Rolling Country 2021

Country music superstar Alan Jackson has revealed he is living with a degenerative nerve condition that is impacting his ability to tour and perform.

In an exclusive interview …on NBC’s Today, Jackson went public with the news that he has inherited a rare condition known as “CMT” (Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disorder).

ooof that hurts

From Miranda's newsletter:

https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/z1Geu8RYVgpTnOObKQvTk779dgOLsy1hKKWw7q7aD04cT41CVVEi7tVVoW9-uQ3Jp86pRqj5tHlRXIrE4ceU0XuXU2KD0y8F2lu80PM3MvCnge3-kVQrp4SOr3QtKVKghnaydrEIrx8-i1jI8n0=s0-d-e1-ft#https://email-assets.shimmer.io/guids/CABINET_a807453e993d878689c261f236db3b24/images/c.jpg

It’s gonna be a hell of a holiday, y’all! Pistol Annies’ first Christmas album will be out Oct. 22nd. The first song off the album, “Snow Globe,” is out now.https://pa.lnk.to/HOAH

Gotta get the T-shirt:
https://✧✧✧.shop✧✧✧.com/s/files/1/0432/4033/products/front_2d7160f2-a49b-4dfa-bb4a-4e2adbf1e2fb_1024x1✧✧✧@2✧.j✧✧?v=1632969771

Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall’s The Marfa Tapes Austin City Limits episode premieres Oct. 2nd on most PBS stations! Check out your local listings to see when it airs in your town.

https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/uO-PsQDdWBuXTu4a6whZECqASNz-yv5sjwuKeXQbUJDLre4R5vI2IcK2sRjIHFlmAFUmp1LbjJgJRJtuvXYT5WxI-FwjcwOhSH1o5Zw7JY6mklUUC3_nn2U3Q__h9tcXpBJDC4GUrxsIf17RQek=s0-d-e1-ft#https://email-assets.shimmer.io/guids/CABINET_a807453e993d878689c261f236db3b24/images/l.jpg

T-shirt, music etc here
https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/--3thcAIcLKl7YyM_v9Bg-qzfkQDbZA1fOsoUE-rz7sufEpHHZ0OrFierar7y0iLYrwMPVHodvNykMC7SnOuFVrBPyjtAwDJUXBZ2WRJlSPn15wBgMxvUkpoYBCWh11QLnhp_5G2Min5epvZJz_944nVV8fS3Eji-6OMHhyIqmq96w=s0-d-e1-ft#https://email-assets.shimmer.io/guids/CABINET_a807453e993d878689c261f236db3b24/images/pahoahpreorder_eblast.gif

Ah hell, since I mentioned it: https://store.mirandalambert.com/collections/pistol-annies?utm_source=ml-news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hoah-announce

Tracklist:

Hell of a Holiday
Snow Globe
Harlan County Coal
Come On Christmas Time
If we make it through December
Make You Blue
Leanin’ on Jesus
The Only Thing I wanted
Believing
Happy Birthday
Sleigh Ride
Joy
Auld Lang Syne

the shirt, hat and ornament look like promo items for a movie

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91HXGCUYC3L._SL1500_.jpg

late pass but Kalie Shorr's "Amy" is some primo fueled by cornpone mash up action

Word. ust now, upside ooh my head: Kalie Shorr's refreshing, somewhut startling country pop singles in 2021, "Amy" and "Love Child," both self-writ. Her xpost Dixie Chicks 3-song EP is prob okay too, but why beg comparisons. 2019's blazin' Open Book was Top Ten for me, haven't yet heard 2020's Unabridged edition of that. Meet her at the crossroads, braced: http://www.kalieshorr.com/

― dow, Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Ashley McBryde can be the xpost Nicholson figure (listen to Never Will and u will Know)

Thoughts on Sierra Ferrell?
Evan
Latest album, first of hers I've heard, is so good? Commen 'tater here immediately invokes Patsy Cline, otm to too on the nose a couple times maybe, as arrangements push the cuetness, but in a flirtatious way, and could happen w production of Cline. Singing and songs always right, and she's also mountain or post-mountain, incl. the closer, where yet another female country artist bids a bittersweet farewell-for-now to the old hometown-mindset etc.---never heard a guy singer do this----good of its kind, strong closer.
https://sierraferrell.bandcamp.com/album/long-time-coming

is so good*!* Ah meant to type.

is there a Stina Nordenstam thing going on here with Sierra Ferrell or is it just me?

