Rolling country 2007 thread

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Holly Beth Vincent.... Pretty good songwriting

How can you tell, Frank? Seems to me she barely opens her mouth. I don't think any words grabbed me. Though I wasn't listening with headphones.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 14:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha, the high maintenance woman don't need no maintenance man, funny song! And rocking, too. Finally an anthem for Schneider on "One Day At A Time" (plus, the best song about being a stalker since, um, the last one.)

And who am I foolin', I like the lyrics to "These Are My People." And I'm not sure why I'm calling them stupid cliches, since I can't remember any songs that mentioned junior college and church league softball before. Plus I love that it names three great Skynyrd songs. And "the kids that thought they'd run this town/ain't a runnin' much of anything" has some sad truth in it.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

so, is Rodney Atkins' "These Are My People" a companion piece to Randy Newman's "My Country" on Bad Love? I think I'm interviewing Atkins next week sometime for a profile I'm doing. I don't recall being impressed either way with his stuff, and I just got the Going Through Hell CD. He's from East Tennessee and I like the way he wears his white t-shirt on the CD cover. Gotta listen to it tomorrow.
Occurs to me that a song like Tim McGraw's "Two Dollars" trivializes poverty even more than does many another country song about being free and footloose and poor. In fact I find it offensive and a really bad song. Or perhaps it is because I saw the video again today while channel-flipping and then directly saw Barbara Ehrenreich (sp?), author of Nickel and Dimed, being quietly eloquent about the plight of working Americans, on C-Span.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link

and, got the Gary Allan best-of. Good selection--"Nothing on but the Radio" is sure a great song. But the new one that's bait and leads it off is pretty terrible, I think, hardly up to Allan's usual high standard.
thought I'd mention, too, that David Cantwell makes an interesting and well-written case for Dwight Yoakam being the artist who really got rock fans and other folks skeptical about country back into the genre, in his essay in the current No Depression. There's also a thing by a guy named Hurt on Bobby Braddock's newly published memoir in the same issue, in case anyone's innerested.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 23:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Xhuxk, xcept for the Paris-bare-ass thing I didn't pay attention to Holly's words, but thought the melodies weren't bad at all. Don't think any stuck out as great, however.

― Frank Kogan, Monday, 5 March 2007 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Still really digging the new Miranda Lambert. The last song is by Guy Clark's better half, Susanna Clark, and Emmylou Harris. Real nice.

One of the less lively tracks on the record (which is the liveliest record I've heard in ages, so figure that into the equation), I think -- which is to say one of four ballads: "Love Letters," "Desperation," "More Like Her" (actually, is that one a ballad? I'm not sure how it sounds, come to think of it), "Easy From Now On." The seven rockers kick ass; the slow ones are taking longer to kick in. Though that may have more to do with me than with Miranda.

― xhuxk, Monday, 5 March 2007 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link

xhuxk, you convinced me to check Miranda Lambert's myspace, and some of what I heard there (especially "Crazy Ex Girlfriend") has me pretty interested. Great strong singer, and I think I like the lyrics as well. (I don't read this thread, but I skim it.)

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, her new dog is really cute.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Since there's no rolling sexy rock chicks thread, I thought I'd mention Little Birdy here. (http://www.myspace.com/littlebirdy) Lead singer Katy Steele's a deep-voiced hottie much like Christina Amphlett or Leanne Kingwell; on the single "Bodies" the band revs up the guitars, of course, but also sprinkles her with new wavy blips and sine-wavy waves.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Don't like their other three mice pace songs nearly as much, however.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 00:49 (seventeen years ago) link

just heard sunny sweeney's album all the way through for the first time today. it sounds soooo 1980s new traditionalist and/but i love it. "next big nothing," which is part buck owens rewrite as edd notes above but also part merle haggard rewrite (chorus melody's pretty close to "okie from muskogee") is pretty much perfect, from the swinging beat to the neat little electric gtr solo to the lyric that's so obvious that someone should have written it 25 years ago except that no one did. i'm fascinated by the line "you won't see my name on mtv," which seems a strange thing for a new-trad honky-tonk singer to be singing. shouldn't it be "you won't see my name on cmt"? or is mtv just a better brand name for general songwriting purposes?

