“Like a Wrecking Ball”
Eric Church
Written by Casey Beathard and Eric Church
This is a bold single choice. “Like a Wrecking Ball” sounds like nothing on the radio today. Irregular rhythms, a vocal sung out of the corner of his mouth, and a lyric that makes every other love song out there sound like child’s play.
Filed under Single Reviews
“Second Hand Heart”
Dwight Yoakam
Written by Dwight Yoakam
Easily his strongest single since “The Back of Your Hand”, Dwight Yoakam is at his best on his new release, “Second Hand Heart.”
Returning to the weathered heartache territory that he does better than anyone else, “Second Hand Heart” captivates from its opening line: “She said, ‘When I trusted love, I dreamed in color, too.'” Eight words out of her mouth and she’s a fully realized character, the mirror image of Yoakam’s protagonist, who recognizes a kindred spirit underneath all of that weariness on the surface.
Filed under Single Reviews
Telecast Winners:
Best Country Album: Miranda Lambert, Platinum
Album of the Year: Beck, Morning Phase
Best New Artist: Sam Smith
Record of the Year: Sam Smith, “Stay With Me (Darkside Version)”
Song of the Year: “Stay With Me” – James Napier, William Phillips & Sam Smith
Pre-Telecast Winners:
Best Country Solo Performance: Carrie Underwood, “Something in the Water”
Best Country Duo/Group Performance: The Band Perry, “Gentle on My Mind”
Best Country Song: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” – Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
Best American Roots Performance: Rosanne Cash, “A Feather’s Not a Bird”
Best American Roots Song: “A Feather’s Not a Bird” – Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal
Best Americana Album: Rosanne Cash, The River & the Thread
Best Folk Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Remedy
Best Bluegrass Album: The Earls of Leicester, The Earls of of Leicester
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album: Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer, Bass & Mandolin
Best Historical Album: Hank Williams, The Garden Spot Programs, 1950
Filed under Grammys, Open Thread
This year’s Grammy Awards air on Sunday, February 8, and country music will be represented with performances Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, and the tantalizing pairing of Brandy Clark and Dwight Yoakam. Most of the awards will be handed out before the show, and we will post the relevant winners here, as part of a Grammy Open Thread where CU readers and writers can share their thoughts on this year’s awards.
Four CU writers, including myself, have shared our predictions and personal picks for the general and country-related categories below. Of course, one of the coolest things about the Grammys is that it celebrates a wide range of music from the past year, and as you’ll see by our varying levels of participation, our tastes here at CU run the gamut.
This year, I’m as excited about the performances by Madonna, Kanye West (twice!), and that Hozier and Annie Lennox duet as I am about any of the country performers, and I’ll be rooting for West and Childish Gambino to sweep the Rap and Hip-Hop categories.
Who do you think will be the big winners on Sunday night, and who are you hoping will win and looking forward to seeing perform? As always, share your thoughts in the comments!
Record of the Year
Will Win:
Should Win:
Kevin: In a decent year for pop music, any one of these records could credibly represent the year. I think Sam Smith is Grammy catnip, so I expect him to win big. I think “All About That Bass” was the most creative and interesting record of the five.
Leeann: I’m a fan of the Sam Smith song, but I agree with Kevin that “All About That Bass” is the most creative and interesting, not to mention the catchiest.
Jonathan: I actually thought it was a weak year for mainstream pop, as reflected by this fairly poor slate of nominees. Smith is right in that Adele / Norah Jones adult-pop wheelhouse that Grammy voters love, so he’s the most likely winner. Sia’s “Chandelier” is the most progressive take on pop music among the five, though, if “Shake it Off” were to win anything, this would probably be the least egregious place to recognize Swift’s hit. I would have gladly rooted for the mash-up between Iggy Azalea’s and Reba’s respective takes on “Fancy.”
Filed under Grammys
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
For many Americans, he was the guitar-slinging comedian that co-hosted Hee Haw. But before he signed up for that popular show, he had already amassed a body of work that defined the sound of California country.