It may or may not be just you, but sure ain't me, Hand.

i'm seeing Ferrell soon, live, and will report back, fellow Rolling Country-ers

omG yall (the Reader's Digest edition):

BRANDI CARLILE’S IN THESE SILENT DAYS
DEBUTS AT #1 ON BILLBOARD
AMERICANA/FOLK ALBUMS CHART, TOP
ROCK ALBUMS CHART AND TASTEMAKER
ALBUMS CHART, #3 ON TOP ALBUM SALES
CHART
“SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” DEBUT CONFIRMED FOR OCTOBER 23

Recorded once again at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A with producers Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings, the album features Carlile (vocals, guitar, piano), Tim Hanseroth (vocals, bass), Phil Hanseroth (vocals, guitar), Cobb (guitar, percussion) and Jennings (piano, organ, synth) as well as Chris Powell (drums, percussion), Josh Neumann (strings) and special guests Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius on backing vocals on the track “You And Me On The Rock.”
Reflecting on the album, Carlile shares, “Never before have the twins and I written an album during a time of such uncertainty and quiet solitude. I never imagined that I’d feel so exposed and weird as an artist without the armor of a costume, the thrill of an applause and the platform of the sacred stage. Despite all this, the songs flowed through—pure and unperformed, loud and proud, joyful and mournful. Written in my barn during a time of deep and personal reckoning.There’s plenty reflection…but mostly it’s a celebration. This album is what drama mixed with joy sounds like. It’s resistance and gratitude, righteous anger and radical forgiveness. It’s the sound of these silent days.”

photo credit: Neil Krug
Adding to yet another monumental year, Carlile will once again perform Joni Mitchell’s legendary album Blue in full at Carnegie Hall on November 6. Additionally, her wildly successful “Girls Just Wanna Weekend” will return February 1-5, 2022. The sold-out vacation destination event held at Mexico’s Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya will once again feature an all-female-fronted lineup including performances by Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Tanya Tucker, Indigo Girls, Lucius, Margo Price, Yola, KT Tunstall, Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah and Katie Pruitt as well as special guests. See below for complete tour itinerary

IN THESE SILENT DAYS TRACKLIST
1. Right On Time
2. You And Me On The Rock
3. This Time Tomorrow
4. Broken Horses
5. Letter To The Past
6. Mama Werewolf
7. When You’re Wrong
8. Stay Gentle
9. Sinners Saints And Fools
10.Throwing Good After Bad
BRANDI CARLILE CONFIRMED TOUR DATES
November 6—New York, NY—Carnegie Hall (SOLD OUT)
February 1-5, 2022—Riviera Maya, Mexico—Girls Just Wanna Weekend (SOLD OUT)
April 29, 2022—Indio, CA—Stagecoach Music Festival

Listened to this the other day and wasn't crazy about it. She is always someone, for me, who walks right on the line of "not for me". Sometimes she is brilliant and sometimes she just steps right over that line. More the latter than the former on this particular album.

Good review of the new Natalie Hemby album from Alfred: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/natalie-hemby-pins-and-needles/

Haven't listened yet but Puxico would make my top 20 country albums of the 10's so quite excited to hear this.

Went back to Eric Church's Heart & Soul and was surprised how many of the melodies had stayed with me over the last six months. I think I wrote it off as gimmicky with the triple-album concept but there's a lot of vintage Church charm and writing (as well as schmaltz, but that's Church).