"refresh my memory" has a nice, gentle honky-tonk swing to it too.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Travis Trtt on American Idol last night announcing that Randy Jackson is producing his new album.

― mulla atari, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Just blindsided by a blindfold test over on Poptimists that included the band Oi Va Voi, a Jewish gypsyish Spanishish klezmerish group from London w/ a familiar-sounding lead singer I couldn't identify: thought it might have been Amy Winehouse, turned out to be KT Tunstall, which means Oi Va Voi are relevant to rolling country, which is the first place I ever heard KT discussed. New alb due in April, sans KT, of course. Way prefer this to her subsequent stuff.

http://www.myspace.com/oivavoi

Recommend you scroll down to "Ladino Song."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 8 March 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Don't know what screwed up the Little Birdy link (is there some Mod policy against us linking to MySpace? I haven't been checking the Mod thread)

I'll try again:

http://www.myspace.com/littlebirdy (or you can just paste it into the address box).

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 8 March 2007 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link

metal threaded first:

Mississippi Mudsharks: Clutzy stodgy muscleman boogie, aiming for "Train Kept A Rollin" (album is called Train Rolls On!) but never quite getting there, though once in a while the clumsy wrestler voice singer inches toward Jim "Dandy" Mangrum territory, and "30 Weight Shuffle" has a decent blues guitar jam at the end. ("Down the Line," hefty guitar-grime instrumental on now, is not bad either, come to think of it.) Only song I really like a lot so far, though, is the Link Wrayed ghoulabilly of "Devil's Road." But we'll see.

Their myspace page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=158493480

not metal threaded yet:

Also been trying to listen to Two-Car Garage, whose previous album I started to like at first and then it wound up disappointing me. Roy Kasten is a fan, I think he told me. Anyway, so far my response to their new Three is "sounds like the Drive By Truckers, but not as good as when I used to like that band" ("Arson") or else "sounds like the Bottle Rockets. who were never all that great in the first place" ("The Great Gravitron Massacre"). But I like the Dixielandy boppery if not the Waitsy grunting so much in "Epitaph," and "Come Back To Shelby," I think it is, seems to partake in a certain '80s Whiskey A Go Go hard rock influence. (Paste magazine apparently even heard some Quiet Riot in their music, though I wouldn't go that far, not that I've ever been a huge Quiet Riot fan anyway.) So we'll see again.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Oops, Two COW Garage, and Roy actually mentions them above, likening the album to Springsteen, which I'm not hearing yet, and also commending their loud guitars, which don't strike me as all that loud yet. I also don't think they sound especially "garage," though that may well not be the point.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha, I made the same mistake with their name a year and a half ago!

Also finally played Two Car Garage's *The Wall Against Our Back,* which I think has been sitting on a shelf in my office for a year, yesterday, and found out these Columbus, Ohio dudes (three of 'em) sound more like the Drive By Truckers than even the Drive By Truckers do these days. I had no idea. Press sheet says they cover Bad Company and Billy Joe Shaver live, as well. How come I never heard of them?
xhuxk on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 10:16 AM (1 year ago)

Oops, I mean Two COW Garage. (There's a difference. They say people call Columbus a Cowtown, but they neglect to mention that it's also a College Town.) (Though I bet nobody in Ann Arbor would see it as one.)
xhuxk on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 10:18 AM (1 year ago)

Actually, the two really good songs on the Two Cow Garage CD (also the two most Drive By Truckerlike) appear to be "Make It Out Alive" and "Alphabet City." Some of the rest is probably at least worthy of post-*Fervor* Jason and the Scorchers; some of it's alt-country bleh. They end with a Beatles cover just like Kentucky Headhunters did this year, and their "Don't Let Me Down" (oops ***on promo copy only it says here) rocks OK, just not as hard as the Headhunters' "I'm Down."
xhuxk on Thursday, November 3, 2005 12:50 PM (1 year ago)

But I thought you dint like Drive-By Scorchers? My grandfather had a one-cow, one-family-of-packrats garage. Coulda been a two-cow. (It was a generational townbillies thing, and a Depression thing). But where would they have put their *stuff*?
don on Thursday, November 3, 2005 1:16 PM (1 year ago)

