Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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Any opinions on Asleep at the Wheel? I can't remember if I've ever heard them. As of midyear '05 Elizabeth McQueen was singing for them.

(P.S. I wrote Elizabeth McQueen telling her I liked the liner notes to Happy Doing What We're Doing a lot and that I wanted her to continue writing about music. The liner notes just made me want to smooch her. (I didn't say this in the email. And the cover photo also had something to do with the desire to smooch.) There's a brain in there, both in her singing and in her commentary. (A brain worth smooching.) Anyway, she was complimented that a writer would want her to write, but she felt she'd probably not want to be a critic while still putting her own music out there, that this would inhibit her. "It's fine to write about the good, but when you get down to the meat and potatoes of criticsm, which is being critical..." A brain, for sure. Maybe we could get her to write about electronica, which she says she's into.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 February 2006 20:44 (twenty years ago)

Natalie right that country isn't her, and the blowup was bound to happen sooner or later, and country needs people telling it that it's fucked. And she can surely draw on plenty of great sound and form from other genres, and her voice is dynamite. (Everyone compared Miranda to that blowhard Gretchen, but it's Natalie's cracking-whip and Natalie's warmth that Miranda's got.) But because country wasn't her, this meant that her voice had an uneasy push to it, and the push wasn't into the comfort of alt-land, either. Whereas if she's now just another Sheryl or Bonnie, maybe she'll lose the push. (Or maybe she won't, or maybe if she loses it, that's fine.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 February 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

Anyone heard the pre-Natalie Chicks?

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 6 February 2006 21:06 (twenty years ago)

Asleep at the Wheel -- music for fluffy-feeling truckers. Like Commander Cody without "Hot Rod Lincoln" or "It Should've Been Me" or, really the Commander himself. Hmm, never really liked Asleep at the Wheel but times have changed, maybe I would like them with Elizabeth McQueen.

― George the Animal Steele, Monday, 6 February 2006 21:37 (twenty years ago)

Asleep at the Wheel did a pretty good Hot Rod Lincoln!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 21:44 (twenty years ago)

Early 70s Wheel albums were good, fairly tough-minded, and some 80s ones xgau's got on his site, prob, but I only know that orig lineup.xpostp pre-Nat Chicks: yeah, seems like they were winsome but mild, and if only I'd kept those albums, and eBayed them about five years ago (they're prob not getting such big bids now, I suspect). I've got an album by Domestic Science Club, with one of the dumped Chicks; winsome but not so mild, heartfelt, anyway, if well-mannered, and maybe I underrated those Chicks albums. Natalie's dad Lloyd was in the Maines Brothers Band, which I think may've started with his father and uncles, or anyway was kinda trad, and then of course he was in the Joe Ely Band when they toured with the Clash,and plays some some guitar army steel on there, kind of in there between Speedy West and 90s/00s non-steel Skyn country (and also predating the steel player in Dylan's early 90s road band, whose live solos on "Highway 61" extended the police siren on the orig studio version).And Lloyd has produced Pat Green and lots and lots of others, incl Chicks. So she grew up with various motor trends in Texas country (and also gushed about her childhood collection of James Taylor albums, when he and the Chicks did their Crossroads, z-z-z-z). So I can see how she doesn't feel dependant on Nashville bizdom,especially since she got enough money from it. Hey, anybody know who arranged Glenn Campbell's version of "By The Time I Get To Phoenix"? Allmusic lists Jimmie Haskell, Mort Garson, and Leon Russell as arrangers on the By The Time etc.LP. I'm thinking Garson, who did a lot of art pop, but maybe not. So eerie bright and calm, if guilty (he sees how she'll gradually realize he's really gone this time), that Top Fortydelica '67 thing.

― don, Monday, 6 February 2006 22:08 (twenty years ago)

from metal AND world music threads:

So, "Politcas Ratas" on the new El Tri album *Mas Alla Del Bien Y Del Mal* sounds like a nicely barbecued '70s ZZ Top rip, but I don't think there's much else on the CD. Lots of '50s rock'n'roll revival, one song that reminds me of "Rockin' in the Free World," I dunno what else. I think this is like their 50th album though, so maybe there's a kick-ass greatest hits album somewhere down in Mexico. Or maybe not.