I didn’t know Natalie Hemby before, though I guess I knew her through the folks she writes for. Tried out both her albums - like ‘em both though I gravitated to the rootsier Puxico more

So far I find Billy Joe Shaver & Kinky Friedman Live From Down Under (Omnivore, 2021) refreshingly plain & vivid: very clear sound, w a couple of steel-string acoustics, lead & rhythm, some pienner; that's all they need. Shaver's songs & singin' do their sincere, slick, hooky thing, as expected, but also Friedman is surprisingly affecting---I'd previously mostly rated him for "Ride 'Em. Jewboy," which is here, and low-key but pointed and poignant, and "My Shit's Fucked Up," which is not here----maybe Zevon hadn't yet sent this, one of his last dispatches, and one of his strongest, funniest and scariest ever. Uh-oh: a degree of sincerity seems, as it always has, to extend to KF's own "Get Your Biscuits In The Oven and Your Buns in the Bed" ("Wimmen's LIberation has done gone to your head").
Shaver finished with a song he says he's written after the recent deaths of his wife and son (press sheet adds his mother, also his recent heart attack and surger, incl. refused follow-up).
Backstory and setlist:
Ladies and gentlemen, two Texas legends, Billy Joe Shaver and Kinky Friedman!” announced Jeff “Little Jewford” Shelby before the nightly coin toss to decide who in this dynamic double-bill, quadruple heart bypass contender Billy Joe or singing crime novelist Kinky would go first. The spotlight then passed back and forth between the duo, supported in Vaudevillian fashion by guitarist Jesse Taylor, Washington Ratso and of course Little Jewford.

Depending on how you look at it or who’s talking, the Live Down Under tour probably shouldn’t have happened or it was the best thing that could’ve happened. Either way, it was a minor miracle most would say and now a thing of myth and legend.

It started when Shaver, still recovering from the loss of his mother, wife and son was lured out of mourning in 2001 by the Kinkster to do their “Two For Texas” tour that ended with Billy Joe unexpectedly suffering a heart attack at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas that August. Angioplasty was performed but Shaver, fearing the risks, was resisting medical advice to have quadruple heart by-pass surgery taking karmic instruction from Willie (Nelson) to get out and stay active. Soon commitments to bring the tour to Australia were made.

Kinky Friedman: “The doctors wanted him to have the surgery but he said no. And they didn’t want him going to Australia with Kinky. That it was the wrong thing to do. But Billy Joe was in a dark place; the recent family tragedies, the health concerns. Staying home with the curtains drawn and all its temptations seemed as risky as going. Willie and I both agreed, the best therapy he could have was to get out and have a good time.”

And it was.

Billy Joe performed every night like his life depended on it. And it did. And it pushed everyone to the same level of intensity. Featuring hits like ”Honky Tonk Heroes,” “You Asked Me To,” ”Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed,” “Sold American” and more, showcasing some of the best material from both writers’ storied careers, and delivered in a way that only these best friends and odd couple could. So put on Live Down Under, sit back, listen and perhaps come to appreciate these two unique artists in a way you hadn’t before. A one-of-a-kind experience.

CD / DIGITAL TRACK LIST:
INTRO COIN TOSS
GEORGIA ON A FAST TRAIN
WESTERN UNION WIRE
STAR IN MY HEART
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA
OLD CHUNK OF COAL
SOLD AMERICAN
RIDE ME DOWN EASY
WILD MAN FROM BORNEO
WHEN THE FALLEN ANGELS FLY
MARILYN AND JOE
YOU ASKED ME TO
BEFORE ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE
HONKY TONK HEROES
GET YOUR BISCUITS IN THE OVEN AND YOUR BUNS IN THE BED
LIVE FOREVER
YOU WOULDN’T KNOW LOVE (IF YOU FELL IN IT)
RIDE ‘EM JEWBOY
OLD FIVE AND DIMERS LIKE ME
KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE
TRY AND TRY AGAIN
OUTRO THANKS AND GOOBYE!
Cat: OV-453

From Numero:

Driftless Dreamers
IN CUCA COUNTRY

ome to Cuca Records and hundreds of Nashville-fantasizing pluckers and singers, Wisconsin’s Driftless region was a hotbed of country music in the 1960s. Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse, these 17 Driftless Dreamers washed up at Jim Kirchstein’s Sauk City record plant with little more than $100 and a longing. Collected here are the fruits of Cuca’s documentary approach to record making, capturing the voices and stories of a culture and glacier in abatement.
more details, trailer:
https://numerogroup.com/products/driftless-dreamers-in-cuca-country?mc_cid=92e2da2749&mc_eid=348950ba0d

"Influenced by old-timey ethnic songs, Bakersfield outlaws, countrypolitan rainbows, and the lonesome twang of every rural route roadhouse"

i'm sorry this clause is cringe af

written by an AI? a glaswegian?

