Rolling Country 2023

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

Haven't listened to this one yet either:

“Music Man is the feel-good album of the year, and it illustrates Martine’s gift for weaving ingenious, often humorous lyrics (Ray Stevens was Martine’s earliest supporter) and rollicking music that encourages listeners to roll back the rug and dance.”
-No Depression

Kill Rock Stars in collaboration with Bloodshot Records is proud to share Layng Martine Jr.'s Music Man is out today + to share the new video for his single "Little Bit Of Magic"!

Layng is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he's written songs for Elvis, The Pointer Sisters, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, and Jerry Lee Lewis (to name but a few). The songs on Music Man were hand-picked from his extensive catalog by his son, acclaimed producer, Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, Rosanne Cash, The Avett Brothers) and recorded at Tucker’s studio Flora. Notable among the players are Peter Buck, Bill Frisell, Laura Veirs, and KD Lang, as well as a wealth of other talented musicians.

Other new releases incl. Altitude, by Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives, Brandy Clark's s/t.

Haven't listened yet cont.: Was not expecting so many country & related artists here---

This week on Folk Alley, join Elena See to celebrate Bob Dylan’s birthday (on May 24) with new versions of Dylan classics from Leftover Salmon and Sunny Sweeney, Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, and Tami Neilson; plus more from Valerie June, Punch Brothers, The Cactus Blossoms, Emma Swift, Cindy Cashdollar and Amy Helm, and Tony Rice.

In hour two, it’s new music from Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer, Margo Cilker, Rhiannon Giddens, Special Consensus, Marketa Irglova, The Milk Carton Kids, Libby Rodenbough, Rufus Wainwright; plus favorites from Daniel Rodriguez, Western Centuries, Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers, and more!

def too many ashleys & whatnot

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, January 15, 2023 5:09 PM (four months ago)

While not exactly an Ashley, there's Ashland Craft, whose "Mimosas in the Morning" is a solid analogue to the peppier tracks on Chuck's list atop this thread.

Haven't heard the new Margo Price but I've heard it's great. Honestly, though, I still have so much trouble with all the great artists with first or last or both names that with M. Margo Price, Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, Morgan Wade, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Ashley McBride, Ashley Monroe ...

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, January 21, 2023 10:04 AM (four months ago)

"Wilder Days" by Morgan Wade (whose songs are so good, she'll make you forget about the singer with a similar name) is more Austin than Nashville, bright-but-gritty in the production, but with enough pop leanings to get radio airplay. If you remember should-have-beens the Damnations TX, you'll totally get those vibes from several songs on her Reckless LP.

Hadn't thought to connect her with Damnations TX, whose CD I still have---one of them, Amy Boone, is still with the Delines, whose latest is disappointing, but the debut, Colfaz Avenue, was still a low-rent urban countryoid vision cruise last time I checked in, and made my list for the recent female country singers poll.
Morgan's Reckless Deluxe came out in Jan. '22; here are just some of the blogged comments pulled into my 2021 blog round-up---brace yerselves, if you try reading it at all:

...Getting "Reckless" again, is one of the things she considers, wishes for sometimes, as the music moves around her---alt rock as the younger sort of potentially tops-of-the-pops country, young enough to take the 90s and early 00s over older artists' fascination with Petty and F.Mac: it's an extension and reinforcement of Wade's own electrical tuning systems, under all those tats*, flexing, always ready to go, as far as she and the guy she's talking to or around will take things--yes, and frequently it's to the limit, one more time, as stimulating prospect, because usually they have a history, and she certainly does, with and without him, alluded to with a sense of wonder, like can she beleeeve she did and was all whut---at one point recalls, maybe from the night they met, "Ah spoke mah truth, and yew got so upset"(oh the voice keeps it country alright, like the weight of personal relationship history does: one tight-jawed syllable measuring itself out at a time).