― xhuxk, Monday, 6 February 2006 22:30 (twenty years ago)

for Glen, isn't it Al DeLory who's the arranger?

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 6 February 2006 23:31 (twenty years ago)

Weren't El Tri supposed to be scarydelic when they started as Three Souls On My Mind? Edd, allmusic didn't mention Al, but that's fairly typical; I'll try googling his name, thanks.

― don, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 00:00 (twenty years ago)

Al DeLory is your man, Don. He also arranged "Gentle On My Mind" and "Wichita Lineman" if memory serves. A little factoid: DeLory and Campbell were both Wrecking Crew men.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 02:47 (twenty years ago)

Thanks guys. Didn't members of the Wrecking Crew play on the debut albums of the Byrds and the Monkees? But the Monkees were put down as "the Prefab Four." Oh, I just listened again to Hank III's aforementioned Lovesick, Broke & Driftin', and it now sounds more erratic than I thought when reviewing it. But even the duff songs (just two or three--so far!) have some good touches. Prob shouldn't've tried to write so many all by his lonesome; he accepted some help on Risin' Outlaw. But those who don't like high thin nasal twangy voices (even with shading)won't ever like him. George, is the Palamino still open? Any good? Used to be, I heard.

― don, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 08:10 (twenty years ago)

Bill Currington fared very badly on the Stylus singles reviews this week, despite me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 13:38 (twenty years ago)

>*Rollergirl* soundtrack: (Best to just end before the final two tracks, though--some dumb Fat Possum hick shtick by Bob Log III, then seven minutes of Ani Difranco singing "Amazing Grace," though "singing" is maybe too nice.) <

I actually decided I don't hate the Bob Log III song, "Log Bomb". Not that it's really a song per se'; more like just a sound, this high-pitched attempt to recreate old-timey backwoods blues country as some kinda newfangled avant-garde slide shuffle -- reminds me of what the Hi Sheriffs of Blue were doing in NY a quarter-century ago, but not nearly as good. Still, not bad. Like, yeah, a log bobbing up and down in the water. (The Ani Difranco track is still unbearable, however.)

I actually thought that at one point I wrote up a Voice choice for Bob Log for the listings page that never got printed, but here's what I was thinking about instead (this thing may well be five years old):

"LONESOME BOB--Quite a buzz in alt-c&w circles for this balding bearded Jersey baritone, maybe because his CD's full of titles like ``He's Sober Now'' and ``I Get Smarter Every Drink'' and ``2 Drinks on an Empty Stomach.'' He mostly sings like a overboozed bull in a china shop, natch. But he can slip a pinch of David Allen Coe into his twang, and ``Heather's All Bummed Out,'' about a 35-year-old looking for love on all the wrong websites while her clock ticks away in her Harrison-Ford-postered cubicle, deserves a Christgau choice cut at very least."

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 14:16 (twenty years ago)

What I remember about the Lonesome Bob LP was that his voice wasn't rich enough to carry the soft material but was OK when the music rocked. (Actually, I didn't remember that, but I still have my notes.) Basically his strengths was songs, and someone else should sing them. This was several years ago, so I don't remember anything else about the character of his vocals. In his lyrics he was stirring around in the ordinary to see what he could uncover. I somehow associate him with Terri Clark or Allison Moorer, but this may just be that I received albums by him and them at more or less the same time.

In the cubicle, Harrison Ford's picture is next to her fiancé's. "Sometimes a girl gets bored." A good observation, but at the time (according to my notes) there seemed something condescending about Lonesome Bob's sympathy.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 22:43 (twenty years ago)

In checking allmusic to see how to spell "Allison Moorer," I discovered something that is probably well-known to all of you but was news to me: when she was a child, her dad shot her mom and then himself. How incomprehensibly traumatic! Older sister Shelby took on the responsibility of caring for her.

