Rolling Country 2020

I am so sad about Joe Diffie. 8yo crüt was a big fan

Kalie Shorr released an amazing album last year---now she says she got c-19 while in quarantine (tho did go for groceries):

@kalieshorr
Despite being quarantined (except for a handful of trips for groceries) for three weeks, I managed to contract COVID 19. I'm feeling significantly better, but it's proof how dangerous and contagious this is. It's endlessly frustrating to see people not taking this seriously.

This McBryde album is loud. I'm impressed.

Wow...came out last year, but Koe Wetzel's "Ragweed" coulda been commercial alternative top 10 circa 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkAkfPWEA0

That aforementioned AMC livestream fest w Brandi Carlile and many others is tonight:

What is ‘ACM Presents: Our Country’ about?
According to the official CBS website: ACM Presents: Our Country will feature intimate conversations and at-home acoustic performances with top artists, along with clips of their favorite moments from the Academy of Country Music Awards’ 55-year history. Stars will appear from their homes via video chat to share heartfelt thoughts and perform acoustic versions of country hits.

Among the performers at the event will be Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley, Kane Brown and John Legend, Luke Bryan, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Sheryl Crow, Florida Georgia Line, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Tim McGraw, Old Dominion, Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, and Keith Urban.
Thanks nj.com, more incl various ways to watch w links to same:
https://www.nj.com/tv/2020/04/how-to-watch-acm-presents-our-country-concert-live-stream-guide-start-time-schedule.html

Think I might skip most of the acoustic at-home etc.; a little bit goes a long way.
But here's one more, re that Steve Earle project upthread (saw it too late for the Fecebook stream, but will be rerun and maybe posted somewhere):
Steve Earle is set to perform a special live stream this Sunday, April 5th beginning at 3pm Eastern via his Official Facebook page as well as the Sirius XM Outlaw Country Official Facebook page as well. The solo performance will commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed twenty-nine men in West Virginia on April 5th, 2010, making it one of the worst mining disasters in American history. The audio from the live stream will also air via Earle’s weekly Hardcore Troubadour radio show on SiriusXM Outlaw Country, Channel 60, next week (premiering April 11th at 9pm Eastern).

Earle’s live stream performance will feature the songs he wrote for and performed in Coal Country, a new play with music based on the disaster written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson and directed by Jessica Blank. Opening on March 3rd to critical acclaim at The Public Theater in New York City, the production was postponed after two weeks due to COVID-19.

announcement from Michael Timmins---seems like it should go on a Rolling thread for recurring exposure:

... we have some new music for you to listen to and hopefully provide you with a small distraction. It's a set of songs that we've been working on for the past year and which we were set to launch when our worlds turned upside down. The plan was to release a very limited edition, audiophile double-album made up of a re-mastered, re-cut version of All That Reckoning along with a second disc that contains the new music, Ghosts. We have the test pressings and they sound beautiful. But, as you all know, logistics are difficult right now, so we are delaying the release of the vinyl (there will be no CD) until the world returns to something resembling normal.

In the meantime we have decided to release the new music on streaming sites everywhere. It's an intense set of songs, but that's probably not a surprise to you....read on if you are interested in the genesis of Ghosts.

****

In July of 2018 we released our album All That Reckoning. Two months later our mother died and we realized that there was more reckoning still to come. Ghosts is the result of that realization; a suite of songs revolving around grief, pain, fear, anxiety, beauty; a set of songs examining the complexity of emotions that subsume us after losing a parent. We were writing and creating these songs while we were touring ATR and as they took shape it became clear to us that they belonged as part of, or at least as an addendum to, the songs that make up All That Reckoning. They deal with the ultimate reckoning, the reckoning that comes with the death of a loved one and the reassessing that one goes through as one tries to process such a loss.

The concept behind this project was to present it as a two disc vinyl-album set. All That Reckoning and Ghosts work best as two bodies of work, reflecting off of each other, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of men....so in the meantime enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. You can stream Ghosts here (the music is being added to more streaming sites every day):
stream
https://cowboyjunkies.lnk.to/Ghosts

sam hunt album... thoughts? i pretty much love it

Farm Aid, the non-profit organization whose mission is to build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America, and AXS TV, the premier U.S. cable channel for music programming, presents a special broadcast of At Home With Farm Aid, featuring performances by acclaimed artists and Farm Aid Board Members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews, on Saturday, April 11, starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

