Rolling Country 2023

Since I live in Montana now, I tried listening to an "outlaw country" radio station today. I heard Montgomery Gentry's "She Couldn't Change Me" (I searched on YouTube later to find out what the song was and who performed it) and could feel the life draining out of me.

lol! idk i kinda like that one - i think the colors, maybe? painting the walls blue, buying pink chablis, dyed her blonde hair brown, her blue eyes turned green etc

she seems fun he’s a grump imp

i forgot that troy gentry died!

*imo

xxp where in Montana, un?

Speed listen on the Stones comp (meaning hop n skip rather than playing through everything). Thought "Honky Tonk Women" was the boringest choice Brooks & Dunn could've made, so haven't even taken in whether they do it well or not. Would've liked Ronnie Dunn to try his vox on "We Love You" or "Emotional Rescue." The three potential keepers so far are Brothers Osborne, War, Treaty "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" a song from a couple of years after the Stones stopped infusing everything they did with uneasiness and subversion so the fact that it's just a solid groove for a country band doesn't lose anything, in fact that deep voice at the start (Mr. Osborne, perhaps? or Mr. War?) is a BIG uneasy. The vocals from there are respectable enough and though deep uneasiness never returns the thing grooves along reminding me that this is actually a good song – BUT what grabs me are the guitars, which about 3 minutes in make an effort to jump free and join a hair metal band. Not for long enough, but I like that solo. Never heard of either of these acts.

Another keeper is Elvie Shane's "Sympathy For The Devil." Never heard of him either, and who is anybody to think they could cover "Sympathy For The Devil," esp. this sincere-voiced normie? The band really kicks, while the vocals seem to think they're doing a sorrowful song, even when the voice is throwing its fist in the air (if voices can do that), Bob Seger-like, and then, falsetto seems actually maniacal. Kept my attention, anyway.

Eric Church "Gimme Shelter." Doesn't come close to achieving the eeriness of the Stones' version, but captures the doggedness of the Grand Funk version. Turns it into a grind-it-out pounder. Helps that it's a good song, of course, and they let the instruments mass together towards the end.

Not sure those are keepers after all, but I liked some of the adventure they attempted or stumbled into. Wouldn't mind them at a party. Or the next two:

Ashley McBryde on "Satisfaction" sounds like any good singer, Tina Turner or Bonnie Bramlett or someone, trying the song, and the original is inimitable and uncoverable (even by the Stones), so in a sense there's an immediate "who cares?" about any cover version that isn't Britney or Devo, but maybe I'll come back to it as itself, a good voice on a song that just happens to share words and melody with "Satisfaction."

Jimmie Allen has a nonemphatic voice, but his "Miss You" immediately made me smile. Not sure his soul embellishments and melisma work, but they make me smile too. So does the harmonica. Never heard of Jimmie Allen and I'm enjoying this like I enjoyed the Elvie Shane: who's this guy to think he can sing this song? And good for him.

Honorable mention: I groaned at the idea of someone doing "Wild Horses," but Little Big Town are good singers so this isn't bad. Was listening to "Little White Church" the other day. Wish LBT'd try Billy Idol's "White Wedding." White Wedding: country stars' tribute to the music of Billy Idol, Adam Ant, The Pet Shop Boys, and Kajagoogoo.

I mentioned her above. But this new one is really great. features Hurray for the Riff Raff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7R4B1mr-PQ

she seems fun he's a grump imp

I like the idea of Eddie Montgomery as a grumpy imp, "a small, mischievous devil or sprite." Kinda cuts the legs out from under his massive self-seriousness.

very enjoyable tune, thanks

The new Doug Paisley is wonderful, might be my favorite one of his yet.

Not only did Lainey Wilson sing “Heart Like a Truck” on the CMT Awards last night, but they showed 5 times a Ram truck commercial that uses the song , . I think she won an award too. I kinda like the song although her delivery is a bit too melodramatic for me.