> I thought you dint like Drive-By Scorchers?<
I just don't like the NPR-country balladeers they've turned *into,* Don (plus live they're way too much Replacements and not enough Skynyrd); I still love *Southern Rock Opera,* and I like the one after that and the ones before -- only CD I really didn't like was their most recent one. And come to think of it I guess a lot of the less rocking Two Cow Garage tracks may well sound like that one, hmmmm; the two BEST Two Cow cuts are more Southern-Rock-Operatic.
xhuxk on Thursday, November 3, 2005 1:29 PM (1 year ago)

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually, last 2 tracks on new album = Drive-By TRUDGErs. Which is part of the problem. Though the guitars are okay in a Neil Young kind of way.

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Mississippi Mudsharks' "Throw It In The Hole" = more ZZ Top (hence better).

― xhuxk, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:53 (seventeen years ago) link

metal threaded again:

Mississippi Musharks, on the other hand, have really grown on me--more for the guitars than for the songs, yet the grumbling does have plenty of haw-haw-haw-haw-haw in it. More Billy Gibbons than Jim Dandy or Tom Waits.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:22 (seventeen years ago) link

So basically, what I decided about the new Two Cow Garage is they mostly split the difference between how Driveby Truckers sounded after I stopped caring about Driveby Truckers and how the Replacements sounded after I stopped caring about the Replacements. Too-plain singer; no noticeable rhythm section; too drowsy in general. Okay Crazy Horse guitar endings. There may well be songs in there (some of the titles do show potential), but I'm not otherwise inspired to dig further and find out. "Camaro"'s chorus sounds like Fleetwood Mac's "Second Hand News" with the life taken out.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Gotta say that Drakkar Sauna have not really lived up to what Don and Frank have said about them, either. After I've spent too much time with all three albums, they still usually hit me as a joke band without the jokes, and the alleged beauty of the harmonies doesn't generally grab me either; really, I guess it's the old folkie problem of I wish there was more music in their music, beyond the harmonies: I keep wishing they sounded more like The Scene Is Now, though I'm not sure I can pinpoint what I mean by that, exactly, though it probably has something to do with needing more rhythm. I've been liking their latest CD Jabraham Lincoln more than the first two because at least now they seem to be stretching out and droning repetitiously more (in "Mongrel of a Halfman Slave Bitch" and "Abandon Love," for instance, and maybe "Teach Me Your Legs" which has a middle-eastern tinge to it that somehow reminds me of '60s folk-psychers Kaleidoscope who I haven't listened to in forever so I'm probably wrong), so hopefully they're improving. And "There's Not Enough Tits On A Wolf" is kind of cute, I suppose. (I wonder if wolf cubs ever agree with them about that.)

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 17:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Big & Rich's "Lost In This Moment" strikes me as a very good single, though it's rather straight-ahead for a Big & Rich single, isn't it. It's basically just a fairly normal country ballad, though I like the melody. But with none of the clever R&B/funk production or phrasing aspects that marked their first album. Is this relatively typical of the material on their second album (which I've still never heard)? Anyways, it's still one of the best new country singles I've heard so far.

Unrelated, "High Maintenance Woman" is no disappointment at all. I think it's one of the best singles Toby's ever put out (hmm, "As Good As I Once Was", "I Love This Bar", et al.) I actually think I like it better than any of the songs on White Trash With Money.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Also Miranda Lambert (whose album I just pre-ordered) is supporting Toby Keith on a tour later on this fall, which seems like a must see (or at least 3 dates are scheduled already). Toby Keith is enough of a force of nature that he seems like somebody you'd just have to see live at least once, and Miranda of course has so many great songs.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

"Lost In The Moment" (which I still haven't heard) is slated for B&R's third album, not their second (which had the similarly titled "Caught Up In The Moment," as I pointed out up above). Second album was not nearly as free-wheeling as their debut (no rapping, for instance), but was also far from generic pop-country fare. (Go back to the 2005 rolling thread; there's lots about it on there). I've heard some intriguing things about their imminent third (due out June 5), but for work reasons I can't discuss them yet (though the likely "You Shook Me All Night Long" cover is already public knowledge.)