Welp--he's gotta get over it if they do try again---may be the guy she's out on an actual date with, as the music sounds atypically sedate, dinner-y, in the opening track: she's on her best behavior, sweetly murmuring, while observing, describing, thinking, "Ah wish Ah'd known you in your wilder days." Probably, undertones of voice and lyrics and accompaniment soon suggest, she'd feel like they had more in common back then---but, having heard all the songs and coming back to this one, seems like nostalgia for what might have been, the yen for a safe yet hot fantasy, which is so Morgan now, ditto the way she leans into wondering what his secret is---gotta have one; he's so Normal he must be nuts too, maybe in a program like her---maybe she'll peel back a few layers---

Soon it's "Matches and Metaphors," down the line with this guy or another, a booty call: "It's raining at my house, is it raining at yores?" But then "To hell with metaphors," she requests the comfort of his body, wonders if it will help, thinks it might, mentions a letter he wrote her, starts writing out loud her response, her script for how it might all work out for them after all---then back to the body ask, that's what it all comes back to, 'til she finally starts over, like a recording replayed, low-key intense, not gonna stop (digital not tape won't brake or break, fade in, radiate).

Of the very solid and vibrant original ten set, number 9, "Northern Air," is just okay, in this context--could be a high point elsewhere---about somebody who's stuck down here, in sordid Southern boredom, while he's up there---but the closer, "Met You"--not "Meet You," o hail naw, gotta be a history---is that comparatively rare kind of sequel that improves: it's her Godfather 2

The Jan. 2022 Reckless---Deluxe Edition does more of that, takes it all deeper and darker, on a longer, more exciting chain-chain-chain, getting wrapped around and stretched. It's not all together doomie, or not in a depresso sense---also, even visions of flight are never too florid, because she is wised up, she has been down this lane before, in her head and elsewhere. But context shades details and tone of even the mellowest, "Through Your Eyes," which is where she wishes she could see: a child,, age three, has said, "I want to be like you," which doesn't spook her a bit (as it does me, knowing her now as I kinda do), but touches her and even makes her wonder "if I should pray to you," (or is it "like you"? That would normally seem more likely, for sure, but---) as she moves from physical grace of the child to possible spiritual grace, also conflating "innocence" with "wild thoughts."

Another one has has her on the road from Tombstone, "holdin' hands with the band, six feet under," and something about "like Johnny and June": dead and loving it? Anyway rolling along, at least until "When The Dirt All Settles"---meanwhile, there's also "The Night," when she's hoping "the pills will work better this time," like the doctor says he thinks they might---I usually draw back from this kind of song, but she draws me in---eventually, there's the sole cover, providing a second of relief--something from the outside world!--but it's "We're caught in a trap/I can't walk out"---yet, as in EP's original, still kind of a sense, in the verses, of feeling around, talking lower, see it feels like this, don't it, is it possible they could, like, work it or something out after all, one more shot---all surging along towards something, of course--so Morgan.

*under all those tats: can't unsee the videos, where she looks concerned, careful, with vines snakes skank jailhouse roadmaps crawling out of the fabrics, arms sometimes seeming to pulse with power and infection. But that's her truth, and I may just have been not around young people in too long (covid alibi in a not very vaxxed red state).

Frank Kogan initially wonders if these are recovery songs—could be, but also, I reply: I haven't caught any psychobabble, or therapyspeak per se---"The Night" is disarming because she's watchful of options and the present the past the future (re title of classic girl group song) as ever, also of self, but there's no sense, for once, of her also talking to a particular guy (as I assume she otherwise does, although of course means to be overheard, though in another song it's "the woman in me" that needs "the lover in you." not "the man," so maybe not always a guy, though always is in videos I've seen; maybe she just doesn't want him to get all, "Yes! The MAN in me!"), nor is it big boo-hoo save me x confessional: the words are just finding their way out, as she's shivering, trying to get enough out that she can sleep, "without going too deep." Overall, even with some plot lines re what we gon do, the past is mainly felt through weight and implications, not coy, but left to interpretations, and relatable to anybody of any age who is feeling it times wondering about futures. Not that she isn't a disturbing presence, but relating is one part of the Morgan Experience, fer shure. (later) She's always approaching, calling, watching. Amazing how much of the same process stays musically fresh, arresting, involving. I usually think, "Should I be paid to take notes on this?" kind of songwriting, which does seem to imply search for therapy in some cases, but here, I forget to complain...