Owens was born in Texas and raised in Arizona, where he picked up the guitar from an early age. He played gigs in Phoenix and other Arizona cities until his late teens, when he relocated to the city that would be synonymous with his sound and style: Bakersfield, California.
Filed under 100 Greatest Men
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
Lefty Frizzell just may be the most influential vocalist in country music history. His signature honky-tonk style has been the foundational template for several generations of traditional country vocalists, smoothing out the twangy edges just enough to please the ears of mainstream audiences without compromising its hillbilly roots.
Frizzell was born in Texas, but moved to Arkansas at a young age. He earned the nickname Lefty in a schoolyard fight at the age of fourteen, and it followed him from that point on. Though he was singing on the radio in his teens and performing locally, run-ins with the law sidelined his music career in the mid-forties.
Filed under 100 Greatest Men
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
Rocketing to stardom in the aftermath of Hank Williams’ death, Webb Pierce became country music’s biggest superstar in the 1950’s, dominating the charts and establishing a flamboyant style that would become forever associated with traditional, honky-tonk country music.
Pierce grew up in Louisiana, cutting his teeth on Jimmie Rodgers records and already developing his own sound by his teenage years. At age fifteen, he already had a weekly radio show, performing his combination of the Cajun sounds of his home state and the Western Swing that was dominating country music at the time.
Filed under 100 Greatest Men
England swings, or at least it did back in Roger Miller’s day. Nowadays, England is more likely to line dance, which helped an album from one of Nashville’s top singer-songwriters become a hit – almost 20 years after it was released.
To back up a bit: in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, country music was in a creative boom era, and James House was one of the reasons. His two albums on MCA Records (James House, Hard Times for An Honest Man) and one for Epic (Days Gone By) are all top-quality affairs that featured his distinctive voice and excellent songwriting chops. While he only had one Top 10 hit — “This Is Me Missing You” — he garnered airplay with several singles. House’s real success, though, came as a songwriter, as he penned hits for the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Martina McBride and other artists.
Those three albums really deserved a wider audience, and even today, they are well worth acquiring should you ever stumble across a copy. Days Gone By, though, ended up enjoying a renaissance in England last year, where it spawned three hit singles and coaxed House back into the recording studio for a new album and an overseas tour. Not bad for an album that was released in 1995.
“The way this all got started is that country line dance and line dancing in general is generated by the choreographers,” House says. “A choreographer there by the name of Yvonne Anderson had my records for a long, long time. She said that something happened in her life, and she was listening to “This Is Me Missing You,” and something struck her to make a line dance for it.”
The dance and the song took off, and it was soon followed by“Little by Little” and “A Good Way to Wind Up Lonesome,” also from the Days Gone By album. By July 2013, House was a major hitmaker in England. He didn’t find out about it until November.
“A fan said, ‘Do you realize that “This Is Me Missing You” is #1 on the Country Dance charts?’” he recalls. “My immediate reaction was, ‘Great, who cut it?’ and the e-mail came back that said, ‘No, it’s your actual record.’”
House had toured England as an opening act for Randy Travis in the early ‘90s, and that was his only substantial time there as a country singer. After doing a little research and talking to the magazine that ran the charts, he began putting feelers out for a trip overseas for a promotional tour. That quickly snowballed into a full-fledged tour of England, with 19 shows in July and August that are sold out or are quickly approaching that level.
House also decided to put together a new album. Broken Glass Twisted Steel, released April 29, is his first solo release on his own record label, Victor House Records. Earlier this year, he released a blues-rock record for the Troubador Kings, a side project where he sings and plays lead guitar.
Broken Glass makes for a pretty comprehensive James House primer. Three of the 11 tracks are his versions of #1 hits he wrote: “In a Week or Two” by Diamond Rio, “Ain’t That Lonely Yet” by Yoakam, and “A Broken Wing” by McBride.
“Then there was a song, “Here’s to You,” that I cut in 1990, and I never felt like I nailed it,” he adds. “So I recut that and was really happy with how that came out. The rest is new stuff.”