I'd say more or less half of Toby's album last year is better than "High Maintenance Woman," but I like the song too, so I'm not going to quibble.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 10 March 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link

xhuxk, I apparently feel the same way about White Trash With Money as you feel about Jordan Pruitt's album: I liked, but didn't love, every track on the album.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link

From metal thread, though I'm not sure why:

New Ian Hunter CD on Yep Roc appears to be about 95 percent hookless ballads. This is no doubt an optical illusion, but I still doubt I like it much.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, the jazzy country backing on track #10 of the Hunter CD has some life to it, at least until he starts singing about not being who he was when he was young, as if we couldn't tell. And a couple songs start out ripping off mid '60s Dylan okay. And it's not like he didn't have an aptitude for great ballads once upon a time. And Brain Capers was a zillion years ago; I really don't expect any metal out of the guy. But he just sounds tired on this thing, like just another singer-songwriter. So yeah, I see why it's on Yep Roc.

(Actually there is some life to Ian's vocal delivery in the Ain't What I Used To Be When I Was Young song; having a rhythm behind him lets him ride it. He was always a pretty good rapper. But not even that song sticks.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 00:51 (seventeen years ago) link

(Said "mid '60s Dylan" stuff, incidentally = harmonicas, pretty much) (or okay, his band pretending like they're going to start playing "Like A Rolling Stone" once or twice. And one time they pretend like they're going to start playing "Walk on the Wild Side," sort of. But then Ian lets everybody down.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 01:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Three way-below-the-radar country bands whose CDs arrived this weekend, all worth a mention though sadly none are even coming close to killing me:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=45647687

The Linemen -- Pals of Roy Kasten (who they thank in the liner notes) from St. Louis; sad serious super-purist Americana guys, probably too purist and Americana for my tastes -- with most of the songs, I've been thinking major-label Nashville production would give the music more life. Not sure if I'm convinced yet that the singer sounds like a "less uptight George Strait," either; George is pretty uptight, yeah, but this music usually feels uptighter (and Kevin Butterfield's voice is sounding thinner, less rich) to me, at least so far. But when the band gets some space to jazz up the rhythm a little bit and Butterfield goes into less-uptight Dwight Yoakam mode (i.e., "This Time Tomorrow," "Wasting Time"), things manage to pick up some. Even with those songs, though, something's missing: Melodies, words? I'm not sure yet.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=134646173

Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadors -- Pals of Lindsey Buckingham (who plays on three tracks) and Tommy Smothers (who sings on one) and Bonnie Bramlett (who also sings on one) from Kentucky. I'm not sure I'm getting the concept, but given the song titles ("Prozac Made Me Stay," "Cubic Zirconium in the Rough," "I Married Up," "Ron Howard's Brother," "I Was Just Flipped Off By A Silver Haired Old Lady With a 'Honk If You Love Jesus' Sticker On the Bumper of Her Car") and the fact that Antsy looks like if Huey Lewis was a polyester-suit wearing insurance salesman from the Iowa suburbs (not that any Iowa insurance salesmen ever really wear suits like that -- except, you know, on TV maybe), I get the idea it's meant to be funny. There's a certain sub-Rockpile/NRBQ bounce to the sound, and apparently the band's fans are called Flamingoheads. Problem is, none of it is making me laugh. But Antsy's not an awful singer or anything.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johndeer

John Deer - Apparently they won some award as the best country band in Austria, though the cdbaby page one of the singers (not Dietmar Baumgartner, I assume, but who knows) comes from Australia instead, so I naturally had high hopes for this. So far what's standing in its way is that at least seven out of ten songs are covers, and at least three out of ten are Alan Jackson songs. Two of the covers are of rock songs (one Georgia Satellites --- which country acts like John Anderson have covered before--, one AC/DC -- "Highway to Hell," wonder if Big N Rich have heard it?), which is nice. But I was kinda hoping they'd turn them into Eurodance cheese a la Rednex. Or rock them harder. As is, they seem to do them fairly straight -- with exuberance and energy, but nothing yet that's luring me back for more.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually, that was Antsy's folkie myspace page; this page should give you more of an idea of what his "musical comedy act" (so-called) is like:

http://www.unhitched.com/home.html

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:35 (seventeen years ago) link

(And by "not an awful singer", I think I mean "better than Rick Moranis.")

