Rolling Country 2019

Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. Nice name.
More about xpost Charlie Rich's Too Many Teardrops,from Charlie Rich - Behind Closed Doors:

...After a couple of listens, I've found it surprisingly easy to get used to the strings and choirs, although some Disc 2 incidents are still annoying, and maybe scale-tipping on the more dubious material---that's okay though; that's what he and/or the suits get for too much turdpolishing. like Elvis, Sinatra, Willie etc. he's found that he can effectively apply his signature sound to inferior imitations of his top-shelf line of goods, and so he does, and I admit there are at least partially redeeming moments in most(?) of the worse, though not worst, tracks. Not many of this last category though!
A good number of the rolling piano jazz-blues-rock tracks I always favor, starting right off with "Big Boss Man," soon followed by "River Stay Away From My Door," later a very sassy "Ol' Man River," such as Jerry Lee might approve, then a more respectful vocal on "The Twelth of Never," though that beloved tearjerker now goes thunkin' along. Mercy!
Also a couple of intriguing ballads written by Freddie Hart:"Too Many Teardrops" starts out feeling for a fella who lost his love to the narrator, yet"I did what any man would do"---emphasis on "man" because the cry guy wasn't "strong enough to play the losing hand"--crying and drinking yourself to death doesn't count as a well-played losing hand, so what does? Revenge, mebbe? Doesn't say.
The other Hart-written track, "There Won't Be Any More, " has a terse lilt that somehow reminds me of some British Invasion tracks, like uhhh covers like "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying"? But with more attitude.
The Riches-written (lots of originals here) "The Grass Is Always Greener" advises that, "You may think you're rollin' in clover/But you better think it over." Shaddup with that, I must not think bad thoughts!
The Complete Smash Sessions is the one to start with, but this is def worth checking out.
40 tracks, and I like at least---28? Love at least an LP's-worth.

That is, I like-to-love maybe 12 of the 28, but all 40 are worth hearing.

Listening to ILX Listen: 2019

Edd on the late great Reggie Young, a thinkin' picker---this piece might prove a tad controversial:

Reggie Young, 1936-2018
Remembering the guitarist who played on classic recordings by and in touring bands with artists from Elvis Presley to The Box Tops to James Carr and beyond
https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/nashville-cream/article/21044397/reggie-young-19362018?fbclid=IwAR1kTa3n48o4y4KTQdlRC_dQWPzkPjGGUaoc6U8ci9v58T-CH2JKfM1NO0w

Morning Edition said his first album is coming out soon, but I recently glimpsed a Spotify title---playlist or album---Reggie Young, Sideman, something like that.

btw, yall seen this? https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/cover-story/article/21041343/19th-annual-country-music-critics-poll-the-results

Appalled by the triumph of Musgraves, or I would be if her album elicted any feeling at all (you read it here first and last). Otherwise, for the most part---more than usual, seems like---some mighty fine albums here.

Although this writing is overly caffeinated at times (yes, pot to kettle), it also incl. good backstory and detailed perspective re key tracks on Willie Nelson's The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?, which the author proposes as good gateway to WN's ever-vaster stash:
https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/remember-the-crazy-album-the-irs-made-willie-nelson-release.html

And I just pre-ordered Reggie Young's Session Guitar Star, which comes out Feb. 8:

1. Slip, Slip, Slippin' in - Eddie Bond & His Stompers
2. Carol - Bill Black's Combo
3. A Touch of the Blues - Bobby Bland
4. Dream Baby - Jerry & Reggie
5. I'm Movin' on - the Box Tops
6. The Champion Pt. 1 - Willie Mitchell
7. Meet Me in Church - Solomon Burke
8. Chicken Crazy - Joe Tex
9. In the Pocket - King Curtis & the King Pins
10. More Love - James Carr
11. Don't Forget About Me - Dusty Springfield
12. Stranger in My Own Home Town - Elvis Presley
13. I Wanna Roo You - Jackie de Shannon
14. Drift Away - Dobie Gray
15. Rock 'N' Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life) - Sonny Curtis
16. Victim of Life's Circumstances - Delbert McClinton
17. Lover Please - Billy Swan
18. Morning Glory - James & Bobby Purify
19. Cocaine - J.J. Cale
20. I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink - Merle Haggard
21. The Highwayman - the Highwaymen Aka Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson
22. Griselda - Natalie Merchant
23. Whenever You Come Around - Little Milton
24. Where Do We Go from Here - Waylon Jennings

This was my list of favorites from 2018, in roughly the order I'd rank them... (sorry, dow!)

ALBUMS
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour
Ashley McBryde - Girl Goin Nowhere
Lori McKenna - The Tree
American Aquarium - Things Change
El Coyote - s/t
Eric Church - Desperate Man
Colter Wall - Songs of the Plains
Jason Eady - I Travel On

SINGLES
Ashley McBryde - Girl Goin Nowhere
Kacey Musgraves - High Horse
Whitey Morgan & the 78s - Around Here
Kacey Musgraves - Space Cowboy
Belle Plaine - For All Those Who I Love
Mike & the Moonpies - Road Crew
Brandi Carlile - The Joke
Pistol Annies - Best Years of My Life

Not a prob, sign o' the times.
Oops I meant to mention one blemish on Garcia's aforementioned Before The Dead: a set of songs of the American People complaining about marriage/wives, carefully selected for polished performances with his own first wife (who sounds pretty good), about a week after their wedding (he calls the exact time). She and the audience chuckle when he mentions this, but it reminds me of a bootlegger who claimed that Jerry sold all their wedding gifts to buy a guitar, and I'm sure he played it well. This disenchanted evening's a bummer, man, but at least it's brief.

Carefully selected, but tiresome as a set.

