Rolling Country 2012

Is that the consensus with the current Underwood album? If so, I really didn't realize people were liking it that much. I haven't heard it -- was kind of under the impression that she was one of those people who peaked with her debut then kept getting worse (which I probably tend to think about way more artists than deserve it) -- but I guess I need to check it out now. Should probably try the Pickler again sometime, too.

That's been the consensus among the folks I talk to who write predominantly about modern country; mainstream sources have been more mixed but still generally pro on it. My full review is here.

"Before He Cheats" and "Some Hearts" have been the only two singles of hers I've liked much at all, and she's had maybe two or three other album tracks that were solid, but this one has a handful of cuts that I've gone back to revisit and two that I like outright. So that's an improvement for her. I still think her level of acclaim and stature are greatly disproportionate to the quality of the material she's released, but I can see that gap closing a bit with her new one.

I'll listen to it. As is, a week short of halfway into the year, my country album top 10 is shaping up to look downright weird, and more alt-ish than it's ever been since I started keeping track: Elfin Saddle (more Brit folk but with Appalachian tendencies), King Mob (somewhat rockabilly but really loud pub-rock), Bhi Bhiman, Blackberry Smoke, Turnpike Troubadours, Darrell Scott (which I probably heard almost a year ago but it didn't come out until February or something). Lionel Richie and Kip Moore would have a shot (and even if it's the second biggest selling album of the year I don't think the Richie actually gets played on country radio); Dierks Bentley and Tim McGraw might squeak in for lack of competition. (Also marginally tolerable, if no-names: Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires, Drew Nelson, Bryan Clark & the New Lyceum Players. Hell, I might go with those over the equally marginal Nashville guys, just because Nashville pisses me off lately. Wonder if Dr. John -- pretty good, far from great -- counts. And if ZZ Top's album is good as the single, maybe them.)

Finally made it through the second ten of xpost xxhuxx's 50 Country Songs That Don't Suck. Adkins' "I'm Tryin" is great up to half way through, but at 4'40" it's noticeably longer than most, maybe all of the next nine. Also much more recent, and lengthy repetition became a given with so many radio-aimed songs, hits and non-hits, sure enough. My faves are "I'm Diggin' It" and "Seminole Wind," both with tenacious beats; she's bit by the lovebug, like she's celebrating, and Jawwn's riding the ancient snake through the tropical profusion of them word things, the arrangement slanting the light of motel window blinds all through there. T.G.'s song might've been lifted from The Summer of 42, which I saw in the summer of '72, so mainly remember it was a hit date movie with a real happy ending. But I also remember it was much more appropriately atmospheric--you know: gettin' in the mood--than T.G.'s high-stepping barroom sing-along, guess they didn't want it to sound suggestive. Pretty close to Sylvia's oompah band, with matadors in lederhosen. The arrangement on Don Williams' song seems busier than I remembered, but his voice has no prob mood-wise, maybe he should cover T.G.'s song, but does he do the sex stuff, except maybe very very very subtly?

Listening to (Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnston, Susan Cowsill) The Hobart Brothers & Lil Sis Hobart's At Least We Have Each Other. Cowsill of course the youngest of her brothers'/mother's/manager dad's group The Cowsills, real life basis of the Partridge Family. She does not sound waify here, fairly tough and flexible voice, something of a potentially upsetting, born-for/to-trouble spark. Also ready when Johnston brings out a bit of power pop, the soda pop pulled from a rusty icebed outside of an ol' gas station, probably in Texas and/or the Great Plains, while the sun keeps the beat--they keep enough shade, enough cool to try and work out "the difference between beaten and beat," also Beat. Several Rolling Countrys ago, Edd Hurt and I were digging Jon Dee Graham's gravelly live solo sets (also played w Alejandro Escovedo in guitar armadillo army True Believers and fairly recently with A.E.'s own band). Think Edd's Top Tenned at least one JDG album I haven't heard, but prob will(now that nobody goes to MySpace, tons of albums there, incl most of Graham's, plus I gotta get to the promo of his new Garage Sale). This album (electric and acoustic versions of most tracks, justifiably so) rec to these individual artists' fans, ditto those who enjoy the best of James McMurtry, Warren Zevon, John Doe, Dave Alvin, Eliza Gilkyson, like that y'all.