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I was kinda hoping they'd turn them into Eurodance cheese...Or rock them harder. As is, they seem to do them fairly straight

"Them" = the country songs they cover. (They turn the rock songs into country.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 14:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I think "Brown Liquor" is the only great cut on the new B&R-produced John Anderson. Too many half-assed medium-tempo numbers.

last night (this morning) caught Mel Tillis and the Statesiders at the Midnite Jamboree at Opryland. Mel in fairly good voice--did "Detroit City" and let his kick-ass band do a souped-up "Orange Blossom Special." He has a pedal steel man who's been with him 39 years, his piano player about that long, and his guitar player was merely excellent. Good show--lots of tourists taking pix. The 50-something fiddle player was stationed next to Jennifer Herron, who does the voice-overs for the radio show on the stage, and he seemed mighty enamored of her, and with good reason: she's even more beautiful than her voice. I plan to see Dale Watson there on May 12...

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 11 March 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link

(There's a difference. They say people call Columbus a Cowtown, but they neglect to mention that it's also a College Town.)

Well, Storrs, Connecticut, is a college town, but the college (University of Connecticut) had been Storrs Agricultural School back in the old days, which means it was a cow college, hence Storrs is a college town and a cow town. The university still has cows and barns and its own dairy.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 11 March 2007 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

A friend of mine saw the Strait-Swift-Milsap show recently; loved it; hadn't thought she'd heard much Milsap before but kept recognizing songs as he was playing them. Hadn't realized he was blind. Also was surprised by how tall Taylor was. Said that Taylor was out in the lobby before the show, talking to people and signing autographs.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 11 March 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Got Dylan's Modern Times from the library; first impression is that Loud Fast Rules, while Moody Lethargy Deadens. Which means that his raspy old coot of a voice fits well with drivin' gnarled blues numbers while it makes the slow drifting lounge tracks even more stuporific. There is some value in the latter nonetheless, and one of them - an endless bit of eeriness called "Ain't Talkin'" - kind of works anyway, has a feel that reminds me of old spirituals or laments but I can imagine it also being done for strangeness by modern-day Detroit no wave experimentalists such as Child Bite and done for passion by Ashlee-type pop confessional women and done for ghostliness by Ciara/Cassie r&b spectres. Best track by far is "Rollin' and Tumblin'," played in Howlin' Wolf style; an album full of such stuff would probably have outranked Toby and Alan last year. But unfortunately Modern Times is an album full of the slow stuff instead, even more than Love And Theft was, and it's not at all exhilarating to listen to, nor gorgeously elegiac. "Someday Baby" is as good as I remember, "The Levee's Gonna Break" is serviceable ('cept Plant and Page own this song, so why bother?), the rest I'll get back to but I'm expecting that even with great instrumental moodiness I'm not going to enjoy the relistens.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 11 March 2007 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Interesting, but I find "Rollin and Tumblin" one of the weakest tracks--precisely because it tries for gnarled drive but never gets out of second gear--at least when compared to the faster numbers on Love & Theft--and so actually <i>feels</i> more sluggish to me than the numbers with slower meters.

I've been neglecting this thread--not out of disinterest, just out of lack of hours in the day. Tomorrow I'm heading to SXSW, about which I'll be blargghing for the Amazon Earworm blog; will send link when it's up. Have a great week, all.

― Roy Kasten, Sunday, 11 March 2007 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Reading bottom to top:

I've been thinking major-label Nashville production would give the music more life

I kinda agree, xhuxk. The Linemen's CD began as demos to get gigs; I'm not sure they fully got beyond that starting point. It was recorded in the steel player's basement, not that that should matter too much. I think they have countrypolitan potential, mostly because I think Butterfield's songs are good, have hooks and melodies, but the production doesn't get them all the away across. But purist? I don't hear that at all.

