Archive for July, 2006
Monday, July 31st, 2006
There are a lot of givens on that final CMA ballot. Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban will be nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Alan Jackson will be among the Male Vocalists, Rascal Flatts will be up for Vocal Group. Carrie Underwood is a shoo-in for Single & Horizon nods, and Female Vocalist & Album are also within reach for her. But there are a lot of acts either on the borderline of being nominated or in danger of being completely overlooked. Here are some acts and their work that I believe voters should keep in mind as they’re filling out that second ballot in August.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Gary Allan
- Male Vocalist of the Year
- Album of the Year – Tough All Over
- Single of the Year – “Best I Ever Had”
- Music Video of the Year – “Best I Ever Had”
Allan has languished in the shadows long enough. After five uniformly excellent albums and strong record sales and radio play, the suicide of his wife led to his phenomenal sixth album, Tough All Over, which was the best country album of 2005. He’s a gifted vocalist, and brought new poignancy to his cover of “Best I Ever Had”, which was one of the year’s most powerful singles. The evocative video captures the waking dream/nightmare world that his version of the song provokes. He is long overdue for some serious recognition.
Dixie Chicks
- Entertainer of the Year
- Vocal Group of the Year
- Single of the Year – “Not Ready To Make Nice”
- Song of the Year – “Not Ready To Make Nice”
- Music Video of the Year – “Not Ready To Make Nice”
- Album of the Year – Taking the Long Way
I fully expect the Chicks to receive zero nominations, but they deserve to be cited in every category that they’re eligible for. Taking the Long Way is far and away the best country album of 2006, and just might be the best album of an already exceptional catalog. Voters may want to punish them for speaking out against the country music industry, but just like she wasn’t bashing America when Natalie criticized the president, the Chicks aren’t attacking country music, or its fans, by criticizing the industry.
If the purpose of the CMA is to acknowledge excellence in the genre, the Chicks should be recognized for putting out the best music of any country act this generation. The Chicks are international superstars, selling records and concert tickets around the world. They are the most entertaining, talented and versatile act working today, and their music is challenging, profound and deeply moving. The CMA should give them their due with nominations across the board.
Kenny Chesney
- Single of the Year – “Who You’d Be Today”
- Music Video of the Year – “Who You’d Be Today”
- Album of the Year – The Road & The Radio
Chesney is a given for an Entertainer nomination, and Album will probably happen, though I’m not as confident on that category. But Chesney put out the best single of his career with “Who You’d Be Today”, and the accompanying music video is one of my three or four favorite music videos of all time, in any genre.
Trisha Yearwood
- Female Vocalist of the Year
- Album of the Year – Jasper County
Yearwood came back in a big way this year, with an album that has grown on me with time, after I’d written it off earlier. Trisha belongs back in the category she won in 1997 and 1998. As long as she’s actively recording, she’ll always be one of the five best Female Vocalists the genre has. She’s also the most consistent album artist since Emmylou Harris. In fact, while only two of her albums have been nominated by the CMA (Everybody Knows in 1997 and Where Your Road Leads in 1998), she’s been nominated seven times for Best Country Album at the Grammys – every album she’s released since that category was established has been cited. Jasper County sold well and is artistically solid. The CMA should give it the same respect the Grammys did earlier this year.
Toby Keith
- Male Vocalist of the Year
Keith was nominated for Entertainer last year but left off of the Male Vocalist list. He belongs in both categories, but Male Vocalist should be where he lands if it’s going to be only one of the two. He’s one of the best male country singers of his generation. Listen to the nuances of his latest single, “A Little Too Late.” He can wrap his voice around a ballad better than almost any guy out there.
Tim McGraw
McGraw’s tour with wife Faith Hill is on track to become the second-biggest country tour in history, right behind the 2003-2004 Up! tour from Shania Twain. The last time they toured together, Tim sang before Faith. The new dynamics were clear this year, when McGraw performed after Faith; right now, he’s the bigger star. In fact, he’s one of the biggest stars of the genre, and is expanding country music’s audience with the bold choices he’s been making musically. He belongs in the Entertainer category.
Faith Hill
- Female Vocalist of the Year
- Album of the Year – Fireflies
Hill made the best album of her career with Fireflies. She’s so successful that her talents are actually underrated. Her vocal style has deepened and become more defined. She’s never sounded as convincing doing adult-oriented, mature material as she does now. She has an ear for unconventional material that she can make work as mainstream country music. Embracing the songs of Lori McKenna has elevated her music to a new artistic peak.