The hour-long live event reunites Farm Aid president Willie Nelson, joined by his sons Lukas and Micah, with fellow music legends and Farm Aid board members Mellencamp, Young, and Matthews for an intimate performance to raise funds and awareness for farmers impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unique concert captures the quartet as they each tune in from their own homes and studios to deliver an unforgettable night of music that viewers will not want to miss. At Home With Farm Aid airs as part of AXS TV's new "@Home And Social" initiative-an ongoing series giving artists a platform to broadcast live performances from their homes and studios directly to their fans, with proceeds supporting those in need as a result of the coronavirus. Viewers can enjoy the simulcast on AXS TV and at https://www.farmaid.org/, as well as across the Network's various social media platforms.
...Additionally, viewers can relive powerhouse performances from Nelson, Mellencamp, Young, Matthews and more when AXS TV presents The Best Of Farm Aid 2019 on Sunday, April 12, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The two-and-a-half-hour special compiles footage from AXS TV's live broadcast of the 2019 festival, giving viewers the best seat in the house for hit-packed sets from Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Tanya Tucker, Margo Price, Yola and Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real, among others, as well as Bonnie Raitt's previously-unaired performance of "Devil Got My Woman"-seen now for the first time on television.
http://www.axs.tv/ https://www.farmaid.org/

Tyler Mahan Coe
@TylerMahanCoe
· Apr 7
How has there never been a tribute comp from women artists to Merle, called Girl Haggard?
Show this thread

Margo Price
@MissMargoPrice
Okay, when this is all over, I want to start this cover band. I’ll play drums and sing. The line up is all ladies and we only play Merle Haggard songs. GIRL HAGGARD. Who’s in?

Margo Price
@MissMargoPrice
·Apr 7
This is obviously a joke y’all Face with tears of joy but maybe we’ll play *one* show

(Also says there will be a new Margo album out this summer.)

Yeah, it got bumped from May(?). Sturgill produced. I started a thread for her that didn't take off: The Margo Price c/d

X-post — I want to hear the Sam Hunt album but haven’t gotten to it yet

i like it a lot! "young once" is my shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3KT-2fBIZo

honestly reading about it, i feel like the hip hop narrative is pretty overplayed. just think it's a really good modern country record w/ some slight affectations

I have really, really enjoyed Aubrie Sellers' album from this year.

aubrie's record features steve earle and is pretty psychy and has a lot of surprising touches, like a squealing theremin on one song, and one song starts off with a legitimate scream. it's very kacey though aside from that

Tre Burt is folk and not country but it's Prine-adjacent so I'm putting it here
https://treburtmusic.bandcamp.com/album/caught-it-from-the-rye

i like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9obo3cuas

Realized while listening to "2016" that Sam Hunt's voice has quite a bit of Richard Buckner in it.

That Sam Hunt “Young Once” song does not have the hiphop signifiers he has been labeled with. Just modern country that utilizes the formula in a good way.

The Caylee Hammack one is a tad more traditional but still formula country that works.

Just started watching the xpost farmaid special: Willie and his boys in a limber set-down set--pick it, Paw!

Oops, looks like they're fixing to continue or rerun on axs.tv----meanwhile https://pitchfork.com/news/sturgill-simpson-tests-positive-for-covid-19/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9358004/coronavirus-complicates-nashville-fragile-studio-business

dunno why ilx won't let me post youtubes on chrome, trying firefox
If you can't see this, it's one of my fave later Rosanne tracks, "Biloxi," written by Jesse Winchester:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDhV5SscEgc

https://www.cavenders.com/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-Cavenders-Library/default/dw4e4f8b8e/images/image-promotions/Farming%20Singing%20Horizontal%20copy.jpg

A VIRTUAL CONCERT
BENEFITTING TEXAS FFA FOUNDATION
SATURDAY, APRIL 25 AT 7PM
100% of proceeds will benefit the Texas FFA Foundation.
Streaming on Billy Bob's Texas Facebook Page

The full lineup of performances will be announced throughout the week, beginning Tuesday, April 14 at 10 AM on Billy Bob’s Texas Instagram stories - @billybobstexas. All of the performers are proud to call the great state of Texas their home and several of them have a personal history and connection with the FFA.