I've felt an affinity for the image I get of Moorer and her sister through their music, but I could rarely not be bored by the music itself. I always listen, feel the affinity, but end disappointed.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 22:50 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I've found Alison frustrating, Shelby somewhat less so, though in both cases, I'm more familiar with TV and radio live sets than albums.(Shelby's early swing album, with her looking like young Boy George, was kinda okay, but.)In '04 (?),Shelby did do a good late-60s country groove thang (covers and originals) on Soundstage, and a flashier, louder (also good) setette on last fall's Outlaws Concert Deux. Yeah, L.Bob's got some songs, and I think xgau did better on him than Choice Cuts, at least in his original review (haven't checked the http://www.robertchristgau.com/ version). Kandia just saw Shannon McNally in Charlotte, said she was real good.

― don, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

the Mammals, "Departure." contains a good Iraq song, "Alone on the Homestead," which has some good lines like "The government impatient, the boys were unprepared/Most families got their boys back in only bodybags/The papers wouldn't even print coffins draped with flags." nice gentle folk-rock, and I kind of like their take on mountain music/bluegrass on "Kiss the Break of Day" too, another pretty good couplet that goes "if my guitar falls on a landmine/Do you think anyone hears?" real pretty, might turn out to be boring, but they seem to have a handle on how to make this stuff fairly surprising--they have a good beat (alto I find the drumming a bit one-dimensional sometimes) and I like their lyrics too. I think I'd like to hear someone in Nashville do a song like "Tryin' to Remember What City I Know You From." as an example of folk-rock it seems more graceful than, say, the new Pinmonkey record, I detect something really felt under the slight pro-forma-ness of it all. I think maybe their triple-time take on "Come as You Are" beats Caetano Veloso's, as well, they seem to make the impassivity work for them in this context.

David Scott put Shelby Lynne's version of "Rainy Night in Georgia" on his annual best-of CD, which always contains a lot of stuff I seem to have missed. it's really good. and altho it's not country I really like the two songs by Devin Davis, who was unknown to me, he put on it--a really great one called "Transcendental Sports Anthem."

and I've been listening to some late-'50s Webb Pierce, too, which seems to handle its backup voices and so forth really well--great version of "Raunchy" called "The New Raunchy" and a great one called "Tupelo County Jail."

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:26 (twenty years ago)

I actually thought the new Mammals album sounded mellower and less surprising than their previous one (where they covered a song by one band member's grandpa Pete Seeger among other notables), which even then (and even more than the Duhks or Maybelles or Donna the Buffalo, all of whom display way more energy beatwise and otherwise to my ears) I liked more in theory than reality. But yeah, I approve of their politics and sweetness. High point of their career, though, still has to be the Duhks on stage at Joe's Pub last year, saying they'd "married" the Mammals and from now on they would all be called the Platypi.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 00:09 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I heard the previous Mammals. I sure liked two or three songs from Donna the Buffalo's last one, and yep, Donna's beat is more Buffalo and more subtle than the Mammals'. but Mammals do a nice "Satisfied Mind" too.

listened to the 4-song Redhill CD yesterday--thx Chuck. I got bored with it, but I think Julianne has real potential as a singer, and seemed to me they saved their best moves for, like, the codas or something. but there's something there, I just need to listen to it again.

