Archive for June, 2008
Monday, June 30th, 2008
We all know of John Rich. He’s the guy from Big & Richwith a silky smooth voice who has a personality that doesn’t match. He has made more than one controversial statement and has an arrogance that likely even he wouldn’t deny. However, the most significant aspect about him, in this forum of Country Universe, is his musical contribution.
As I have been listening to songs to review, I noticed that Rich has connections with at least four of the artists for my consideration. This got me thinking about how he has inserted himself into much of what we hear on country radio today. He’s written songs for and/or produced many artists including Faith Hill, Gretchen Wilson, Jason Aldean, John Anderson, Shannon Brown, Jewel, James Otto, Randy Owen and I’m sure there are others that I’ve excluded.
When I first heard the music of Big & Rich, I have to admit that I thought it was refreshing and interesting. I enjoyed how they created their own brand of country music by intertwining rock with country. I, however, can say that my infatuation with Big & Rich and their sound is pretty much over. I don’t know if this is due to the fact that I’ve out grown it or if it’s because John Rich seems to be injecting his sound into the music of every artist he can get his hands on, which has turned into John Rich overload.
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Monday, June 30th, 2008
Back to work. Meh. Good day to focus on the negative.
Entertainment Weekly has a feature up now called 22 Rock Heroes You Just Don’t Get. Readers submitted the names of rock legends that they simply can’t get into, and don’t understand the appeal of.
I’ve got a few country legends that I feel the same way about, but I’ll limit myself to one and open up the floor to the rest of you.
The Country Legend I Just Don’t Get:
Charley Pride
By every standard imaginable, he’s a legend, but I can’t name another artist of his stature who has made so little music that I find enjoyable. I dig “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” and “You’re So Good When You’re Bad”, two of his 36 #1 hits. As for the other 34 and everything else he’s done, it all simply doesn’t do it for me.
I want to like Charley Pride. He seems genuinely nice and has a great stage presence. I just don’t like most of his songs, or his style of singing, for that matter. Perhaps the latter is the cause of the former.
So there’s the country legend that I don’t get. How about you?
Monday, June 30th, 2008
It’s interesting that Jewel’s official second country effort, “I Do”, sounds less country than some of her songs on previous albums that were not specifically marketed as country music. While sounds of steel guitar can be detected, its distinct eighties pop flavor is difficult to ignore.
With that said, this song of tentative commitment is redeemed by a catchy melody and Jewel’s usual fine and interesting vocal performance.
Written by Jewel
Grade: B
Listen: I Do
Buy: I Do
Monday, June 30th, 2008
With their song, “Girl on the Billboard”, The Road Hammers manage to create a sound that contains a bit of Garth Brooks and a little Dwight Yoakam to create an overall feeling of the good aspects of country music from the nineties.
The run-on lyrics about a man who is infatuated with a picture of a scantily clad girl on a Billboard may very well be silly, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid a smile when hearing this refreshingly energetic song.
Written by Walter Haynes and Hank Mills
Grade: A-
Listen: Girl on the Billboard
Buy: Girl on the Billboard
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Randy Owen, former lead singer of Alabama, is trying to make his way back onto country radio as a solo artist. Unfortunately, “Like I Never Broke Her Heart” lacks distinction both in lyrics and production.
Owen sings from the perspective of a man who notices that his former lover is very happy with a new man. Despite the fact that he, apparently, treated her horribly, he observes with regret: “She loves you like I never broke her heart…I wonder where I went when I went too far.”
This generic storyline is accompanied by an equally uninspiring production by John Rich, which showcases unnecessary electric guitar solos and an annoying background vocal track that repeats Owen’s second to last line in each chorus.
Written by Mitzi Dawn, J. T. Harding and Shannon Lawson
Grade: C
Listen: Like I Never Broke Her Heart
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#2
Loretta Lynn
She came from the humblest of beginnings, the daughter of a Kentucky coal miner who married when she was only thirteen years old. Before she turned eighteen, she was a mother of four. But she would emerge from her simple background to become one of the most successful and significant female artists in the history of recorded music, pushing the conventional lyrical boundaries of country music with her sharply-written songs.
Of course, the story of her life before she became a star is almost as interesting as the music that made her one. Born and raised in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, Lynn grew up in a small shack with an assortment of younger brothers and sisters. She sang at local church events and for the entertainment of family friends and relatives, and her mother taught her to sing the old country ballads of the mountains.
Though many fans learned of her background the film adaptation of her autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter, the depth of her family’s poverty was downplayed in the movie, and when Loretta married Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, they moved all the way to Custer, Washington, to avoid the harsh coal-mining life. Soon, young Loretta was completely isolated from her family, and stuck in a cycle of domestic chores while tending to her brood of children. Music became her only outlet, and when her husband noticed her talent, he bought her a guitar at Sears.
