Rolling Country 2017

And the Crowell's pretty intense, especially the song about Susanna Clark.

I need to listen to Sweeney too.

Her previous albums have been imperfect, but effective overall, sometimes in unusual ways (Provoked incl. the one about moving through a party where everyone's staring at her, spooky). Trophystarts with "Pass The Pain", and gets some more mileage out of etc. by pulling rank on, then apologetically appealing to/explaining herself to a bartender, in a way a guy would be less likely to; we're not trained like that. But so far seems like this this set makes room for too many crisply boring duds, disappointingly written with the usually cogent Lori McKenna, whose terse, subtle vocal approach doesn't always work for the previously bolder Sweeney. But co-writing and vocal influence def effective in the eerie low-key layers of the title track, which seems ready for ID---Investigative Discovery, the semi-true crime channel.
Also, she lets her guard down on the venerable, Jerry Jeff-associated (Chris Wall-written) "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight": "I play jazz when I am confused, I play country, whenever I lose...When I'm high I play rock and roll, country when I lose control..." Cuts loose on the finale too, but on first listen the album seems about half good. (I'll listen more, but she usually puts 'em right over the plate.)

it's def better than half good, keep at it dow

I will. I want to believe!

"too many crisply boring duds" is an apt description of McKenna's last good one.

*uh last one

also check out the whitney rose, it's a lovely record

Wiil do. And the EP starts with the brilliant "Three Minute Love Affair". self-referential retro springs eternal, in this case.
in my own peculiar hermity way last night, shuffled just close enough to Fecebook to glimpse the news that a singer of my long acquaintance, whose voice, incl. as writer of songs and emails, has stayed with me despite the gaps in our correspondence, recently got an out-of-the-blue diagnosis of life-threatening etc--she's holding up, in her own non-chirpy, bright and bracing way. Borad 77 helped me get my thoughts and nerve together for an email. Now I keep hearing Willie: "Phases and stages, circles and cycles, scenes that we've all seen before. Let me show you some more."

this is real good http://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/554304539/first-listen-carly-pearce-every-little-thing

Holy Moly---better listen some more before I say how good I think this is---but will say if you read any of Jewly Hight's intro first, don't be put off by mention of Alison Krauss---yes, Pearce is from back in the hills, yes, there is a dobro sometimes, but no hushed tremulous vocal aura, just straight-forward country pop, lean and limber, with sufficient realness for shading ("You be the light, I'll be the color"), and steel strings x "loosely-fitting programmed beats", as Hight says, but not too loose, some good grooves here. though the song is always the point.
Thought occurs in home stretch of my maiden voyage that some of the chorus melodies are too similarly, earnestly radio-bait generic, but then the closer, "Dare Ya", tightens the beat again, adds pressure to her dare, and before all that, she's got chorus lyrics such as "If you wanna burn you and me down. and make sure I don't come around, you're doin' it right, doin' it right (that's "Doin' It Right")< which I think is also the one with the verse that starts, "Yew treat love like a shitty motel."
Also, some choruses gain from context, like "If my name was whiskey, maybe then you'd miss me" is preceded by somewhat apprehensive lines about him followin' her around, the minute she gets off work and so on, but now she's spooked by his absence.

i'm extremely in love with the carly pearce record now, you're basically otm there dow

new Margo Price is at NPR, sounds v good to me so far a few songs in

http://www.npr.org/2017/10/12/556867464/first-listen-margo-price-all-american-made

A few notes on new Womack, this week on NPR---maybe down tomorrow, since that's release date, so go listen now:http://www.npr.org/2017/10/23/558578478/first-listen-lee-ann-womack-the-lonely-the-lonesome-the-gone
Title track, like at least most of the rest, is about struggling with illusions, diehard habits, imprints, bullshitting yourself, "Old songs make it sound so cool...'til it happens to you", and new rounds of nostalgia---something 'bout the days of "half-price weed" on the jukebox packed with country rock---just feed the illusion of progressive regress, of very special problems, when really it's the same old shit---and only a Hank song, beyond solace,chilly as a moon, a heart and a mirror, will cut it. Then again, the undertow of the guitar intro and outro is not Hankian in a stylistic sense, and it's followed immediately by
"He Called Me Baby", a Harlan Howard song that could be an Allen Toussaint song--he's gone, apparently, but memory's still bangin' her all night long, and vice versa. sounds like.
(She keeps switching musical approaches, and several others I assumed were classic country ballads of the soul-searching but ruefully succinct and non-weepy [for instance late 60s-early 70s Willie] school, turned out to be yet more originals from Womack and her versatile team.)
In "Hollywood", everything is fiiine, except maybe approaching the lush life twilight of the valley of the uncanny---is he gaslighting her, or is she already paranoid? Both?
Think about everything you did and was done to you. Keep it all in perspective, good and bad and other, no compartmentalizing, and sometimes it will merge like it should, "Shine On Rainy Day."
But also---though you can seperate the pictures into Before and After (the big move your family had to make, for instance, you still don't know just how or why or meybe when, really, "Mama Lost Her Smile." )Cos life ain't pictures, for one thing...)
Could do without a couple of others, so far, but the whole thing is 53 minutes and change, and unlikely to end up skimpy, even if I end up skipping a few more. That voice, duh.