Chuck Eddy sez can't find old ilx pw, been trying to set up new account, hasn't heard back from mods, yo mods, meanwhile he said I could go ahead and post his Nash Scene ballot here:

Chuck Eddy's 2018 Nashville Scene Ballot

ALBUMS
3hattrio – Lord of the Desert (Okehdokee)

Heathen Apostles – Bloodgrass Vol. I & II (Ratchet Blade)

Patricia Vonne –Top of the Mountain (Bandolera)

Pistol Annies – Interstate Gospel (RCA Nashville)

The Nude Party – The Nude Party (New West)

Oliver the Crow – Oliver The Crow (OTC)

New Reveille – The Keep (Loud & Proud)

Ashley McBryde – Girl Going Nowhere (Atlantic/Warner Nashville)

Alela Diane – Cusp (AllPoints)

Haley Georgia - First Rodeo (Haley Georgia EP)

SINGLES
Faren Rachels - “Uber Driver” (River House Artists)

Jacob Powell - “Wagoneer” (Ole Red Dot)

Sarah Ross - “Nervous Breakdown” (Average Joes)

Runaway June - “Buy My Own Drinks” (Wheelhouse)

Dusty Leigh - “Adrianna” (Idahome)

Anna Vaus - “Day Job” (Espola Road)

Kira Isabella - “Little Girl” (Creator)

Gretchen Peters - “Wichita” (Scarlet Letter)

Midland feat. Jay De La Cueva - “Drinkin’ Problem (Brindemos)” (Big Machine)

Mandy McMillan - “Chasin’ the Ace” (Mandy McMillan)

Appalled by the triumph of Musgraves, or I would be if her album elicted any feeling at all (you read it here first and last). Otherwise, for the most part---more than usual, seems like---some mighty fine albums here.
Not surprised by Musgraves' win, and I don't quite get the adulation. A pleasant little folk-pop-schlock album sung in a nice-person with a very banal worldview. She doesn't know what to do with herself on the weekends without her loved one. Everyone else is having lots of fun. "Butterflies" purt near makes me gag. As does "Velvet Elvis." I like pop fine, and this is a nice, melodic pop album of no special distinction, even the much-lauded "Space Cowboy." Wonder Woman is only human.

I like Boo Ray's new Tennessee Alabama Fireworks. Jerry Rabbitt meets Don Henley and George Lowell in a taco stand in L.A. I've gotten to know Boo around town. He deserves to be a star, and I usually don't say that about people. Here's the stream: https://www.popmatters.com/boo-ray-tennessee-alabama-fireworks-2628792225.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

Boo Ray! Great name, will check.
In somewhut Related news (recycling of), here's something I posted on
Sweet Soul Music - Dan Penn, Donnie Fritts, Eddie Hinton, Muscle Shoals sound in general, etc - C or C?

Cover Me: The Eddie Hinton Songbook is an ace Ace import, easily findable for a nice price, on at least one ecommerce behemoth: Dusty Springfield, Bobby Womack, Aretha Franklin, Box Tops, Candi Staton, Sweet Inspirations, Tony Joe White, Cher, Lulu (both of whom do well (a duet might be even better), and a bunch of people I never heard of: one guy just walked in to sell a song, and the studio cats were like omg you gotta cut something, and he did and it's good but he sailed on somewhere---others are still in the biz, but not as singers,, and then there's an early protege of Bacharach and David (he doesn't sound like Dionne Warwick, maybe a little smooth but r&b for sure, and I want to hear him on some B&D songs.

Hinton's offerings, fairly frequently written w Fritts, can seem a bit generic at times, but they're usually good vehicles for better singers, and though his own voice (heard here on demo of "It's All Wrong But It's Alright"), is thin and he tends to strain it, otherwise canny phrasing provides a handy template for stronger vox, as compiler Tony Rounce points out in typically astute liner notes. Don't quite hear Left Banke in the one he does, but do hear it (as a joke on sensitive Southern Gothic x LB-type sentiment?) in some of "Poor Mary Has Drowned," as lead sung by Brick Wall's Eddie Marshall, future daddy of Chan.
(Speaking of Hinton demos, the well-produced series of same on UK's Zane label is also worth checking out.)
I don't like all of these---Willy Deville has always seemed tiresome, Don Varner's track is a Northern Soul fave, so what---but overall, oh mah soul.
track list:
1. Breakfast in Bed - Dusty Springfield
2. Down in Texas - Oscar Toney JR
3. Cover Me - Jackie Moore
4. A Little Bit Salty - Bobby Womack
5. Sure As Sin - Candi Staton
6. 300 Pounds of Hongry - Tony Joe White
7. Masquerade - Don Varner
8. Always David - the Sweet Inspirations
9. Poor Mary Has Drowned - Brick Wall
10. It's All Wrong But It's Alright - Eddie Hinton
11. Help Me Make It (Power of a Woman's Love) - Mink Deville
12. Save the Children - Cher
13. Every Natural Thing - Aretha Franklin
14. If I Had Let You in - the Box Tops
15. Satisfaction Guaranteed - Judy White
16. Standing on the Mountain - Percy Sledge
17. I Got the Feeling - the Amazing Rhythm Aces
18. Home for the Summer - the Hour Glass Featuring Greg and Duane Allman
19. Lay It on Me - Gwen McCrae
20. People in Love - Lou Johnson
21. Where You Come from - Bonnie Bramlett
22. Seventeen Year Old Girl - Mickey Buckins & the New Breed
23. Love Waits for No Man - Al Johnson
24. Where's Eddie - Lulu

New Maren Morris seems OK on first couple listens, not as much fun as the first one. I'll see which songs stick with me after a few more times through. In general I think I like her in rock mode more than R&B mode.

Listening to Maren Morris now. Just 2 songs in. I had already read the Chris Richards Washington Post review where he says he loves her voice but doesn’t like her lyrics here, and he’s kinda lukewarm on the music.

But the words, the words, the words. On her second album, “Girl,” they really gunk things up, no matter how Morris tries to sing her way through, over or around them. It feels almost criminal when a singer this expressive describes her own heightened emotional state as “the feels” — which occurs tragically and repeatedly on a song of that very title. Epic voice, basic lyrics, rough scene.

On to the “country” part. Is it still worth debating whether this high-def music qualifies as country? As a vocalist, Morris takes her Nashville inheritance — vowels that curve parallel to a twang; legible, unambiguous lyrics — and sets them to tunes built with acoustic guitars, synthesizers and electronic percussion. If pop-influenced country bugs you, try thinking of her music as country-influenced pop. Then ask yourself if there’s any difference, or if that difference matters.

Oops, that’s a cut and paste from the Post from “But the words “ down

Maren Morris release didn’t dazzle me on 1 listen. Now checking out Edd’s fave Boo Ray

the new maren morris manages to be disappointing and still p good

Is it still worth debating whether this high-def music qualifies as country?

i love to yell "no" and roll my eyes at a chris richards article

the new maren morris manages to be disappointing and still p good

Yeah, that's how I break it down to an extent.

