Rolling Country 2020

CD is totally worth getting, if you still get any CDs.

Okay, turned off the boombox SFX, that works too.

Maybe modern CDs don't need 'em, they've become overkill. (CD yet another example of a. technology being perfected as settles into obsolescence.)

Oops, still missed some of this song:
They could kinda play but they could really drink

Somebody’d finally say exactly what they think

And sawdust Pine-Sol and last night’s beer

And a bolo tie on a rear view mirror

There’s a fighter in every dancin’ fool

I watched it all as a baby from a black barstool---still need the cheatsheet sometimes. (Sound clear enough that I could tweak a couple of those lines as posted, which were not quite as sung.)

And then, speaking of Mather(s) matters, there's "Half-Hanged Mary," "based on a poem by Margaret Atwood":

Ladies who lunch stood around watchin’

Counted on her to cover their debauchin’

Tying her dress with a tattered sash

Now her necklace is a ropey rash

Had to put her down with them wicked rabies

‘Fore she made more black cat babies

Can’t serve antiquated charms

Please your countrymen with them marked up arms

When you’re spookin’ the cow, spillin’ the hay

Boilin’ bedsores and forgettin’ to pray

Blow, Blow

https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/10/07/morgan-wallen-appears-party-maskless-ahead-snl-debut/5907167002/

Morgan Wallen now will not be on SNL due to maskless behavior.

xpost I tried the E.Cook CD in a more modern boombox, more options (playing and recording from MP3 etc.)---tried several EQ presets and they all sound good, bringing vocals into the foreground w no instruments too close. Panasonic RX-D55. Not every word is crystal clear, but might be intentional, so as to encourage more listening. The overall effect always has been expressive.

Also, speaking of John Prine's birthday, I tweeted Cook's new "Mary, The Submissing Years," inspired by JP's 'Jesus, The Missing Years." I don't trust ilx to let me post the YouTube, but it's a good 'un.
Also, speaking of John Prine's birthday (today), Steve Earle tweeted this:

John and I were doing one of Emmylou Harris's CONCERTS FOR A
LANDMINE FREE WORLD in London. It was a "guitar pull" all of the
artists seated on the stage, taking turns singing songs and telling
stories. Halfway through my guitar break in HOMETOWN BLUES, I
quipped, "Ladies and Gentlemen, at no time do my fingers ever leave
my hands." I'd forgotten, not only where I'd stolen that bit from, but
who I was sitting next to. John glanced over with a knowing twinkle
in his eye and mouthed,
"STEVIE GOODMAN"
Busted.
Happy Birthday, Maestro
-Steve Earle

I was at that show I think! Prine, Earle, Emmylou, Elvis Costello and Nanci Griffith IIRC.

Ah. EC has a new 'un, what little I've heard was pleasantly surprising. Nanci Griffith hassn't surfaced in quite a while, or did I miss it?

Never have really followed this venerable act, but the following round-up will be worth checking out:

Asleep At The Wheel Partners with Austin City Limits For Five-Decade Career Retrospective On October 31st
Includes footage from the band’s eleven appearances on the show; from the very first episode of ACL to more recent performances with Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, and the Avett Brothers Meh on Avetts own TV and radio sets, but maybe they'll be better, anyway can listen around them; they're not that loud.

ACL Presents: 50 Years of Asleep at the Wheel setlist:
“The Letter That Johnny Walker Read” - 1976
"Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” - 1978
“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” - 1996
"Roly Poly" ft. The Texas Playboys - 1993
“Hesitation Blues” ft. Willie Nelson - 2009
“Nothing Takes The Place of You” - 1976
“Blues for Dixie” ft. Lyle Lovett - ACL Hall of Fame 2015
“Let Me Go Home Whiskey” - 1976
“After You’ve Gone” ft. Willie Nelson, Freddy Powers, and Johnny Gimble - 1981
“I Can’t Give You Anything But Love ”- 2015
“Boogie Back to Texas” - 1988
“Milk Cow Blues” - 2015
“Miles and Miles of Texas” - 1996, 2002, and 1980
“Choo Choo Boogie” - 1978, 1988, and 1996
“Pancho and Lefty” ft. Willie Nelson - 2009
“Take Me Back to Tulsa” ft. The Avett Brothers and Vince Gill - 1996, 2015, 1978, and 1976
“Cotton Eye Joe” - 1980

ACL Presents: 50 Years of Asleep at the Wheel is only the kickoff of a coming year-long celebration of the band’s five-decade milestone. This past week, Asleep at the Wheel’s fearless leader and founder Ray Benson took part in “Thriving Roots,” AMERICANAFEST’s virtual conference, announcing the coming special and screening an hour-long interview and documentary produced by the Texas Music Office for all digital festival attendees to enjoy. Additionally, Benson and Asleep at the Wheel are currently being featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Outlaws and Armadillos exhibit and as part of the Whitliff Collection at Texas State University’s museum.