Looks like most if not all of Freedy Johnston's albums are on his MySpace as well, incl the raved-about and the only one I heard, from a couple years back, which I may not have given enough attention. Need to check 'em all, judging by his Hobart songs.

anybody bought the new Alan Jackson?

Didn't buy it -- Got it for free, but did listen to it a few times, to less avail than I hoped. Like the single, "So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore," more than most A.J. singles, and thought there were a couple other okay songs with a breakup-oriented theme. The seven-minute Zac Brown collaboration is more expansive than anything on Zac Brown's own new album, which counts for something. But not for enough, and there's nothing beyond the single that I can imagine ever needing to hear again.

Sara Watkins is playing a free show tonight in Pasadena. I ran across her new album by accident (didn't know anything about her) and kinda dug it.

What Brad Paisley thought and what was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMefOyqw7gI

Played the White House lawn on July 4.

Listening to the third ten from xpost xhuxx's "50 Country Songs That Don't Suck", though the magazine's embeds aren't playing at all now--no worries, so far they're all on YouTube (except had to get a live "The Pill" from Loretta's MySpace). LIke this vid for the Statler Bros' "Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott" ("happened to the best of meee")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJlD5roDqNw

This subset--from Eddie Rabbit's "Suspicions" to Barbara Mandrell's "The Midnight Oil"--has more keepers than the previous: almost all of 'em, and some choices are just a matter of taste, although I really am tired of songs that tell everything in the first verse and chorus, with latter verses just placeholders, while the infinitely repeated chorus trances us out, supposedly. Even Stoney Edwards' "Blackbird" turns me off a bit, though still digging his delivery (okay, mission semi-accomplished, entrancers)Sufficiently powerful/to my taste voices can overcome, def the Kendalls. But I'm lucky to find brief live versions of Stella Parton's "Standard Lie Number One" and Loretta Lynn's "The Pill," so linear here they're like short stories, sharp ones too. Stella's got two sets of lies-well, I won't spoil her comparison, just listen. Charlie Rich's luxuriously upholstered voice is indeed "Rollin' With The Flow", and he figures however fucked he is, he'll play it out, yo, still in the game, and he asssumes all his folks will continue to keep rolling with him, cause they know how he is. OMG "The Midnight Oil": basically the standard confessional cheating song, but "that midnight oil all over me" really frank and pungent and 70s-appropriate (maybe it helped to have oil's physicality set up by the make-up and trad wordplay: "When I'm puttin' on my make-up/I'm puttin' on the one who loves me best"--that's the chorus too, so don't have to mention the oil so much, the make-up's a cover for the oil) but still amazed country radio played it so much--guess that's another reminder of "The Pill" as milestone.

Narvel Felts like honky tonk Tiny Tim here, later for Slim Whitman, and Ringo Starr should cover--whatta find, thanks!

So good to see alll that Stoney Edwards on YouTube too.

don't have to mention the oil so much, the make-up's a cover for the oil

Ha -- wish I'd thought of that angle! And glad you're liking these; wish I had more to add than I've already said (but if I think of anything, I will.)

Sorry for any accidental re-hashes of your commentary, which I can't see too well currently---this giant-ass ad (with its own music links, I think) keeps getting in the way.

Ah damn, just now saw this: Rolling Country alum Edd Hurt on the recently deceased Susanna Clark--forgot she co-wrote "Easy From Now On"
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2012/06/29/susanna-clark-1939-2012

"Easy From Now On" is your typical piece of genius songwriting, right down to the way Carter and Clark tease you with the song's title hook, which takes its time making its appearance.

Spot-on. Terri Clark also covered "Easy From Now On" a couple of years before Miranda got to it, and she did as fine a job with it as anyone else. I particularly love the way the song functions as a closing statement on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Carter remains a criminally under-appreciated talent in her own right. Of the versions of the song I'm familiar with, Harris' is probably my least favorite, but that's really a matter of splitting hairs.

Unrelated:

Brad Paisley is being courted to sit alongside Mariah Carey on the American Idol judging panel next season. The show has been on quite friendly terms with the country demo since at least its fourth season, so that could be seen as a pretty big "get" for them.