"rsvp" is basically a r&b song and i think it's v cool

Whitey Morgan and the 78s are just a ridiculously good live band. You would figure they would be tight and good guitar players and all, being that they have been touring lots over the years but their harmony singing is fantastic. Very impressive.

seeing a lot of hype for this orville peck fellow. personally his look reminds me way too much of orion for me to take him seriously, but maybe that's just me.

Wrote thisabout Lucinda's Car Wheels.

My old laptop is down, so I had to get a new pw and username until I can remember what I had, btw. Same old me.

Glad you fared better than Chuck in trying for new pw and user name. Thanks for the Lucinda piece! She's very effective on that '18 album w Charles Lloyd and the Marvels too.

George Strait & Miranda Lambert just did a nice duet on the ACM awards. Lots of duets- Kane Brown with Khalid, Eric Church w/ uh I forgot, Brooks & Dunn w/ Luke Combs , many more

Eric Church w/ uh I forgot

ashley mcbryde

Looks promising---this decade's work with Buddy Cannon has gone well, for the most part:
Willie Nelson---Ride Me Back Home
Willie Nelson returns with another incredible addition to his legendary catalog. Once again working with longtime producer Buddy Cannon, Willie’s Ride Me Back Home sits beside 2017’s God’s Problem Child and 2018’s Last Man Standing as a trilogy of superior song craft exploring ideas of mortality with wisdom, empathy and a winking love of life. Nelson and Cannon co-wrote a handful of songs but go deep into their favorite songsmiths, great writers with great stories to tell: Sonny Throck-Morton, Guy Clark, Mac Davis, Buzz Rabin. The result is a magical collection of tunes with emphasis on the lyric. Backed by an amazing band of Nashville gunslingers, Ride Me Back Home finds Willie Nelson making some of the most inspired work of his career. Release date: 6/21/19.

I would like to go see this:

Jul
4
Willie Nelson's 4th of July Picnic at Austin360 Amphitheater
11:30 AM Austin, TX
Willie Nelson & Family • Luke Combs • Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats • Alison Krauss • Jamey Johnson • Steve Earle & The Dukes • Colter Wall • Hayes Carll • Ray Wylie Hubbard • Gene Watson • Billy Joe Shaver • Johnny Bush • Folk Uke • Raelyn Nelson Band • The Casey Kristofferson Band

Some of those sets might be good for bathroom breaks. Prob not these:

Sep
13
Outlaw Music Festival: The Mann Center
4:00 PM Philadelphia, PA
Willie Nelson & Family, Bonnie Raitt, Alison Krauss, Gov't Mule

or these? Not familiar with Luke Combs.
Sep
22
Outlaw Music Festival: Riverbend Music Center
6:30 PM Cincinnati, OH
Willie Nelson & Family, Luke Combs, Bonnie Raitt, Brothers Osborne

Luke Combs is a popular arena country singer and writer but I think you might like him

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sam-hunt-catapulted-to-stardom-five-years-ago-so-wheres-his-second-album/2019/04/29/b572c388-6a90-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html

Sam Hunt got married, toured some and has had trouble finding inspiration since to write new songs. He likes to write himself and not rely on Nashville writers

xpost, Oh yeah, that 'un, thanks. So many Lukes these days, so little time. I'm not against arena country, I just got spoiled by the late 90s-early 00s art-of-entertainment heyday of it
Drag City now makes its Rolling Country debut mebbe---adjust shades accordingly, and know yr not alone:

THE LOST CITY OF
NASHLANTIS
The annals of Nashville, the 20th century's immortal Music City, are filled with lore of the legends, as well as tales of the one-shots, the lesser-knowns and the delightful obscurities. Like the outlaw he defines himself as, Chris Gantry doesn't really fit in any of those boxes -and now, 50-plus years since he wrote his first hit, "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife", Gantry prepares to release Nashlantis, his first album of new music following the 2017 archival release of At The House of Cash.

Produced by Jerry David DeCicca and recorded in Nashville with the legendary engineer Rob Galbraith, Nashlantis features 11 mesmerizing, worn n' weathered Gantry performances. Preserving the intimate nature of Chris' acoustic guitar and vocals, Don Cento, Ryan Jewell, and Marina Peterson wove electric guitar, mandolin, synthesizer, percussion and cello into the fabric of the songs, and Edith Frost and Bill Callahan turned up at Stuart Sikes' mixing session in Austin to add harmony vocals, as well.

Nashlantis is a testament to the career and talent of Chris Gantry - the individualism that set him apart from his earliest days and his openhearted embrace of the unknown. Featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame's Outlaws and Armadillos exhibit last year (one of two living artists included), Chris's cosmic stirrings have always set him a little apart from the rest. Nashlantis makes for yet another unique chapter in the Chris Gantry catalog - a potent new entry, five decades and more down the line - the improbability of which makes it pure Gantry, all the way.

As DeCicca says: "Gantry's juiced these songs like they're speedballs. He's taken the painful and the positive and wrapped it up in a celebration of the raw and knotty thing called Song. He brought his Queens, NY accent to Nashville in 1963, ran with legends like Shel Silverstein and Kris Kristofferson, sang at Woodstock with Tim Hardin, but all that's just trivia. It's the past. It's in history books and he's still breathing, and it's his breath that is in these songs. Others went diving for a sunken treasure and never came up for air. But here he is, dry as a bone, daring us, "Do you have the stomach for this?"

"Life Well Lived," the first single from Nashlantis, premieres on Rolling Stone Country today - listen now, and prepare to sink into Nashlantis fully when it's released on July 26th!
https://ffm.to/nashlantis">-https://ffm.to/nashlantis
TOUR DATES:

7/11/19 Murmrr Theatre Brooklyn NY*
7/12/19 White Eagle Hall Jersey City NJ*

*w/ Bill Callahan

Allow me to put in a good word for my friend Paul's band Jericho Woods, who just released their new album One Perfect Sound last week. It's a more contemporary style of country than I'm generally inclined to enjoy, but it's still too trad/ish to likely get any radio action. What a weird predicament, but it's quite good.