Fans, new and old, should stay tuned in to asleepatthewheel.com in the coming months because Benson and Asleep at the Wheel are just getting started with their big celebration.

Not Country, strictly speaking, but def Related, with several acoustic stringed instruments---also one electric that I've so far noticed as such, the steel guitar---being switched around from track to track, 15 of which, average time prob about 3:00 or a little shorter, fully equipped scenes and situations and thought trains rolling through, from headphone to headphone, so it's like I said about this fall's continuing volumes of G.Welch's Boots 02: The Lost Songs, though the unified effect is maybe even more striking because of the variety, which also incl. Haitian Kreyòl folk songs, like it says in the notes: perfectly compatible w Leyla McCalla's original composing, arranging and co-picking, on Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute To Langston Hughes(2014 album, reissued 10-16-20, I think).
Traveling man LH worked and saw and heard a lot and thought it about long enough to see how to make his latest take concise, so he and his readers could keep going with fellow feeling expressed in a personalized, one-to-one way, and senses refreshed.
(His metrics are also personalized in an accessible way, and in any case she makes adaptation seem easy.)
It's a blues life too, with hope in there as well, certainly liveliness, though the New Orleans background of McCalla comes out in a leafy urban-folk-country-old-time way that isn't too nostalgic; the subject matter sure isn't.
stream etc.it here:
https://leylamccalla.bandcamp.com/releases
Stream/download/order LP, CD here:

Stream/download it all here (vinyl and CD also available):
https://leylamccalla.bandcamp.com/releases

Oop thought that first ending had disappeared

I’ve lost touch with Costello and Griffith, for good or ill.

The show in question must’ve been in the very late 90s or early 00s.

what did yall think of the charley crockett record that came out this year? didn't see it mentioned in here

Hadn't heard of it, how is it?

i like the charley crockett record though i wanted to like it a little more. he's like a countrypolitan dave alvin.

Including that you wanted to like it more than you did, or *despite* the fact that he's like a countrypolitan Dave? Don't think I've ever heard Dave go in that direction.
To me, he's been on a roll in recent years, at least counting the duet albums and the current studio odds&sods, which is as good as any reg. release of his, as I talked about upthread. Will check out Charlie, thanx for mentions yall.

Also most of his live Yep Roc at 15 EP is good. Might be more stuff on his bandcamp page by now, hmm.

Including that you wanted to like it more than you did, or *despite* the fact that he's like a countrypolitan Dave?

two separate thoughts. his songwriting and vibe reminds me of d alvin. the countrypolitan production does not. but both of those things are in wheelhouses of mine. songwise, it's a little less consistent than it could have been.

i too like it but wanted to like it more. there's something about his voice being a regular-guy voice that i like, and that meshes with that production style well. the songwriting for me is good, but not great. whoever played steel guitar on this rules tho

Oho, that last bit decides for me, I'll check it out for sure!

however much i wanted to like it more, i did find myself craving to listen to it again today for whatever that's worth

RIP and Rat On:
@bill_knapp
Replying to
@BillClinton
Grateful for all the wild Saturday nights w Mr. Walker. Blessed to have seen him with Jimmy Buffett in a dirt floor county fair livestock barn outside Eugene. Jerry Jeff fans had brown liquor. Jimmy fans had white. We shared our libations with great joy. Adios, amigo.

The first edition of this was pretty good, looking fwd to expando:

Johnny Cash - Forever Words (Expanded Edition), a digital edition of the original album plus 18 new songs (16 previously unreleased) by various artists including Chris Cornell, Ruston Kelly & Kacey Musgraves, Rosanne Cash, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Brad Paisley, Kris Kristofferson & Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello, Carlene Carter, The Jayhawks, T. Bone Burnett, Jewel, Dailey & Vincent, I'm With Her, Robert Glasper featuring Ro James and Anu Sun, and Jamey Johnson with words by Johnny Cash.

In the timeless spirit of songwriting collaboration, the album's lyric content is drawn from poems, lyrics and other writings--many previously unpublished--by Johnny Cash while the music is newly composed and performed by contemporary artists inspired directly by Cash's words.