and for those Gram Parsons fans out there, this site called youtube.com has a video of the Burritos doing "Older Guys" from '70 that's really cool, and lots of other video stuff as well--like the James Gang! seems like the site works better at night, during the day the vids seem to play pretty jerkily, and I can see it being a major time-waster, too. but worth checking out.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 01:00 (twenty years ago)

frog holler, *haywire*. from virginville, PA, wherever that is (near intercourse or climax or blue ball? i dunno, but if so, that'd man amish country.) andrew aber from the voice listings department loves these guys. i don't, not even close, but i don't hate them either. about half of the tracks here sound to me like just uninspiring alt-country politeness, ho-hum, but in at least one song i hear them reaching tentatively toward a guitar buildup at the end that reminds me of dinosaur jr or built to spill pretending to be crazy horse, and a couple other songs have a bit of *workingman's dead* roll to their rhythm and singing. and a couple more, if they had a little more pavement indie art-blur to them, might approach the prettiness of certain fruit bats or sixth great lake or grandaddy songs i've liked. and one of the singers has a bit of michael hurley in his drawl, and the whole thing has a sort of hazy lazy daze of late autumn feel; the tracks run 3:53 to 6:10, so wherever frog holler are going, they have no problem taking their time to get there. so: nothing here i much want to hear again, but it did wind up being better than i expected.

― xhuxj, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 15:33 (twenty years ago)

that'd MEAN amish country

― xhuxk not xhuxj, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 15:42 (twenty years ago)

I think most all the songs on The Mammals' CD are really good, as songs, though the arrangements lack dynamics, which is a problem, as this is really a pop record with trad-ish instruments. Still, the songs and Ruth Ungar's voice keep me coming back. Real pleasant surprise when it showed up, as I'd never heard them before.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Rick Moranis. *The Agorophobic Cowboy*. Wow, talk about polite. Rick sounds so polite he might as well be...um, Canadian! Which I think he is, but he was better in *Ghostbusters*. (Was that his biggest movie? I forget.) On the other hand, being polite in a Canadian way is better than being polite in an alt-country way, I guess. Even his jokes (or silly song titles at least) seem polite, and he's drawing on an anachronistic type of country that was polite when it existed if it ever did. (Maybe it did among Novia Scotia truckers, I don't know.) Some of the jokes might also be funny, but he's so limited vocally and melodically that it's hard to tell. In the first song he keeps doing this shtick where you think he's going to say a word that rhymed with the previous line (say, "fired" to rhyme with "tired" or "spent" to rhyme with "rent") but then he says a word that doesn't rhyme ("laid off" or "allocated") to make the scheme intentionally clunky instead. Which is cute, but the melodies and singing are so unvaried from there on that my attention soon wanes. Hopefully somebody in Nashville who can sing will pick up some of these songs and turn them into actual music. He must have friends there, right?

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 17:17 (twenty years ago)

where was the Moranis recorded, Chuck?

I've decided that I really like the Jamey Johnson record, "The Dollar." great baritone. "Rebelicious" is a good song about the ideal hard-bodied woman who can also bait her own hook. and I think "The Dollar" is excellent, altho "Flying Silver Eagle," about melting down wedding rings, is even better. I just wish it were more of a concept album about money, and funnier. but I'm impressed that he wrote most of the songs, and he seems sane, even-tempered. could be as good as John Conlee or Moe Bandy, maybe.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 20:12 (twenty years ago)

>where was the Moranis recorded, Chuck?<

"by Tony Scherr at his house in Brooklyn"

I mean, Moranis may have talent -- he may even have potential to be Shel Silverstein or Bobby Braddock, for all I know. Maybe someday, in some context, I'll have the patience to listen closer to his demos.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Moranis and Dave Thomas did this bit on SCTV, a show within the show, called Great White Way (backdrop: a map of CANADA, with the USA squashed around the bottom, but pretty accurate, from that angle), becaue SCTV was produced in Canada, therefore had to include a certain percentage of Canadian Content (seriously, and of course SCTV the overshow was supposed to take place in a low budget cable station, a "network," so complying with actual gov cable regulations was only right.) They'd drink Molson's and cook back bacon and start to gossip about Rush, but then one would accuse the other of stealing his smokes or messing with his tocque or his parka, and they would run out of time for that episode. One minute sketches, but then they left to make a movie of this, natch: Strange Brew, which I've heard is pretty good. Rick and Dave and the others used to do sketches involving music, and musicians (like when they had the Boomtown Rats as the classroom rowdies in To Sir With Love, and they called Lulu, played by Catherine O'Hara [Mary Margaret's actual sister, and the mom in the Home Alone movies] "yer flabbly littul taht!"). But countrywise, the best I remember was Joe Flaherty (the geek sibs' dad in Freaks And Geeks)as Kris Kristofferson, grunting,"Cows. Pigs. Sheep. Goats." That should've been set to music, but they usually left the songs to their guests.