Weird but hardly unusual! Thx for tip, will check.
xpost That link in the press release is taking too long to open, but here's another in the Stone coverage:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/chris-gantry-new-song-life-well-lived-album-nashlantis-832446/

Another yeti geezer sighting:

Will Beeley - Highways & Heart Attacks - out June 14th on Tompkins Square. The Texas songwriter's first album in 40 years

Rolling Stone Country premieres the first single, U.S. 85:

HIGHWAYS & HEART ATTACKS is a remarkable return from a singer-songwriter whose work might well have been lost to dusty record crates and the secret annals of Americana musical history. But with Tompkins Square’s 2017 reissues of Beeley’s two stunning albums, 1971’s Gallivantin' and 1979’s Passing Dream, the Texas-based troubadour finally earned the applause his distinctive songcraft long deserved, with Noisey praising his “deeply felt, little heard, folk music” and Paste noting, “With the re-release of these fine LPs, we can spend some time more fully appreciating them before (Beeley’s) very welcome return to the music world.”

“The music business is one of those things where you expect it to happen now,” Beeley says. “When it takes 40 years to happen, it kind of makes you sit back and go, I’m surprised it ever happened.”

Born at Southern California’s March Field Air Force Base, Beeley traveled the world with his family before they finally settled down in San Antonio, TX. His natural love of music was further fueled watching Townes Van Zandt performing regularly at local bars and honky tonks, inspiring him to try his own hand at singing and playing songs for a living. Though only 200 copies were printed and sold from the stage and back of Beeley’s car, 1971’s stark Gallivantin' was undeniably marked by Beeley’s emerging lyrical voice, comparable to such contemporary Lone Star State peers as Van Zandt and Michael Martin Murphey. Beeley signed an artist contract with the Mississippi-based soul label, Malaco Records, recording sessions in 1971 and 1973, with a single released in 1974.

Beeley was then given a release to concentrate on his songwriting but in 1977, he reunited with Malaco and backed by the label’s house band – which by a stroke of good fortune included such young Texas studio musicians as guitarist Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm), keyboardist Carson Whitsett (Paul Simon, Z.Z. Hill), and drummer James Stroud (Mickey Newbury, Eddie Rabbit) – recorded Passing Dream. The LP saw Beeley taking a far more ambitious approach than his debut, imbuing his deeply personal songcraft with an edgy psychedelic outlaw energy. Most strikingly, Beeley’s singing voice had evolved, colored by experience and struggle.

“But nothing ever happened,” he says. “It just kind of dissolved. I was pretty discouraged.”

Beeley withdrew from his own musical career and went about the business of real life, raising a family in New Mexico whilst working as an over the road truck driver. His guitar and pen sat untouched for years, his dreams of being a working musician long relegated to his personal back pages. But when Tompkins Square reached out about reissuing Gallivantin' and Passing Dream, Beeley was inspired once again. He reached out to Tompkins Square founder Josh Rosenthal, wondering if the label might be interested in new material. The answer was of course an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ and plans were made for Beeley to hit the studio for the first time in nearly four decades.

Recorded at San Antonio’s Blue Cat Studios with producer Jerry David DeCicca (Chris Gantry, Ed Askew, Larry Jon Wilson), GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer Joe Trevino (Flaco Jimenez, Los Lobos, Los Texmaniacs), and GRAMMY® Award-winning mix engineer Stuart Sikes (Loretta Lynn, Cat Power, Phosphorescent), HIGHWAYS & HEART ATTACKS sees Beeley backed by a combo of Americana all-stars that includes accordionist Michael Guerra (The Mavericks), guitarist Don Cento (Sarah Jaffee), bassist Canaan Faulkner (The Black Swans, Ed Askew), drummer Armando Aussenac (Neon Indian), organist Richard Martin, and GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Bobby Flores (Freddy Fender, Doug Sahm, Willie Nelson). Songs like “Been A Drifter” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” are both wistful and warm-hearted, Beeley’s rough-hewn vocals the ideal vehicle for his one-of-a-kind tales of a road well traveled and a surprise ending hard earned.

“I feel this is really the best stuff I’ve written,” Beeley says. “I recorded Passing Dream more than 40 years ago. I’m just thankful I got another chance to go in the studio and lay down some more of my tunes.”
Album trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvNpvh0Ka2U

Love this new Kelly Willis / Bruce Robison song "Nobody's Perfect" (not on YouTube but on Spotify).

Underwhelmed by their most recent solo albs, but usually enjoyed the duet sets, 'bout time for another.
I wasn't listening to much country in 1979, still haven't caught up with most of these, made while casting about in the wake of Dylan and Cash and KK and country rock and "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" and and Outlaw and Southern Rock and various prestigious Texan bards and many other thangs (Elton John,disco,Jimmy Buffet---), several years before the presentation of the New Traditionalists. Cantwell, a writer of various interests, flexible sympathies, prob didn't tag all, or maybe any, of the following results as "classics," but they're worth a read, and listen probably:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country-lists/10-classic-country-albums-turning-40-in-2019-838076/hank-williams-jr-family-tradition-elektra-curb-838230/

Looking fwd to this year's Caroline Spence, more cautiously or hypothetically hopeful about some others here:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/05/10-great-country-and-americana-albums-released-so.html?utm_source=PMNL&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=190521

Going to check out one of Edd's 2018 Reissue picks, Lefty Frizzell's Signed Sealed and Delivered, I got sidetracked by The Complete Columbia Sessions[i]: 5 volumes, from the early 50s to mid-70s (he finally went to another label, and then he died, in '75). Spotify has the whole thing in one mass; Amazon has each track as a download, but not as a box----they do carry the volumes as a series of CDs, and the ones from his last decade would prob be worth getting. Early stuff (from country's mostly pre-LP era, saleswise) is more diffuse, trying different angles, touching all the bases, but then suddenly he's a culturally deprived creative spirit, swirling over and into the gaps (depths!) between dull lines, which mean a lot to him, and hopefully her..it's amazing, but after a couple more tracks seems like another gimmick. Then he drops that approach, starts flirtatiously playing with his accent (aw-shucks-ma'am in-joke), also can play it for novelty hook, calling for "ciger-RATS and coffee," which keep him goin.'
Settles into a confidential tone: your buddy, somewhat like a pre-Don Williams, with more of a range of themes, such as pride goeth before a fall, but that's just how it went, ain't sorry, or all that sorry.
Getting a little louder and more full-throated (pre- and then para-Merle) as pride sometimes wins, at least for a while: plot-twists test and stretch the ties that bind, especially when he bests older, richer men (incl. his own father) who stand between him and (female) love objects. One is less a story than a posted warning: yes, "My Baby is a Tramp," but she had it rough growing up, he understands her, and (whatever else you do), you don't call her that---the term is reserved for himself, who now sounds older, tougher, maybe richer, than usual.
In reviews archived on his site, Xgau raves about this guy on the way to awarding Rhino's 1991[i]The Best of and Look What Thoughts Will Do (Columbia/Legacy, 1997) his rare A Pluses--I wouldn't go quite that far with the first (Spotify doesn't have it as one album, but can be easily made into a playlist), haven't heard all of the the second collection yet, though it does have some killers, they both do, and I still gotta get to Edd's pick, an original album, I think.
Bluesy, flexible inflections show up early and later: starting in the mid-40s, he def sounds like a link between Jimmie Rodgers and the other guys I mentioned, though also some lounge.

almost all in italics?! Sorry, in a hurry.

