Rolling Country 2006 Thread

the guy who wrote Sunday Money, Jeff MacGregor, spelled this out explicitly in a great piece on Salon last week, about how the Dems needed not only to court the NASCAR fanbase but maybe also needed an infusion of some of that populist larger-than-life spirit. of course, a healthy number of the commenters called him an idiot and continued to assert that the Dems shouldn't cater to a bunch of redneck trash.

re Shannon Brown (xp):
(The first few songs of whose album sound really really good by the way. An "Okee From Muskogee" update about how we don't lock our doors and nobody burns flags on the courthouse lawn and there's only country stations out here and we don't keep anybody who lives out here out whatever the heck that means, a funkier one about she's a little woman who needs a big man not a mack-daddy pimp like you {I think she answers somebody who calls her a "ho" in it, too}, a song about people are wrong to say Garth and Shania aren't country 'cause that's what they used to say about Johnny Cash but she likes Steve Miller and Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock too and isn't it great how Kenny Chesney's laughing all the way to the bank so why don't we all get along -- all rocking country with fiddles in the groove, and yeah, lots of dumbass pandering in the words but what else is new? Now I'm on "Can I Get an Amen" which sounds EXACTLY like some big '70s rock song -- "Listen to the Music" by the Doobie Brothers, maybe? Then it turns into something by BTO, I think, "Roll On Down the Highway," maybe?; whatever it is, it definitely outrocks the Doobie Brothers, and then it winds down to more fiddles then handclap gospel acapella.)

--xhuxk, (xedd,,), November 23, 2005

(Fiddle break in Shannon Brown's "Corn Fed" quotes Black Dog riff...
-- Sang Freud (jstrell...), November 24th, 2005.

"Good Ole Days" (track #8 on the Shannon Brown album) = the most over-the-top 1979 disco on any country album, maybe ever (or at least since, like, 1980 or so).
-- xhuxk (xedd...), November 24th, 2005.

> over-the-top 1979 disco<
Or 1976 disco. Or somewhere in there. (Do your own callibrations at will.)

-- xhuxk (xedd...), November 25th, 2005.

Shannon Brown, "Corn Fed." A good solid "Gloria"/"Sister Ray"–three-chorder, lite style, though marred by the usual lying xenophobic, chauvinist lyrics about the innocence and safety of the rural heartland. Someone should prevail upon Shannon to record "Sister Ray," or Shooter's "Daddy's Farm," or that Darryl Worley song from a couple years back about the heartland drug town.
-- Frank Kogan (edcasua...), December 27th, 2005.

one of the points that Willman makes in "Rednecks & Bluenecks," Anthony, is that the '70s Outlaw movement was perhaps the last time in Nashville that country music and "liberalism" really joined hands. one of the virtues of this book, if you ask me, is the way he presents a lot of different viewpoints, so you come away feeling, as I think you should, not so damned sure of yourself when you think about someone like Garth Brooks. if you think as I do, you like a lot of Garth's music but dislike his image, like the way he took on Nashville's power brokers but dislike the obsession and confusion about what to do with that power. I can't say this or repeat it enough, and some of you have heard me say this before so forgive me, but what happens in Nashville is uniquely deforming of the process of making and marketing and thinking about music. the city itself is exploding--becoming a world-class town, finally, the only southern city to compete with Atlanta in that regard. when I moved away in 1991, it was still pretty relaxed and you could get from east Nashville to Belle Meade in twenty minutes. no more of that. and as my pal Marky St. James pointed out last night, Nashville's full of people like the Swedish guitar-teacher-virtuoso-ph.D. who got on a plane to come live here and play Telecaster--it's what New York and L.A. have been in the past, as music center (altho NYC will always be the capital of jazz in the world...) I think someone's gonna come along here and do something as big as what Garth did, in perhaps a different area of "country music," seems inevitable to me...

>what happens in Nashville is uniquely deforming of the process of making and marketing and thinking about music<

Not sure I get what you're saying here, Edd; how is it more deforming etc than the rest of the music biz (including indie labels, for that matter)? Assuming the biz is deforming at all, which I'm not entirely convinced about (although there's plenty of evidence to the contrary in the book I HAVE been reading -- Jen Trynin's *Everything I'm Cracked Up to Me,* which is hilarious and I highly recommend, and I say that as somebody with very little use of '90s alt-rock and very little time to read books about music, especially rock biographys. I wonder if the Commander Cody or Babes in Toyland books were this good). Most evidence I've seen in the past couple years suggests that Nashville has a pretty good knack for leaving great music intact, or at least no less a knack than anybody else has. Though maybe that's beside your point; I'm really not sure. (Also not sure what it is about Garth's image you dislike, unless you just mean his larger than life hubris, which at this point seems sillier and sillier as he proves not nearly as big as he used to be or he thought he was, in which case your dislike makes perfect sense. Plus, I just remembered that I've still yet to get around to playing his new CD, so, uh, maybe I hate what he stands for, too.)

actually, i guess you do kind of explain what bothers you about Garth here...