And "Pontoon" is very rapidly ascending the charts (top 15 in under 12 weeks, which is all too rare for country radio these days), clearly en route to becoming Little Big Town's biggest hit. Production's aces, and Karen Fairchild really tries her damnedest to sell the totally undercooked double-entendres, but it's not much of a song. Glad to see that group breaking through, though.

Jon, did you ever see Carlene's Austin City Limits set, with Al Anderson playing lead? She was just awesomely gleeful all over the place, Dept. of I'll Have Whatever She's Having etc

ha, enjoying the auto-tuned Jason Aldean hook on the new Colt Ford

I find Colt's shtick less and less bearable with each subsequent album. Here's what I wrote about his new one (which I still didn't hate, mainly because of the guitars):

http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/colt-ford/album/declaration-of-independence

Also, I finally heard a Nashville country album this year that I unreservedly like -- Kix Brooks, out Sep 11.

Will check Kix, he's touring too. Finally jumped aboard the ziptrain fourth ten-set of xhuxk's http://www.complex.com/2012/06/50-country-songs-that-don't-suck From Anne Murray's "Snowbird" to Arthur (Guitar Boogie)Smith's "Who Shot Willie." Not really a question, we know from the celebratory vocal and fiddle. True, Miz Maxine Freud, the lady of the triangle laments, "Willie was tall and Willie was good, and Willie would come back if he good," but narrator also explains that "Maxine is young," and she's already forgotten about Willie as our correspondent in the field does his best to console her. Maybe she has forgotten by this point in the song, which moves along like the rest of this subset. A practical, survival-minded, almost stoical approach, although slinging plenty of vivid detail out of the window, gong that stop sign boy. Come to a full stop it might git you, like the cabdriver in "Kay," either way it'll quickly accrue--"While the ashes are falling, from the smoke you inhale/There's an old dream to recall/Or a new one to fail"--so whut can a ballin'-on-a-budget boy do, but toast "Smokey The Bar" one more time. Tom T.'s original version of "The Homecoming" is kind of a man-to-man, business-like rationalization, with self-obsession/confession leaking out of the delivery."Never gets past the foyer": could be! And the cover shot is devastating" homecoming to the cemetery, T. as middle-aged businessman, perhaps remembering (or just now composing) the words only rehearsed, to be looped through fantasies of the past as future from now on, as they maybe have been replayed in his headbox for so long. Sir Doug's version is maybe even better, more frictional for sure, with the yearning to connect, to be absolved, to get the fuck back out of here swirling around, cabin and club and highway fumess in his lungs. I thought the tramp-daddy was the one knocking on mama's door, that this kind of sometimes-at-midnight arrangement was the only way they could still make it work--what a naive child was I--that "red light" she turned on, of course! Thanks for pointing it out, and making this drive-by sequence.

"come back if he *could*" sorry

The last one referred to is O.C. Smith's "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp." Thanks for reminding me of the black country anthologies From Where I Stand and Dirty Laundry, gotta check those too. Harmonica Frank's freewheeling trickbag focus on whack is survival-minded too, the old hobo, tramp, busker and pitcher rolling onto that Sun train for a spell.