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That’s enough for today. Later this week, my view on who should be nominated for the Horizon Award, which is promising to be a tough competition this year.
Saturday, July 29th, 2006
200 Essential 80′s Singles
Part 7: #50-#26
#50
“She and I”
Alabama
1986
Peak: #1
Upon its release, this was one of the freshest-sounding singles on the radio. Alabama sound absolutely rejuvenated, as if finding a new track for their Greatest Hits project had them itching to take their sound in a new direction. Twenty years later, this remains a high point of an incredible career.
#49
“Wildflowers”
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
1988
Peak: #6
Despite some nice harmonies from Ronstadt and Harris, this is essentially a Dolly Parton single, and it finds her returning to her mountain roots for the first time since going Hollywood more than a decade earlier.
#48
“‘Til I Gain Control Again”
Crystal Gayle
1982
Peak: #1
Crystal Gayle may seem like the most unlikely person to transform a Rodney Crowell standard into a #1 hit, but she pulled it off. Gayle never sounded better than when finally given a song this lyrically strong.
#47
“I Don’t Have To Crawl”
Emmylou Harris
1981
Peak: #44
Harris received a bit of a backlash for the Evangeline album, drenched with synthesizers and rock guitars that startled listeners who had embraced her bluegrass album Roses In The Snow only one year earlier. She absolutely nails the Rodney Crowell song that would later be recorded by his wife Rosanne Cash in 1988.
#46
“It’s Such A Small World”
Rodney Crowell & Rosanne Cash
1988
Peak: #1
Yes, that’s three Rodney Crowell songs in a row. This one, he actually gets to sing on. This duet with then-wife Cash brought him chart success for the first time as a performer, and is one of the best duets of the decade. This was the first of five consecutive #1 singles from his album Diamonds & Dirt.
#45
“Forever and Ever, Amen”
Randy Travis
1987
Peak: #1
Travis sold five million records on the strength of this single. The relentlessly catchy hit was one of those rare country songs that became well-known outside of the genre during a time when pop crossover wasn’t happening on a large scale anymore.
#44
“That’s The Way Love Goes”
Merle Haggard
1983
Peak: #1
Originally a #1 hit for Johnny Rodriguez ten years earlier, Haggard brought it back to the top slot. He’s more of a romantic than he’s given credit for. This is his best love song of the eighties.
#43
“Tight Fittin’ Jeans”
Conway Twitty
1981
Peak: #1
Twitty sang a lot of drippy love ballads, but he never dropped down to Doug Stone territory because he always had a lot of songs to keep the male listeners happy. Here, he’s an average joe who meets a rich wife at a honky-tonk and gives her one night on the other side, after she informs him that “darlin’, there’s a tiger in these tight-fittin’ jeans.”
#42
“80′s Ladies”
K.T. Oslin
1987
Peak: #7
The first song written by a woman to receive the CMA Award for Song of the Year, Oslin was suddenly a country star in her mid-forties on the strength of this classic. She charts the changing roles of women in society through the story of three female friends over four decades – “We burned our bras, and we burned our dinners, and we burned our candles at both ends”, and “We’ve said ‘I do’, and we’ve signed ‘I don’t’ and we swore we’d never do that again”. Nearly twenty years later, listeners still wonder where the girls went from there.
#41
“Why Not Me”
The Judds
1984
Peak: #1
A country ditty that soars with the trademark harmonies that powered the career of this mother-daughter duo. Later Judds records were basically just Wynonna with mom singing back-up, but the intricate harmonies on “Why Not Me” show how much of a full-fledged duo they were in the breakthrough years.
#40
“All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”
Hank Williams, Jr.
1984
Peak: #10
Possibly the most well-known Williams song because of it’s use on ABC’s Monday Night Football, you can see where Gretchen Wilson gets her inspiration on this rowdy hit. Who can’t get on board with a guy who brags “I’ve got girls who can cook, I’ve got girls who can clean, I’ve got girls that can do anything in between” before yelling, “Do you want to drink? Hey, do you want to party?”
#39
“The Way We Make A Broken Heart”
Rosanne Cash
1987
Peak: #1
It started out as a creepy duet between Cash and writer John Haitt that didn’t make his album. Loving the song, Cash transformed it into a Spanish-flavored solo number that sounds a whole lot more sincere and a whole lot less skanky than the original, which is now available on a Haitt anthology sold on iTunes.