― don, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

xpost oh yeah, I got the Redhill too, thanx xhuxx.More pop than I was expecting from Deeetroit, and hard to pull off that kind of smoothness on a small budget, but they did it pretty well. the backing did seem a little distant and times, but just added to the mono single nostalgia, appropriately, on the second track, which was kinda like early Carole King. Edd's right about the singer; she's sensuous, yet down to earth, sounds at home (the girl next door, oh yeah). I could see them in the majors.

― don, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

>Moranis and Dave Thomas did this bit on SCTV, a show within the show, called Great White Way<

Wait, is that what "Take Off (to the Great White North)" featuring Geddy Lee was from? Not to mention the 12 Canadian Days of Christmas single? Who were the artists on those? I am blanking out on them (even though I'm pretty sure I have the "Take Off" 45 at home).

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:46 (twenty years ago)

yep, they were credited to Bob and Doug MacKenzie. I bought "Great White Album" on LP the day it came out, but now I just have it on CD. might be the best album of 1981.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

Should I move to Fresno (they've got some interesting Latin stations too):

The 20 stations* that are giving "Kerosene" the most spins:

KSKS-FM Fresno 55
S060-FM *SiriusSatellite 51
X016-FM *XM Radio 45
KKCS-FM Colo Springs 43
WUSN-FM Chicago 42
KSOP-FM Salt Lake City 39
KHKI-FM Des Moines 39
KTST-FM Oklahoma City 38
KYKR-FM Beaumont 38
WTQR-FM Greensboro 36
WXBQ-FM Johnson City 36
WIOV-FM Lancaster 36
WGNE-FM Jacksonville 36
WPUR-FM Atlantic City 36
WWYZ-FM Hartford 35
KBEQ-FM Kansas City 35
KUSS-FM San Diego 35
WQBE-FM Charleston WV 35
WPCV-FM Lakeland 34
KTOM-FM Monterey/Salinas 34

She's not even in the top 30 on KYGO in Denver, which means she's getting fewer than 11 spins, if any. Of course, the song has been around for a while, and may be having a different life cycle in different places.

*that are reporting to Mediabase, that is

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Just heard that Charles K. Wolfe, one of the great scholars and writers of American music, has passed away. His books include Classic Country: Legends of Country Music, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, In Close Harmony: The Story of the Louvin Brothers, The Devil's Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling and maybe the best book about the origins of country music I've ever read: A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry.

The man deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 10 February 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

oh, that's a real shame about Charles Wolfe. he was a great writer, and a very nice man the two-three times I met him. sorry to hear about his passing.

and thanks Roy, for alerting me to Ray Wylie Hubbard! just picked up his "Delirium Tremolos" yesterday. "Choctaw Bingo" is fantastic.

and for the record, for what it's worth, the Wayne Hancock song that Shelton Hank III does on his new one is "Take My Pain." exactly my feeling when I play the fookin' thing...

there's a nice little bit on Moranis in the current Paste magazine. xps

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 10 February 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

so, today i hereby conclude with my tail between my legs that my inital excitement (see end of '05 c&w thread, though the CD only just comes out this month) for *spooked* by marley's ghost (produced by van dyke parks, cover art by r. crumb) was mainly just wishful thinking. for folkies they're far from humorless, which is a good thing, but the humor barely ever shows up in their *sound*, which is pretty genteel. actually, they seem better with spooky stuff (like "wicked messenger," for instance) than the stuff with goofy words.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 01:11 (twenty years ago)

