Rolling Country 2022

I don't mind the separate vocalists -- reminds me of Anais Mitchell's Hadestown -- but know what you mean about the concept. Would have expected you to at least fall for a "When Will I Be Loved" this true to Ronstadt's version.

trying to revive the Keith Whitley thread if anybody's interested. deeply under his spell right now

Luke Bryan brought Florida governor Desantis onstage to push hurricane relief, and while the Jacksonville, Florida audience was happy to see the guv there, lots of folks on twitter are not

that Tyler Childers song is a joy

New Wilder Blue is great

― Mule, Tuesday, March 29, 2022 5:32 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Only 8 months late but to this but it is indeed. A very spirited, musical, and sharp update on the classic country rock sound of The Eagles. Love the playing and harmonies.

How does ILM feel about Zach Bryan's American Heartbreak?

i just discovered it today (i am a rap dilettante) - seems... too long? but the "vibe" is good. are any of the songs ~actually~ amazing? "orange" almost gets there, but...

I listened after hearing so much about it and thought the songwriting was just OK ... some sort of amateur-ish lines? and i generally don't care about lyrics very much ... admittedly, I gave it like one listen while raking leaves and texting with my brother, so probably not a full and fair assessment.

2 hours is A LOT to wade through, so this is an admittedly rushed take, but I'm completely floored by/enamored with it -- the sheer industry is a marvel. Albums like this -- Sandinista, 69 Love Songs, The White Album, Emancipation?? -- are usually made by established, successful artists and say something about their restless, relentless artistic energy and talents. They communicate an ability to do anything.

While all these tracks slot within established country and heartland rock traditions, this is no less wide-ranging or ambitious. There are arena-ready rockers, acoustic sketches, radio sing-alongs, red dirt Americana numbers, and a cover of "You Are My Sunshine" for good measure. That he appears to have written every note and lyric aside from that one cover is so incredibly at odds with the vast majority of two decades' worth of male-dominated country...it makes me giddy.

I also like most of the production and playing -- the restraint especially. A lot of it just lets Bryan be, with his vocals and guitar front-and-center, instead of stuffing the thing with too-bright drum fills and the like. But there's also a free-spirited, "try everything" approach throughout, with fiddle, horns, electric guitar, backing vocals, and even a song with auto-tune, and hell, most of it works pretty dang well.

The most obvious antecedent to my ears is Turnpike Troubadours. His earnest rasp can sound awfully similar to them at times, especially on those more Americana-tilted tracks. I'm also reminded of Tyler Childers in places. But Bryan isn't nearly as literary or pretentious as those artists can be. His lyrics are more rudimentary, but I guarantee they are far more relatable to the average kid in rural America than a lot of what else they're spoon fed.

Caitlin Rose finally released her long-time-coming third album. More country-adjacent, but figured some of you would know her and be interested.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/caitlin-rose-cazimi/

oh man this is so good, thank you

This song came out in February (album in April) but is new to me, and I don't believe she has been mentioned in this thread -- it is the most stunning country song I have heard this year. The patient way it builds to its ripping climax, her fiery vocals percolating throughout.

Whole album is very very good -- crazy sharp lyrics and stories, super well constructed songs. Dabbles with cosmic country and outlaw country; lots of twang; produced by Oran Thornton who co-produced Angaleena Presley's Wrangled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSeCpIg6llI

You go too far
And you get too close
And you hide your scars
When you put on your show
There's nowhere to run
You run through my veins
And I hold my tongue
Swallow my pride
And stay

Blood you're the jury and judge
The tie that binds
And pushes and shoves
Forgives and forgets
Bonds and cements
A counterfeit love
Blood, merciless flood
Draggin' my name through the mud
And awful things swept under the rug
For blood

sounds great, thanks for the tip

Been listening to this on repeat, and cannot get enough. Could one word -- "stay" -- do any much work in telling a story? The way they use the double-instrumental solo instead of a bridge stretches time and allows her to start the final chorus from a lower dynamic before building up to the utterly righteous Draggin'.

this is nice

holy shit

that's a good song but it didn't really hit me until i clicked through to this live version. man.

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

Ah that's great and didn't know Angaleena cowrote it!