Jelly Roll won a male country singer award. “He sang “Son of a Sinner “

Jelly Roll did “Need a Favor” I mean

The show started off with a somber tone as country singer and co-host Kelsea Ballerini read off the names of six victims of a school shooting killed Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. She noted how she shared their pain, explaining that in 2008 she witnessed a school shooting in her hometown high school cafeteria in Knoxville and prayed for “real action” that would protect children and families. Earlier in the evening, country artists wore black ribbons on the red carpet to honor victims of the shooting

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/nation-world/cmt-music-awards-show/507-14d9bc53-6a89-421f-ba61-2af6b304ebfd

Maren Morris is pretty fearless. there are so many country musicians out there who are silent on politics, not wanting to make waves, but she’s a hero.

xpost so Kelsea Ballerini is putting her ass on the line here---professionally, in that her vanilla country pop aspirations don't auto-fit with perceived "anti=Second Amendment" tendencies, let alone eyewitness accounts of school shootings---personally in that she's a woman (which also doesn't help biz-wise), and how dare she, no doubt some are already going after her like they do Maren Morris (who is not vanilla, but gets a lot of shit and sounds kinda weary but traveling on through Humble Quest).

Maren and Kelsea appear to be the only courageous ones.

I doubt any Nashville country act will condemn legislature for kicking out 2 Black members and not doing anything about gun control

The Ballerini EP she released in April is by far her best work.

Haven't heard it all yet, but did catch a new one that sounded pretty decent---maybe that goes with the statements that aren't convenient for the kind of (not nec. bad but often very narrowly focused) music she's mostly made before: she's stepping past that kind of music as well, no longer hiding or sidelining so much of her brain and true range of experience.

I'm not against country pop at all, I just want more of it to be, to even try to be, as good as, while not aping, Lainey Wilson and Sunny Sweeney are currently (Lainey was just as good in 2021 as 2022, Sunny's '22 seemed her most consistent ever).

I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider. I know many other artists who are doing the same.

— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) April 5, 2023

I mean no disrespect towards anyone specifically, I don’t even mind @Travistritt.
I just think insulting transgender people is completely wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be
It’s a great day to be alive I thought

— Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan) April 8, 2023

absolutely terrifying that saying ‘insulting others is wrong’ is reason enough for people to get so evil so quick

— Zach Bryan (@zachlanebryan) April 8, 2023

His record – his Moby-Dick really – has some okay songs and some gorgeous songs. I never got to it last year.

Caramanica in NY Times and on IG has been a big Zach Bryan supporter.

I kinda went bananas for it last year, as these RC 22 posts only hint at:

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).

― dow, Tuesday, December 13, 2022 4:24 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

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).

― dow, Tuesday, December 13, 2022 4:28 PM

From Numero:

California You're Slippin"

Out Today: Joyce Street - Tied Down LP
A ’70s homemaker stuck between the studio and a getting dinner on the table, Joyce Street eked out an arresting countrypolitan discography in the margins of an otherwise traditional American life. With lyrics drawn from the pages of her diary, Street’s stirring Mississippi warble led her into the fly-by-night world of custom studios, cutting tracks for upstart country concerns like Reena, Sonobeat, Revelation, and Arc. Channeling the honky tonk angel energy of Bobbie Gentry, Loretta Lynn, and Jeannie C. Riley,Tied Down compiles a decade’s worth of melodies disguised as lottery tickets.
Track List
Joyce Street Life Ain't Worth Livin' (If I Can't Have You)
Joyce Street That Man Of Mine
Joyce Street Woman Do Something Nice
Joyce Street Mississippi Moonshine
Joyce Street Don't Make Me Cry
Joyce Street Tied Down
Joyce Street Music Soft and the Lights Down Low
Joyce Street California You're Slippin'
Joyce Street The Good Book Says It's Wrong
Joyce Street Back Streets Of Your City
Joyce Street Love In My Heart
Joyce Street When You Belong To Me
Joyce Street California You're Slippin' [Demo]
Joyce Street Lost Highway

Oh yeah: Miranda was on a talk show last night, plugging this---said it was more stories than recipes, so I'm kinda curious (Holly Gleason is co-author):

My new cookbook Y’ALL EAT YET? is here!!
My mom and her group of friends, that are basically like my aunts, started what we called a “Chopped Cook-Off” in 2020. We’d have our husbands pick an ingredient a week, so we’d have 5 ingredients to make a dish, and we couldn’t use google to help us. It got us started talking about all of the recipes that we’d made, and all of our memories around them. We thought it’d be cute to make a little Shutterfly book of all of those recipes, but that idea grew into creating a full cookbook to share with y'all. So here we are, 3 years later. with a real book with all of our favorite recipes and memories together. I hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

Welcome to the Pretty Bitchin’ Kitchen Y’all!