Numero house style, but if I squint, seems like it might be promising; they compile better than they write ( & "countrypolitan rainbows" is fair)

old-timey ethnic songs looks weird but might be like Carolina Chocolate Drops' sources (other than their Blu Cantrell cover)

Which is great btw

the album itself looks interesting. kinda forksbait description tbh, cringe and all.

From Steve Earle's newsletter:

7th Annual John Henry's Friends Concert
Steve is excited to announce the 7th Annual John Henry's Friends Benefit Concert which will take place on December 13th at The Town Hall in New York City! Hosted by Steve Earle, the event will feature performances from Steve Earle & The Dukes, Bruce Springsteen, Rosanne Cash, The Mastersons*, Willie Nile, and Matt Savage.
All proceeds from this event, as has been the case with each of the previous John Henry’s Friends Benefit concerts, will be donated to The Keswell School, an educational program for children and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Founded on the belief that children diagnosed with ASD can live full and productive lives as integrated members of their communities, The Keswell School provides educational, therapeutic, and supportive services for children diagnosed with ASD and their families. Steve’s son, John Henry, is a student of the school. His son w Alison Moorer.

Stay tuned for more details on general admission tickets. VIP expensive, but various options in that section, good cause: https://citywinery.com/newyork/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=NYC-Steve-Ear

*The Mastersons core: Chris Masterson and Eleanor Whitmore, in Earle's band for quite a while, have recorded some good music of their own, and may have full Matersons band here, I guess.

Also:
"Coal Country" Out Now on Audible
"Coal Country", the play written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen with original music by Steve, is now available in the Audible Theatre’s virtual library. Dig deep into the lives and loss of the most deadly mining disaster in recent U.S. history.

Think this is where The Ghosts of West Viginia came from?

And another Audible Steve:
(The Moment in) 1965 (When Rock and Roll Becomes Art) is also available now on Audible as part of their Words + Music series. Recorded in 2021 at Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, New York City, listen to Steve speak and sing from his beloved, adopted neighborhood - the birthplace of a musical revolution.

But wait, there's more! Special colored vinyl editions on New West.

Black Nashville Americana scene getting npr attention

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/29/1050322605/new-roots-black-musicians-and-advocates-are-forging-coalitions-outside-the-syste

I'm digging the fuck outta the Lainey Wilson album several months later.

Thanks, will check! Yall have turned me onto great stuff this year.
From Willie Nelson Family's s/t---fam vocals here work, I think, ditto Bobbie's keys, as always---somehow I've never heard the George Harrison original---it is his, right?---seems like his kind of strong-enough framework + reflection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95xfVmz4uy0

Ann Powers shared a playlist on Twitter earlier this week of various country/americana acts from 2021 which has turned me onto a few that are new to me:

--Lula Wiles, "Shame and Sedition": not exactly country or americana but very nice. Kinda similar to the Staves (whose album from this year I've been enjoying a lot this year), perhaps a skosh darker.

--Tre Burt, "You Yeah You": low-key, Dylan-esque songwriter which I'm enjoying a lot so far

--Kirby Brown, "Break into Blossom" is probably the most country of this batch though still on the folkier side of things.

Anyway, I bookmarked another 10-12 artists from this playlist to explore. Overall a pretty varied mix of mainstream/pop country, old-timey revivalists, and low-key songwriters. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3RwmljYV2GYBcMzxHdLO6o?si=230f422319b34ac7

Thanks. RC has led me to a lotta good stuff this year.
Hype of the day:
Imagine three blond, three-chord rocker fellers backing a hot brunette neo-Linda Ronstadt/Rosanne Cash lead singer, to tunes out of The Cars meet The Chicks. It’s been eight years since they began, yet odds are you’ve never heard them, nor of them, even close to their Nashville roots. But this is a band you should know about.