The album's new tracks are digital-only and made available on all Streaming Audio Services in a series of four waves beginning today.
Link to streaming options in this Web post of press release, also to trailer etc.:
http://view.fans.legacyrecordings.com/?qs=feed92a551632f5922371e3b5eff587fda5099cc631bde1605a2aa6bc1fe45e37d7c60858c102bc9d950fa01363c86538db47f43e181295a5356a7ece115a2bea0d90e15c93b82e7aed035b08412df2a

Rolling tribute thread, watch this space:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/jerry-jeff-walker-remembered-by-lyle-lovett-lucinda-williams-dan-rather-and-many-many-others/
Meant to paste a quote, but impossible to choose---lots of eyewitness testimony, going waaay back.

That xpost Wynonna covers EP is up now, my fave is "Ramble On Rose"---would like to hear her do an alb of Dead, or at least "Ripple" and "New Speedway Boogie, " both of which would fit rat in here:
https://wynonna.bandcamp.com/album/recollections

So Cam's album is finally out; I listened this morning, some tracks a couple of times: half of it got me right away; the rest didn't hold my attention. She always sounded like she'd been there, but sonically sometimes seemed too limited, a little too earnestly tasteful--although I loved that she never ruins by overselling, even on the eternal-flame-ov-namechecked-romeo-and-juliet "Til There's Nothing Left" ("Praying to God please don't save me")(why did I think upthread that this went into something about growing old together? Because press release quoted her re something about this being a song for her husband? Here it's death by orgasm in the teen backseat 4ever).
Okay, so she's not really all that restrained in writing, which she does with Lori McKenna on here several times, also Natalie Hemby, in with others, usually, and tonight I get it, the sound and the fury and the sweetness and bitterness and been-there insight, that last most striking in the one that's just by her and Hemby, no other team members needed:

You think you’re the girl who doesn’t know how to say she’s sorry
Doesn’t know what to believe, but you wanna believe somebody
You’re not the only one, hidin’ in the corner of a party
Disappointed with
Who you call a friend.

Well they’re gonna give up on you
You’re gonna give up on them
And if it’s somebody you really love you’re gonna find a way to love ‘em again
You’re gonna have to learn to forgive yourself and not take it so personally
Yeah take it from a girl like me

Take it from a girl who takes things to take the pain away
Can’t look in the mirror ‘cause there’s always someone else to blame
She gives more than she’s got, thinks everyone should do the same
It’s hard to see
In the middle of a dream

Also, she can get loud, no prob, and sometimes double-tracks her vox with no blur or padding, which can happen for sure.
Covers Sam Smith's "Happier For You," which thematically is like Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues," also with the same kind of vitality surging around self-torture, as she thanks him for inviting her to the wedding, surprised the bride 'llowed him to: she's all dressed up in black, with nowhere to go but here. Also, Sam's guys work with some of her people on other tracks.
(His "Palaces" was one of her breadcrumb singles several years ago, also good, wouldn't mind more---just as long as he doesn't duet with her, crying all over the place, and dragging his choir in there.)
And she's got a Harry Styles co-write with his own team, none of it by Camaron Ochs, but suits her very well (He writes bitter small town country? This is pretty much the afterlife anticlimax of the aformentioned backseat Rome-O and Juli-et.)

Dawn Landes & band livestream Thurs. 7 pm Central, on Music City Roots' Facebook & YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/c/MusicCityRootsMCR

Just saw this, haven't listened yet:
https://brothersosborne.bandcamp.com/album/skeletons

November 6, 2020—A lifelong bluegrass and country music fan, legendary singer, songwriter and producer Barry Gibb has long dreamed of a project that would bring him together with some of the artists he admires the most. With the help of Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb, that dream has become a reality with GREENFIELDS: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1—out January 8 on Capitol Records (pre-order/pre-save). Watch the album’s official trailer HERE.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqxTqkR_qRM&src=Linkfire&lId=e40f836f-7414-4ee5-9fe1-2590d9902d40&cId=1f3b0af4-1f64-49b5-9848-7d1b3c9a4c3e
Across twelve of the Gibb Brothers beloved songs reborn, the album features collaborations with Alison Krauss, Brandi Carlile, David Rawlings, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch, Jason Isbell, Jay Buchanan, Keith Urban, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert, Olivia Newton-John, Sheryl Crow and Tommy Emmanuel. In advance of the release, “Words of a Fool,” featuring Grammy Award-winning Jason Isbell, is out today (listen HERE).https://barrygibb.lnk.to/wordsofafoolPR
GREENFIELDS: THE GIBB BROTHERS SONGBOOK, VOL. 1 TRACK LIST
1. “I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You” with Keith Urban
2. “Words of a Fool” with Jason Isbell
3. “Run to Me” with Brandi Carlile
4. “Too Much Heaven” with Alison Krauss
5. “Lonely Days” with Little Big Town
6. “Words” with Dolly Parton
7. “Jive Talkin’” with Miranda Lambert, Jay Buchanan
8. “How Deep Is Your Love” with Tommy Emanuel, Little Big Town
9. “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” with Sheryl Crow
10. “To Love Somebody” with Jay Buchanan
11. “Rest Your Love On Me” with Olivia Newton-John
12. “Butterfly” with Gillian Welch, David Rawlings
For more information, please contact
asha.goodman at sacksco.com or carla at sacksco.com.
Or Ambrosia Healy at Capitol Music Group, ambrosia.healy at umusic.com.