Sorry, the Delines' debut is Colfax Avenue.

Y'all heard the new Whitney Rose?

Yeah. It's good!

I already get Caitlin and Caroline Rose mixed up ... another Rose might be a problem.

Am I ready to get strung out on Whitney Rose one more time??? It's very likely to happen, "ready" or not---

Mary Gauthier's Dark Enough To See The Stars is such a story that I worry about spoilers, but here goes: each song is present tense, incl. when she's saying "Remember When" to her long-time traveling companion, the one who at the very least helped her get her shit together, maybe saved her life, which MG is inclined to believe.
So they're still going along, though "Amsterdam," for instance, then the companion pulls way out ahead, and the previously mentioned old bad-times-rolling life's "Ghosts of the Vieux Carre" suddenly seems tragically ironic--almost, but the companion is not now exactly a ghost---"The Sisters of Charity/Really did a number on me" doesn't quite match "The preacher's words hang in the air,"because those words are most of all part of the shocked clarity of the funeral or whatever--she doesn't call it "a celebration of life" either, or anything: it's just with children running around, and "all the friends I never knew you had!" and other glimpses, all wtf, wtf, wtf, so she gets back on the road, and writes more song-letters, dispatches, chapters to the now missed, not exactly missing one.

Musically, she sometimes draws on customized suggestions of graceful 70s country-folk tunes of Young and Dylan (maybe from way down in The Witmark Demos too?), with a splash of Floyd Crameresque guitar here, steel guitar there, and a bracingly Williesque interstate waltz, "Truckers and Troubadours" ("No use in keepin' score), strong enough to be a good single, gains even more from context, incl. placement in sequence of songs.
Vocal x instrumental delivery such that I notice something more with every listen, also because Imagery is fluid and precise, never too much or little. Damn, she's good.

Maybe I'll check out her book about songwriting. She's probably still involved in that long-term project of writing with war vets too (she's not the only Nashville pro doing it, but think she may have founded it, or co-founded

Luke Combs cover of Tracy Chapman “Fast Cars” is pleant enough

Pleasant

such a good song, it's hard to screw it up ... and he doesn't.

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/the-best-country-roots-albums-of-2023-so-far/

What's on your list?

Marty Stuart album is ok. Roots country plus Byrds influences

Listening to Lainey Wilson pop country from 2022 now . Some songs I like, some too bombastic and arena for me

https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/77/4210977-2977863.jpg

Little Songs is the highly anticipated new album from Canadian singer-songwriter, Colter Wall. On Little Songs, fans of Wall’s will find the same hardscrabble voice they’ve loved over the years connecting the contemporary world to the values, hardships, and celebrations of rural life. The album is produced by Wall and Patrick Lyons, and features 8 new original songs, as well as two fan-favorite covers – Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina” and Ian Tyson’s “The Coyote & The Cowboy.”

Little Songs is an upbeat, sometimes somber glimpse into the rural work and social life of the Canadian West, and, more so than with previous albums, opens emotional turns as mature and heartening as the resonant baritone voice writing and singing them.
1. Prairie Evening/Sagebrush Waltz
2. Standing Here
3. Corralling the Blues
4. The Coyote & The Cowboy
5. Honky Tonk Nighthawk
6. For a Long While
7. Cow/Calf Blue Yodel
8. Little Songs
9. Evangelina
10. The Last Loving Words

damn---7/14/23 (& mebbe download code w vinyl?)

Wakes up and realize her name is still Sunny Michaela Freakin Sweeney, 46, double-divorcee, time to go out down the highway a little further and introduce the rules one more time, to a new recruit: "You can tie me up, but you can't tie me down." Not to say there aren't flashbacks: title track of Married Alone is a shivering, crashing, spiraling waltz, with Vince Gill co-lifting the chorus---otherwise, she has to push herself out in front of the band and any other straight-ahead detours like this,

It's just one word shouldn't be that tough
But I finally realized enough is enough
Shouldn't linger in the air or echo down the hall
As soon as I'd say it, it would be done
Then both of us could finally move on
And get out from under the weight of it all

If goodbye were as easy as hello

marital stability, though this context suggests might take an army.