If only they had a different lead singer, I suspect some more of it would work.CMT has continued its recent shit-slide by stealing the x vs. y schtick from ILM: Top 20 Countdown now has this pick vs. click, for viewers to choose from: Jamey Johnson got 70% favorable for something or other, Shooter got 30% for "Steady At The Wheel," so bye bye. Damn, whatever happened to payola? I don't think I would have liked the Jamey anyway. Saw Gretchen and Miranda on Austin City Limits last night. Sets were approx.23" each. Gretchen opened, her band swung and wah-wah'd a bit, songs were 70% new, set was 70% boring. Miranda followed, her band rocked and stomped quite a bit, songs were 80% "old", from Kerosene of course. (Other 20%: a Merle song whose title I dint catch, but it left G.'s Merle collab in the slog, although if he'd showed up, might not have; and Miranda also covered Earle's "Hillbilly Highway," which worked better than if Earle had showed up and attempted to sing along, and I say that as a loyal semi-fan of the old commie). Set was 100% fun. Two of the biggest country singles of recent times are "Jesus Take The Wheel" and "Honkytonkbadonkadonk".So far have not been subjected to pick vs. click, because Armageddon isn't here quite yet.

― don, Sunday, 12 February 2006 05:46 (twenty years ago)

i fucking love jesus takes the wheel, well written, well sung, and avoiding the silliness, it could be.

― Anthony Easton, Sunday, 12 February 2006 07:11 (twenty years ago)

Noticing something on the Billboard country chart: There's a clump of songs in the upper teens/low twenties that have been around for something like four to six months that are still rising but haven't been able to break into the top ten: Sara Evans "Cheatin'," Blake Shelton "Nobody But Me," Miranda Lambert "Kerosene," Brooks & Dunn "Believe," Jimmy Johnson "The Dollar," Van Zant "Nobody Tell Me What to Do," Jack Ingram "Wherever You Are." I haven't heard all of these, so I'll need to check this out. For "Kerosene" alone my speculation would have been that some people like it a lot but that a huge hunk of other country listeners aren't just indifferent, but hostile, owing to the song's hard sound. So airplay would be suppressed at first. But sales and downloads would keep it on the charts, and after a while airplay would rise as support doesn't wane and more and more of the nonsupporters get used to the sound. But I don't know if my explanation is really any good, or if any similar explanation would work for the other tracks I cited. I would have had to follow them all from the start. Mediabase has airplay for "Kerosene" at 16, around where the song places in the Billboard country chart, but it's actually falling in airplay, while it hasn't lost its bullet on the chart. All the tracks I mentioned are getting airplay in the teens and twenties, just like their chart placement, with only Van Zant and Miranda having lost their airplay bullets.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:31 (twenty years ago)

But the fact that one of "Kerosene"'s top airplay stations is satellite must indicate something.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:37 (twenty years ago)

Sirius Satellite's Top 20

1 MIRANDA LAMBERT Kerosene 51
2 JOSH TURNER Your Man 49
3 TRACE ADKINS Honky Tonk Badonkadonk 47
4 MONTGOMERY GENTRY She Don't Tell Me To 47
5 RASCAL FLATTS What Hurts The Most 46
6 SUGARLAND Just Might (Make Me Believe) 46
7 TIM MCGRAW My Old Friend 43
8 KENNY CHESNEY Living In Fast Forward 30
9 SARA EVANS Cheatin' 30
10 JACK INGRAM Wherever You Are 30
11 TRENT TOMLINSON Drunker Than Me 29
12 VAN ZANT Nobody Gonna Tell Me What... 29
13 GARTH BROOKS/TRISHA YEARWOOD Love Will Always Win 28
14 TOBY KEITH Get Drunk And Be Somebody 28
15 ROCKIE LYNNE Lipstick 28
16 LEE ANN WOMACK 20 Years And Two Husbands Ago 26
17 JAMEY JOHNSON The Dollar 24
18 LEANN RIMES Something's Gotta Give 24
19 JASON ALDEAN Why 23
20 RODNEY ATKINS If You're Going Through Hell 23

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:42 (twenty years ago)

I don't even know who Rockie Lynn is, and neither does Allmusic, except to indicate to us that "Lipstick" is a single that won't get its official release until Feb. 17.

