Rolling Country 2019

RIYL Margo Price and the Price Tags.

Somebody stole the Guit-Steel! (Well, one of them.)

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/junior-browns-iconic-guit-steel-guitar-has-been-stolen/

Who wants to talk about Yola's Walk Through Fire with me?

many xposts - Kelsey Waldon opened for John Prine when we saw him last Friday & she did an ~incredible~ cover of Neil Young’s Powderfinger

Xp The title track is glorious. Is the rest as good?

Yeah, Tim, if you want to fill us in on the rest, please go 'head! I like her verse on the Highwomen intro too, wish she was on the rest of their album.

xpost "Powderfinger," wow! Will have to look for posts of that show. She always did have a way with the covers: 2016 album incl. "There Must Be A Someone (I Can Turn To," from a late 60s LP the Gosdin Bros. made after the one w Gene Clarke (the post-Gene Byrds did it too). Here's what Edd Hurt said on RC '16((we were disagreeing w Ann Powers' passing mention of Waldon as "deadpan," though in a pretty postive context:

agree with Dow, Waldon is not deadpan--she's operating on the edge of deception with fadeaway phrasing and what could sound like undersinging. But it's not, because nearly every song features a moment when you realize she's really trying, where she adds just a little bit extra to make the vocal just a little bit more outgoing. Reminds me of a more technically proficient Gram Parsons, in a way. Also, whoever is playing pedal steel is killing it and defines the whole record. You get a sense some kind of "modal" underpinning guides her vocal approach and her songwriting, too, on my favorite, "All by Myself." This is kinda what Margo Price really ought to be doing, seems to me, and a better record.(He's referring to Price's debut; she did of course step it up on All-American Made.) Yeah, that Gosdin Brothers record is from about '68, innit, and I think it's a transitional thing between the folk-rock-country of the mid-'60s and something more like outlaw, and I remember some amazing Clarence White solos throughout.,,
― Edd Hurt, Thursday, 11 August 2016 18:48 (three years ago) link
He catches her approach pretty well, though did sound to me like she needed to project more on that album, Ive Got A Way. No prob this time, though she's still subtle with it.

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.