#38
“Baby’s Gotten Good At Goodbye”
George Strait
1988
Peak: #1
Strait has the ability to make even the most ordinary song sound extraordinary, through a delivery that authenticates every word he sings. He’s singing a by-the-books I’ve been left song here, but it’s effectiveness is due to his sincere delivery.
#37
“Queen of Hearts”
Juice Newton
1981
Peak: #14
It makes absolutely no sense for a woman to be singing these lyrics, but the deliriously catchy pop production distracts from that fact. Everybody can sing along to this one if they’re old enough to have heard it on the radio regularly.
#36
“Hard Candy Christmas”
Dolly Parton
1982
Peak: #8
The title leads it to be revived every December on country radio, but this is a song about starting over, not about the holidays.
#35
“I Believe In You”
Don Williams
1980
Peak: #1
One of the genre’s most underrated stars, Williams is fully convincing in his lengthy dismissal of just about everything but love, babies, and the woman he loves.
#34
“Love Is Alive”
The Judds
1985
Peak: #1
This is my favorite song about the meaning of love, which “ain’t just a word in every dictionary but nowhere defined,” but “alive and at our breakfast table every day of the week.”
#33
“Honky Tonk Man”
Dwight Yoakam
1986
Peak: #3
Yoakam’s debut single kicked off his career in a big way. His cover of the Johnny Horton classic established his style and worldview immediately, which is difficult to do with a cover song, but made perfect sense for Yoakam. It sounds exactly like something he could’ve written himself.
#32
“Whoever’s In New England”
Reba McEntire
1986
Peak: #1
Reba went from radio artist to record seller with this mega-hit about a wife who suspects it’s more than business that her husband is doing in New England. Her promise that “you’ll always have a place to come back to” after her man is done cheating is so desperate it could make Tammy Wynette blush, but it’s a wonderfully entertaining record, unenlightened as it is.
#31
“16th Avenue”
Lacy J. Dalton
1982
Peak: #7
One of my college professors made me aware of this song, noting that it’s the only record she can’t listen to without crying. The line that gets her in this ode to Music Row songwriters captures the moment of inspiration: “Then one night in some empty room where no curtains ever hung, like a miracle some golden words roll off of someone’s tongue.”
#30
“Lady”
Kenny Rogers
1980
Peak: #1
Yes, it’s a Lionel Richie song, and the backing track is anything but country. But nobody can nail something like this as convincingly as Kenny Rogers.
#29
“She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft)”
Jerry Reed
1982
Peak: #1
Tim DuBois wrote this hilarious divorce saga that is too bitingly clever to be dismissed as mere novelty. Reed’s fiery guitar work undercuts the humorous tone of the lyrics.
#28
“Islands In The Stream”
Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton
1980
Peak: #1
Like I’ve said before, I don’t think this song makes any sense. Then again, it is a Bee Gees number, so I shouldn’t be that surprised. Rogers & Parton make a great pair on record, two distinct vocalists that can sell the phone book, and pretty much do so here.
#27
“Telling Me Lies”
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
1987
Peak: #3
Of these three women, Ronstadt probably has had the biggest influence on the actual vocal styles of female country singers today. Her heartbreaking wail had been off the country radio dial for nearly a decade when this single was released with Ronstadt singing lead. It’s the perfect showcase for a flawless singer with great taste in material. With Harris doing the bulk of the harmony work here, it’s a welcome throwback to their definitive collaborations in the seventies.
#26
“Cry, Cry, Cry”
Highway 101
1988
Peak: #1
It’s not the Johnny Cash breakthrough hit, which Marty Stuart would release a cover of the following year. But it does have one of the best opening lines ever: “It’s just a little creek now, but when the rain comes down, it’s gonna be a raging river.” Lead singer Carlson vows “I’m gonna love that boy till the day I die, and till the day I do I’m gonna cry, cry, cry.”
