sigh); going back tonight and listening to Little Rachel's album front to back, closest any cut comes to that is maybe "Talk To Me," and even that one doesn't quite cut it, I don't think. "Broken" and the promsingly titled "I May Be Trouble" sound more like typically who-cares Billie Holiday attempts; "Take This Love and Bury It" more like a typically who-cares finger-snappy torch attempt, though at least that one picks up a little. I don't have any more use for those cuts that I have for Amy Winehouse or k.d. lang, to be honest. And also, to be honest, some of those other retro-swingsters I named had big and maybe even raunchy voices too. Though I don't remember of any of them rocked like "Panic Attack" or "It's Always a Blonde" or the bawdy country boogie of "Bull Ridin' Mama" (or maybe even "Bartender Baby"'s saxes amidst cornball words), which is reason enough for me to keep Rachel's album, if maybe not for you to buy it.

retro-swingsters I named

meaning the Cherry Poppin etc bands, not Little Rachel's other songs

I don't remember of any of them rocked

rocked = rocking

yeah, where is everyone on rollin' country '07?? frank and chuck esp. might kinda like sunny sweeney's heartbreaker's hall of fame, as her voice cuts right through, and she might be "stuck in these east texas pines" as she sings on the song of the same name, but seems to me she just about splits the diff between a cartoon voice and a real one, and she sounds as though she might actually even have a sense of humor. I like the way she underplays, and the tracks are standard-issue-plus swingin' honkytonk. really a lot better than I woulda thought. (you mention swingin' country, chuck, and seems like for ex. "next big nothing" [which is kind of like an "act naturally" rewrite] just swings so easy. in a way, this has the tone of that great elizabeth mcqueen pub-rock record of a couple years ago.) and as far as k.d. lang and all that--well, she does have one hell of a big voice. nice mood music. I like to call it all "remedial Billie" (as in Holiday, who's still just unbeatable, so sexy and sneaky). anyway, sunny is maybe my second-fave country record of the moment after dale watson's, and somewhat similar. anyway, also super-cool song selection, like keith sykes' "lavender blue" suits her fine, and she does iris dement's "mama's opry."

anyone heard the new johnny bush record, kashmere gardens mud? john morthand gives a good review in no depression.

Edd, didn't you see my comments about Sunny Sweeney's CD only a few posts up? I do like the album -- though not the Jim Lauderdale duet so much (dullest track on the record, I think), and I'm mixed on "Next Big Nothing."

Meanwhile: the new Martina McBride is...interesting. More soon, I bet.

I've been off thinking about writing "something I've always wanted to write" and pitching it to the Las Vegas Weekly, and I find myself avoiding working on it and doing time-wasting things instead because, er, maybe I'm bored with ideas of mine that I actually thought up 25 or 35 years ago and what I'm thinking about instead is Bald Britney (in regard to ideas I thought up about 25 or 35 years ago except of course not about Britney and baldness back then) and why Taylor Swift is the best singer in the world right now (which doesn't mean that she does the best music, since of course a lot more goes into that than being a great singer), just that the warm ache in her voice box is just about perfect and "Teardrops On My Guitar" may be my favorite song of hers I'm deciding even though it has a fairly normal country-pop in-one-ear-out-the-other it also has her warmest achingest ache in the verse, starts right off with "Drew says..." and a breath of warm air across her sensitive larynx, though the song seems not a hit type, I'm afraid; the natural hit as in Hit You With Impact would be "Should've Said No," but there's no radio format that it matches up with, I don't think.

Listening right now on AOL Listening Party to a stream of the Pagoda album, which is not country at all, just mentioning it so this thread doesn't feel lonesome. Nice background music (that's not its intention at all; 'tis rock; AOL says "The New York City quartet releases its self-titled debut album of grunge rock led by actor Michael Pitt's Cobain-esque vocals," which does not sound promising until one remembers that Cobain was pretty good, even if the Esques generally aren't). Melodies OK. Probably won't do any followup such as listening a second time, though it might be worth attention. Just didn't feel like listening to what Slim Thug is up to now. Good night.

That's "Drew looks..." not "Drew says..."