"Results 1 - 10 of about 121 for "Rockie Lynn". (0.64 seconds)"

That's even fewer results than you get for "Frank Kogan."

I think Rockie is Canadian.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:53 (twenty years ago)

I meant to type "February 14" as the release date for "Lipstick." Happy Valentine's Day.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:57 (twenty years ago)

you were right about the kelly clarkson song, but i think that the best proof of its country tendencies is its obsessive seeking of solution wrt domestic melodrama

We're talking about "Because of You" (most of the discussion was on last year's thread), which I'm now trying to make sense of since it's only been on the charts for half a year and gone double platinum as a single (not to mention the 5 million the album has sold). When I first heard it I pretty much dismissed it as an OK adult-contemporary heartbreak song, suitably quiet and sad but not up to the Kelly's previous three singles. Now, having paid attention to the lyrics and thought hard about where its music is coming from and so forth (and finally doing what I can to study the video on the postage-stamp screen that Launch Yahoo gives you in dialup), I'm hearing a completely different song, something of intensity, something that feels loud even with the quiet accompaniment and the controlled singing. And I think it is out of bounds for country. Which is to say that though I can imagine Faith singing in this style she probably wouldn't go for this melody or these words; and though I can imagine LeAnn going for both the melody and these words and totally nailing it in performance, she'd probably decide that it would be bad for her career at this point to release it.

First the words: it isn't just that they're unremittingly despairing, since you could say the same about country classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "The End of the World." But those don't feel like despair, or they take a different approach to despair, or something. (I've always considered "End of the World" a beautiful, sweet delight.) In general, country's "life falls apart" story belongs to its standard romance cycle: "My heart is broken, now I'm drunk, now I'm going to fuck up again and again," is mined for a lot of rue and a lot of comedy. It's something country is comfortable with. Whereas "the relationship was fundamentally pathological and has left me unfit to live" is not standard for country, even if it's fine on Oprah and adult contemporary and Radio Disney.

Also - and this is interesting - I'd never thought of it as a domestic drama until last night when I started examining the video: house in the suburban night, we're looking in through the window at a couple arguing, then we're in with them in the fight, a child watches glumly, a man upends a table in anger; then a different scene, the little girl shows daddy something she's made, daddy burns it on the stove; a woman leaves, a little girl leaves.

Before studying the video, I'd just naturally assumed this was a romance-and-dysfunction song like most of the ones that precede and follow it on the album, that the narrator was addressing a former boyfriend who'd left her devastated. In fact, that's a perfectly good way to read the song; the "you" is never identified. But if we factor in the video, the narrator has to be the little girl grown up, and she's addressing her parents: "I heard you cry every night in your sleep/I was so young/You should have known better than to lean on me/You never thought of anyone else/You just saw your pain/And now I cry in the middle of the night/For the same damn thing/Because of you/Because of you/Because of you I am afraid/Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you/I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you/I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you/I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid/Because of you."

Anyway, I don't know of anything like this in country, though that may not be because it's not there but just because I don't know the genre well enough. Haggard's "Hungry Eyes" suggests something difficult (like, maybe sometime mommas are too hurt to try); maybe there's more. (Subject for further research: Hank Snow.) But "Because of You" is more in the territory of Faster Pussycat's "House of Pain" and Everclear's "Father of Mine" and Pink's "Family Portrait" and Lindsay Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart" and Ashlee Simpson's "Shadow." The country equivalent? Maybe LeAnn Rimes' album track "No Way Out" if you decide she's talking about her relationship to her dad. (But didn't the country audience make clear that they didn't consider that album country?)

