Month: February 2011
The Civil Wars
In August 2009, I wrote about The Civil Wars, an unsigned country-folk duo that I discovered through a friend.
Um, they have the #12 album in the country this week.
Don’t Bore Us – Get To the Chorus!
The best title ever for a hits package.
Also, the first thing that popped up in my head when I was thinking about this discussion topic.
Some songs have choruses so good that they don’t even need the rest of the song to make them worth listening to.
Single Review: Josh Turner, “I Wouldn’t Be a Man”
I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t feel like this
I wouldn’t be a man if a woman like you
Was anything I could resist
I’d have to be from another planet
Where love doesn’t exist
I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t feel like this
Hmm.
Well, this is kind of an unusual situation: a modern country singer choosing to resurrect an old country song…that was never that good to begin with.
100 Greatest Men: #91. Diamond Rio
Theme parks are full of aspiring musicians hoping to make it big. Most of them never do, but Diamond Rio did, and in a very big way.
The nucleus of the band was formed in 1984, when lead singer Marty Roe met keyboard player Dan Truman while both were working at Opryland U.S.A., a now-defunct theme park adjacent to the Grand Ole Opry theater.
100 Greatest Men: #92. Gene Watson
He didn’t always top the charts or win the big awards, but Gene Watson’s legacy of traditional country music made him one of the most respected vocalists of his generation.
Born and raised in Texas, he grew up fully immersed in Western swing, southern blues, and gospel music. By age twelve, he’d made his first public performance. Never liking school, he dropped out in ninth grade. He chose auto body repair as his career, but did music on the side at night, more as a hobby than anything else.
Single Review: Keith Urban, “Without You”
Mr. Urban, you’re trying to trick me.
You’re giving me an achingly sincere vocal performance. You’re giving me a stripped down production that’s genuinely country, fiddle and all. You’re giving me your life story, from the music to the marriage to the birth of your daughter.
It all adds up to so much goodness that you almost distracted me from the clunky and self-indulgent songwriting. I can’t even give you a pass on that, because you didn’t write it.