i will try the new womack for sure.

i like the new Cam single "Diane" a lot! a nice take on "jolene from jolene's perspective"

and i kinda think the new yelawolf should and will be treated more like country than rap.

Man, the new Womack, despite its length, is another killer.

Don't want to say too much about Nicole Atkins' Goodnight Rhonda Lee yet, but,
following the opening Laura Nyro-in-Memphis-upside-the-head "A Little Crazy", which is maybe a little too persistent with the swooping, hijacked-countrypolitan strings of the chorus, behold "Darkness Falls So Quiet," which is somewhat misleadingly titled, being very persistently catchy and not that quiet, and she says when things get too spooky, she can rely on her friends and her records, and it seems like her friends might be her records and vice-versa, and if so, that's okay.
For she has not only absorbed 60s Nyro, Dusty In Memphis, Ode To Billie Joe, the production moves of Lee Hazlewood and his prodigious acolyte Suzi Jane Hokum (especially on her own records), Atkins has also seen how other popologists have fallen short, and how so many are just nimbic names now, afterglow halos matter how good they were at certain things---who actually listens that much nowadays to Dwight Twilley, or even Harry Nilsson? It's sad. But the title track is vibrant and stoic: "When they stop listening, that's just the way it goes, don't let it crush you, say goodnight Rhonda Lee."
This track begins or makes more noticeable a recurring Heartbreaker of the Year vibe, in the sense that Whitney Rose and her producer/sometime duet partner Raul Malo drew from the Spanish tinge of late 50s-to mid-60s pop-rock hits (and their influence on some late 60s pop-country), with a Twin Peaks Senior Prom echo chamber.
So: unabashedly plush but well-tymed girlie swirls x restless drums, bass, rhythm guitar, tolerating bits of steel, keys, orchestra (the electric guitar is the orchestra on the last track--waking "from a nightmare to a dream"--- but not too much of one).
Whole thing's here, sounding better than Spotify to me: https://nicoleatkins.bandcamp.com/

Suzi Jane *Hokom*, that is.

Atkins has also seen how other popologists have fallen short: her influences are right there on the table, right away---but then she takes off with 'em, no tyme for getting hypnotized by her collection--she's been through that; "The grooves of my brain are wearing out"---she's got another song to sing, a track to make, that rhythm section discipline in the midnight mind.

Caramanica in NY Times on what he sees as Ballerini's pros and cons:

she is an elegant songwriter; many of the best songs here are written by Ms. Ballerini with Shane McAnally and Hillary Lindsey, masters of emotional detail

...But if Ms. Ballerini has a crutch, it’s the specter of Ms. Swift, who has demonstrated more than anyone how to dismantle Nashville’s patriarchy in recent years, and whose playbook she is sometimes peeking at. Throughout this album, there are melodies, chord changes, lyrical images and structural tricks that feel indebted to Ms. Swift’s first three albums. Even the way Ms. Ballerini lingers over certain vowels suggests the shadow of Ms. Swift. In order to fully come into her own, though, Ms. Ballerini needs to shake free of that as effectively as she brushes off country music’s simpleton men.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/arts/music/kelsea-ballerini-unapologetically-review.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

the ballerini record is v good; i don't mind that it's supposedly in the shadow of t swift bc t swift has abandoned her original position

The new Womack is great

Heard some nice tracks from Lee Ann Womack album.

