Rolling Country 2018

Um, "Caitlyn," like it says there, yep.

Listening again to some demos, alts, prev. unreleased titles on disc 1 of Gillian Welch's Boots No, 1: The Official Revival Bootleg. Substantial-enough storylines, from a shoebox of snapshots and postcards, plus a fluid-enough way with the tiny tuneful turns of detail, keep most of 'em from being too received folkieness, if you're not allergic to Americana, and this assortment is for making your own sequences: Like "I Don't Want To Go Dpwntown," "Go On Downtown," "Red Clay Halo," "Paper Wings" (this last could be taken as caution to writers, which is ever'body these days of course). A bit too much regret in some subsets, but for instance Bonnie Raitt please cover the Randy Newmanesque "Georgia Road," a report from where "The boys are walkin' funny, and the girls are all undone...workin' those tiny polka dot skirts...I was bawn a nasty man." Ain't sorry, but/and knows he'll die one too. "Prob'ly go to Hell."

Some of these are full band, rockin' in a Model-A way.

"Well the night came undone, like a party dress" (that's not "Georgia Road," it's a bluesy waltz).

"Acony Bell" still the one to end with: seems like a dry little flower, but something inside and all around keeps it alive.

So that “Saving Country Music “ website guy is defending Huckabee and criticizing the critics of him. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised

he's the worrrrrst

I spent an hour talking to Trigger of Saving Country Music the other day. He's gonna part of a piece I'm doing about the, er, state of country criticism.

did you ask him why he's such a sexist prick

In following the twitter battles, I see someone recommending the following country and alt-country sites/writers on twitter instead: highwayqueens ; the musicdivide ; TheDailyCountry; ; CountryUniverse ; Honest_Country ; countrycritics

Thanks---Edd aside, I mostly occasionally skim for info---but did fairly recently read Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz (handsome trade pb w good pix, Routledge, 2003), by Rick Kienzle, who also contributed to the late, useful Country Music Magazine. He doesn't just enthuse, he describes what made and still makes the heyday of Western Swing so musically gratifying, and isn't shy about detailing how and when and sometimes why (increasingly desperate attempts to biz-adapt) the recorded offerings of his protagonists, incl. heroes, turned to shit.
It's kind of Four Lives In The Be-Bop Business in reverse, with questing young musos from hither and yon peaking early in California, then scuffling, going back to the boonies and/or hitting a wall re The Nashville Sound and Countrypolitan.
Although there are exceptions! To any predictable arc, anyway--for instance, Ray Price went to honky tonk with a strong beat, drawing the livelier geezers and some youngsters, without actually playing that rock&roll stuff---then he decided he *did* want to do the smooth Nashville thing, not only on record but replicated live, challenging his carefully established audiences and hardened swing-to-tonk road dawg band---never mind we don't have no orkystraw or choir, just do it. And you out there, you better like it.
And the saga of former teen swing fan Willie Nelson, whose vocal timing (also some of his lyrics) broke the tried & true Hit Factory assembly line, as far as the suits and producer Chet Atkins was concerned--well, you've heard about that, but maybe not in such telling detail (come to think of it, maybe he was influenced by the tenacity of Price, an early employer).
Very handy discography of reissues too.

Also I've gotDreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes, and the Changing Face of Nashville(William Morrow,1998), by Bruce Feiler. Bought it after reading an excerpt in which the author runs into Garth Brooks soon after a National Holiday (Thanksgiving, I think). Brooks allows that he spent it curled in a fetal position, contemplating the marketing of his next release. Asked why he still tortures himself thusly after selling nine jillion albums, GB says he wants to be an American Archetype, like John Wayne. Well okay--but Wayne wasn't nearly always the biggest box office draw, far from it at times...