= evidence that the biz IS deforming (which I usually assume it isn't, really, all that much.) On other other hand, as charming as Trynin is, she often sounds like she's just whining. And I'm still stumped why bizzers ever figured she'd be big in the first place. But maybe it's just that I've always noticed so much great music coming out of the biz *despite* its machinations that I just assume those machinations are, in the long run, basically inept.

yeah, the book does that, very well, its deconstructive in a way that is genorous in its critique...but i do think there is something about making the outlaw/hippie powwow much larger then it really was.

how much of it charted, for example, and how well it charted (i think, and i may be wrong, and i have been wrong, the only song that charted is the redneck/hippie romance tune by bobby bare, and that didnt break the top 50)

the only problem i had with the entire book, in fact, and its a meme that has been annoying me in general, adn it was really kind of underplayed in the book anyways

My other prejudice is that when middle budget product disappears (you either have things with a lot of money and advertising and cross marketing behind it, or things with very little), that this isn't good. (But I'm thinking of movies here, not so sure how to apply it to records.)

should be "makes them LESS insular"

Yeah, well that's because little girls constitute the sociocultural vanguard. Followers and fellow travelers like me are always playing catchup. I was in 1966, and I still am. (But the "Rush" video wasn't until this year, and that automatically qualifies the song for 2006.)

the greatest Fairport Convention Celtic drone-rock I've heard from the '00s is the verse to Aly & AJ's "Rush"

My use of "Celtic" - probably anyone's use of "Celtic" in regard to music - is probably wrong here, since I doubt very much that Celtic origins have anything to do with why the music sounds the way it does. But my ideas here are based completely on what I remember from Peter van der Merwe's brief discussion of the origins of modern European music, which I read several years ago. Van der Merwe's idea (he presented it as if this was the standard belief among music historians, which it may well be) was that European music 1,000 years ago had basically derived from the Middle East, but that it was subsequently supplanted in urban centers by the do-re-mi scale, which then spread to most of the continental countryside but didn't spread to rural Britain and Ireland. So rural Irish, Scottish, Welsh music didn't sound the way it did because it was Celtic, but just because it was rural, and if you were rural and Anglo-Saxon your music would sound like that too.

And what's interesting here is that some similarities between Northern and Western African music and Scots-Irish music aren't just coincidence, but because those musics have at least some elements that originated in the Middle East. When those musics started running up against each other in the U.S. South, there were natural affinities already there.

John Shanks produced and played on about half of the songs, but didn't write any of them, and his half aren't any better than the other. He ought to be forbidden to work with any performer older than 25 years, since they dull him out.

(Shanks had nothing to do with that great AJ & Aly song, but it follows a pattern that he and Michelle Branch created in 2001.)

er, didn't willie nelson have a hit or two? (and commader cody, and asleep at the wheel, and lots of others any of us could name if we took the time, not to mention "longhaired redneck" by david allen coe and "longhaired country boy" by charlie daniels, and a whole bunch of southern rock bands?) or am i totally missing the point about the powwow in question?

how long did the outlaw movement last, from when to when
who were t he outlaws
how long did the countrypolitan movement last, from when to when
who were the countrypolitian

how large, in terms of sales were outlaw
how large in terms of sales were countrypolitan
how large in terms of radio play were outlaw
how large in terms of radio play were countrypolitan
ditto for concert revenue, and media concentration

how much of a cross over (songwriters, perormers, etc) were between various kinds of country music,

how does the folk revival impact these numbers irt the hippie qoutient.

why, amongst certain cultural critics, has the outlaw movement become such a peice of nostalgia.
is there an equal amount of nostalgia amongst current nashville perfomers (ie Paisley or Keith) (Rednecks and Bluenecks hints at the Keith connections, but rarely mentions Paisley, who I think may be a key to this)

how legitmate is the idea that outlaw country worked in musical and geographic oppostion to music row (ie Austin vs Nashville)

how does Johnny Cash fit into all of this?

What about Bakersfield.

when i went to new-student orientation for the university of missouri before my sophomore college year 1979, i asked some kids i met what kinda music they liked, and they said "progressive country," which i *think* mainly meant outlaw music and southern rock. i wonder if that genre name was ever commonly used, and if so where, and for how long.

>how direct is the line b/w outlaw, and alt country <

Didn't we talk about this for a while on that No Depression thread?

This is actually a really good question, though, I think. I kind of get the idea that the "opposition" might be more myth than reality.

No Depression Top 40 of 2005

Dunno if it's on the racks yet, but the new No Depression features Edd's fine speculative essay on pop and country, so don't miss it. (The title, which I assume wasn't the author's idea, is kinda huh?) Also David Cantwell on a bunch of Haggard two-fers. However, Don McLeese, who I like and respect, is just wrong about the new Van Morrison.