She taught herself to play and began writing songs. By age 24, she was playing the local honky-tonks. Her husband Mooney, who she affectionately referred to as Doo, pushed her into a talent contest, which she won, leading to the president of the small Zero Records label financing a trip for Loretta to go record in Los Angeles. She recorded the single “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl”, which was clearly influenced by Kitty Wells, right down to the title. Her husband shipped out copies of the single to stations across the country, and they set out on a three month road trip to promote the record, stopping at every radio station they could find.
The promotional trip pushed the record to #14 on the country singles chart, and the Lynns moved to Nashville to capitalize on its success. Lynn performed on the Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree, and he became a big early backer of Lynn, as did Patsy Cline, who also became one of her closest friends during her early days in Nashville. She was also helped along by the Wilburn Brothers, who were instrumental in getting Lynn signed to Decca, but also trapped her in a publishing contract that lost her a large amount of potential profits.
As the sixties progressed, Lynn became an Opry star, joining the cast in 1962. She began to score hits fairly regularly, including solo records like “Success,” “Wine, Women and Song” and “Blue Kentucky Girl”, and a series of hit duets with Tubb, the most successful being 1964′s “Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be.” But she didn’t write any of her singles for Decca in those early years, even though she’d penned that one Zero Records hit that got the ball rolling.
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Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Reading this has me thinking deep thoughts today:
Jessica Simpson has booked an appearance during the Country Thunder USA festival in Twin Lakes, Wis., in what her representatives say is her first full concert since shifting from pop music into country.
The music on her first country album, due this fall, will represent her truthfully — at least at an emotional level.
“Most of the music is from real-life experiences,” she said. “I can’t sing about something that I haven’t gone through. I can’t make you fall in love with that song if I can’t relate to it.”
A Modest Proposal:
For every pop star that crosses over to country, we get to send a country star over to pop. The proverbial scale needs to be balanced. It’s long time that country music got something out of this deal.
So, thank you for Jessica Simpson, pop. Here’s Taylor Swift.
Welcome to country music, Bon Jovi. So long, Rascal Flatts!
Make yourself at home, Jewel. Happy trails, Bucky Covington!
This could work out pretty well in the end. Any other trades we should make?
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#3
Maybelle and Sara Carter (The Carter Family)
Just over eighty years ago, a family act from Appalachia traveled to Bristol, Tennessee. Behind the wheel was A.P. Carter, and on board were two mountain women he believed were destined for stardom: his sister-in-law, Maybelle Carter, and his wife, young Sara Carter, who was eight months pregnant as they made the trip.
The previous day, A.P. had arrived home and declared, “We’re going to Bristol tomorrow to make a record!” The Carter Family had been performing in churches, living rooms and anywhere else they could get an audience in their Appalachian world, and when A.P. heard that a Victor Records employee was seeking rural talent to record in Bristol, he saw their golden opportunity to make it big.
When they got to the recording studio, which was really just a converted warehouse, they took part in a twelve-day recording session with two dozen other artists, ranging in genre from blues to gospel to folk. But among all the other raw talent, the startling vocals of Maybelle and Sara shone through.
They weren’t the first country women to put their voices on record, but for all intents and purposes, the story of women in country music traces its roots back to Maybelle and Sara Carter, members of what is now referred to as The Original Carter Family. Their seminal records took country music to the masses for the first time, as they emerged from their humble Appalachian roots to become the first female country stars to make an impact.
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Saturday, June 28th, 2008
From the Awesome Gifts department:
Not only does it play vinyl, it copies records directly to CD. Definitely the coolest thing I’ve been given in a very long time and I will be spending my afternoon bonding with it!
Friday, June 27th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#4
Emmylou Harris
The living embodiment of artistic integrity, Emmylou Harris has been creating acclaimed music for more than three decades, building up the most consistent catalog in the history of country music. In her early days, her mix of contemporary songs and classic country songs was seen as forward-thinking and progressive, but over time, she would be seen as a protective guardian of country music’s heritage, even when she strayed far away from it on her own recordings.
Her own roots were not in country music, as she was an aspiring folk artist in her early days. While she was also interested in drama, she was increasingly drawn to the folk songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, eventually leaving college and moving to New York in 1968. However, the folk scene was beginning to die down, and though she found occasional work, it wasn’t much. She married in 1969, and worked as a waitress to supplement the meager income brought in by her Greenwich Village coffeehouse performances.
In 1970, she recorded her debut album, Gliding Bird, for the struggling independent label Jubilee Records, which folded shortly thereafter. Harris would later call the album a disaster, and disowned it so much that she named her fourteenth studio album Thirteen. Disenchanted with the New York scene, and her first marriage coming to an end, she moved to Nashville briefly, but then relocated to her parents’ home in Maryland, feeling disconnected from music until she discovered the music scene in Washington D.C., through which she would met a young performer named Gram Parsons.
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