Listening to the RNB for the first time feels like they’re already inside your head, drawing on rockabilly, British rock, thrash, and outlaw country priors, with hard-driving, toe-tapping, smile-inducing originals. A good place to start is the Raelyn Nelson Band’s website, featuring the low-budget video for “Friend,” a kickass action-comedy accompanying her classic breakup song, punctuated with Raelyn’s refrain “I may be small, but I am pretty strong” summing up her infectious persona.

After a first addictive taste, the band’s album-length 2019 release, Don’t—with its cover art homage to the classic Clash London Calling album—is the way to go, either streaming or on CD. The collection includes wasted, brash, and woo-manly anthems like “Weed and Whiskey,” “Nothing On,” and “Rebel Girl.” Order a small-batch CD online and Raelyn mails it out personally, scrawling her autograph in red Pentel. She may add a free black and white sticker proclaiming, “I SMOKED WEED WITH WILLIE NELSON’S GRANDDAUGHTER.”
from https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/seen-future-willie-nelson-granddaughter-174355623.htm
Their music is self-released, with several videos online. He saus they're hot live, but so many dayjobs etc. only ten gigs a year---not bad for 2020, and maybe since.

Anybody heard the Emily Scott Robinson album? One of my most anticipated of the year.

BJ Thomas' Estate Auction Is Live & Online: Bid On His Coins, Hard Cover Books, and Antique China!

https://estatesales.org/estate-sales/tx/arlington/76012/estate-of-bj-gloria-thomas-1962113

Sunday afternoon readin': just came across a couple of previews I wrote for shows in Columbus, The Austin of Central Ohio---not strictly country, but related:
The Felice Brothers
Wednesday @ Rumba Café
On Yonder Is the Clock and Mix Tape, young Catskills-hatched Felice Brothers follow Dylan and the Band’s "rural" Basement Tapes route in reverse, back to the city of dinosaur dreams. Echoing through subway hayrides, they cheer trains bound for Heaven and everywhere else, while moodily and shamelessly waltzing around the “Ambulance Man.”. He’s patient, but the Felice Brothers know he doesn’t have all day. Equally vivid is “Boy From Lawrence County”, whom they know they could track (if they knew you’d pay), because “He’s a friend of mine.”

Lynn Miles
Saturday @ Maennerchor
Lynn Miles was recently spotted on YouTube, leafing through lyrics that list all the things she's tired of, ending with “singer-songwriters.” Ho-ho, she knows she’s in that game for life, as her steady voice gets deeper and darker, especially on full-bodied, country-tinged coffin-thumpers like “I Give Up.” On “Live At the Chapel”, Miles shifts into bruised cruise control for “Night Drive” and “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” a wised-up kissin’ cousin to the Eagles’ best ballads. Meanwhile, “Black Flowers” bloom so beautifully, as coal dust settles on their petals.
These were in 2010---haven't kept up with either act, but recall thinking that Felices went downhill later.

The Emily Scott Robinson album is a love letter to Lori McKenna. All these poignant, beautiful mini narratives about people that feel like they're written by someone twice her age. She's just unparalleled at writing about the toughest subjects - "Hometown Hero" about an Afghanistan vet's suicide is the kind of thing that in the wrong person's hands would be a disaster but is very successful to my ears. "Lightning in a Bottle" might be my favorite, replete with vivid but relatable imagery:

The summer that I turned nineteen was a hundred shades of green
I just wanted to be seen
Heavy like the air before it rains, clean like grass and summer sage
I lost track of all the days
Warm like the sunshine on the pines, fresh tomatoes off the vine
Pickin’ peaches for the pie
Cold, like that first beer on my lips and those midnight skinny dips
Careful like your kiss