Trailer is on youtube

"Jive Talkin" better be some country disco--maybe songs from Saturday Night Fever will be on some ltd. edition or killer sequel. But where are "Massachussets" and "New York Mining Disaster 1941" dammit? You telling me they're not country enough? Guess "Islands in the Stream" would be too obvious.

oh man i cant wait for this!!

After Biden was done talking tonight and while the fireworks were going they played Eric Church “Springsteen “

Adios, Jerry Jeff and Billy Joe---here's a couple of little things I wrote---first is from Charlotte Creative Loafing:
Keep Texas Beautiful

Jerry Jeff Walker, still swingin' on a Lone Star

Jul. 12, 2006

"Mr. Bojangles," Jerry Jeff Walker's most famous song, is about a man waking up in a New Orleans jail in 1968 so "down and out" that a fellow inmate tries to cheer him up, by tap dancing.
The old street performer tells his tattered story, in descending melodic lines that jump up and turn around, right before they end. It's not just what he says, but how he says it, and he's ready to show any audience that he isn't finished quite yet. Jerry Jeff Walker, who will appear at the Neighborhood Theatre on July 17, evidently learned a lot from this guy. Also from the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, in early '70s Austin, before they all hit the road again, under a new Outlaw banner.
Which was very cute 'n' colorful, but, in Jerry Jeff's case, especially, such a banner could be a dark and dusty backdrop for the dancer's jumps and turns.
Anthems like "Pissin' in the Wind" and "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother" are still as potent as they always were ironic. But now the former (red-nosed) "Jacky Jack Snowflake" seems to dance on the grave of his bad(der) self, where once he was closer to dancing into it.

Jerry Jeff's recent collection, Best of the Rest (Tried & True), sometimes floats some very mellow material, but his voice is well-preserved (smoke-cured, a tad raspy: can dry ripe imagery nicely), and even the lesser songs keep an eye on time's tricky gifts. My favorite, "Keep Texas Beautiful," is a celebration in a minor key: There's a sense of the cost, of what has been and is still there to be lost, if we can't "keep it free." As even George W. and the Dixie Chicks, hearing this, might agree. And Mr. Bojangles too.
Jerry Jeff Walker and his Gonzo Compadres play the Neighborhood Theatre on Monday, July 17, at 8pm; no opening act. All tickets are $30. See www.neighborhoodtheatre.com for more info.
Ha, that wistful thinking ending maybe won't seem like such a novelty punchline too much longer. Think JJW kept going for quite a few years after that, as long as he and the times were able.

Thought I'd written more about Billy Joe Shaver, but all I can find is this Nashville Scene ballot comment (this was one of my Top Five Reissues of 2o13):
Shaver's Jewels are a family affair, and though blood is still thicker than mud, good thing late son Eddy's electric slide 'n' pick times paw Billy Joe's honky-pop sense can shear and veer through the druggy detour that will claim the younger (they sing about it, with BJ busting the woman who took E. one shot over the line), and the equally inertial tendencies of relatively ex-desperado old dude's righteously flashlit path. Does not preclude or anomalize a finger-salute to Amarillo, or the immortal "I been to Georgia on a fast train honey, I wasn't born no yesterday/I got a good Christian raisin' and a Eighth Grade eddjycation and I ain't gon'/Be treated thisaway."

From Bandcamp Daily, re: African country music:
Cowboys hit the African continent in the late ‘20s, before country music itself did. Around southern Africa, in colonial mining camps, companies arranged screenings of silent (and heavily edited) American westerns “to entice potential laborers, serving as an inexpensive distraction from the brutal working conditions and the allure of potentially toxic home-brewed alcohol,” according to Gordon Ashworth’s liner notes to Olvido Records’ wondrous recent collection, Bulawayo Blue Yodel. After the movies came the new and dangerous local archetype of the “Copperbelt Cowboy,” local men emulating on-screen behavior. And alongside that came popular, imported 78s by early American country star Jimmie Rodgers, the Mississippi-born singing brakeman and iconic yodeler.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/african-country-music-list
See also: https://olvidorecords.bandcamp.com/