Performances by:
Aaron Watson
Casey Donahew
Cleto Cordero of Flatland
Cody Johnson
Jack Ingram
Josh Abbott
Kevin Fowler
Koe Wetzel
Mike Ryan
Neal McCoy
Parker McCollum
Pat Green
Randy Rogers
Tracy Byrd
Wade Bowen
William Clark Green

more info here: https://mailchi.mp/2911/billy-bobs-texas-cavenders-announce-lineup-for-virtual-concert-april-25th?e=2d74d5e1e7

Well now, Smithsonian Folkways has acquired the Western Jubilee label---sampler here incl. Peter Rowan & Don Edwards, Norman & Nancy Blake, also Don & Norman and each in other configs and solo, plus Katy Moffat, Tom Morell, Sons of the San Joaquin. Michael Martin Murphy, many more:
https://smithsonianfolkways.bandcamp.com/album/take-me-back-to-the-range-selections-from-western-jubilee-recording-company.
Note on left side this page: links to other recent Smithsonian Folkways releases...

Hadn't seen this good thread 'til recently:
Keith Whitley

Finally listed to Expectations, and duh hear even more of what y'all were carrying on about Pruitt than I did via the brief livestream mentioned above, with even more of the same qualities. As with her Rounder labelmate Caroline Spence, there's the sheen, not too slick, of cohesive, flexible small-group sound (wiki lists lots more instruments than I consciously heard: all about the total effect, yet with no sense of blur or poderosa). It's centered, but there's always room for her to wheel around and hit a note over the plate, when that's called for. She (maybe) never goes arena, even in my headphones, though certainly loud enough. There's an increasing sense of (not straining but) striving, traveling the layers of self-and-other-realization, through the releases and tensions of credible relationship realness (best video : "Loving Her, " with Pride Day Parade x one KP, thankful and thoughtful and thinking some more in the backyard, joined then by gf).
So, this is compatible with shelter-in-place sociability, streaming bonding, and with Chely Wright's Lifted Off The Ground, re a new, true, btw gay, country pop mainstream---well, country pop mainstream for Rounder, but that kind of accessibility, anyway.
The grand finale even conjures Golden Age of CMT--not in video, but no need for that: not with audio evocations of slow-dancing couples in cowboy hats, lit by flaming Zippos of appreciation---yes, the good kind of arena---but, it does go on awhile, and I hope she doesn't develop some of Rufus Wainwright's tendency to longwindedness--just bccause they can both hold notes for---quite awhile---doesn't mean they should do it all that often.

Your Life is a Record seems like a trite title at first---oooo, The Soundtrack of Our Lives---and there's Brandy Clark in her big bells, standing by a jukebox , with a Western-type backdrop, and it's twilight time, awww---but she quickly proves her point: especially on headphones, it's a vessel--not a shot glass, or a flute---the instrument, occasionally, but not the glassware---something more spacious, like a goblet, or a tumbler, jar---of some sonic fluid---goes down smoothly, warms and energizes or doesn't lower the level anyway, with some notes, other details I may catch up with on the next round---it's a meta-mechanism, a way to cope, as she gets through the days and nights of what is, despite the attraction to present tense tributes, not even a break-up album, but further down the road---and yet not. You know. "The Past is The Past," here's where that happens, and she's cruising through it, end of the record, back to the beginning.

So she wrangles, traffic manages the insights/momentary summaries and plateaus, slight return of what if I had, what if we were to, coming back after casting aside the scorekeeping: "We loved each other, so---fuck the rest." But still---what if we--nope, so "Can We Be Strangers?" Ehhh, maybe, maybe not, the record keeps turning, and also there's more of the outside inside world, "We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat", with Randy hewman, sounding better than he has in a long time.
"Pawn Shop" could be a tearjerker, the way she co-wrote it, but not the way she sings it (sounds like she knows that having to go there isn't the worst fate---she's been around).

Marshall Chapman, Songs I Can't Live With Out---so look at the set list, and think "OK Boomer," even if you are one, but she makes them her own/shows how they are. Not only does she decline "to write my way out" of something or other one more time," she declines to sing some of the high, and some of the low, maybe some of the middle notes too; I don't know, declining so far to do any comparative listening, to the originals or many preceding covers of these well-roasted chestnuts, because it just doesn't seem necessary/does seem like too much work. Never thought of her as having a vocal style, but apparently she does: an expressive near-minimalism (near enough, without losing any of the words), and the musos play just the right notes in the right way, though instrumentation isn't always just the same---a little more Rock on "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?", which she doesn't sing with remembered ingenue-ity, like Carole King, but just as an honest, straight-forward question, kind of startling for a non-ingenue, but so candidly concise that you know she's mature enough to do that, however vulnerable otherwise.
"Don't Be Cruel" has some piano notes, just the right ones of course, and I could almost swear Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie are backing her on "Tennessee Blues," and JJ Cale must approve of this "After Midnight" even more than Clapton's, despite the difference in royalty checks: you can't take it with you, so it seems.
Was prepared to skip "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands," but it's an effective finale, esp with speaking her mind:"I worry about the people I love. Hell, I even worry about myself!"