Thanks for the tip; I just now listed on bandcamp, and yeah several strikers-to-stunners right off (opener "Old Gods" my new theme song). I did have the impression that she keeps the lid on the musos a bit too often, like early Brandy Clark, and when/if she's really singing for "The Cheap Seats," better do it louder.
Also a couple of melodies seemed trite, though can't cite titles yet.
The only song that REALLY BOTHERED ME was "Hometown Hero": here, in the midst of all this focus on taking chances, breaking goo-goo rules (for boys as well as girls!), cos you gotta get real at some point---"Things You Learn The Hard Way"- owning up to and owning indeterminacy----this is way too predetermined, too on the nose. If he really did "have everybody fooled" (did he?), how do you know he lost "the war inside his head?" Which you could say about any suicide, yeah, but here he's the veteran etc. There's a certain mystery about suicide, even more than homicide, and who knows why one person commits either, at a certain time etc., and another, similar person in similar circumstances does not?
People want to wrap it up, put a bow on it, very understandably so---but, especially given Robinson's characteristic themes, it's frustrating that she doesn't, however gently, put a little distance between herself as writer and narrator---I hope she did, and I just missed it.
(Only song I've heard that comes close is Isbell's "Dress Blues," not about a suicide, but someone else who also served his country in battle---a shit or at lease baffling war, judging by the sound of the narrator, who's swaying, maybe drunk, maybe about to hurl, while surrounded by ceremonial palliatives.)
But other than these quibbles, helluva debut:
https://emilyscottrobinson.bandcamp.com/album/american-siren

So far, and right off, Mickey Guyton's Remember Her Name is bracing pop country, entering the mainstream with no lack of blackness in accessibility, musical or thematic: "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?" in part re preparing for The Talk about how to conduct oneself so as not to, for instance, not get shot, also rape culture tendencies of society, and basically, getting past the insularity of necessary protectiveness, tending to become a fear-baked facade, getting through that to reality principle, w/o mainly conveying the anxiety via your effort. Parenting central, and work to do on yourself.
Rich-to-florid music can be Romantic, straight-up fun, wry, scary, always lucid, even while stressed. It's life.

Also, in "WAYGTH," there is even something, though I haven't caught the exact lines yet, to the effect of comparing the man's possible grooming of your daughter for victimhood---to your own grooming her for victimhood, via inadequate preparation, telling her how to be on the look out, also just helping her to get her brain wrapped around the possibility, also yours (think the guy is referred to as family member, by marriage, maybe). It's concise.

The Mickey Guyton album is my my most disliked album of 2021. I hear overstatement, generalization, MSNBC special interest stories.

She sounded good on the American Music Awards last night. Not clear how any of her lyrical flaws are worse than any of a million other country singers . Doesn’t she get points for at least attempting topics few others are choosing. Should she just sing about pickup trucks instead?

To each his own, but sounds to me like a lot of it comes from personal experience, personalized experience too: what she's seen, heard and heard of, and not just via media---impression of overstatement might come from the fact that she's venting, incl fucking finally gets to make the album she always meant to make, or---given pop country proclivities---had to make, putting it all in there while she's got this opportunity, incl. whatever backing, along with what I called the "rich-to-florid" musical approach she's always seemed into, or that seems to suit her, I think, though some of the EP tracks were uneven: in part a result, perhaps of the direction and advice she's said she tried to follow, confusing and confused though it turned out to be: oh whut shall we do with a black woman who wants to be pop-country star, gettin too funky, while hickhop boyz bump along to the top again:that's one thing she's brought up.
I suppose she may eventually say screw it, just put tracks on bandcamp and go to the Americana circuit.

Doesn’t she get points for at least attempting topics few others are choosing. Should she just sing about pickup trucks instead?

The lyrics in her songs exist on a generalization level that makes me think she exists for award shows

and, curmudgeon, few of the women writing and singing in country write and sing about pickup trucks

She's got a good album in her, though, and I suspect she's in this for life.

xxpost (re bandcamp, Americana transplant)Which she could have done from the beginning, as other black female artists have, of course, but why should she have to, especially when it doesn't really suit her, is her point, I take it. Not so say Americana is nec. pop-exclusive, or at least: I knew from interviews that Allison Russell's Outside Child would at least reference in part some bad early experiences---but wasn't prepared for all the hooks, gen. catchiness too, w/o distracting from serious themes.

"Personal...personalized" comes through in way she sings, as well as what she sings (incl. detail that fits the musical approach).

Also that most recent Valerie June album, I think, though need to listen again.

re pop engagement in Americana-tagged albums.

https://genius.com/artists/Mickey-guyton

Here are some Guyton lyrics. Not sure they’re any more generic than most other women or men country singers but yeah each may have our own take.