The final 10 of xhuxxk's 50. I think I got more out of 'em going 10 at a time than I would have trying to do it all once, lots of them had me buzzing anyway, dunno what the writing would've been like after one marathon session.
Delmore Brothers, "Freight Train Boogie": I've got the Ace collection pictured, real good. Might pick something else from that to give more of "rock 'n' roll ten years aarly", as shuxx tags this, because the deftly mellow vocal phrasing reminds me of Doc Watson covering Mississippi John Hurt, though Doc did go on to rockabilly, so maybe this discreet house party vibe is a good warm-up for outright rocking--dig the guitars adding detail and momentum (like live radio performances of Charlie Christian with Benny Ooodman go hurtling towards rock). Also, boogie as boogie-woogie just about, can imagine the guitar solo on piano.
Def some woogie in the boogie, and outright rock assertive absurdity on "Ding Dong Daddy." Surprised to read here about Wills andthe TPs reputedly wusstern swing; only reservation I've ever had is their tendency to sing like polite granpaws even when young. Anyway an excellent pick. Since I'm still relying on Youtube for all these, I also checked Louis Armstrong and the Sebastion Cotton Club Orchestra's version, which is mainly trumpet, drums and Satchmo's scat, in 1930: cutting through early swing towards pre-rock rocking, seemingly off the cuff, on the fly,
Moon Mullican "Pipeline Blues": excellent comments as always, and this song is so fracking relevant again; will be even more so with President Mitt's energy policy, just announced, though he won't appreciate the fatalistic horndog's boom and bust perspective: "You don't miss your water, 'til your well runs dry, you don't miss your honey, 'til she SAID goodbye."
Couldn't find Milton Brown's version of "Texas Hambone Blues", though I very much enjoyed Carlitos and the Hi-Lo Playboys doin' it at the Redwood Lounge. Go see 'um. Also check Milton's "You're Bound To Look Like A Monkey," fastest boogie heard today, and built on a playgroud thing:"I can tell by your hands, you've got monkey glands, I can tell by your nails, your folks hung by their tails"--yeah, so that's why you'll look like a monkey when you're old, I never will!
Roy Newman and His Boys, "Sadie Green": give it up for the clarinet, and the way the fiddle matches it, is this even possible any more, with recording methods in reach of modern man? Think it might be "big brown eyes and feet to match", not "teeth", xxhuxx.
Armstrong also gets a sound with rock appeal via somehow wiry, sinewy muted trumpet on "Blue Yodel # 9", which yeah is several shades of bluesy,punky, country, the most affecting track here.
Allen Brothers, "Maybe Next Week Sometime": amazing! Gotta check more of theirs, though YouTube also offers a second version, okay but not as good (lyrics are more diffuse). It turns out he does want to go to extremes right now, but but things moderation in all thangs, incl. digging gold in the graveyard, racing with a ghost and dallying with the wife of a dangerous man, in their own home, is wise. Oh discretion, oh tweak freaks! I'm one too.
Emmett Miller sounds more stilted than I remembered, Poole's version of this seems more diffues than others (more diffuse lyrics, though the discontent, maybe foreboding comes through) Not particularly engaging picking either. But all on-line courses should be like this, what a trip, thanks!

And thanks for making it through them all, Don! (Or did you? -- Don't remember you mentioning Smokey Wood & the Modern Mountaineers, for instance, not that you have to mention all of them -- you mentioned more than anybody else did, here or elsewhere). Now one of these days I need to sift through your responses and respond to them -- definitely wish I'd noted the current-events potential of "Pipeline Blues" though; can't believe I missed that, as obvious as it is. (And yeah, the Playboys' polite grandpatude might be what bugs me most about them, but in general compared to say the Musical Brownies or Newman's Boys or the Modern Mountaineers or certain other westbound swangsters, their playing has frequently hit me as kinda staid, a lot of the time. Then again, they sure did play a lot of it, quantity-wise. Wills box set is still one of the very few box sets I own, though, even if it doesn't include my favorite recordings by him -- So I'm still a fan, don't get me wrong.)

Might like the imminent Jerrod Niemann album as much as the imminent Kix Brooks (former peaks higher, latter's more consistent -- evens out, more or less.) Which means 2012 is shaping up not quite as horrible Nashville-was as it was a couple months back. Still haven't gotten super-excited about a single country single yet, though. (Favorite probably the Pistol Annies' "Takin' Pills," which is really still a 2011 track in my head.)

("polite vocal grandpatude," I probably should've specified, as you did.)

And "Nashville-wise (not was). (Wordwork squeaks and out comes whatever you want.)

Sorry, forgot about Smokey Wood's "Everybody's Truckin'", wonder how did they get away with the f-word, which is almost the first word, very intelligible every time it comes spinning by. True drive-by truckers.

I'm not gonna vote for anything released in 2011, fuck the industry for working releases to death.

OK, maybe something released too late to make last year's ballot, but Pistol Annies were all over that.

I know: if it's officially released as *a single* (whatever that is) this year, it qualifies. Well, maybe if I'm desperate (which could happen)

Well, I'm desperate! (And "Takin' Pills" apparently officially had a video come out this year -- which qualifies as "released as a single" by my rules.)

yeah, I might list it too.