Rather than competing with Rhino's definitive 18-cut Best of, this two-CD set repeats it piecemeal around 16 newcomers, many never before U.S.-available. So says xgau about Look What Thoughts Will Do, which surely proves the point of its title track, in most of the selections, and all of the sequencing. The penny drops, the ripples spread, so look at that, and just keep looking, just keep riding--- even "Don't think it Ain't Been Fun Dear ('Cuz It Ain't") finds its own kind of fun as it keeps telling her what not to think, lest things get too real, making this zigzag twilight time more of a problem than he wants to think. Not too much time for mellerdramer in these situations, where Western Swingers are passing it to honky tonk stalwarts, elbowing more room on the dance floor and adjacent spaces, just enough to maintain some cool next to that upstart rock 'n' roll stuff (while taking notes).
Si the pained, typically up front "You Want Everything But Me" is somewhat undercut by the equally typical "I Want To Be With You Always," one of his periodic check-ins for fidelity's sake--but this time he gets to the thought that if the love nest ever falls, it'll have to be your fault, because his love is so very very very true.
His Jimmie Rodgers side comes back through the modernistical brooding of "Travelling Blues," as he at least mentally moves from the club to the barcar, going to find his baby and bring her back: it's just long and even-tempered enough---he's got a satisfied mind, and a purpose-driven life (no matter how things actually turn out; he doesn't do parentheticals)---so that it seems like the train time is becoming quite comfortable, as the slightly ominous tone fits the good ol' drone.
This impression seems seen and raised by the turn-around of "My Rough and Rowdy Ways," which sounds neither rough nor rowdy, just kinda bluesy-cowboy-dreamy, as he wants to get aboard and get away from her--no, that's too harsh: he's going from the previous track's (starting with) train-as-means-to-an-end, to something more like endless, as all expectations just kinda disappear into the freedom/habit principle and circuit: his ways, amen.
Which is not to say he can't wake up "Sick Sober and Sorry," but he jumps up too, bopping along like he does in "Just Can't Live That Fast (Any More)", and "I'm An Old Old Man (Tryin' To Live While I Can)" and a bunch of brisk shuffles in the fourth quarter--even gets a sax in "You're Humbuggin' Me" and maybe a grunty fuzz bass during the chorus of "She's Gone Gone Gone."
I especially appreciate the fact that his tedious version of"Long Black Veil" (which gives me time to think that "I spoke not a word though it meant my life, I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife" is not very believable, unless maybe the wife is a man and it's 1938 or 1838 in Alabama) is here overcome by "Forbidden Lovers," who happily cruise over to "the lonely side of town, where the music is soft and sweet" and nobody knows them, unless it's other people who shouldn't be there, and he might well have a sequel about that somewhere, out of Lefty field.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/06/patrick-haggerty-lavender-country-blackberry-rose.html

that lavender country album is worth a play!

Thanks, will check. Looking fwd to this:
INTRODUCING THE HIGHWOMEN
BRANDI CARLILE, NATALIE HEMBY, MAREN MORRIS AND AMANDA SHIRES
“REDESIGNING WOMEN” SINGLE OUT TODAY
SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM OUT SEPTEMBER 6
LIVE DEBUT CONFIRMED AT NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL
THE HIGHWOMEN TRACK LIST
1. Highwomen (written by Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, Jimmy Webb)
2. Redesigning Women (written by Natalie Hemby, Rodney Clawson)
3. Loose Change (written by Maren Morris, Maggie Chapman, Daniel Layus)
4. Crowded Table (written by Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Lori McKenna)
5. My Name Can’t Be Mama (written by Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires)
6. If She Ever Leaves Me (written by Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, Chris Thompkins)
7. Old Soul (written by Maren Morris, Luke Dick, Laura Veltz)
8. Don’t Call Me (written by Amanda Shires, Peter Levin)
9. My Only Child (written by Natalie Hemby, Amanda Shires, Miranda Lambert)
10. Heaven Is A Honky Tonk (written by Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Ray LaMontagne)
11. Cocktail And A Song (written by Amanda Shires)
12. Wheels Of Laredo (written by Brandi Carlile, Tim Hanseroth, Phil Hanseroth)
Caps verbatim from press release, sorry. See also:
https://thehighwomen.com/

from last year, but brent cobb's "come home soon" is a top notch addiction country song

posted on the AI thread but here too seems fair
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPs6wdM7S3U

Sheryl Crow: Threads, Aug. 30--The 17-song album features collaborations with a number of country artists, including Maren Morris, Chris Stapleton, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris and Vince Gill. Thanks, always handy nashcountrydaily!

Edd's very much not on Team Margo: The Margo Price c/d

Here’s Kelsey doing Powderfinger a couple of weeks ago at a differebt show - I saw her without the band but her delivery was v similar

https://youtu.be/3OXLAeQeUwU

Deelightful, thanks! She glides through the audio limits, and Like Edd said, the steel guitarist is killin' it.
Reminds me, Lee Ann Womack did a good cover of "Out on the Weekend":
ilx keeps messing with my youtube posts, but maybe this'll work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s_60MGX06k

But sometimes I kinda prefer this shorter, simpler live version--well kinda:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=6ecLa35QvNQ&list=RDAMVM6ecLa35QvNQ

i like this song from the new blanco brown record

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

Cool, thanks! Hadn't heard of him, will check album. Reminds me a little of the more (but still low-budget) electronic Lost Bayou Ramblers, as heard at a festival on American Routes (Public Radio show) recently--they've got a big-ass live album on bandcamp, might be too much of a good thing, but will see about that one too.