Morgan Wallen’s ‘Last Night’ Tops Billboard Hot 100 for 11th Week
Plus, Luke Combs' "Fast Car" rides to No. 3, making for two simultaneous top three country hits for the first time since 2000.

Loving the new Brennen Leigh album

The Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson collab album is fantastic. At the risk of picking a scab, I'll say I actually like it more than the Shires solo album from last year.

I adore Brandy Clark and thought the individual songs were all very good, but the whole of her album in its entirety was just a chore to listen to. The pairing with Carlile seemed to rob her of her wittiness. The second Carlile - Tanya Tucker album, though, is one of the best of the year so far.

do y'all have any label Bandcamps you keep an eye on for country releases? i know New West and Rounder are on there ... not sure about other stuff, either "bigger" than those or small labels that focus on country music.

I adore Brandy Clark and thought the individual songs were all very good, but the whole of her album in its entirety was just a chore to listen to.

Even the songs are a chore to listen to.

Haven't listened yet---I thought some of her earl tracks were overworkshopped, self-conscious, but really enjoyed Your Life Is A Record.

And the reason I haven't listened yet is that I'm still, believe it or not, doing a round-up of re-re-etc.-listening objects for a blogpost about the music of 2022. There are just a few sticking points left, with Lainey Wilson's Bell Bottom Country somewhut unexpectedly among same. It had taken several listens to reach a peak of enthusiasm---seemed too contrived, and also I belatedly discovered that increased volume revealed more conviction in tone and details---but I assumed that I had gotten it, and could come back to said peak several months later: no. Same process, same learning curve, all over again, even though it seemed reasonably loud at first---it's not all about the volume, this elusively problematic aspect, but for sure, if you want your sensitive arena rock country, you gotta be ready with the volume (to ride it back a little for the double-tracked armor or scar tissue, a signifying part of the looking back in candor in the finely written "Watermelon Moonshine,"but still a little too loud), ready, often enough, to throw your headphones into the maelstrom ov fun like she does her head on "This One's Gonna Cost Me," title and chorus of which become this album's thee most explicit expression of her exciting dynamic: persistent self-image of a good girl, raised right, looking for love and self-empowerment, who rat now wants to have a good good good time.
Here we have a recurring sort of Zep-hop beat at its heartiest, swaying that big horned head one more time, but now it also occurs to me that producer Jay Joyce also appreciates Led Z.'s mix of the heavy and brash with the fingerpicking side of life, and Wilson responds, going barefoot down a b-melody line to the ripples of Molly Tuttle's banjo, or for that matter under an intro of what sounds like some kind of mellotron-banjo.

(Joyce's only misfire: "Wildflowers and Wild Horses" starts with a mysterioso Lee Hazlewoodesque instrumental scrim, but then turns Lainey loose to gallop through big loud bravura rhetoric, losing Lee's control and tension.)
Beats vary, but clock gentle intensity in ballads, like when she credibly salutes "Daddy's Boots," with a bit of atypical toe-tapping added, then strips away the usual roots-view to "Momma's crazy and Daddy's mean," when it's down to "Me, You and Jesus" getting through: "Me" first, part of the candor again, "Jesus" the only mention, that's how young and desperate she is in this flashback, "You" can be anybody she trusts, trying to hold on to this isolated, shared undercurrent of faith and hope and getting by is the point, and not so loudly that Momma and Daddy will hear.
Followed immediately by "Hold My Halo," cause cuz she's paid her Dew Drop Inn dues, gonna ride that electric bull one more time tonight. See there always has to be a justification, which could get annoying in the uniquely narrowcast "Weak-End" (yes we know you're lookin' for love, but that's not all, not in them places), if not for distraction of the gently antsy beat), with need for alibi and recreational therapy at its funniest and near-rowdiest in "Smell Like Smoke" ("It's cause Ah been, through, Hellll.")
Wiki sez that one was "tacked on" to streams and downloads: too bad for CD and LP buyers, because it and the other tackee, "New Friends," are antipodal highlights. After the 4-Non-Blondes cover--where she conscientiously delivers teeming verbosity rushing to the accidental but still stupid comedy of anticlimatic "Whut's going on?"---Wilson returns to the vibrant twilight of "You, Me and Jesus," now resolving to find new friends, rather than just moping over that guy---atta girl, as she says in song of that title, also a gentle one, though given the louder ones, one might wonder just what kind of friends. TBA.