Cheers! –Miranda

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/arts/music/popcast-country-divorce-albums.html

NY Times popcast /podcast re country music and recent divorce albums by Kelsea Ballerini , Carly Pearce , and Kacey Musgraves

The only one of those I've heard all the way through (and several times) is Pearce's: pretty uneven, like the one before it, and I'm sure it's tough as hell to figure out how much you want to, should, and can disclose, this last being at least as much about the intellectual and emotional energy, also will power, to coalesce fairness, candor, clarity, vividness, even aside from any concerns about feuds, lawyers, tabloids, fan talk online, etc. etc.---but if you're gonna do it at all, better do it right. She seems unsure of what she's doing about half the time on there.
On the other hand, she was great at the Opry this Saturday night just past, as seen on digital antenna TV's The Circle "network"/channel.

(As for Musgraves, what the hell? Every Rushton Kelly song I've ever heard tells all who will listen, in a very sincere, abject way, whut a no-good, dadgum, sorry soggy sack of shit he is.)

Carly Pearce's first album Every Little Thing is still my favorite of hers, it was fun and loose in ways she seems to keep retreating from. (Not that the divorce album should be "fun", but her music keeps feeling more static to me.)

His record – his Moby-Dick really – has some okay songs and some gorgeous songs. I never got to it last year.

― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 11, 2023 2:01 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anyone who still hasn't listened to American Heartbreak is missing out. Put it on.

The songwriting isn't amazing and individual songs are unlikely to wow, but the sum is greater than its parts, and I consider it an incredible development that he's as popular as he is given the last two decades of male-driven country.

I listened to it once all the way through, which I admit is not enough, but my takeaway was that it felt like a sea of same-ness - same inflections, same melodic palette, same volumes, same vibes - with the occasional peak that made me go, "OK, this one sounds cool."

I don't really understand why he put out so many songs at once - is that a streaming stunt to game the country charts or something?

The sheer number of tracks makes it hard to wade in, for me.

I do think it's great that he has gotten so big.

looking back now, i think my takeaway is similar to Alfred's ... except maybe i couldn't seem to fish out the okay songs from the seemingly never-ending stream of similar sounds

I must credit Wallen's weirdo song-stuffed behemoth for helping to prepare me for Bryant's---Zach Bryant is our Morgan Wallen.
In other news, Amanda Shires and Bobbie Nelson have an album coming out June 23. Instrumentally should be fine, but yknow Bobbie didn't sing and I told yall about my probs with Amanda's voice on Take It Like A Man, except when it's double-tracked, so maybe she'll do some of that here.
Bobbie's Audiobiography is good, and she did several other albums credited to her and Willie; the only one I've heard is December Day, a trip. Her struggles referenced by Shires are candidly tracked in Me and Sister Bobbie, the joint memoir with Willie: alternating chapters, come hell and breakfast.
https://www.jambase.com/article/amanda-shires-bobbie-nelson-loving-you-album-summertime-cover
First single from the upcoming, guest sung by guess who:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aW1a4fM8X0

Looking forward to this!

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/brennen-leigh-aint-through-honky-tonkin-yet.jpg

"Ain't Through Honky Tonkin' Yet" coming 6/16/2023

Awash in full-throttle fiddle, weeping steel guitar, a sprinkling of heavenly backing vocals, and anchored by her warm, expressive vocals, Leigh’s latest album is an emotion-packed revelation. Rooted in vintage country, Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet is an unapologetically beer-and tear-soaked homage to an era when hard-country weepers burst forth from AM transistor radios.