Speaking of Public Radio, early this week I heard a presentation of ghost etc. stories, apparently sincere first-person testimonials---but with a plethora of sound effects, sometimes drowning out the words.

I thought of that tonight when listening to Other Girls, by Lillie Mae: you could call it Southern Gothic-Goth-Americana, but the sound is shadowed just enough to be eerie---a little echo, a few instruments, like a string band with missing members, in what seems like a small, cool room), and the imagery is just enough to deliver what is always news to this simple male mind: title comes from the chilled opener, "You've Got Other Girls For That," where she lets someone know, as they're strolling along, how far she has strayed from delusion, while staying by his side---and the reason she does that is----she's telling hersefl these things too, and I think of this as Ivanka's tune, though it could be a lot of peoples, male and female, in different kinds of situations.
The loudest one here (won't ID it, no spoilers) has a "Paint It Black"-like beat, pounding on the door while she's pondering colors, but doesn't disturb the vibe. "Whole Blue Heart" is just an old country waltz about a flesh and blood lover who is a living dream, while the one in her head is the real thing--- angle-wise, same as the Texas Tornadoes' "Yew got more out of it, than Ah put into it, last night/Who were yew thinkin' of, when we were makin' love," although she didn't once let me think of that during her song: it sounds like a revelation to young Lillie Mae, not to the gnarly old TTs or their had-to-be-tough old ladies, who probably fired back answers. (She's addressing the flesh-and-blood dude---"it's like you said!"---and the whole blue heart, which they may all be inside of, but waltzing.)
Dave Cobb produced, so I guess it's not on low-budget Bloodshot (wonder if she and Lydia Loveless listen to each other), but anyway it's on bandcamp
https://lilliemae.bandcamp.com/album/other-girls
along with her 2017 solo debut, Forever and Then Some---my notes from Scene ballot:

Lillie Mae's Forever and Then Some: startling degree of fairly intimate, vivid focus and shading right away, especially considering it's her debut--but then, as the frequent Jack White accompanist says in an interview linked below, "I’ve been working since I was three," starting in the family bluegrass band, and later, after Dad split, in Jypsi, a combo with some of her sibs, who (along with still more not in the Jypsi teen line-up) play on this set, very cohesively, and non-showboating, sometimes hooky mandolinist sister Scarlett also does some writing and arranging: the style is their own sort of folk-country, though bass & drums have some pop-rock (especially pop) appeal, with occasionally noticeable electric guitar---but def. don't hear what's sometimes been described as "indie rock attack" behind the mando, fiddle and other strings (the closer goes into more of an exploratory electric folk modal thing, briefly, guess that could be considered indie-pop-rock).
Slender but effective voice, rec to fans of Victoria Williams, Whitney Rose, Natalie Maines and Sunny Sweeney (Louisiana-Texas-suggestive flexings and inflections at times, though don't think she's from that neck of the woods geographically), listened to subsets of tracks on Spotify during fairly hectic Monday, but no prob getting back into it; faves so far are "Loaner" and the title song.
Good intro and conversation:
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2017/06/30/529708788/world-cafe-nashville-lillie-mae
Is and sounds young, but has been around the block as well as the mountain.

Speaking of Sunny Sweeney, the amazing, ain't-sorry "Trophy," one of her best co-writes with Lori McKenna, could lead right into the even deeper "You've Got Other Girls For That."

Maybe not *even* deeper, but pretty striking.

re that Reggie Young piece by Edd, way upthread now: finally listened to Guitar Session Star and posted about it over on the Sweet Soul Music thread, but some of it is more relevant here (though most of it goes with the "country soul" tag). A couple of tracks are country-related in phrasing and overall autumnal feel & vibe, looking back and toward rock: remastered Dobie Gray sounds more involving on headphones now than he ever did on 70s AM radio (never heard through audiophile speakers by me), and the players are acutely responsive to the mixed emotions of the middle-aged seeker's chorus: "Gimme the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock 'n' roll/And drift away..."
Reggie's guitar lick occasionally rears its head amidst the mists of Sonny Curtis's "Rock & Roll I Gave You The Best Years of My Life," like the elusive challenge from his youth, though many details incl. "the wildest we ever played," so he maybe did reach his ideal then, he just couldn't keep riding it over the finish line to Success (eventually does find the love of a woman, who helps him understand he'll noever be a star).
Also, we get the equally atmospheric "HIghwayman" (four verses, one for each well-planted tombstone testimonial, no chorus and none needed) and Reggie gets a long leash from Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. I gotta get that Waylon audio-autobio album.
from discogs
Tracklist
1 –Eddie Bond & His Stompers* Slip, Slip, Slippin' In
2 –Bill Black's Combo Carol
3 –Bobby Bland A Touch Of The Blues
4 –Jerry & Reggie* Dream Baby
5 –The Box Tops* I'm Movin' On
6 –Willie Mitchell The Champion - Part 1
7 –Solomon Burke Meet Me In Church
8 –Joe Tex Chicken Crazy
9 –King Curtis & The King Pins* In The Pocket
10 –James Carr More Love
11 –Dusty Springfield Don't Forget About Me
12 –Elvis Presley Stranger In My Own Home Town
13 –Jackie DeShannon I Wanna Roo You
14 –Dobie Gray Drift Away
15 –Sonny Curtis Rock'N Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)
16 –Delbert McClinton Victim Of Life's Circumstances
17 –Billy Swan Lover Please
18 –James & Bobby Purify Morning Glory
19 –J.J. Cale Cocaine
20 –Merle Haggard I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink
21 –Waylon Jennings / Willie Nelson / Johnny Cash / Kris Kristofferson Highwayman
22 –Natalie Merchant Griselda
23 –Little Milton Whenever You Come Around
24 –Waylon Jennings Where Do We Go From Here

re eerie minimal echo of Lillie Mae, East Nashville witness Meghan Hayes's Seen Enough Leavers starts strong w that, as stubborn "Georgette" is trailed, tracked by bleak voice of caution: she can light one bulb in the darkness, but two or three are death debt (it's really the appliances,of course). More such BS is rebutted by Audrey Freed's guitar, but it don't stop, none of 'em do. "You'd like to say we're dying but we ain't dead yet."
Cold clear air for perspective of next song, the title track, in which seemingly fatalistic voice of experience in verses presses the willful chorus--"Crush me crush me/Blow me away/I would die more often if I could end this way"---into seeming like a call for freedom, for herself or a piece of her heart etc. to be blown free--rather than just another relapse into gothic valentine verse of habit---but it can be that too.
Later, "Potholes" could be from the POV of just another bag lady, or Mother Mary feeling used, one line makes the turn of possibilty, while she trundles along to that shopping cart beat--followed by "Cora,""I wore the pants once, tried them on for size/There were bats in my belfry/And the drums on the risers/Kept the beat for me/Set My Cora free," yay! However "Cora I don't want to leave you behind...It's sick to make a woman look away." Rec to fans of Scott Walker, at least when he was writing songs like "Big Louise," okay kind of between him and Alex Chilton==but really just a new vintage-mirage notch-niche carved by Meghan Hayes.