Anyone who thinks John Wayne is some kind of great American archetype is right, of course, but they can't have seen many John Wayne movies, in which he's usually brutal, one-dimensional and therefore perfect for the world of John Ford. Wayne in Hawks' Rio Bravo and Red River, however, is a very nuanced character, one who shows humor and even doubt (which Wayne shows, the doubt part anyway, in the one Ford film with Wayne worth mentioning, The Searchers (honorable mention to Stagecoach, which is really Gregg Toland's movie, not Hawks' or Wane's). In today's cultural climate, Wayne might as well be a serial killer, and that's both to be expected and somewhat unfortunate. The idea of a man telling women what to do, even in the very nuanced Hawks films, like Hatari!, in which women are treated as equals and are also somewhat puzzling figures these men have trouble keeping their heads straight about--sex, and the humorous aspects thereof, are a big part of Hawks even when he's most serious--is not something you can get away with any more and I won't defend that old-school viewpoint. But Hawks, compared to Ford, Huston and even Ray, was virtually a feminist, tho the Hawks bio indicates he was a compartmentalized, sneaky womanizer. I definitely think Ida Lupino is a very fine, underrated director, so let her receive some praise, she deserves it. Enough on the auteurs for now. Garth is just too fucking sincere to grasp any of this, which isn't to say he's stupid.

I hever did listen to him much, despite endorsements from xheddy and zgau, for inst. But, while working in a 90s CD store, I got the demographic appeal: he was one of those who grew up with arena rock---popped up on a Kiss trib, and a Voice feature mentioned "Pink Floyd guitars" on an album drama---so it was time for arena country, High Hat. He was certainly in the vanguard of that, and credited the reinforcement of Chris LeDoux's stage shows LeD. became a real rodeo bravo, so why not ride a mechanical bull while the music played---seem to recall him tagging his approach as "Aerosmith in a cowboy hat." Take that far enough, and you get Aldean for instance, but--
In any case, I never saw that show, only got into him as he was checkin' out fairly early (liver cancer), clued by the famous Garth line, "A worn-out tape by Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze Seem to be the only friends I've got left at all. " From "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old." And a lot of Brooks' peers related to that too, no doubt, but LeDoux's own music, though it brought the wide open spaces, incl. the lonesome parts, I mainly recall for its confidential tone, as unpretentious as suave can get without boring. Toby Keith seems to embody both sides of LeDoux more than Brooks does, but Brooks is a brother in the trustworthy, well-meaning sense, unlike the moody, shifty TK, who still thereby seems like the more interesting artist, but I owe Garth some more listens, in part for turning me onto Chris.
Being an archetype means getting in under people's hats and staying there, deeper than "Hey, he likes what I like" etc.---could see maybe say Madonna or Taylor Swift with that kind of staying, resurfacing power (gotta move from power to authority though, to be an archetype). We'll see.

Oh yeah, speaking of Wayne, I liked Gary Wills' attentive, appreciative, shrewd, informative as hell, Big Picture with a zoom lens (book), John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity, good crisp take here:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/reviews/970323.23haskelt.html

"zgau"? Still waiting for that one; I meant xgau ocourse.

Jewly Hight on on the changing face of country. Well worth your time.

Meanwhile, yours truly on the related topic of country criticism and the man called Trigger and Saving Country Music. Kinda remedial crit for people who don't know from poptimism, I guess, with Chuck Eddy and Frank Kogan making an appearance, along with the equally fine country critic Marissa R. Moss.

i only know her bc she toured with jimmy eat world a few years ago but the courtney marie andrews record that came out today is a deep country stunner

https://open.spotify.com/album/1U8907wmzKNgvDEW3mk21S?si=vcno9D-WTpGJhA-kJMaG7Q

oh sweet i'm glad she was mentioned by someone else on this thread

Yeah it's real good! It was streaming on NPR for a while

Courtney ain't bad. Sounds like Mary McCaslin, if the great McCaslin had played with Will Oldham. Andrews' retro sonics are a bit of a drag. It all kinda comes straight out of the handbook, to my ears, but she's a good singer. I like her subject matter, just get so bored with the received wisdom of the arrangements and sonics, which I could travel 2 miles down the road from here in Gnashville and hear 6 nites a week, and done not much better or worse. Before they cut May Your Kindness, someone shoulda stepped on the organist's hands.

the arrangements/sound is v retro but i find it deep and enfolding regardless

Yeah, Andrews is all right. Hope she comes to play with the Americanas this year, she deserves to be as big as any of them. I just hear so much music that sounds exactly like hers, I guess. As the Americana scene changes to allow, let's hope, some new blood into the club, I think she's expertly positioned to join it. Everyone's gonna be depressed anyway after half the world gets blown up and we're all stuck with our guitars and pianos that no one knows how to tune.