“King of Nothing” was something that he had written with the Warren Brothers in the late ‘90s and sang live for years. He recorded that song on the advice of his wife. The rest of the album came together after pouring through his catalog for songs he liked. The first single, “Every Time It Rains,” was rediscovered in the process.
“I wrote it about six or eight months ago with Michael Bradford, who played bass and co-produced the record with me. I had forgotten all about it,” House says. “I had never turned it into my publisher for some reason. I probably just demoed it and stuck it in a drawer somewhere. When we recorded it, it just had that feel that it might want to be played over and over. Hopefully everybody will feel the same about it.”
Despite the 20-year gap in House’s recording career (he has recorded new music periodically), Broken Glass fits in quite nicely with his previous work. His earlier albums never tried to keep up with the production trends of the era, which is probably why don’t sound dated today. Broken Glass is unmistakably country, albeit with a rock edge, and House’s new songs aren’t limited to the typical topics found in today’s country music.
“I was thinking about the album and how there are no trucks on it,” House says. “Love songs to me are timeless, and there are people doing pickup truck songs so much better than me.
Besides, “I like muscle cars, so if I’m going to write about a car, it’s going to be a Chevy Malibu or something,” he adds.
House’s upcoming tour through England appears to be just the start of a busy time for him. He’s working on a U.S. tour now, and he recently made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he says of his touring plans. “I’m getting e-mails all the time from the promoter saying that shows have sold out. It’s a blessing to have this much excitement about it. And at this stage to have it happen, I’m grateful.”
Filed under Interviews
Eight years ago, we posted our second edition of Hall Worthy, a list of significant country music figures who we felt were most deserving of being in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Since then, a lot has changed. First and foremost, more than half of the list is now in the Hall of Fame (or, at least, headed there later this year.) An additional entry, Wanda Jackson, is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
A bigger change came in 2009, when new categories were introduced to ensure that two artist inductees would be represented from different eras: The Modern Era (20-44 years of national prominence), and the Veterans Era (45+ years of national prominence.) There are also three more categories that rotate, meaning one from each category gets in every third year: Non-Performer, Songwriter, and Recording and/or Touring Musician.
Finally, since that list was published, our readership has grown tremendously and is incredibly well-versed on country music, past and present. So in this new and now annual edition of Hall Worthy, we are going to run down the list of the most successful artists that are eligible but have yet to make it into the Hall of Fame, in the order of “Hall Worthiness.”
The Modern Era:
Alan Jackson
Scoring his first hit in 1990 with “Here in the Real World”, Alan Jackson is the most successful country artist that isn’t currently in the Hall of Fame. His storied career has included 25 #1 hits and 49 visits to the top ten. He’s won a slew of awards over the years, including many for his songwriting. He is the most traditionalist of all of the nineties superstars, but has managed to stay relevant regardless of how pop the genre went over the past quarter century, selling more than forty million albums in the U.S. alone. He should be the next inductee for the Modern Era.
Randy Travis
The poster child for the new traditionalist movement was also the first true country music superstar to sell millions of records without any crossover airplay or rock press appeal. Travis is the primary reason that Nashville turned away from pursuing pop airplay for more than a decade, realizing that there was more than enough money to be made by growing (and eventually saturating) the country market. His debut album, Storms of Life, remains one of the greatest country albums of all-time, and songs like “Forever and Ever, Amen”, “On the Other Hand”, and “Three Wooden Crosses” were award-winning classics.
The Judds
Put aside all of the tabloid drama and focus just on the music. Those heavenly harmonies were reminiscent of the Carter Family, while Wynonna’s breathtaking vocals added a contemporary breadth and soulful twist to their pure country sound. They were so commercially successful and critically acclaimed that the CMA had to change the rules of the Vocal Duo category so someone else could win Vocal Group. Wynonna’s solo career following Naomi Judd’s retirement only further extended the legacy of this essential duo.