But otherwise--why put so much effort into the words if you're just gonna float-plod along the surface of tunes that sometimes get lost in the mist, despite the best efforts of the musos? Oh well, I'll listen some more, as should anybody looking for something worth covering, for instance. (Excellent lyrics, whatever the tune might be, for "Second to Last Stand," but I wouldn't know without the booklet, which also reveals a number of flaws that the vocals vague out on).

Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis solo albums can be uneven, especially his, since he only sings as well as he or his cover sources write, while she's more the powerful balladeer (although most people are, and her 2018 Back Being Blueseemed a little too cryptically cool, or at least reserved in a way that didn't make me want to lean it, but maybe I was just lazy, should listen again?)
But their collaborative sets, incl. true duets, and one singing back-up for the other, maybe in between going away altogether for a while; it's a marriage) are pretty solid, and exciting at times. They both step up to the title track of Beautiful Lie, for a moonlight drive through transcendent irony or just keepin' it real; whatever it is, they'll take it.
And that is the theme of these seamless covers and originals. She testifies that "Nobody's Perfect" ("Nobody won't let you down"), so she'll stick with Nobody 'til the right body comes along (and if it don't, okay maybe).
He invites himself to the table of a stranger, announcing he's just stuffed the jukebox, so they can take it "One Dime At A Time." Chortling away, the friendly type.
An old man goes to sit in the "Astrodome" and sees stuff along the way, pleased at the sight of it, pleased that he can still see and (and know or think he knows what he's seeing, sounds like, although he does tend to generalize.)
here are several that suck for the singer, are good for us: every time Huck friend thinks he's got it all figured out, here comes another head scratcher, music rouser. Oh well, he's always ready (or not, but here it comes) for another round in the Circle K Game. While she takes her stand.
Also a couple more ballads rec. to Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
Prob won't make many Top Tens, but a truly Hon. Mention.

reserved in a way that didn't make me want to lean *in*, should have been.

OMG Yall, if you, like me and some upthread, are so far hearing Maren Morris's Girl as pretty good but kind of disappointing as a follow-up to Hero, or not, better check Kalie Shorr's Open Book---comparison junkies of Rolling Stone are wrong to cite Shania, but yes ok Taylor and Alanis(at their best) do pertain at times. But it is country enough re neurosis and honed lines and twang pangs x (pop country) big boot beats at the right moments and li'l wave rows of programming at others and droney concise electric chords and I'm not gonna talk about more 'til I've listened more, hardly daring to believe it's really this good but pretty sure.

I enjoyed some of the Country Music Awards show last night. Big emphasis on Having women acts perform. Maren, Dolly, Reba, Kacey, Miranda, Gretchen Wilson and more. Sadly, Willie Nelson looked like he was struggling a bit in his duet with Kacey Musgraves. Read that he’s been sick.

Not crazy about Blake Shelton “God’s Country “

yeah, Willie was hard to watch - not just old/feeble, but he looked confused, frustrated, etc. :(

Kelsea Ballerini was a standout performance, imo.

yeah she was excellent

i also think i kinda like Luke Combs maybe?

oh and Reba was so good! god i llove her! and those 3 outfit reveals 👌🏻

willie was very ill just recently; canceled a tour which he never does. he's indestructible but yeah, looked shook live. hoping he'll bounce back shortly.

So far, still got a bunch of gigs, from tonight to end of month, then jumps to Jan. He was great on that most recent Austin City Limits show, which we talked about way up this thread or maybe prev. RC. Catch him while you can:
http://willienelson.com/tour/

yeah, i think i'm gonna have to actually pay for his next nyc gig

have seem him twice & he’s just so damn great

he looked like he was short of breath on the CMA’s, and had a wide-eyed, “lost” look a couple of times that just made me ache for him. KaceyMushrsvex seemed very caring, i liked seeing them together in spite of his ill health.

X-post- I kinda like Luke Combs too

Alison Moorer's Blood seems not as stark as I expected, nor even as somber---overcast, yeah, but the cloud cover isn't oppressively low, doesn't fog things up. It's a clear-enough dark space, mostly voice, acoustic guitar, flexing tunes, with lines, phrases, single words finding their way as needed, other sonic incidents along the way.Producer Kenny Greenberg drops in just the right bits of his and other instruments (incl. Moorer's) it's not just the same set-ups, same crew waiting for us on each track, as is so often the case.

Then again, there are some ensemble turns, like "The Rock and the Hill" is kind of spare country funk, with Moorer's recurring "Immigrant Song" wail, and a fairly universal theme, "Tired of this rock, tired of that hill."

Luminous "NIghtlight" could be love ballad of varied applications, equally radio-deady""All I Wanted (THanks Anyway)" could be note, with some push of backbeat, to ex Steve Earle, and even "I'm The One To Blame," mainly written by her murder-suicide father, finished by sister Shelby, is disarmingly lissome---yet the context, the throughline of everything here is apparent enough: it's about living all around the central incident, described succinctly in "Cold Cold Earth," the only one that sounds just like an old, old country ballad, in a veil you can see right through, for what that's worth; lots of detailed print narrative in Blood the memoir, but meanwhile she's got more to sing about.

The title track seems addressed to her sister, or maybe her son, who is also musical: they got the same blood, and though "We ain't got plenty of money, we travel along, singin' this song, side by side."

Closer is co-written with Mary Gauthier, and could be one of MG's collabs with war veterans on Rifles and Rosary Beads: "Yeah, I'm tough, but I wasn't born this way...Help me lay my weapons down..."

