There are love songs that can only be sung by older adults who have experienced a lot more of life than young singers. When the concept of “till death do us part” becomes an approaching reality rather than a distant one, the sentiment of “Dig Two Graves” makes perfect sense. Here, Travis is refusing to imagine a life without his wife by his side, and expresses that he won’t last long if God calls her first. They might as well just dig two graves and carve one stone, because he won’t be able to live without her gone.
He can’t imagine God could be so cruel as to take his wife and leave him behind, forced to live without her. When two people really have become one through marriage and a long life together, they no longer have separate identities. Losing your spouse is losing yourself in that sense. This song is one of the purest expressions of that reality I’ve ever heard, and it’s done without an ounce of cloying sentiment. Just plain truth, like country music should be.
One of the year’s best singles comes from bluegrass stalwarts The Del McCoury Band. The lyrics fly so fast that you can almost miss the scathing indictment of a culture driven by greed, coupled with outrage on behalf of those being exploited by it.
“It’s a pity to see when the land of the free turns out to be nothin’ but a free for all”, McCoury seethes, “If you got big dough you’re freer than most cause your freedom goes up with the size of your bankroll.” There was a time when country music was the natural home for such working class sentiments, but anything like this today is destined to be embraced way outside of the mainstream.
This killer track serves as the title cut for the essential new compilation Moneyland, which is anchored by several Del McCoury band cuts, but also includes songs with the same theme by Patty Loveless, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, Dan Tyminski and more.
Toby Keith is one of the best ballad singers that country music has ever produced, and he’s at his best when he’s communicating melancholy regret. He sings the hell out of “She Never Cried in Front of Me”, and it’s a song worthy of his efforts.
This one’s a lot more Bon Jovi than it is Merle Haggard, further proof that country music has co-opted the sonic window dressing of eighties arena rock. The guitars are a bit too much in the chorus, getting in the way of Keith’s vocal, but otherwise, this is a top-notch single.
The First Lady of Country Music, and the Heroine of Heartbreak. Tammy Wynette sang with a tear in her voice, a classic country wail that perfectly complemented the desperate emotional dramas she sang. But underneath the layers of pain, there was always a strong undercurrent of resilience, and some of the best songs she ever sang and wrote had as much hope for tomorrow as they had sorrow for today.
Wynette was born the only child of a farmer musician and his wife. When she was only nine months old, her father died, and her mother was forced to work wherever she could, leaving her in the care of her grandparents, who had a cotton farm in Mississippi. As a child, she picked cotton alongside the workers in the field, but she dreamed of country stardom. Her escape from the drudgery of her daily life were the musical instruments her father had left behind, which she taught herself to play, and a children’s record player, on which she spun the discs of Skeeter Davis, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline.
She married her first husband right before high school graduation, and she did several different jobs before enrolling in beautician school in 1963. She would renew her license every year, long after she was a major star, so she always had something to fall back on. But she was still pursuing her dream to sing, and when her husband didn’t support her dream, she left him, three daughters in tow, determined to make it big.
I’ve just gotten back from a vacation in Orlando, where I listened to country radio for the first time in years. Apparently, country radio now consists solely of Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift. I heard several different songs from those artists, especially Chesney. Literally, the only other things that came on while I was in the car were Montgomery Gentry’s “Back When I Knew it All” and Blake Shelton’s “Home.”
I thought that maybe I’d hear “Gunpowder & Lead”, but no such luck. Is country radio this repetitive everywhere, or did I just tune in to a particularly dull radio station?
Her rise to the top was slow, with four years passing before her first top ten single and a decade before she earned her first gold album. But with time, Reba McEntire would emerge as country music’s most popular female artist, with a longer run at the top than any other female hit-maker in history. Along the way, she made the transition from singer to entertainer, becoming a powerful force on both the stage and screen.
McEntire was born and raised in Oklahoma, the daughter of a championship steer roper. As a child, she joined brother Pake and sister Susie in The Singing McEntires, but she also pursued her family rodeo tradition. Back then, the only competition open to women was barrel racing, and she became an adept competitor. By 1974, she was majoring in education at an Oklahoma university, but still singing in her spare time. That year, she sang the national anthem at the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City, which led to her discovery by Red Steagall.
The industry veteran pushed her to pursue a Nashville recording contract, and with his help, the young redhead recorded some demonstration tapes during her spring break from college. Mercury Records was impressed, and she joined their roster in late 1975. Thus began the slowest ascent to superstardom of any woman in country music history, as her debut single “I Don’t Want to Be a One Night Stand” stopped at #88 in 1976. Three more singles fared no better, but all four were included on her debut album Reba McEntire, which also included covers of Roger Miller’s “Invitation to the Blues” and Patsy Cline’s “Why Can’t He Be You.”
Apparently an unruly fan was thrust center stage by Tim McGraw with help from his stage crew at last night’s concert at the White River Amphitheatre… Part of the video shows McGraw with his fist cocked back ready to take the guy out. The one comedic moment is when McGraw jumps back right into the verse of the song while the band never misses a beat.
There are few women in the history of popular music as revered as Patsy Cline, one of the few country legends who has transcended the status of a singer and become a pop culture icon. Almost all of her classic recordings were created in a three-year span, and she only released three albums in her lifetime. However, her fame has grown exponentially since her career was tragically cut short, leaving behind questions of the music that might have been, but also immortally preserving her in her musical prime.
Cline hailed from Virginia, the daughter of a blacksmith and a seamstress. She grew up idolizing Judy Garland and Shirley Temple, and asserted from a young age that she would be a star as well. She also liked country music, being particularly drawn to the hits of Hank Williams. Cline suffered a throat infection as a child that she would later credit as a gift, believing that it was that illness that resulted in her deep-throated voice.
As a teenager, Cline competed in local talent shows and sang on the radio in Winchester. She performed in local country clubs wearing fringed cowgirl outfits that her mother created. A brief marriage in her early twenties to Gerald Cline provided her stage surname, while a later boyfriend suggested using Patsy along with it. She was soon commanding a large following in the Virginia/D.C./Maryland area, and was appearing on the television show Town and Country. She caught the attention of Jimmy Dean, who also frequently appeared on the show, and he became an early champion of her talent. Cline began appearing on the Grand Ole Opry, and she signed to Four Star Records in 1955.
So who do you guys think should be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame? Here’s the list of nominees. Me, I’m leaning toward Matraca Berg and Johnny Horton.
There are love songs that can only be sung by older adults who have experienced a lot more of life than young singers. When the concept of “till death do us part” becomes an approaching reality rather than a distant one, the sentiment of “Dig Two Graves” makes perfect sense. Here, Travis is refusing to imagine a life without his wife by his side, and expresses that he won’t last long if God calls her first. They might as well just dig two graves and carve one stone, because he won’t be able to live without her gone.
One of the year’s best singles comes from bluegrass stalwarts The Del McCoury Band. The lyrics fly so fast that you can almost miss the scathing indictment of a culture driven by greed, coupled with outrage on behalf of those being exploited by it.
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