Think the verse melody is more or less a lift from "Happy Xmas (War is Over)"

We don't usually talk about reissues here, but this is worth a mention (Steve Young could sometimes *over*-over-sing-mebbe incl. title track of this 'unbut I still 'ppreciate that he pushed past the boundaries of taste, unlike what the tag of "singer-songwriter" was so often soft-selling in late 60s & 70s especially). From Real Gone Music:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0810/5567/products/fe3df88f429a2ffe5f2bdc188b0e86c5_1024x1024.jpg?v=1663960284

Folks can argue if Steve Young’s debut Rock, Salt and Nails is the first “outlaw country” album, but there is no argument that it’s one of the best. Featuring a star-studded line-up of like-minded players like Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, James Burton, Chris Ethridge, and Bernie Leadon, this 1969 record starts out with Young’s impassioned interpretation of the O.V. Wright/Otis Redding classic “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” which offers an emphatic bookend to Parsons’ own country-soul masterpiece “Dark End of the Street,” recorded the same year with the Flying Burrito Brothers. The rest of the record (produced by Tommy LiPuma) is a beautifully-paced blend of covers and originals, highlighted by Young’s immortal “Seven Bridges Road,” memorably covered by The Eagles among many others. Rock, Salt and Nails has somehow never been reissued on vinyl in the U.S.; our pressing comes in natural, “rock salt” vinyl.

Whoah---Oklahoma Red Dirt Country Singer Jake Flint, 37, Dies A Few Hours After Getting Married! Was he good? And what is a Red Dirt Country Singer?

Red Dirt Country is contemporary Honky Tonk Country from Texas/Oklahoma, named for the soil in the latter state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dirt_%28music%29?wprov=sfla1

Saw that Caramanica picked American Heartbreak as his AOTY. Would be interested to know if anyone else here took to it (or not) and why.

He loved it. I still need to listen to Zach Bryan more.

Not from an end of year list , but in a concert review Washington Post ‘s C Richards calls Kelsey Waldon his fave country album of the year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/12/06/kelsey-waldon-concert-review/

About half of the new Waldon is seeming pretty strong musically, but the rest tends to be settings for tired platitudes (making her Appalachoid voice go positively quaint at times), which she seems to regard as hard-won wisdom, shared with us in a down-to-earth way: she's always had that likable manner, and whatever gets her through the night--she's mentioned problems with the bottle---but as a listener, I'd rather she didn't rely entirely on what sound like originals. Previously, as discussed on Rolling Country over the years she's had a way with covers, even did an all-oldies EP: a tad uneven, as always w her, but bracing enough, and certainly more substantial than typical quarantine stopgaps.

Good melding of covers and originals on Melissa Carper's Ramblin' Soul: yes, she's ramblin' through Nashville (with for inst. Chris Scruggs and Sierra Ferrell), Memphis, NOLA, Austin, Houston, and San Antone (or anyway I can imagine Doug Sahm singing all of this): musically, and that's where it counts. Her voice and the overall honky tonk shothouse living room space heater indie budget atmosphere keep it ramblin' country soul. She sounds *kind of* like Parton w/o the hard sell, relaxing on the axis, but reflecting, even yearning a bit, with memories and insights all coming back around to the present,swirling like whatever's in her glass. I'm also thinking about the better originals of Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks, Asleep At The Wheel, although there are a couple of clunkers, pro forma retro. But most of it works for sure, without reaching the sneaky imaginative peaks (among other peaks) of last year's Daddy's Country Gold. Strong closer and theme song: "And when we're holdin' each other so tight/It's like a romantic old movie/That only comes in black and white/No, they don't make 'em like they used to/That's why I'm holdin' on to you."
https://melissacarper.bandcamp.com/album/ramblin-sou

sorry, here's the link: https://melissacarper.bandcamp.com/album/ramblin-soul

Also greatly enjoying current Willie, Miranda, Caroline Spence, (most of) Sunny Sweeney. The very consistently sombre-to-low-key production style of Humble Quest pulls even one of the best songs, "Background Music," toward the background of my attention/sympathy span(yes, Crisso/McCain and I value her poptastics of yore)(or at least get a little louder, faster, something, sometime).

"sombre"? Sombrero? Oui, but make it 'somber."

As Tipsy Mothra posted on Rolling Obits:

Longtime Nashville country music writer (and musician) Peter Cooper, at just 52 from a head injury.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/12/07/peter-cooper-acclaimed-country-music-journalist-and-musician-dies-at-52/69707124007/

I previewed the show when he and Eric B. came to Columbus OH in 2010---good, and good alb"

Eric Brace and Peter Cooper
Saturday @ The Red Door Tavern
Singer-songwriters Eric Brace and Peter Cooper have fancy resumes in journalism, but don’t hold that against them. You Don’t Have To Like Them Both finds the intrepid reporters tracking a community of frequently melancholy, always observant and opinionated souls, walking space and time after midnight. The vocal and instrumental harmonies of Brace, Cooper, and others gleam like headlights, while their rolling country stroll can get droll, though never really laid back. “We used to fly like we had wings/When we were easier to please.”