Roy: So did McLeese like the Van Morrison album? Do you? And if so, why? Struck me as a pointless snoozefest; did I miss something?

I haven't heard the old Gene Watson, but I think Gene Watson ...Sings, the album that came out a couple years ago, is far superior to the latest one: stronger songs, stronger lyrics that go from hilarious to heart-wrenching. His steady big-but-casual voice keeps everything on an even keel; much beauty in the singing, but not in a way that shouts "BEAUTY" at you. If his back catalog has enough good material, this guy may be a major artist who's been generally overlooked - possibly because his style isn't the type that's thought of as "major."

Also, Chris Cagle's new single which just hit the country chart at #56 is "Walmart Parking Lot," which I remember liking on his album, so maybe I should pull his album back out.

My favorite album in the world this week is Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's *Hammersmith Odeon, London '75.* No kidding. I forgot how much he used to love Mitch Ryder! And about time somebody acknowledged "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans (missing link between "El Paso" and "Gimme Three Steps," as everyone knows.)

Paisley: the music is pleasant enough, with a nice little stroll to it, but it's the lyrics that make him interesting (to the extent he is interesting). The ones that popped into my head were the dead flowers one. Marry me or I will kill this flower!

(And speaking of marketing plans, nobody ever answered my Sugarland conspiracy theory up above. Does that mean everybody thinks I'm nuts?)

heard a song called a six pack from perfect on the radio today, i made a joke about country being the soundtrack to functional alocholism(sp)but the song was great--does anyone know who did it.

Might be both, actually. But yeah, butch is what I had in mind.

Willie 92.5. Wide Open Country

So, a friend of mine is driving me home, and she puts on Willie and the first song we hear is "Kerosene." Then some sentimental slow songs I don't recognize.

The playlist seems to be modern country and old tracks in a mix, perhaps leaning towards the rock end of each, maybe keeping an ear to what the satellite stations are doing. According to their Website (they stream their signal, if you're interested), these are the last five tracks they played:

DESPERADO
Clint Black

THE LUCKY ONE
Faith Hill

A THOUSAND MILES FROM NOWHERE
Dwight Yoakam

MY BABY LOVES ME
McBride, Martina

THAT AIN'T MY TRUCK
Rhet Akins

xp, chuck, my ramblin' above about "deforming aspects of Nashville biz." well, it seems to me that since N-ville is all about song publishing--that's the engine that drives it--that right there is a "deforming aspect" of the biz. the constant need to feed singers with songs that might or might not fit their persona? and I think that the other big thing is the notorious practice here of using those studio musicians, which I am not saying is by definition a bad thing, since they're the best in the world.

the other big thing is the *oppositional* quality that arises here, with anyone who doesn't fit into the machine, as they say...which seems to me *needlessly* oppositional. I can't tell you how many times I've been embroiled in some ridiculous conversation about how some big country act of another spells the end of musical civilization...plus, any *rock* or, name yr. genre that ain't country, act that tries to make it in Nashville has a hard time, because of that machinery, and because they define themselves in *opposition* to it instead of going with it, or ignoring it , or whatever.

but that's changing a little bit, seems to me.

and too, I wrote that in response to the book I was reading, the "Rednecks &" book, which is good, but which is also a bit dizzying--you come away even more unsure of all the political-social relationships here. I suppose all music-biz encourgages cynicism in those who are part of it, but I would say that there's a kind of *genteel cynicism* in Nashville that's unique, and maybe that's all I was trying to express. Because I never want to be one of those people who rails against the "music biz" and all that. and I think you're right Chuck--Nashville does leave good music "intact." I think it's the "gestalt" if you will, the *attitude* the town has toward itself, the world, and so forth, that is "uniquely deforming," you get the sense that they oughta concentrate more on music and less on mythologizing itself, but then where would the fun lie in that? and which ties into Garth Brooks. and I know that for a large part of the musical community here, country music is something they wish would go away.

this is what happens when I read books...

so has anybody heard the Tres Chicas record that ND writes about? any comments about the Kristofferson piece by Friskics-Warren in the current issue? I talked to Bill at length about this record, and don't agree with him at all--but think it's a fine piece/defense of a record I find just *not there*. as for that title for the ND essay, Roy--yeah, that was Mr. Alden. nice photo of Sara Evans, though, that photogenic little thang...

multiple xps---back to this Shawn Camp record....

Well, country doesn't look so bad in that area when compared to hip-hop, or mainstream rock, or metal, or indie (see: asinine reactions to Liz Phair still having a sex drive), or teenpop, or certain other genres to be named later. (Though basically, I still agree with you.)

I excoriated it above. I over-stated the case, I think, but I was right about ND going for it. Musically it's got more texture than I allowed, but no heft. And the original songs are mostly pretty bad, even if you have more tolerance for mixed metaphors than I do.