I can't imagine not listing "Takin' Pills" at this point in the year, and I sure hope xhuxk is right that the 3rd and 4th quarters aren't as dreadful for country as the first two have been.

To that end: The new Little Big Town. First of their albums that has at least 3 very obvious hit singles, if not more than that, so it should finally give them a leg up on the fading Rascal Flatts and the completely useless Lady Antebellum among the A-list vocal groups. The vocal harmonies sell it per usual, but it's the strongest batch of songs they've tackled. Production's on-point, too, which makes it all the more disappointing that the album sounds as terrible as it does. Far, far worse than either of the last two Miranda Lambert albums or Eric Church's Chief as far as Loudness War problems go.

<i>Hick-hop's heftiest good ole boy opens with angry identity politics, branding himself a "shotgun toter, Republican voter, Hank Jr. supporter" over "We Will Rock You" thumping.<i>

What an iconoclast. Oughta lose some weight before diabetes takes his feet. Really, someone actually paid to produce that song?

Yeah, pathetic. And I don't even know if I buy it -- just sounds like pandering, to a Tea Party country audience that I assume has been shrinking for years. (Haven't checked the charts lately -- How's the new Hank Jr. album doing? And no, I didn't listen it. Even Montgomery Gentry and Toby Keith, who were actually good at it, don't do this kind of crap much anymore. And even when they did, I don't think either of them ever sang about which party they vote for.) Anyway, if Colt's such a shotgun toter, he should try toting one onto the convention floor in Tampa and see how his Second Amendment rights are holding up.

There was a Rolling Stone website interview with Hank Jr in which he bragged of selling 200,000 USD in T-shirts since he made the Hitler comment and lost his ESPN gig. Whether that's true is anyone's guess but it's hard to see that album selling the same for him. Why did anyone like Colt Ford enough to sign him in the first place, though? Some idea there was an opening for an artist the morbidly obese white male end of the country demographic could identify with?

Bizarrely (I just checked Billboard.biz), Ford's album is #20 on the Billboard 200 (after entering at #5) and #5 on the country chart (after entering at #1) after two weeks. So somebody must be buying it, at least initially, though I'm clueless about who. Doesn't look like he has a single getting much airplay (a song with Jake Owen is #54 on the country chart, pretty weak), so radio's not selling the thing; maybe he actually has some semblance of a cult audience. Either way, the more I think about what little the Republican Party has done for the white working class in recent decades, the more his declaration of his politics as a class signifier creeps me out. (Fwiw, Hank Jr's current album is #29 country, #150 overall, after 6 weeks. No charting country song.)

Either way, the more I think about what little the Republican Party has done for the white working class in recent decades, the more his declaration of his politics as a class signifier creeps me out

It probably endears him to middle-class suburban Republicans

Well, ya see they buy all the crap mythology on how it was really the socialist commie elite liberals and Dems that have sold then out, using the government handouts to all the moochers, pulling the honest working man down, forcing banks to give home loans to people who didn't deserve and couldn't pay them. It's classic human race scapegoating and there's a closet bigot hiding behind every bit of it, too, someone who'll say, "Hey, I have two black friends!" And don't forget the conspiracy theory part, the passed around idea that the UN is plotting to make world laws taking away guns. Which is from the John Birch Society but has been laundered into the mainstream.

Junior's song also blames Fox and Friends for being the show where he compared Obama to Hitler, or vice versa. The truly desperate and others might try the Various Artists album Kin: Songs By Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell. Haven't read Karr's books. An excerpt Crowell's memoir about funky canaltown Houston in the 50s seemed a bit overloaded, but with good pungent detail. The one song that comes closest to being too wordy, "Long Time Girl Gone By", does so appropriately: as Emmylou stealthily stirs the shit, and regret's ritual recital of risk strikes some sparks that may go past "my bridal veil of smoke" on on the next spin or so (maybe why she didn't take some chances missed is cos she took a bunch of others, among her allusive souveniers). Whole collection's pretty lean, lilting, often like mid-60s country reflecting what Beatles got from country. But sometimes further back, like the most amazing track, just because I had no idea he could do it, is Vince Gill (!) on "Just Pleasing You", sounding like Doug Sahm might if he'd ever covered "Jolie Blonde", one of my all-time favorite songs. Lee Ann Womack remembers her and her sis zipping parental love's battlefield in "Momma's On A Roll", rec to Pistol Annies. Rosanne Cash does as well with "Sister Oh Sister": "You've been my seawall, you've been my flood, you're in my blood." Even Crowell's own turn with Kristofferson on "My Father's Advice" is springy and surprisingly painless. Here tis--hit Play All, to avoid random insertions; can always hit Pause
http://www.myspace.com/variousartists-49163478/music/albums/kin-songs-by-mary-karr-rodney-crowell-18541622