Also listened to that Nicole Atkins one-- definitely hear the 60s Nyro, Dusty In Memphis influences

Now I'm listening to Margo Price's All American Made---no hyphen in there; it's "We're all American made", compartments and all, as she looks for something in herself, something she's stashed between the hangover, the thought-loops, yadda-yadda---she's gotten past the Loretta Lynn imitations on the debut, which were seeming too slick even before the actual LL showed up with a good new album---key line (tho' farmed out to duet podner Willie) here might be "How trails have I been down/For no reason", trying to escape from him/herself---now they're "winning by learning to lose", copping to limitations and other self-knowledge, also and trusting the realness of questions over answers.
So she finds a Lynn-worthy stance after all, shifting gears between the more typical "Pay Gap"-extended- working woman (incl. wife-parent-other) POV and that of a rising female star/upgraded pro, making her(and her band's, and others') money on the road after the fall of the record biz/same as it ever was for most musos, no matter how risen---no Behind The Music melodrama; she may be going "Nowhere Fast", but she'll take it, apprehensions and all. Plenty shadows here (not quite the usually bright bandcamp sound, tho' appropriately so, and never murky), but her matter-of-fact can be droll enough, even and especially with "Bein' born is a curse/Dyin' young is worse." Margo Price & The Price Tags; I'll go see 'em after all. https://margoprice.bandcamp.com/releases

"How *many* trails", that is!

I just got to the Nicole Atkins, dow. Lee Hazelwood influence is powerful.

CMAs last night

Keith Urban won the evening's first award for best single for his song, "Blue Ain't Your Color." Then, Taylor Swift, who wasn't at the show, won the award for song of the year for Little Big Town's hit "Better Man."

Later, Chris Stapleton took home the award for Album of the Year with his "From a Room: Volume 1."

Miranda Lambert, who was nominated for more awards than any other artist won the award for female vocalist of the year.

Outside the CMAs, Sturgill Simpson who had earlier in the year blasted the CMAs, and was apparently not invited--

Sturgill Simpson, the popular country singer who is largely ignored by mainstream country industry, showed up outside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena — where the awards were taking place — to play guitar; raise money for the American Civil Liberties Union; chat and take pictures with strangers; and make jokes about how he wasn’t allowed in the ceremony.
...

Meanwhile, on Wednesday night, Simpson fielded all kinds of questions, including who he wanted to win a CMA. He said it would be great if his close pal Isbell won (nominated for album of the year), and that if he had to choose, he was also rooting for Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/11/08/sturgill-simpson-mocks-cma-awards-as-he-busks-outside-the-show-in-nashville/?utm_term=.196dbaebd7f6

You cats might want to get in the line early, go look into a singer/songwriter from Kentucky named Tyler Childers. He's been around for a few years but has gotten pretty popular around here and is probably next at the plate to go after Sturgill Simpson for the golden songwriter ring around here.

Childer's has one of those voices that cuts. I think he's pretty damn good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lwzn5nLRPw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QzcrflqDCg&list=RDSpxT9Casovk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lwzn5nLRPw

This guy Colter Wall is pretty cool too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCebq5lLgos

also check out the whitney rose, it's a lovely record
--Brad Nelson

ooohhh yeah
https://whitneyroseband.bandcamp.com/album/rule-62

Rough Trade Record store already has their top 2017 albums list out, and Colter Wall is is near the top

Speaking of Tyler Childers, he's a good guest star on Colter Wall's version of "Fraulein"; would like to hear them doing more covers. Wall's solemn Saskatchewan aural presence is clear and deep and seasoned and always distinctive, as his lyrics tend to be undistinguished, although I haven't yet distinguished all of 'em, but he's usually headed from Marlboro visions of boxcars and bar rooms to back issues of Mojo and Uncut and No Depression via "Woody Guthrie Street," where tunes x voice meld me into the vinyl shadows well enough: can wander 'round them words, no harm, come on back, and if I were still a drinkin' man I'd order another round. Mind you, he does have some tales to tell, especially on the strong-enough finale, "Bald Butte": hot lead, chill reverie, such as Woody Guthrie might in fact approve. So I'll listen closer to the others, keep on "zingin' zongs", CW.

"vinyl shadows" even via plain ol' free Spotify, so yeah got the "aural presence" strong enough.

lmao i just got informed of the existence of this hank jr. cosplay lookin ass motherfucker

http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/5/3/0/4/9/8/i/2/7/9/o/Wheeler_Walker_Jr..jpg

i've heard a few jason isbell albums and i wouldn't exactly classify it as country or countryoid (kind of alt country i guess) but he is a very talented songwriter. he's more of a singer-songwriter but with more interesting chord progressions

his 2015 song 24 frames is very good and his new album is pretty good too

it = them

who the hell is the Randy Rogers Band? they're playing some relatively big rooms in my area, which ain't exactly country music territory.

related: are they any good

They can be, at least on record, never seen 'em. Wrote this last year:

Randy Rogers Band, Nothing Shines Like Neon: Mostly not terribly hooky, although "Old Moon New" and "Meet Me Tonight" are back-to-back exceptions, being Toby Keith-worthy prom ballads. Rogers doesn't seem to have the vocal range of Keith, but he knows he can finesse it, so doesn't strain. And that's how it all works out: journeyman smarts and skills, with an insistence that doesn't oversell, just finds familiar ways, fresh enough here, to get through more gray days and nights, especially nights, with another dance, or another sway, limber and tight enough. Lots of restlessness, discontent, wry self-awareness, "Things I Need To Quit," and "Take It As It Comes,"the one song about being satisfied and even laidback, for the moment, is also the most cranked-up. Guest Jerry Jeff used to spend all his time "chasin' life, but tonight I'm livin' mine"---before mentioning "ridin' deranged" rather enthusiastically, like he might be working his way back to that (he's sitting down, but not still). On "Actin' Crazy," Jamey Johnson does his best Merle---but that's about it; this ain't no guestfest ---okay, Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski show up on another one, but these unoriginal stalwarts never get upstaged. So,“Pour One For The Poor One”, and know like they know: they got something to be modest about.

More to the Related side o' life, I just tweeted this:

Still buzzed on guest shots of @brandicarlile and @NicoleAtkins, opening @shovelsandrope 's collaborative set. But sure seems like covers of C. Blonde, L. Cohen, Breeders, GnR, Hollies, Willie etc. mostly do work as post-Space Age folk rock http://ew.com/music/2017/12/01/shovels-rope-busted-jukebox-volume-2/

(often twangy acoustic gtr, drums and/or loops, visitor vox up front, going for "creaky yet lush" and other fx)

I wonder if Southcomm firing folks at the Nashville Scene will impact their country music coverage?

For those compiling your year-end lists, this playlist includes all the available tracks on this thread, organized roughly chronologically in order of mention:

ILM's 2017 Rolling Country Thread Spotify Playlist

the Jaime Wyatt album is great. 30 minutes, no nonsense.

In some sane lost alt-universe, John Moreland's Big Bad Luv is just about all crossover hits: he's the wounded woodsmokey distiller of romantic atmospheric imagery(verbally and instumentally generated) in catchy toons, sometimes to kind of a hip-hop beat, but ho auto-tune or hick-hop verses--more like a young Billy Joe Shaver (not too many years after Elder Shaver's country disco "Jesus Is Still The King"), also Sturgill still with grievances but not an attitude, if you can imagine such a thing. "God's up there makin' deals, while we;re down here spinnin' our wheels, usin' up the little bit of life we got," yadda yadda but in some "deadend driveway" he meets yew, and decides "There ain't no glory in regret, and I ain't dead yet."
Also there's more variery in the music than I indicated, like a The Bandesque ballad I could live without, just because The B. didn't have that many good albums, but enough for my taste. Still, it's solid, good of its kind, and must admit the drummer delivers his homage to Levon Helm like few can do.
A more appealing sidetrip is just his slightly thick voice, fingerpcking acoustic guitar, country parlor piano and eventually organ: "Ah'm sorry for what I did, you're my favorite latchkey kid...so won't you tell me how the story goes," child is father to the man, maybe---he can also be kind of Townes VZ/L.Cohenesque re their poppier sides. "and if that don't work, paint two crosses on mah eyelids and point me outta touch." Roll on Jawn.

NO auto-tune or hick-hop verses, I meant to say.

i like the new Moreland, but imo his album from a few years ago, In The Throes, is an all-timer. check it out if you haven't already.

so, what's up with Caroline Spence? This is a great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY_h4z1MQDo

Yep and it's s gooc of example of how her little & wiry voice can put one over the plate with no excess effort: she says that when she invades the boys' team, it ain't gonna be softball no more, and she's right. Not seeing personnel credits for Spades and Roses, except for a mention of the drummer(-arranger of the occasional, never-overdone strings) also being the producer. He discreetly keeps thing moving right along, even when there are no drums, plus she's got the supple tunes and words ("Southern Accident"!), although "You Don't Look So Good (Cocaine") seems too naggy. wouldn't change my way of life for sure. Overall, reminds me a bit of early 70s Emmylou and Neil (incl. mix of acoustic and electric, although no big solos), but it's all life lived, incl. some straight thought-talk to self and other, also bits of wistful thinking, incl. looking ahead & back ("There might have been some eloquence/In the very last words I said...")
Not on bandcamp, though her 2015 album is; I found this one. on Prime.

Also gets a bit folkie-solemn with the hopefulness sometimes, but goes with the lost evenings w wine, guys--she's concisely candid enough about impulsive and compulsive elements.