Liked the conversations on country criticism, edd. Also like country pop (Carly Pearce, Kip Moore, Thomas Rhett's Tangled Up but not his current stinker, after the opening duet with Maren Morris, whose debut I luvvved, except for the one about country music as religion)and pop by people who, uh. make pop in Nashville and sound Southern, whether they're country or countryoid or not (like Walker Hayes and Kelsea Ballerini). Have talked about 'em all in print or pixels, but except for Pearce and Morris couldn't think of much to say----also always (or foe a while) fine w the concept of Taylor Swift, but her actual music tends to go in one ear and out the other.
Obv. most or prob all the country icons we're supposed to rail about never being on country radio anymore, in part because most of them are long dead, had enough pop savvy in their art to get on country radio all the time when they got on it at all.
Is Trigger that emblematic of a significant chunk of country commentary?? Guess so yuck (how fitting that he took his name from a dead horse)

Courtney Marie Andrews toured w/ Jimmy Eat World? like as an opener?

backup singer

https://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/courtney-marie-andrews-chris-shiflett-discuss-punk-roots-w463847

She just played with Dead Meadow here in DC the other night

andrews was the backup singer (and iirc keyboardist) for the tour for invented, many of the songs on which were inspired by cindy sherman's photography and written from the perspectives of women and featured traded off vocals between jim adkins and andrews

The duet sets with hubbie that I've heard are good, but fuckin finally a new solo Kelly Willis album (also in here: the return of Sugarland etc.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/hear-kelly-willis-soul-tinged-new-song-back-being-blue-w518485

When I worked in a Deep South CD store in the mid-90s to early-00ties, Elvis sold almost as well as the Dead, and his gospel outsold all his other stuff. Now Some public radio stations are re-broadcasting/-streaming "He Touched Me: Elvis' Gospel Music, " w cogent comments from colleagues, intros by Laura Cantrell. Sounds great, wish there were more live (do hear some live w Jordanaires x Sweet Inspirations, for some audiences adjusting or not to integration)(most of the material is from the SI's side of the tracks).
More info on the ever-handy (though Not Secure) Elvis Information Network:
http://www.elvisinfonet.com/elvisnews_HeTouchedMeRadioversion.html
The whole show may be posted somewhere.

Expanded reissue of Emmylou's The Ballad of Sally Rose---good?

Released in 1985, the song cycle is based loosely on her short time with influential singer-songwriter Gram Parsons...Highlights...include the singles "White Line" - which reached #14 on the country charts - and "Rhythm Guitar" with Waylon Jennings on lead guitar. In addition, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt sing harmony throughout the album. Two years later, the friends and frequent collaborators would release their first album together, Trio...
More info: http://view.e.wbr.com/?qs=61051c94690b58e096f0ee97da524b07450d8da7cb262cc9a54ebdc45039d666f3ec1e61f

“We had just enough tequila that I asked them, ‘Do you want to do a show?,’ and they were like, ‘Yeah!,’” recounts Becca Mancari, explaining Bermuda Triangle’s origin story.

The Nashville group – Mancari, fellow singer-songwriter Jesse Lafser, and Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard – rolls into Antone’s on Thursday, with another Music City act in support, Liz Cooper & the Stampede.