Ooh shit: radio *readY* I meant to say.

via fact checking cuz

An average of 18.4% of songs across the yearend country airplay reports from 2000 to 2018 were by women;
• Women have been gradually filtered out of the top positions of the yearend reports, with 10% in the Top 20, 7 % in
the Top 10 and no #1 songs;
• Total annual spins for male artists in the Top 150 of the yearend reports increases from 5.8 million in 2000 to 10.3
million in 2018, while spins for women decrease from 2.8 to 1.1 million resulting in a 9.7 to 1 ratio by 2018;
• An average of 19.6% of songs across the weekly airplay report from 2002 to 2018 were by women, this number
includes 8.8% current songs and 10.7% recurrent songs;
• Like the yearend reports, women are filtered out of the top spots of the weekly reports, with an 8.8% average of
songs in the Top 10 between 2014 and 2018.

there's a trumpian aspect to these radio stats in the way the last few years of complaints have basically just made mainstream programmers dig in and play men even more and women even less -- while being completely open about what they're doing. huge respect to writers like marissa moss and groups like woman nashville who refuse to give up the fight.

Moorer's set on a recent Mountain Stage (prob archived on that public radio show's site by now) was pretty close to the album, incl. instrumental and other poise, with good comments between and on and sometimes a little past the songs (quotes collaborator Mary Gauthier to the effect that AM's just like Blanche Dubois--now that's what calls for another songwriting session)(also, "All I Wanted [Thanks Anyway] is about and to her father, not Steve Earle like I thought, oops).
She also contributed some vocal support to husband Hayes Carll, whose performance was otherwise mostly solo---which, with and without her, was more effective overall (though also shorter) his current album, What It Is, which I've listened to on bandcamp. In the studio, his voice tends to go tepid, and certainly can't compete with those stiffly rockin' beats, which seem a little rusty somehow--but in the second half, or maybe starting a little before (gets to be a little hard to pay attention), he slows it down, and then not, but either way grows some sensuous hooks, doing his his more vivid observations and speculations more justice than previously.
A country folkie who has no prob with (better) rockin' beats, kind of a modern day Mary McCaslin, is Caroline Spence, whose 2019 Mint Condition sparingly updates her 70s Neil-Emmylou buckskin diaries, with recurring bits of nocturnal Beach House keyboard harmonies, for inst. More on her later maybe. RIYL Lee Ann Womack.

vote here if you like---gotta be from their list, but it's pretty long and varied, incl. stuff I hadn't heard of:
https://www.nodepression.com/vote-for-your-favorite-2019-roots-music-albums-in-no-depressions-year-end-readers-poll/?mc_cid=20c1744423&mc_eid=b850f832a1

Listening again to Willie Nelson's Ride Me Back Home, struck again by its nobody-but-him best tracks, no matter who wrote 'em, though there are several worthy new Willies, mostly collaborations with now long-time producer Buddy Cannon--but now also with some misgivings, Title opener seems a tad too sentimental by the middle, which is where I tend to find myself starting to Web surf, 'til he snaps back into another foreground, then starts to recede again---as so often in the past, he has this way, of repeating, seeking to effortlessly, seamlessly display shading: "Still Is Still Moving To Me," amen: great when it works, but not so much on this set, where he can seem like a singing statue of himself (not the worst thing to hear), as the faithful musos swirl around him, adeptly sustaining most of the actual listening interest, as on several albums by much lesser artists this year.
Several lovely keepers, many lovely moments, even in the background, but there are many fine Willie albums, incl. in recent years, so I'm judging this again those--kinda thinking it might be more Hon. Mention than Top Ten (gotta finish that Scene ballot)--but looking again at the track list, maybe I'm too picky? Will listen some more.

They're pretty much all keepers, one way or another, esp since I bought'em---but may never play his take on "Just the Way You Are" again: it's done well, but why?

"I don't want clever conversation, I never want to work that hard. I just want someone that I can talk to," or not, and it's okay, most likely. Maybe this selection is his song for family friend Woody Harrelson, who plays dominos with Willie all night long at the Nelson domicile in Hawaii, as reported by Rolling Stone.
I'll prob keep this in the Top Ten, not so much out of deference (I hope), but because if you want a fresh fix of Willie, you'll just have to wait for the man himself (not for long, certainly not in this decade, although having only one new album this year has been a tad worrisome). Promise of the Real know to avoid or minimize direct comparison, literalist similarity; Phosphorescent has managed some effective quasi-channeling, but doesn't have the WN range, in any sense.

One of the evergreen Imaginary Categories on my ballot: About Half Good (60-45%), which can be about half Good! (so Good that it could turn into an Hon. Mention, although I don't know if that's ever happened.) Case in point this year: Maren Morris's Girl, which sometimes ski jumps the sonic canyons, especially via the exhilarating "Gold Love," and Brandi Carlile materializes, to ditto effect, though that reminds me that mebbe MM stretched this set's potential resources a bit thin by putting for instance and especially the aforementioned Emily Dickinson freak-in "Old Soul" on The Highwomen, though that would not have been such a high Half Good (if not otherwise as exciting as this set at its best). Put the best Morris tracks from that one and Girl and last year's duet with Thomas Rhettm and omg---as for the other half or so of this, she says she went soundchasing all over, "to Brazil and shit," but pop goes the country R&B nerf could have used---more ABBA studies maybe? ABBA and Atlanta.

Then there's also About Half Good that can be good in a way might as well be below 45%, speaking of nerf. I've been a Miranda stan since she was on Nashville Idol, coming in third (first place: Buddy Jewell, second: John Arthur Martinez), and her albums just got better and better, as did her Austin City Limits sets, and I've thought of her as the John Lennon of Pistol Annies, sexistly enough, but as I was led to observe while absorbing the assier home truths of Angaleena Presley's American Middle Class, "You can't help what you think." But Wildcard increasingly and alarmingly seems trivial, yet overworked, like maybe she's trying too hard to sell herself as having a Good Damn Life, and even as a pretty bitchin' brainful blonde bombshell of assertive skills and vivid turns---all ofwhich used to be a given, a starting point, not the whole point, turning around and in on itself, getting rather schematic in the process.
I may come back to Jesus after x more listens, and I know some people enjoy it, but right now, y'all can have it---Wildcard my foot.