Brennen Leigh did nice old school duets record w/Jessie Dayton back in the 2000s.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:01 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

she also just made a good western swing album with Asleep at the Wheel: https://brennenleigh.bandcamp.com/album/obsessed-with-the-west

― alpine static, Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:54 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

That Brennen Leigh & A@tW album is fantastic; she did a whole album of Lefty Frizzell covers a couple of years ago, too, and it was definitely worth checking out. And I've been a Willis fan since her major label run in the early 90s. She's long been one of the very best there is.

― jon_oh, Friday, September 16, 2022 7:26 AM

Leigh and Carper's hooks have been duking it out in my head all weekend--time to set them both against xpost Live Forever: A Tribute To Billy Joe Shaver Sandy voice x adhesive accompaniment of the pop master in hobo's clothing were adequate & then some on his original tracks, so this is one of those tribs where it's more about what the songs can do for cover artists (incl. those who could use some better material) than vice-versa/just wanna hear something new by reliable faves.
In the first category, Edie Brickell and Nathaniel Rateliff are so far seeming a tad too merely modest & hopeful; in the second, Miranda's kinda close to that vocally, but does present quite rollicking studio band. Amanda Shires seems like she's going to do likewise, but after the pickers launch into a yowly tomcat hoedown, she jumps on top, getting louder and stronger.
Willie Nelson's fiery, exhorting his fellow organisms and himself all through "Live Forever" and "I Been To Georgia On A Fast Train," ditto Margo Price & Joshua Hedley, on the subtly building "I'm gonna rig up my old truck," and take ass to town, to carouse or whutever: point is, agency is refound, or looked up in the phonebook of mind, at least.
Deepest takes: Rodney Crowell's fluid "Old Fivers and Dimers," Allison Russell's slow burn "Tramp on Your Street."

absolutely terrific album just recently released ... surprised to see no mention of it here, given the recent feature story in the New York Times:

https://adeemtheartist.bandcamp.com/album/white-trash-revelry

this is gonna cause late-season trouble in my 2022 top 10!

^ nice. Thanks for the tip.

damn - definitely into this. Thx!

Yeah---and even if the songs weren't good, the autobio is excellent in itself.

Also thanks to this thread, I just now listened to all of xxxxetcpost(s) Zach Bryan's American Heartbreak for the first time. 34 songs, 2 hours and 1 minute by Spotify's count, so I thought I might break it up into two (or more) sessions, but no prob. Detailed turns of words and music---sometimes plot twists, ripping the Band-Aid off---replenished and pulled me right through it all, like it does the semi-beautiful loser narrator---sometimes alarmingly, when I get the impression that he's throwing himself once again at and through (also at) a bright blue winter sky wall---with relationships like vines, and space heater electrification: country as hell, and with a musical valentine to closing time itself, "when the world gets close," looping through "a wild man's weary ways" to a spot of morning light when you're always/so far looking good and "The Road I Know" as his final reward (on the album).

And I 'ppreciate that he doesn't blame other people more than himself--it's much less about brooding on a barstool than keep a-goin', one hand on the wheel, the other holding a drink (phone on in holder, so can record life's demos on the fly).

From Big Ears Festival newsletter:

Rarely do we find Big Ears Festival artists featured in year-end lists for best country albums. Adeem the Artist is an exception, landing on many end-of-year lists including Billboard Magazine staff picks for 2022 for their new record "White Trash Revelry." As a resident of Knoxville, Adeem's singular talent captured our attention a while back and now the whole world is catching on. A couple of weeks ago, Grayson Currin penned a wonderful profile for the New York Times.

xp+xxp, great posts! It's sprawl is a big part of its appeal for me. Unruly in the best sense of the word. Take its 12 best tracks, and it may not make my top ten of the year. As it stands, it'll definitely rank.

Wilson's 2021 album is one of the decade's best.

Who Wilson? Lainey Wilson? Or someone else I'm overlooking?