― Roy Kasten, Sunday, 11 March 2007 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, although I should add that (cf way up-thread) neither xhuxk nor I seem to know what "major label Nashville production" is!

― Roy Kasten, Sunday, 11 March 2007 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Good point!

These vinyl records cost me $7 total in Greenpoint this afternoon:

Hoagy Carmichael A Legenday Peformer & Composer (RCA, 1979 -- most of the tracks are actually sung by other people; nice die-cut or whatever it's called cover with a big round hole in the middle)

Ray Charles Wish You Were Here Tonight (Columbia, 1983 -- pop-country album; I remember liking it when it came out)

Juice Newton & Silver Spur Juice Newton & Silver Spur (RCA, 1975, sealed! Record collectors please advise: Do I open it or not? And does the fact that the top of the sleeve is rather scuffed up negate the sealedeness?)

Entire $43 (mostly non-country) haul can be found here:

http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=56394

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 21:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Meanwhile, this morning, before I went shopping, I was trying to catch up on some vinyl that I bought last month at Princeton and last year somewhere:

Bobby Bare The Very Best Of -- He covers four songs by Kris Kristofferrson, one by John Denver, one by Shel Silverstein ("Sylvia's Mother" -- Bon Jovi have a version on youtube, I just noticed!), on by Joe South, etc etc, and two by Tom T Hall. It mostly sounds real good, and the selection obviously says a lot about the ominvorousness of his taste, but I have to say of the two Tom T Hall songs, I like "She Gave Her Heart to Jethro" about ten times as much as "That's How I Got To Memphis." Which is no big deal, except: (1) "She Gave Her Heart to Jethro" is not even close to my favorirte Tom T Hall song, and (2) There was another thread on ILM recently specifically devoted to "That's How I Got To Memphis," calling it one of the greatest songs ever, when there's a good chance I wouldn't even put it in Tom T's Top 40, much less everybody else's. Nothing against the song, which is fine. But I'm confused: Why do people think it's so great?

Crash Craddock Greatest Hits This came out on Capitol in 1983, and for some reason it doesn't call him Billy anwhere on the cover, and I have no idea if these really are his greatest hits (just like I kinda doubt the previous LP discussed was actually Bare's very best), but even still, I'm kind of develping a Craddock theory: So, apparently he had been a rockabilly teen idol in the '50s, right? Or tried to be one? On the first side of this album (unlike the second side, which is more ballad heavy), he sounds like both an Elvis imitator and the blueprint for Billy Ray Cyrus, especially in "Hubba Hubba." He's a lot schmaltzier than I expected, but I don't know what led me to expect otherwise. The version of "Sea Cruise" is servicable, I guess.

Ronnie Milsap, One More Try For Love The synthified 1984 pop production works well with his voice, and though I'm not sure if there are any great songs on here, the open spaces in "Suburbia" are quite apt; you could segue it into the Pet Shop Boys's song of the same name, if you want, or "Subdivisions" by Rush maybe. I also like "Prisoner of the Highway".

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Now playing another vinyl find, Release by Henry Gross from 1976, which features his biggest hit "Shannon," about one Shannon (who I always assumed was a dog, for some reason, though the lyrics never explicitly say that) drifting out to sea. I wouldn't have thought of him as country (more like Elton John circa "Country Comfort," maybe? -- though basically he just looks like a mellow '70s singer-songwriter with facial hair), but both the original red version of the Rolling Stone Record Guide (which doesn't like him, and which also says he attempts "Stones-type rockers, Beatlesque ballads, and Lou Reed-styled documentaries) and Christgau's '70s guide (which does like him, to my surprise*) insist country's part of the mix. Anyway, he sounds better than I'd expected! Nice falsetto, which I'd say owes as much to r&b as to c&w. But I haven't paid attention to the words yet. (Judging from the lethargic first three songs on the much rarer Andy Zwerlig album from 1970 I bought, which is playing now, I definitely prefer Gross to Zwerling so far even if Zwerling's got Lenny Kaye playing guitar.)