Due to @CountryMusic’s failure to mention John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver at the CMA’s last night, @amandashires and I have decided to return our membership cards. I doubt anybody will care, but we cared a lot about our heroes. pic.twitter.com/UmplzD0Z7p

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) November 13, 2020

Maren Morris took home female vocalist of the year at the CMA Awards on Wednesday night, and used her acceptance speech to make an important statement. After thanking a handful of people, the 30-year-old singer took a moment to pay tribute to all the incredible Black female artists in country music. "There are some names in my mind that I want to give recognition to because I'm just a fan of their music and they are as country as it gets, and I just want them all to know how much we love them back," she said before shouting out Linda Martell, Yola, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Brittney Spencer, and Rhiannon Giddens
https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/maren-morris-2020-cma-awards-acceptance-speech-video-47964231

Morgan Wallen won best new artist ( he is the singer who got bumped from Saturday Night Live for not following COVID rules)

That seems fitting, since what I saw (and later heard/read) of the festivities was maskless and not very distanced---no wonder CMA would even let the AP use screen shots of the audience. Also, of course, Lee Brice, Lady A, Rascal Flatts, Florida-Georgia Line, and others cancelled because of testing positive.
Pretty bad when even what's left of the LA Times has your number:
Even the moments that worked — Ingrid Andress’ teary “More Hearts Than Mine,” Jimmie Allen’s sweetly joining 86-year-old Charley Pride for “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” an intimate “Starting Over” by Chris Stapleton and his wife, Morgane — just made you wonder why the CMA proceeded with the show in this fashion, given that Tennessee is reporting a 26% spike in new cases, according to the New York Times.

Couldn’t the Stapletons have done their thing remotely from home? And didn’t anyone consider the wisdom of inviting a man Pride’s age into a potentially dangerous environment?

More to the point, was any of this worth even the slightest risk to someone’s health? In fairness to the artists, performing in a less-than-jam-packed room — not to mention one populated by peers and executives rather than fans — can make it hard to muster the enthusiasm needed to get over on TV. So what’s the argument for doing it?

And nary a mention of covid from the stage, which might have been one reason for no mention of Prine and Joe Diffie, among others.
Wish Isbell and Shires would mention that, or maybe they have by now; he's always on Twitter when I check in.

"from the stage" incl. Morris and Church.

Luke Combs rolled up on stage for his second award literally hugging every person in sight, def a bad look all round

John Pardi did a tribute to Joe Diffie

but zero mention of Prine, Billy Joe Shaver or Jerry Jeff Walker which sucked

isbell & shires announced they are returning their cma memberships

Due to @CountryMusic’s failure to mention John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver at the CMA’s last night, @amandashires and I have decided to return our membership cards. I doubt anybody will care, but we cared a lot about our heroes. pic.twitter.com/UmplzD0Z7p

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) November 13, 2020

no wonder CMA would even let the AP use screen shots of the audience

the AP thing was weird because the broadcast spent plenty of time focused on the audience, and all the AP could have done is take screenshots of what the CMA itself had decided to show on the air. and it was unclear if they didn't want screenshots of mask-less artists going around or if maybe they actually didn't want screenshots of masked artists going around. v v strange.

ashley mcbryde was great.

good for isbell and shires!

i felt bad for Darius Rucker having to duet on In The Ghetto. that was awkward af

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5602fb1fe4b0ad0093a01aec/1605556578869-KN4SD8K7Y9FVOTKL8GIB/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kPTrHXgsMrSIMwe6YW3w1AZ7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0k5fwC0WRNFJBIXiBeNI5fKTrY37saURwPBw8fO2esROAxn-RKSrlQamlL27g22X2A/Steve+Earle+2020-02.jpg?format=1500w

6th Annual John Henry's Friends Benefit
Join Steve Earle & The Dukes for the 6th Annual John Henry's Friends Benefit Concert, presented by Luck Productions & City Winery, celebrating The Keswell School's work in providing education for children and young adults with autism.

The virtual concert will take place on December 13th at 7:30pm EST at luck.stream/johnhenrysfriends

With Special Guest appearances by Emmylou Harris, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires, Josh Ritter, Lucinda Williams, Matt Savage, Shawn Colvin, The Mastersons and Warren Haynes.

i never really got into gillian welch but i'm completely obsessed with her "lost songs" series, especially vol 3, which just came out.

this is a perfect three minutes:

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

Oh yeah. Good discussion of these three vols. on her thread, and they're all on her bandcamp, along w the also awes Boots No 1: The Official Revival Bootleg, and, uh, everything else she's done, I think.

will check out her thread, thanks!