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006
Mary Chapin Carpenter has written a song about the Dixie Chicks called “On With The Song”, which will be released on her forthcoming album this spring. From her mailing list:
I especially look forward to recording a song that I wrote soon after the Dixie Chicks album came out. I was so bloody sick of the right wing bloggers and columnists and even Time Magazine’s snooze of an article, with sidebars about major artists who have been far more vocal and pejorative about their oppposition to this administration, without nary the consequences that the DCX have had to face. Then I managed to catch them on Larry King, who couldn’t even make the effort to get each lady’s name correct when he addressed them. I swear, they should have worn name tags for that one. But I found them to be gracious and honest about their experiences since “the incident” and King was obvious (at least to me) in his skepticism towards them. Having been a guest on the King show myself a few times, I can tell you that he doesn’t even listen to your answer, and he interrupts you constantly. One time I think I actually told him “I’m not finished yet!”. Thought that would get me a kick under the table, but it didn’t. He ignores you completely during the breaks. Going in and out of commercials, they replayed footage of these radio jocks at their microphones from 3 years ago urging folks to bring out their DCX cd’s for a big ol’ bonfire and tractor smash. I was disgusted by it all. So I wrote a song that kind of addressed all my frustrations with EVERYTHING. Probably won’t win me any new fans who love Bush and hate the DCX, but as the title of the song says: “On With The Song”. For the first time I think in my recording career I have too many songs for the record. It has been hard to pick the 12-14 that will make the record. We may not even have time to cut 14. But there will be no fewer than 12. I expect it to arrive next spring in time for touring to begin.
Wow, she’s got some fire back in her. It’s nice to have some confirmation that she still has a pulse. She’s so much better when bitter.
Source: Chicks Rock! Chicks Rule!
Sunday, July 9th, 2006
#75
“I Did”
Patty Loveless
1987
Peak: #56
The first album by Patty Loveless was a scattered affair, as she searched for a style she could call her own. Interestingly, it was this single she penned herself that foreshadowed the honky-tonk wail that would become her trademark. It didn’t fare to well on the charts, but has aged better than a good chunk of her MCA singles, including ones that received much more airplay.
#74
“Mountain Music”
Alabama
1982
Peak: #1
The band was reluctant to release this single because it tread so closely to the format of their breakthrough smash “Tennessee River”, with a standard country-rock arrangement breaking out into full hoedown towards the end. Wisely, they went against instinct, and had one of their biggest hits.
#73
“Baby, What About You”
Crystal Gayle
1983
Peak: #1
A beautiful pop confection with a melody that lingers long after every listen.
#72
“Never Be You”
Rosanne Cash
1985
Peak: #1
Tom Petty may have seemed an unlikely source for a country smash back in the mid-80′s, but he supplied Rosanne Cash with a fiery piece of material here, which rocked harder than just about anything on the radio. In fact, it still would today.
#71
“Had A Dream (For The Heart)”
The Judds
1983
Peak: #17
The girls were flawless right off the bat with this debut single. A brilliant stroke was having Wy’s vocals start right away, without any harmonies from Mom, introducing the world to arguably the greatest female singer of her generation for the first time.
#70
“I May Be Used (But Baby I Ain’t Used Up)”
Waylon Jennings
1984
Peak: #4
Country song concepts and themes are recycled from time to time; there’s only so many original ways that love and life can play out. Fans of the wonderful Toby Keith hit “As Good As I Once Was” can find its spiritual predecessor here, as Jennings cautions a young lady at the bar not to pass him over – he may be used, but he ain’t used up. He’s still got some gas left in the tank if she wants to go for a ride.
#69
“Louisiana Saturday Night”
Mel McDaniel
1981
Peak: #7
McDaniel broke through with this delicious Cajun foot-stomping hit that makes you feel like you’re actually on the back porch with him.
#68
“If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)”
George Jones
1981
Peak: #8
Jones drives himself home in a drunken stupor: “I lay my head on the wheel, and the horn begins honking. The whole neighborhood knows that I’m home drunk again.” They just don’t write great alcohol songs like this anymore: “With the blood from my body, I could start my own still.” That’s great stuff right there.
#67
“Change of Heart”
The Judds
1988
Peak: #1
How much did Wynonna grow as a vocalist in the first five years of The Judds? Compare the original recording of this song on their debut album to this new recording for their Greatest Hits, which topped the charts five years later. There’s more power, but more importantly, greater nuance.
#66
“I’ll Leave This World Loving You”
Ricky Van Shelton
1988
Peak: #1
Shelton’s voice put nearly all of his contemporaries to shame, sounding like a hybrid of Haggard and Orbison. This single helped him win the Horizon Award that year; only one year later, he’d be the CMA Male Vocalist.
#65
“Guitar Town”
Steve Earle
1986
Peak: #7
It’s not surprising that Earle was tagged with endless Springsteen comparisons when his debut album hit; this sounds like his very own “Born To Run.”
