Rolling Country 2020

pruitt sounds fucking great to me. i can understand hearing "normal" as po faced but it's also tremendously heartfelt; she's coming from an honest place i think.

Good list of 2020 songs here:
https://dontrocktheinbox.substack.com/p/dont-rock-the-inbox-issue-3

I nom'd and will be voting for Emily Scott Robinson's "Time for Flowers" in the ilm song poll -

“Time for Flowers,” Emily Scott Robinson: An exquisite meditation on how to find the strength to keep going when it feels like the walls are crashing down (or holding us captive), “Time for Flowers” is also a reminder that the good things always come back around, if we wait patiently - but we have to make sure we tend to the garden, because beauty can only grow out of despair if we give it what it needs to thrive. —MM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d1Xp1wzWZM

Oho, didn't know about this song or list, thanks. Yeah forks, i can understand hearing "normal" as po faced but it's also tremendously heartfelt; she's coming from an honest place i think.

Time will tell whether she's said it all here, but still.

Whoah---just now played Kelsey Waldon's covers EP, which is not one of your covid-alibi barebones potboilers: it's well-produced, swirling around and further shading, supporting her deftly deployed Appalachian inflections---and dig this track list:
1.
The Law Is For Protection Of The People 04:33
2.
Ohio 04:01
3.
Mississippi Goddam 04:54
4.
Sam Stone 04:29
5.
They'll Never Keep Us Down 02:51
6.
With God On Our Side 07:30
7.
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free 03:11
So the righteous weary narrator of "The Laws" is too close to home, ditto Kent State and the whole of MS, where now I'm especially struck by how this "hillbilly"-tagged Kentucky woman audibly relates to
Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
Also Dylan's entrophic balladeer setting out on a new day's slog:
Oh my name it ain't nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
7:30 minutes of that, no more or less relentless than the razor detail of "Sam Stone," remembered, as a matter of fact, by the local junkie's offspring, with a brittle briskness more effective than the relative weepiness of Prine's original track---would like to see her do more by him, for sure.
Ends with the atypically upbeat "I Wish..." providing some refreshment, but not letting nobody off the hook: https://kelseywaldon.bandcamp.com/
(The inner warpage of continuing citizens here reminding me of several on Johnny Cash's recent Easy Rider: Best of the Mercury Recordings, incl. some that might be The Man In (or near) The Diner, getting head set for another visit from the New York Times---not all of the material is equally good, but it's all done his way and pulled me right through)(incl. some speedy remakes of Sun-era classics)

Should have edited this before posting on savingcountrymusic.com, where some are going after Maren Morris etc. etc.:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

CMA set itself up for all this via inconsistency: on the one hand, testing and , maybe, exclusions (though no doubt some of those would have happened anyway, with the more cautious performers staying home), on the other, televised lack of social distancing and masking, onstage and off (seems likely that’s why the AP photog wasn’t allowed to take lasting evidence). If they’d had a mask mandate, would have been trouble with that audience, but a virtual event (though taken as an insult by many) would have saved them from the present controversy, and won new defenders, representing the saner side of country. *some* new defenders, but still catching it from the kneejerks and worse.

Just listened to Pruitt's album againL holy crap, what a *sound.* So many facets, right off---some have associated it w Fleetwood Mac, but here's how to assimilate and *learn* from that (Margo, producer Sturgill), as you're rolling along your own path. Always to a purpose, which is never just a show of strength, though that's part of it, rallying herself as much as anyone, while dealing with the doubts and other shadows, like "How did I get through all that, how am I still getting through it, and yet here I am with you, how did and does that happen---like this!"
So the well-chosen details, incl. still-recent memories, come to the foreground and confirm impressions of the words that found their way through the boom-boom of the first half, and "Normal" sounds forthright, incl. the problematic "If I could be normal, trust me, I would." Not abject, not anything reassuring, either, just how it is in her.
But right now, wow: https://rounderrecords.bandcamp.com/album/expectations

one of my great covid concert regrets of 2020 was the cancellation of her tour

Emily Yahr on Charley Pride and Covid issues in country music in Washington Post. Here's part of it:

A CMA spokeswoman said: “Out of respect for his family, we do not have further comment.”

And yet it’s hard to imagine country music’s year in the pandemic ending on a worse note. The genre has made a slew of unflattering headlines over the past 10 months, from Chase Rice’s not-socially-distanced summer concert to Morgan Wallen being dropped as the “Saturday Night Live” musical guest after violating the show’s coronavirus protocols. Then there was the strange tone of the CMA Awards, the format’s biggest night in the national spotlight to celebrate music known for capturing real life and “three chords and the truth,” trying to project an image of cheerful normalcy in a tragedy-filled year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/country-music-covid-charley-pride/2020/12/26/ac51bd2e-4566-11eb-975c-d17b8815a66d_story.html

Not sure how I missed this but Ingrid Andress had a cover of Charli XCX's "Boys" on the deluxe edition of Lady Like that's surprisingly good! I guess Andress was a cowriter of the song? Curious to know more about how she got looped in on that project if anyone knows more.

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

cool, thank you!

Mandolin a surprisingly good replacement for the Super Mario Bros coin sound

https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/cover-story/article/21145509/21st-annual-country-music-critics-poll-the-results

: 1. Mickey Guyton, “Black Like Me” (Capitol Nashville)
2. Chris Stapleton, “Starting Over” (Mercury Nashville)
3. Ashley McBryde, “One Night Standards” (Warner Music Nashville)
4. The Chicks, “Gaslighter” (Columbia)
5. John Prine, “I Remember Everything” (Oh Boy)
6. Eric Church, “Stick That in Your Country Song” (EMI Nashville/Big EC)
7. Tyler Childers, “Long Violent History” (Hickman Holler/RCA)
8. Mickey Guyton, “What Are You Gonna Tell Her” (Capitol Nashville)
9. Miranda Lambert, “Bluebird” (Vanner/RCA)
10. Sam Hunt, “Hard to Forget” (MCA Nashville)

Lists go further , but here’s cut and paste of top 10 album choices

Albums
1. Ashley McBryde, Never Will (Warner Music Nashville)

2. Chris Stapleton, Starting Over (Mercury Nashville)

3. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Reunions (Southeastern)

4. Brandy Clark, Your Life Is a Record (Warner Music Nashville)

5. Margo Price, That’s How Rumors Get Started (Loma Vista)

6. The Chicks, Gaslighter (Columbia)

7. Waylon Payne, Blue Eyes, the Harlot, the Queer, the Pusher & Me (Carnival)

8. Sturgill Simpson, Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions (High Top Mountain)

9. Elizabeth Cook, Aftermath (Agent Love)

10. Hailey Whitters, The Dream (Pigasus)

More on the 2021 thread

god, "Hard to Forget" still slaps so hard

i just realised that justin townes earle is dead. kind of reeling from it. his songs feel so personal, it feels like i know him.

You do.