“I’m in love with this idea of the real Nashville, " says Leigh. “The idyllic golden age, which, to me, is around 1967, 1968, because of the alchemy, the explosion that occurred, with the best country music songwriters ever, the best singers in country music.”

The album’s country roots run deep, with guests like Marty Stuart and Rodney Crowell and a lineup of top-flight musicians, yet each track soars with abandon. With thoughtful, incisive lyrics and vibrant melodies at the forefront, Leigh has successfully created a modern gem, while honoring country music’s enduring golden era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qMXxPAeA9U

her western swing album was terrific. this should be incredible.

Her tour hits some fun spots

https://brennen-leigh-home.squarespace.com/tour

“I’m in love with this idea of the real Nashville, " says Leigh. “The idyllic golden age, which, to me, is around 1967, 1968, because of the alchemy, the explosion that occurred, with the best country music songwriters ever, the best singers in country music.”

(After I noted news of a show featuring Carper, Kelly Willis, and Brennen Leigh, the one I hadn’t heard of)
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), Friday, 16 September 2022 03:01

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, Friday, 16 September 2022 03:54

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, 16 September 2022

Thanks for all that, yall! Starting w Obsessed..., and esp. 'preciate how she follows the more variegated turns, observant reflections, like the title track, with the faster realness of "Comin' In Hot"--also (let me count the ways) the generous, still hopeful "Same Dream" is almost clipped by bee-beep "Tell Him I'm Dead," trad-recalling twilight eerie realness (somewhat Sam Shephardesque?) "Coming Off Onto Sunset Boulevard" gets charged by the equally cogent content of "You're Doing It Wrong," and so on: with bippity-boppity standard Western Swing frameworks, but also more blunt(ly thought out, experience-based) complaints than Tommy Duncan etc. usually delivered. Reminding me of Susannah Clark's "I'll Be Your San Antone Rose" as answer song.
Other cool stuff too, like the way she trades lines, sung and spoken, with Emily Gimble, Johnny Gimble's granddaughter, yeah. Also plays with the Wheel (who are very good here, duh). will check her 2018 Certain Kinda as well)(and all of 2020 Prairie Love Letter is on Bandcamp)
― dow, Saturday, 10 December 2022 00:14

Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer are doing a free Kennedy Center in DC gig now that is being shared on Kennedy Center youtube location. They're sounding more Mavis Staples and Americana than old school country or country pop, but this is still the best thread for them I guess

Morgan Wallen discussion w/ references to other acts as well going on in Wallen thread

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/11/arts/music/bailey-zimmerman-religiously-the-album.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Caramanica on Bailey Zimmerman who has the top song on country radio, is opening on tour for Morgan Wallen, is influenced by Nickleback, & Luke Combs , and recently visited Kid Rock who invited him over.

Hmm

where the hell WERE you people in the Wallen thread?! Cowards!

I said what I had to say on RC 2022, with the one later thought posted up this thread a little ways, that listening to his shaggy song-stuffed slab got me in shape for that of Zac Bryant, who is "our Morgan Wallen," as a somewhut more accomplished artist (and poster of reasonable Tweets. even).

who has the top song on country radio, is opening on tour for Morgan Wallen, is influenced by Nickleback, & Luke Combs , and recently visited Kid Rock who invited him over.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/2023-acm-awards-review-dolly-parton-garth-brooks-1234734032/

Morgan Wallen won male vocalist of the year at ACM Awards but wasn’t there to accept due to his voice issues

More like frail vocalist of the year, right?

Ha. Yes

Lainey Wilson was the night’s standout artist with three wins, including album of the year

Cole Swindell "She had me at heads Carolina" won best single

https://www.acmcountry.com/noms

Muscadine Bloodline and their new album "Teenage Dixie"

what say ye, Rolling Country thread?

I haven’t listened to them yet. Saw a reference to “unapologetically southern” and “country and southern rock “ , but I can’t blame the duo for those cliches. Maybe that is or is not how they sound.

not crazy about the word "Dixie" in their album title