Dow, thanks for keeping this thread alive and highlighting some good new tunes.

Thanks! Here's another covers album: The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury, by Gretchen Peters. Cut to the chase: most of the time, when Newbury's words reach an emotional dead end/are misty and bleached out, floatin' on the clothes line one too many times---now he's got me doing it--but most of those times, the music keeps going, unpacking and setting things up on the um consolation medicine shoe truckbed---anyway! Peters and her crew bring out the richer colors and other signs of life in the melodies and rhythms---opener "The Sailor" is restless and murky, sometimes a little too much of the latter, but mostly in good proportions, especially when top-of-game Newbury words emerge, "I never met a stranger/'Til I'd known him for a time."
She also lines them up well, so, for instance, when the "She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye" guy. who's been dumped one more time, and know's he'll soon be surrounded by pitying eyes--no merciful murk this morning, fumbles his way to "It's not her heart, it's her mind"--she ain't mean, she just crazy, so forgive her, Lord, he does seem pitiful, sticking that little poison pin in
---but then, he finds his own mind in a paper bag, in thee excellent "Just Dropped in To See What Condition My Condition Was In," annd his unsatisfied mind is. frankly, quite a mixed blessing and bag all through this set: oh he'll show you alright, but his heart, Lord, means so well, so we can all be alone together, taking solace in the sounds (radio-ready, as written).
Desperate times call for desperate measures, so sometimes he even rocks, or this album does, given the material: "Tell Me Why You Been Gobe So Long" could be Jerry Lee, "Leavin' Kentucky" could be Pistol Annies.
And I like the way hopeful little folks of successive decades barely get a chance to set out in the verses, before the choruses of "Heaven Help The Child" come swooping back, look out! So many radio-ready songs make me sick of that money-shot chorus, no matter how good it might be in relative moderation---but this works, it's even the point, I'm pretty sure.
"San Francisco Mabel Joy" works technically, except the tear-jerking twist at the end is one way too many, ack puuuke, but I think that's the only song/track that's entirely indigestible, once you know where it's going (fairly sodden even before that).
Not sure about "Saint Cecelia," since Peters swallows a bunch of words again, but suspect it's just as well.
Damn if "Three Bells for Stephen" doesn't work as finale: Mickey Newbury, in the role of---Stephen Foster, ladies and gentlemem, AKA "Deeear hearts, and gentle peeeople"---yes, it suits him, and he's got the chops to get away with it, at least when Peters and them are channeling Newbury channeling ect.--I think. Check it out maybe.
https://gretchenpeters.bandcamp.com/releases (Seems like all of her albums are here.)