#64
“Love In The First Degree”
Alabama
1981
Peak: #1
This is the type of campy hit that makes you understand just why these boys were so big in the early 80′s. Classic.
#63
“I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love”
Paul Davis, Tanya Tucker & Paul Overstreet
1987
Peak: #1
The definitive anthem of unconditional love for its era, in classic three-act country style.
#62
“Single Women”
Dolly Parton
1982
Peak: #8
She’s one of the greatest songwriters in history, but her great taste in outside material certainly helped. The women in this song are feeling a lot more desperate than the protagonist of Pam Tillis’ “All The Good Ones Are Gone” would be fifteen years later, but the harrowing attention to detail (“You wish they’d change that jukebox, cause you know every song they play”) makes it entirely believable.
#61
“Born To Run”
Emmylou Harris
1982
Peak: #3
It’s not the Bruce Springsteen song. Rather, it’s a great statement of independence – “No man is master to me, I ain’t that kind” – and Harris turns it into an anthem for the road warrior she’d already become by 1982.
#60
“Runaway Train”
Rosanne Cash
1988
Peak: #1
Oash was hooked on the song by the killer demo that Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded for it. Carpenter didn’t write the song, but the arrangement and her performance formed the blueprint for Cash and producer Rodney Crowell. The end result is a tension-fueled smash that builds in intensity as the song progresses.
#59
“Swingin’”
John Anderson
1983
Peak: #1
My favorite thing about this record, outside of the horns, was that Anderson – great hillbilly vocalist he is – sings “Swaangin’”, which the Urban Cowboy chick singers backing him up respond with the “correct” pronounciation “Swingin’.” Anderson’s so good he makes them sound like the ones who are doing it wrong.
#58
“Ocean Front Property”
George Strait
1987
Peak: #1
If you buy that he’s really over you, he’s got some ocean front property in Arizona he hopes you’ll also buy. Clever, don’t ya think?
#57
“Diggin’ Up Bones”
Randy Travis
1986
Peak: #1
It’s hard to believe this is a song from a debut album, with a performance so rich and fully realized. He even manages to work “exhuming” into the chorus of a #1 country hit.
#56
“Mama He’s Crazy”
The Judds
1984
Peak: #1
Could there have been a more perfect breakthrough hit for a mother-daughter duo than a song about a daughter telling her mother about her first love? The sweet video and homemade costumes bought the girls some time before the world realized that the daughter was really a rock and blues rebel and mom was the one who was crazy.
#55
“Don’t Cry Darlin’”
David Allan Coe
1985
Peak: #29
‘Drunk and totally drained, on the verge of going crazy, on the edge of insane. I know you prayed I’d make it, but I never pulled through.” Coe drinks himself to death and then pleads from beyond the grave for his wife not to cry or blame herself, reminding her that “I was stealing time from the devil and I just got caught.” George Jones shows up with a recitation on Coe’s behalf towards the end. Seriously. A tour-de-force of whiskey-drenched country.
#54
“Blue Moon With Heartache”
Rosanne Cash
1981
Peak: #1
It boggles the mind that this was a #1 single – a rambling inner monologue with no real melody, just a disjointed stream of thought. It’s a great record, to be sure, but it’s hard to believe that it was radio-friendly enough to top the charts.
#53
“Beneath Still Waters”
Emmylou Harris
1980
Peak: #1
Harris got tired of hearing how she wasn’t a pure country act, so she made an album of pure country to shut her detractors up. The third and final single brought her a #1 hit, a heartsick ballad about a woman who knows that under the surface, her man’s love for her has died – “Beneath still waters, there’s a strong undertow.”
#52
“I Just Came Home To Count The Memories”
John Anderson
1981
Peak: #7
Anderson comes back to his literally and figuratively broken home: “I saw roses choking in the grass, flaking paint and a broken window pane.” The neighbor wants to know if the kids can come over to play, apparently oblivious to the fact that his family is no longer there, and Anderson’s just come home to count the memories.
#51
“The Bed You Made For Me”
Highway 101
1987
Peak: #4
Remember that Destiny’s Child hit “Say My Name”, where Beyonce is certain her man is not alone on the other end of the line? This is the country equivalent, though lead singer Carlson doesn’t harbor any doubt, and demands to know “did you tell her she was sleeping in the bed you made for me? Did she like my satin sheets?” A savage message tempered by her bittersweet vocal.
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