Lainey's 2021 album was def. in my Top Ten, as I think I listed and described way upthread. still gotta check this year's follow-up.
Also need to find my copy of this 2012 Top Ten pick, which got its Tenth Anniversary reissue this fall:

James Hand's Mighty Lonesome Man tracks the fine print white line of life's little ups and downs with mighty fine timing--unafraid to venture beyond deft wordplay into details that could easily keep him orbiting in mental and emotional rituals eternally--but 12 items, 34 minutes, as Windows Media Player sums up, hand him off, pass him along in the alone-together jukebox of honky tonk pop (where he can be alone-together with Billy Joe Shaver, for instance). Good in the background or foreground; I'm tempted to say he'll be there when you get there--he's a stand-up guy--but whatcha say James? "Let's do it now, before they use a plow, 'cause then I won't be no earthly good to you."

Oh yeah: came out Oct. 14, up to 15 tracks now, and he's also on this Johnny Cash trib, with Austin Lucas, Chuck D feat. Bob Log III, Left Lane Cruiser, Charlie Parr, and a bunch of people I never heard of, which isn't unusual for tribs:
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/johnny-cash-tribute-james-hand-reissue-coming-from-hillgrass-bluebilly/

Another one that works in the foreground and background (somewhut simultaneously, since headphones suddenly expired and I'm listening on tiny laptop speakers), is the new Lainey, whose voice thrives on rockin'-country/not country-rock sound designs, which also inform well-paced ballads, poignant enough despite titles like "Weak End"(with "leak in" and "bleed in" enhancing been-there tone), "You And Me and Jesus," and even "Heart Like a Truck."

Yeah, Lainey.

the new Lainey, whose voice thrives

Pony Bradshaw has an album coming out 1/27/23, will tour---more info, links here:
https://mailchi.mp/eca127076fe9/new-album-north-georgia-rounder-15596832?e=57613df00d
What I said last year, on the first annual not-ballot (since Himes fucked up)

For Further Study (everything here, but especially this)

Pony Bradshaw, Calico Jim: "I'm a time-traveling bush in a barrel of poo"? He could be singing that, in this context, but he doesn't sound worried about it, maybe because he's still traveling; he does mention "wrecked in a tireless life" a couple of times soon after, but doesn't say who's wrecked, though maybe he means it in a vehicular, not narcotic sense; one is likely as the other here, but he always sounds lucid, in a usually murmury way, but also like a more dynamic Jackson Browne, usually with toe-tapping, fingerpicking melodies (while insisting that the counterpoint under those "has to breathe": not hearing any in the usual sense, think he's thinking about a stubborn way of life, counterclockwise even to itself at times, it seems). Voice and arrangements can rise, grow drums, hard chords; steel and/or slide answers the call for a "Sawtooth Jerico." The people in these songs of shamelessly flamboyant Southern Gothic environments, seeing and raising expected themes and terms, try not to fall off of or slide down "Dope Mountain" 'til they want to, and it's a real place, with stolen copper wire stashed in the old mine, finally good for something again, and lots of vines and lines and lives to get tangled.

Spirituality is another common interest. A hillbilly preacher sucks poison from the ankle of the young widow, as their faces turn different colors—he's a snakehandler, and apparently prepared to do that in certain cases, although seems like it defeats the point in church? But they're on a date,, and I guess she just stepped where she shouldn't have been stepping (further study needed; all this precarious detail makes me want to be careful too).

Things get ecumenical in "Guru," where we start out bonded "in the bowels of a coma." Must be good stuff, also leaving room for (true-to-life)'billy self-awareness: "Stretch out your vowels, son, and show your pedigree." But soon enough, maybe by the next course, "We got high as Heaven, tweaked on God and crystal meth," oh yeth. Also mellow moments of romance, out under the North Georgia stars; "I ain't no shaman, " but bring it on babe. Hmm. So many lines, images rippling by, it seems impossible to bring up a satisfyingly representative dipper, so far.

I expect us to get burnt out on the road. I even welcome it. The edge is where we find truth. I always seem to be looking for a human/mankind truth more than a personal truth. Personal truths are shaped by our own ego, our own wants and needs, and I just don’t find myself that interesting or trustworthy. I hope to see y’all out on the road next year. We’ll be carving out these songlines across the country, singing our world into existence.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-country-americana-albums-2022-1234648516/kane-brown-different-man-1234648559/ A fairly wide-ranging round-up, and some of these I agree with, some I really really don't, several that I haven't yet heard seem implausible, based on previous offerings, but several more are intriguingly described, will check.