Ashley McBryde, Never Will: now that I've listened several times, the title reminds me of Sun Ra's Nothing Is, only more so, because it's a grower---not a grabber, but a taste worth acquiring. Also, her second , self-released set was Elsebound, oooo---but don't get thee wrong idea, bub, she ain't no Star Trek gyrl---arrival on Warner Nashville was---tah-dahhh!---Girl Going Nowhere.
This is so country that it may be post-country, not in terms of tunes and arrangements, but lyrics and singing. especially considering what's expected of young female artists, incl. the sassy ones: Notice of "One Night Standards" is served, take it or leave it, with no show of conscience or wounds or revenge sex or giving up on love or even brass, just, this is how it's gonna be, and mostly what we won't do, which is mostly not to talk about our pasts or futures or even much of the present, except mebbe "That's all, " or "Move over" (well that will have been for the better-be-immediate future).
So, a lot of bad and some possibly good memories and other possibilities are excluded, *almost* conspicuous by their absence, but her motel room is solid.
Hell, even "Shut Up, Sheila" ("Why don't you and Jesus go take a walk down the hall") is smack-down as brush-off: the hospital room machinery around "my mother's mother" is already loud enough to compete with the family discussion; they don't need any more noise. Secular no-frills values phrased in a way that recalls Hank Jr.'s "We say grace, we say ma'am, if you don't like that, we don't give a damn," although they'd only agree with him about that last part, and even then def. minus his agonized sonic martyrdom. She's putting in just enough effort to spell it out, for somebody who can't take a hint, that's all.
The relatively softer, lighter (gray) "Stone" ("You and me are cut from the same stone," she muses to someone gone) spells a possibility just enough for me to think that her telling said goner that she's "shy like you," but not so it shows, is one reason for her solid-to-heavy vocal tendency, her black hole for the usual country sunshine and moonshine: it's sonic armor.
But solid can be stolid, inert, even, on some tracks---like the less-good works of Tracy Nelson---and her accompaniment should never just rumble along inpassively, cos she can do that. She can sing higher, as on Stone"-- also seems to be overdubbing some self-harmony tracks at times---and on "Velvet Red," where the music does change it up (as happens often enough, really: seems like 7.5 keepers out of 11 songs), into sweet tattoo popgrass: her parents got drunk on Velvet Red and made a baby, so they named her Velvet Red, awww---like The Band Perry looking at family pictures.
Family stuff comes back to life and death in the heavier "Martha Divine," addressed to Daddy's sidepiece: "My Mother is an angel, my father--is not--and some of him's rubbed off on me...How can it be murder, if I bury you alive," and if the 'thoratahs don't agree, "I'll say the devil made me do it." ("Rubbed off, " eh?) And "Voodoo Girl" is slamming toward country metal (couple power ballads here too maybe? But if so, with no mullet nostalgia, believe it or not)
Was thinking she's taking the Gretchen Wilson stance further, though she doesn't claim to be a redneck, and even, in the spoken word intro to "Styrofoam" (which cruises along to an ain't no-big-electronic- groove-thang), she easily reads what she says are her notes re origin of good substance, pronouncing words like "extruded" with no show of effort or achievement, then with a satisfied mind lists many ways you can make use of the sty, would go well with "Red Solo Cup."
Still--the stolid selections, though not that numerous, leave a lingering impression, so far: why I said it it's a grower, not a grabber--overall, I do get into it more than I ever did Girl Going Nowhere, but maybe now I'll go back to that, and look for her indies.

Search suggests mentions of Nicole Atkins on ILM (and there ain’t many) are largely confined to the Rolling Country threads, so bumping this one to say her new LP, Italian Ice is really good.

Thanks for the reminder, Jeff! Yeah, here she is on bandcamp: https://nicoleatkins.bandcamp.com/album/italian-ice
Will prob be more Related than Country when it's time for ballots, ditto Shelby Lynne's s/t, although it is romantically fixated, maybe self-torturing enough to qualify for real country. Musically, seems like she's absorbed Dusty In Memphis (less the vocals than basic combos, some of the writing and what makes both of those cohesive, regardless of source), maybe Irma Thomas, Bonnie Raitt, Barbara Lewis---but, aside from her own "I Got You," it never comes off as yet more classy sincere retro: everything goes where she needs it to, right now, to stand and express herself---idiomatically, sometimes idiosyncratically, but clearly enough.
(True even when Cynthia Mort's words go riding with Lynne's music, which is about half the time.)

So usually she's thinking out loud/bumping around the bulbs and walls of her head, but she's never mumblecore, can and does project, even before "Here I Am," the showstopper---or so it could be--- but is easily followed by the eeriest track, "The Equation," a surefooted sleepwalker, sleep prowler.

She's cool, or at least keeps the air conditioner on, never complacent---another time, she confesses:
Trapped inside my stories keeps me going/Don't count the days I've been gone/Dark glasses shield me from my intentions/And loneliness/Puts me in my place/Another West Coast sun is going down...

Oh yeah, speaking of growers-not-grabbers, I've been getting (not too slowly) into Steve Earle's aforementioned Ghosts of West Virginia more than expected. POV character works hard, plays hard, eventually gets "Black Lung," which he's well aware he wouldn't have if he stayed out of the mine,"but then I wouldn't have nothin." Spends it all, incl. on Saturday night (cue for hillbilly rockabilly "The Fastest Man Alive"), because it won't do him no good "on Judgement Day"(later "under the ground," which he prob means both ways). The balance of electric and acoustic music adds dimension and direction, also balancing his limited voice, which he's learned the hard way not to strain, even when he's calling out the names of dead miners, on "It's About Blood," with the Dukes swelling into a thundercloud that never bursts.
The vocal that I can't get out of my head is by Eleanor Whitmore, whose fiddle may have taught her how to sing up and down the walls like that, while her man is gone (she's used to it, but doesn't like it).
Wish there were more songs from her point of view, also other non-miners, for instance commenting on what minecentric living does to a community---especially when a lot of natives (even before John Prine's Daddy) got the hell out.
Also, he doesn't go near the Trump-favoring tendencies of some left-behinders---for a bit of that, and other stuff like mountain meth and getting "Knocked up, my-my," see solo albums, esp. debut, of knockee Angaleena Presley.