Oh yeah, and "Hungry For Home" is literal enough. "Frito pie and a grape Nehi"? Dang, I'm jealous!

"like mid-60s country reflecting what Beatles got from country" this may have never happened, but it should have, and it seems like an early notion of Crowell's, back when he was "majoring in joints and jellybeans." And, as w Gill's track making me wonder about Sahm doing "Blonde", close enough. Also prob has to do with the times the stories/mid-situations in these songs may have taken place, or started to.

mid-60s country reflecting what Beatles got from country" this may have never happened

Buck Owens, maybe?

And right, the GOP plays the race card and associated scare tactics to get the white working class to vote against its own interest; that's obviously been the case since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and it's still the case, even as the GOP stomps on said class more mercilessly than it ever has. It's what Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas? was about (and in post-Thatcher/New Labour England, it's what Owen Jones's Chavs: The Demonization Of The Working Class is about -- never realized how many parallels there were to the U.S. -- and across Europe it's part of what the rise of nationalist anti-immigrant parties has been about.) Anyway, given their debt to music by black people, without which their careers wouldn't exist, it's doubly despicable for Colt Ford and Kid Rock to swing that way. Maybe they're just stupid. But in country music that's a story that goes back to white country blues singer turned segregationalist Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis, at least.

indeed. Re Hank Jr.'s album, though, I'd be surprised and sad if there weren't a few good songs (haven't quite gotten the stomach to check it yet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIyeP5xe6zk

Spot-on. Apparently MAD-TV is still a lot funnier than SNL. (Actually I don't watch either, so I really don't know what I'm talking about, but that was my impression a few years ago anyway.) Anyway, my only complaint is that I don't know why they made "McBride" her last name, given that Martina McBride has never really seemed to fit the Tea Party mold -- Not saying she's a liberal, it's hard to say, but she sure seems like a bleeding-heart something, given that her most political hits are probably the ones about domestic abuse, poor old ladies who can't afford milk, and slow-learning children who dress up like bags of leaves on Halloween.

Anyway, since Gorge himself hasn't posted it here yet, there's also this (musically inspired by David Allan Coe, he says):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHcJIiNhUPU

>>Id be surprised and sad if there weren't a few good songs (haven't quite gotten the stomach to >>check it yet)

Don, all of it was on YouTube, in one slice and separate pieces when I gave it a listen. A lot of it's still there but not as neatly arranged as originally, some of it deleted. Much of it is just tortured, like his song about small businessmen with these words:

"I want to dedicate this song to every working man and woman in this country and everyone trying to run a business constantly punished, taxed and regulated by the federal government.”

And “Our glorious leader just got back from China and Japan where he gave away our jobs, put us down and sold out our plans" and "We don’t need to be givin’ all that money away to other folks.”

And he autotunes his Dad on the first cut. It's mostly just trying. He does a duet with Brad Paisley called "I'm Gonne Get Drunk and Play Hank Williams" that's OK. Perhaps Paisley did not know what his contribution/favor was getting him into when he done did it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY-Z1hjquqo

Here's the one with autotuned Pop, pandering trash. He got what he wanted from it, a fan video with the president sieg heiling imagery.

Didn't realize that Mad-TV thing was 6 years old. Prescient!

Meanwhile, Dan Emmett will never die, apparently. Seems like the RNC really missed the boat in not having these 2nd South Carolina String Band fellas open for Kid Rock.

http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/civil-war-events-feature-minstrel-song-revival-2449440.html