Promising a drum machine paired with an upright bass, Bermuda Triangle hit the road for nine dates concluding Friday in Dallas with only two songs on Spotify. Speaking by phone from a solo show stop in Virginia, Mancari chatted with “Gay Place” about summertime crushes, being gay in Nashville, and guitar-shredding ladies. Seems like it might be good. Continued here:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/gay-place/2018-04-03/bermuda-triangles-becca-mancari-makes-waves/

i have the Becca Mancari album from last year on my 2017 spotify country playlist and it's pretty damn good.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/20978146/becca-mancaris-good-woman-is-informed-by-a-life-spent-traveling

https://local.nashvillescene.com/event/the-basement-east/liz-cooper-and-the-stampede-blank-range-and-the-kernal

Anyone seen/heard this? Has it been mentioned yet?

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/04/cocaine-rhinestones.html

Oh, I see it up there, never mind.

Thanks yall, will def check all that out---speaking of Gay Place, no doubt the name was chosen for more than one reason, like Nashville Scene's A Face In The Crowd column---in this case, it's also the title (maybe from "It's known as the gay place/That out of the way place") of a collection of three novellas by one Billy Lee Brammer, all of 'em about life and death and other stuff in orbit around a gas giant Governor of Texas, with LBJ-size drive and cunning and deep pockets full of other politicians, civil servants, media workers---and also the kind of un-LBJ-like charm that Huey Long, Big Jim Folsom, Slick Willie Clinton relied on---he's wallking a tightrope amidst 60s shitstorms. It's pretty musical.

Ashley Monroe's new one now streaming.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/12/601100251/first-listen-ashley-monroe-sparrow

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

That dude's too much of a kitschy tribute act even for me, and my tolerance for that is pretty wide open.

i have the Becca Mancari album from last year on my 2017 spotify country playlist and it's pretty damn good.

She did a great episode of 'My Favorite Album' talking about Big Thief's 'Capacity' a couple months back: http://myfavoritealbum.libsyn.com/becca-mancari-on-big-thief-capacity-2017

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

I saw him open for Old Crow Medicine Show last year. you know, he was all right. A good version of the usual Lower Broadway Country for Tourists shtick. I didn't mind him at all.

Saw Lee Ann Womack last week. Amazing singer, good stuff, even a good version of "Long Black Veil." She lives up to the hype.

Was wondering what Amy LaVere's been up to lately---here's a good live set featuring Motel Mirrors, also incl. Will Sexton,John Paul Keith, and another guy whose name I didn't catch---Barbara Ching briefly discusses blues-country connections and plays a few excerpts, but mostly it's the Motel Mirrors show:
http://www.bealestreetcaravan.com/weekly-show/bsc2228/

Most of the songs are from their new album, which I haven't heard.

so what does Rolling Country think of this Joshua Hedley fella?

― alpine static, Saturday, April 14, 2018 10:01 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That dude's too much of a kitschy tribute act even for me, and my tolerance for that is pretty wide open.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, April 14, 2018 10:30 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Idk I think he might actually have the tunes and pipes to back up the act.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNVUTgd4pio

Probably late to this, but I heard this while driving through Ohio last week.

Total rip off of Kid Rock's "All Summer Long".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16s7He1C9BE

Those xpost two Bermuda Triangle tracks on Spotify instantly toke a hold of me, and haven't let go: deepnrich, up front: "You love Suzanne, I love you, where is she? Go and get her." Such a contrast with the aforementioned Becca Mancari set, at least the sound, which is thinned and chill, latte, with most of the vocals double-tracked; they and the good session band are distanced. Going for a the xx effect?

Seems like the writing is good too, but it's also filtered. "Kitchen Dancing" is "dry"/up front, and the best track here; subsequent acoustic single version of "Golden" is better (would like to hear Willie cover this: about a lover who won't go 'way after leaving: "You keep going golden"--was already thinking of when the sun goes level, won't get out of your face, before becoming aware of the words, especially that hook-line at the beginning of the chorus, so I guess in that case the filter is a good test, but still prefer the acoustic, with the increased/undiminished vocal presence).

Really looking fwd to more Bermuda Triangle.

Ah meant "took a hold," but "toke" yes too.