Three comparatively humdrum tracks out of ten, but they gain by context, especially "The Mine," which is hopeful in a Springsteeny way, which means sing-songy yet empathetically ironic---sure, kid, things'll be all better when you got a job down in there.

i love the Earle album, it's very on point for the moment

Yeah, man---what is it about that mountain-associated music that gets this Houston-to-Nashville-to-NYC guy going like that? Train A-Comin', with Norman Blake and Peter Rowan, The Mountain, with the Del McCoury Band, and now Ghosts of West Virginia.

as a Nashville-to-NYC guy myself, I'd say that you should never be against an ethically-sound, thoughtful urbane hayseed but that's likely just my upbringing talking

Update from xpost Marshall Chapman:

Tomorrow (Friday) I'll be doing a special livestream compliments of Country Standard Time on FaceBook starting at 4pm CT (5pm ET, 2pm PT). I'll be playing songs, telling stories, and taking your requests.

Then on Saturday at 3pm CT (4pm ET, 1pm PT), it's back to my regular weekly livestream (also via FaceBook) from Springwater.

As some of you know, my new CD Songs I Can't Live Without is out and running. So if you haven't already, you may order it by clicking here. All orders will be mailed within one week of purchase. And as a bonus, each order will include a signed essay I wrote about the recording of this album ... why I chose each song ... what each song has meant to me over the years, and so on.

It's been great hearing from everyone. We need to all stick together during these turbulent times. Here's wishing you strength, peace, and love.
Visit Marshall's new Website
https://www.tallgirl.com/

oho--words of prisoners set to music by various artists:
https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/on-long-time-gone-prison-music-project-gives-voice-to-those-society-dehumanizes/?mc_cid=8c11eb8572&mc_eid=b850f832a1

Diplo's country-pop-hip-hop-etc album, with Thomas Rhett, Young Thug, Zac Brown, others:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/diplo-nashville-country-album-thomas-wesley-1010729/

i hate diplo's country production; particularly unhappy with the direction he's pointed Cam in.

WTF happened to Cam? She's working with Diplo now? Made one great album 5 years ago that was a smash radio success - seemed to have cracked the contemporary female pop country puzzle while still having some substance to the songs. "Diane" was pretty good, too. It was surprising not to see her make another album with Bhasker in 2017-2019 range.

She did "So Long" with him last year, also her own acoustic version, with just 2 or 3 Nashville cats. Another Cam album is coming out this summer, according to Rolling Stone, but I haven't found a title or date. According to this coverage, her recent co-writers incl Natalie Hemby, Liz Rose, Lori McKenna:
https://www.songwriteruniverse.com/cam-songwriter-interview-2020.htm

Video of her new track, "Til There's Nothing Left," embedded in that article: very nice! Still cracking country media guardrails for females, hopefully.

Oh, and while we're still waiting for yon studio Margo, this is mostly pretty fahn as in fine:
https://margoprice.bandcamp.com/album/perfectly-imperfect-at-the-ryman Though I must wanr yall that she does "Proud Mary," and it's the slow-fast "PM": like the Ike & Tina def w/o Ike & Tina. Otherwise, in descending order of complaints, she sometimes extends the ends of lines with bah-bah vibraaato (Shakira does it better), the drinkin' medley seems maybe(?) a tad awkward, like she and the Price Tags needed to rehearse this bit of their old club act maybe(?) a tad more, and some words fall down a well---but the overall momentum and emotional relevance don't. In other words, it's one live album that doesn't seem to have gotten any tweaks, and needed hardly any. (But I'd skip that "Proud Mary" if I were you).

i think Cam is a major talent; she's a monster live and more than half of Untamed is absolute top level pop country. I'm just flummoxed by her many lacking crossover misfires: the boring Sam Smith track (which undoubtedly got her real paid), the unnecessary Christine and the Queens cover, the obligatory generic Christmas song, the Diplo thing. Both of the new singles sound disposable to me, but I could give "Nothing Left" another try i guess? I'm hopeful there's more there there but i need to hear it.