* -- oops, well, at least he liked one LP by him anyway, and liked it less later apparently (original grade: B+; he doesn't grade the one I bought)

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=henry+gross

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 11:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno, maybe Zwerling would appeal to Nick Drake fans or Tim Buckley fans or somebody? Neither of which categories includes me. I'm hating this.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

"That's How I Got To Memphis": Again, like I said, a pretty good song. He follows her there, trying to figure out why she ran. Apparently she's in some kind of trouble. But that's all we learn; it's got the beginnings of a good story, but coming from Tom T. Hall, who is one of the best storytelling songwriters ever, it leaves me wanting me: More specifics, more humor, more ironies, more hooks. Plus, it sounds kind of dreary. But yeah, it's okay.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:25 (seventeen years ago) link

(But maybe people think of it as a lonely Lee Hazlewood-type song? If so, I can kind of hear that. For all, I know, he may have even done a version.) (Assuming he ever did songs other people wrote. Which he maybe didn't.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Posted my conflicted thoughts regarding Tim McGraw's "Last Dollar" over on Jukebox.

― Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Xhuxk, I think you'll like that song "Bodies" by Little Birdy that I talked about upthread, but here's the correct link.

― Frank Kogan, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

I will check it out, Frank, I promise! But tonight I am too busy listening to my Ducks Deluxe LP. ([i]Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite/i]. Which is great. They may not rock as hard as Count Bishops, but they definitely rock harder than Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds. And as hard as Eddie and the Hot Rods, at least.) (American equivalent of pub rock would be...Brownsville Station?)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 01:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Henry Gross? Chuck, I'd a figured you woulda known about him long ago. Def. country in there...his big hit: "Southern Band," simulated southern band dynamix, "plug me into somethin'" was a catchphrase when I was in highschool down here in Tenn. and then he did a swell one called "Overton Square" after the square in Memphis (where that Eggleston back-cover shot on Radio City was done, with the 3 Big Stars enjoying a gin-and-tonic). pretty prime '70s pop, and "Shannon" was the other massive hit. I always liked him.

Mavis Staples' new Ry Cooder production We'll Never Turn Back has plenty of bite, she sings mainly about the Bad Old Place, Mississippi, and some cool snaky grooves. A return to the sound of the old Staples hits pre-Stax like "The Last Time," and man I have always loved Mavis' voice, and I sure loved Pop's guitar. As Xgau described it, and well, "laggard lick."

And as far as "I Got to Memphis" and Tom T. Hall. I agree w/ Chuck, the song sounds made up. Memphis being the place where Nashvillians go to Get Away and Get Real and dive into the demimonde as it were, like John Prine slurring his way down there to Sam Phillips and Pink Cadillac.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 01:56 (seventeen years ago) link

American equivalent of pub rock would be...

Or maybe the Flamin' Groovies? (Incidentally, Leanne Kingwell tells me that Angel City//Rose Tattoo//AC/DC are still called "pub rock" in Australia, which is interesting.) (And obviously the Brit mid '70s pubnesss did have a c&w element, especially with bands like Brinsley Schwarz, which is why it makes sense on this thread, that and Elizabeth McQueen doing her tribute album in '05. On their album Ducks Deluxe cover "It's All Over Now," which has definitely also inspired country covers by John Anderson etc., plus "I Fought the Law" and Van M's "Here Comes The Night," which should have whether they did or didn't. The Rolling Stone "red" guide also says Ducks do a song called "West Texas Trucking Board," but it's not on my copy. There's definitely a hard rockabilly tinge to some stuff though.)

Now On: Jean Knight's My Toot Toot album on Mirage, 1985. I was under the impression that Christgau gave it a better grade than the B- he gave Rockin' Sidney's EP of the same year and the same name (which I also found a $1 copy of last year, and which it is indeed better than, though Rockin Sidney deserves a B at least; heck, it's an EP with a fun and totally left-field indie label regional-turned-national hit novelty zydeco single -- that deserves a B alone!), but there's no Knight review in his '80s book or on his website. Anyway, I'm liking the all-covers first half of Knight's album ("My Toot Toot," "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show," "Mr. Big Stuff," "Let The Good Times Roll") more, but the second side where she attempts '80s r&b production (in tracks like "Magic") might ultimately be more interesting.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 11:08 (seventeen years ago) link

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