Interestingly (or probably not), "Teardrops On My Guitar" (which always just hits me as by-the-book confessional shemo-pop), is easily one of my least favorite tracks on Taylor Swift's CD, an album I otherwise like a lot.

Picked up from the free table at work this sampler from Cleopatra Records that takes six songs each from an upcoming covers album called An All-Star Tribute To Lynyrd Skynyrd and an upcoming double-disc compilation called [/i]Southern Outlaws: The Ultimate Southern Rock Collection[/i] (which will apparently also include Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, Drive By Truckers, Kentunky Headhunters, Wet Willie, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "and more"). Two best tracks far and away on the tribute half of the sampler are the two heaviest -- Pat Travers doing "Gimme Back My Bullets" and Great White doing "Saturday Night Special," both of which I love. Outlaws and Blackfoot's LS covers are completely fogettable; "Free Bird" has boring singing from Charlie Daniels, whose voice appears to be shot, and competent guitars from Molly Hatchet; Atlanta Rhythm Section show off a suprisingly funky rhythm section on "Call Me the Breeze". On the half of the sampler from the compilation, once you get past the givens of Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" (which I'm happy to say still totally holds up), the real surprise is the Rossington Collins Band's "Don't Misunderstand Me," with their female singer -- I'd forgotten how great they sound; I've got that album by them on vinyl and should dig it out one of these days. Johnny Van Zant Band and Steve Gaines tracks are okay, I guess; Artimus Pyle track pretty much sucks.

Still really digging the new Miranda Lambert. The last song is by Guy Clark's better half, Susanna Clark, and Emmylou Harris. Real nice. Yeah, I did see yr. Sunny Sweeney comments, Chuck, but I kinda like "Lavender Blue" with Lauderdale. They shoulda gotten her to harmonize with Charlie Louvin on his new record, she's better than Tift Merritt. Had lunch with Geoff Himes at Swett's Tuesday--old-tyme Nashville African-American meat-n-three I hadn't eaten in years, and the fried cornbread was just as good as it ever was. Anyway, he has done a piece on Louvin for somebody or another and his take was that Charlie just can't sing any more, which I don't totally agree with. He sounds like what he is, an 80-year-old man surrounded by some younger people...and George Jones and Bobby Bare, both of whom I could listen to singing the phone book. I think the Louvin record really works, as a folk record, almost like the kids singing along to "The Great Atomic Power" are just at summer camp with Uncle Charlie.

And what about the new Patty Griffin, which has gotten raves? I haven't gotten a copy; can it be as good as, say, Michael McCall says it is?

Is Griffin really supposed to be any good? I'm pretty sure I got that, no idea where my copy is. Maybe I'll hunt through the hallway box this weekend.

Initial thoughts on the new McBride CD: After two big Adult Contemporary hits off her last real (i.e.: pre-useless all-covers kiss-up) album ("This One's For the Girls," "In My Daughters's Eyes"), she's clearly and blatantly trying to step beyond a country audience. Or at least that's how it sounds to me so far. First two songs on the new album are among her most "rock" (as in "Sheryl Crow" mainly) cuts ever; "If I Had Your Name" ("...I'd be changing it right now"), especially, packs a tough boogiefied punch, and the more Cali soft-rocked "Cry Cry (Til the Sun Shines)" has a real guitar solo and a lyric that sounds like Art Alexakis could have written it. Most of the rest of what's jumping out of the disc seems less rock but still pretty AC so far: "How I Feel" nicely radio-ready with an '80s-Police-ballad-style bassline and words that rhyme "Christmas Eve" with "standing up for what you believe," yikes; "Love Land" another spare-sounding after school special (Martina is after all the Queen of The Soccer Moms of course) where either a baby or a mom dies (or maybe not) and words that rhyme "Thomas Edison" with "modern medicine"; "House of a Thousand Dreams" probably better than those, kinda gloomy and literally about the house itself (as a metaphor for a broken home how much you wanna bet), and there's cracks in all the windows and flies come in through the screens, but Martina (or the working class mom she's pretending to be here) will find some yard-sale curtains and make some yellow trimming for the seams. All in all, as I said, I'm still trying to figure out if the album's any good. But it's probably the most interesting country album I've heard so far this year, in the sense of giving listeners like me something to sink our minds' teeth into.