I'll continue this thought later, but there's also something going on - though subtly - in the sound of "Because of You" that also isn't yet a part of country, and that's goth.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 13:55 (twenty years ago)

>I don't know of anything like this in country<

"A Boy Named Sue"? "Up Againt the Wall Redneck Mother"? ("he ain't responsible for what he's doing 'cause his mother made him what he is")

or okay, maybe not... this deserves much more thought, though.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 19:15 (twenty years ago)

and duh, "family tradition," hank jr (in fact just about everything he ever sang, maybe)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 19:30 (twenty years ago)

By the way, the lyricist on Skeeter Davis's "End of the World," Sylvia Dee, had - according to an article by Steve Morley from I'm not sure where that a friend of mine sent me several years ago - been saving some of the lyrics since age 14 when her father had died, and she told Skeeter Davis that some of the words were actual phrases that her mother had used. Arthur Kent, who wrote the music, said that publishers would tell him "Who the hell wants to sing a song called 'End of the World'?" He said dozens turned it down. "I would hear things like, 'Tell Sylvia to stop writing this kind of crap.'"

(According to the article Kent's and Dee's background had been in pop songwriting, and I'm assuming Kent was basically marketing the thing pop, so it's interesting that country producer Chet Atkins was the guy who heard potential in the song.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:46 (twenty years ago)

I need to hear a lot more Hank Jr.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

Switching subjects, I may not know much about videos these days, but I know from stupid, and whatever you think about Jessica Simpson's cocktease routine in "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" (shake your impressive tush and get the boys fighting), it's not stupid. (This a reaction to Pink's "Stupid Girls" vid, which I ought to write about on the teenpop thread.) I remember Xhuxk last year complaining about Jessica making her voice small for the song, but it effectively gets under my skin. Cute being a jujitsu move.

Also (again not knowing much about country videos especially, and I'm sure there's lots of precedent here) she's being the girl who walks in and causes T.R.O.U.B.L.E. in that Travis Tritt song.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:34 (twenty years ago)

a bunch of early dolly seems to touch similar issues, i think, w/o going to the tape, i may have to rescind this

― Anthony Easton, Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Similar to "Because of You," or similar to cute as a jujitsu move? (Or both?)

I remember Eric Weisbard played Dolly's "Down from Dover" for me, and he told me as he cued it up, "When you get to the end, your hair will stand on end." When it got to the end my hair stood on end.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:53 (twenty years ago)

also in the tradition of hank jr's family tradition, of course, are the montgomery gentry songs where they ain't gonna spare the rod 'cause that ain't what they're daddy did. though i'm still not sure if that would count as an example of what frank's looking for.

i'm going to call *Totally Country 5* (which contains the montgomery gentry song in question, not to mention kerosene, homewrecker, dierks's how am i doin', suds in the bucket, van zant's help somebody, i play chicken with the train, god's will (token shitty song from a good album) and blake shelton's goodbye time) a keeper, since it also has xxl and hicktown (which is a DANCE song by the way), and i've yet to see or hear a copy of the keith anderson and jason aldean albums, and it also has craig morgan's kenny-chesney-wannabe redneck yacht club, which i've decided i like despite its strange socioeconomic contradictions even though i forget who the hell craig morgan is otherwise. ray scott's my kind of music is okay, too, at least soundwise -- talking blues with annoying pandering lyrics about how she can't get enough of whitney but he prefers waylon so she's outta there, god what a dumbass. also rans: andy griggs's if heaven (was a town it'd be my town in the summer 1985 and if it was a beer it be my last one), yucko, though i'd still like to hear the album it's from someday since i'm a fan of the more cinderella-style hair-metallic stuff on his '02 *freedeom* album; brooks & dunn's useless it's getting better all the time (which rips off the same beatles song that modern english did once except not even a tenth as well); lonestar's you're like coming home, which i forget what it sounds like even while it's on. helpful CD (despiite its odd chronology -- i.e., nothing from the CURRENT dierks or sara evans albums), since i no longer have cable and live in country-station-less NYC, which means i am sad;y months behind on the current state of hit country singles.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 00:35 (twenty years ago)

their. freedom. sadly. etc. (i need a proofreader.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 00:37 (twenty years ago)

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