A retraction, and apology for my disgraceland display of effusion for xpost American Heartbreak: I now find myself unable to continue past track 10 or so, what with Zach B's abject drops of remorse and desire and insight and obsession with self and other continuously and monotonously sliding off the Mellenplate---the Mellentemplate leaned on by so many raspy bluejean-jacketed young and not so young men of country for the past 20 years, at least. Not that the Coug himself wouldn't do his damndest to build a listenable record around such inclinations. I mean, good luck with patching yourself back together, ZB, but if you want musicmaking as therapy, maybe get with Mary Gauthier, who has all that experience writing with war vets.

I mean that seriously, but there should be a good producer who can stand to this sort of thing some of the time.

Willie's First Fourth of July Picnic was 50 years ago today
Michael Corcoran

Just as magic mushrooms grow out of cow manure, the musical event that put Austin on the map on July 4, 1973 sprouted from a financial shitshow on the same Hurlbut Ranch. The three-day Dripping Springs Reunion in March 1972, dubbed “the Country Woodstock” by promoters, anticipated crowds of 60,000 a day for a mix of country legends- Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Roy Acuff, etc.- with hip, offbeat favorites Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Roger Miller, and Tom T. Hall. Projections were 160,000 short, as a total of only 20,000 came through the gates. The crowd for Friday’s bluegrass lineup, including Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs was a paltry 2,000. Biggest day was Sunday, with Willie, Kris, Rita Coolidge and Waylon playing to 12,000. It was “a successful failure,” according to Mike McFarland, one of the four promoters from Dallas who lost their asses.

No apologies necessary. An album as long as Bryan's will have more than enough okay things. Nevertheless, I like the album. You hear Mellencamp in your average country guy? Really? I wish! Those tropes can get them through a lot of bilge.

Have you read this: https://www.stereogum.com/2223439/zach-bryan-came-out-of-nowhere/reviews/concert-review/

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-country/bandcamp-best-country-june-2023

Ben Salmon for Bandcamp likes Brennan Leigh, Fust, Tanya Tucker, the Kody Norris Show, Jenny Don’t & the Spurs, and Jason Isbell, Caitlyn Canty and a few more

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/country-musics-culture-wars-and-the-remaking-of-nashville?mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=tny&utm_social-type=owned

Morris had recently had a few skirmishes online with right-wing influencers—notably, Brittany Aldean, the maga wife of the singer Jason Aldean. Morris had called her “Insurrection Barbie”; in response, Jason Aldean had encouraged a concert audience to boo Morris’s name. Both sides had sold merch off the clash. The Aldeans hawked Barbie shirts reading “don’t tread on our kids.” Morris fans could buy a shirt that read “lunatic country music person”—Tucker Carlson’s nickname for her—and another bearing the slogan “you have a seat at this table.” (She donated the proceeds to L.G.B.T.Q. charities.)

In country music, the city v rural= corrupt v moral binary has existed for a long, long time.

Let’s think about how Aldean’s latest anti-city song is part of a longer tradition in country music, rather than an outlier. pic.twitter.com/rWQP4bmJMd

— Amanda Marie Martinez (@Amammartinez) July 17, 2023

Good point

Jason Aldean shot this at the site where a white lynch mob strung Henry Choate up at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., after dragging his body through the streets with a car in 1927.

That's where Aldean chose to sing about murdering people who don't respect police. https://t.co/gBL7FlaBS2 pic.twitter.com/eGfmMc8HAI

— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman) July 17, 2023