Ricky Skaggs
He’s often overlooked these days, as he’s made bluegrass his primary home. But when he was a contemporary country star, he found a way to make bluegrass be contemporary country. He was a central figure in making bluegrass music mainstream, making possible the future success of everyone from Alison Krauss & Union Station to the Dixie Chicks. He’s managed to be both a pioneer of bluegrass music while also being a steadfast advocate for the bluegrass of old, and still scored eleven #1 country hits along the way and the CMA for Entertainer of the Year. The Hall shouldn’t wait until he’s old enough for the Veterans Era.
Patty Loveless
One of the few artists to successfully navigate both the eighties and the nineties on country radio, Patty Loveless is the most significant female artist of the Modern Era who is not yet inducted into the Hall of Fame. Her acclaimed work for both MCA and Epic saw her develop from a singles artist with the good taste to cover Lucinda Williams, into an album artist that made critically acclaimed and surprisingly progressive traditional music. Since fading from radio, she’s remained relevant with widely appreciated sets that delve deep into her mountain heritage, with her most recent set earning her a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.
Dwight Yoakam
Extraordinarily talented and unfailingly artistic, Dwight Yoakam remains one of the most significant country artists from the new traditionalist movement, though his traditionalism has always had a West Coast flair that was more Owens than Haggard. Never that much of a radio favorite, Yoakam still managed to sell millions of records, being one of the few legitimate album artists of his time. His most recent work, 3 Pears, made more year-end critics lists than any other country album in 2012.
Trisha Yearwood
The only artist on this list who could never be described as a traditionalist, Trisha Yearwood has earned her place in the Hall of Fame through making more consistently excellent music over a longer period of time than any of her contemporaries. She’s sold a ton of records and had more than her fair share of radio hits and industry awards, but her ultimate legacy will be having the best set of pipes and the best taste in songs, a combination that many artists – female and male – have never managed to pull off nearly as well as Yearwood has over the years. That’s what having the voice of a Ronstadt and the song sense of a Harris will do for you.
The Veterans Era:
Hank Williams, Jr.
By a wide margin, Hank Jr. is the most commercially successful artist of the Veterans Era who is not yet in the Hall of Fame. His noxious public statements in recent years have reinforced a notion that he’s little more than a Southern rock caricature, but his legacy is greater than Monday Night Football and regional xenophobia. At his peak, he made some of the most significant country rock that’s ever been made, crafting himself a distinguished place in country music history that is wholly separate from his legendary father. In fact, there’s a better chance right now that a bar in America is singing along with “Family Tradition” than anything from his daddy’s catalog.
Charlie Rich
An artist who was always years ahead of his time, he had a remarkable run of commercial success in the seventies, a period where the times finally caught up to him for a brief spell. His bluesy style was embraced by the pop scene for a time, with his hit “The Most Beautiful Girl” being one of those rare country hits that also topped the Hot 100. A veteran of the Sun Records label that produced Hall of Famers like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, Rich made the transition to Nashville while always keeping one foot grounded back in Memphis.
Jerry Reed
He was one of the most iconic stars of his time, thanks to his witty novelty records, stunning guitar prowess, and extensive appearances on film. His songwriting success arrived earlier than his recording stardom, but once he got rolling, he was scoring million-selling hits that ran up the country and the pop charts. He’s one of the few legends left that were truly unique and distinctive personalities who haven’t yet been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Tanya Tucker
She’s still three years away from eligibility in this category, with 2017 being the first year she can claim 45 years on the scene. But while the competition is fierce for those Modern Era slots, Tucker should be voted in the first year she’s eligible as a veteran. Her haunting, gothic early records are still revelatory, and in the years that followed, her gravely voice brought grit and soul to a long string of country hits. She was able to remain a force to be reckoned with in the first half of the nineties, a remarkable holdover from the early seventies in an era that had wiped away even the stars of the late eighties to make room for the next big things.
Jim Ed Brown
Another legend that remained relevant over many different eras of country music, Jim Ed Brown’s immortality on record had already been guaranteed in 1959, when his family group the Browns recorded “The Three Bells.” That classic hit topped the country and pop charts for many weeks, and the Browns kept going through most of the sixties, joining the cast of the Grand Ole Opry a few years before disbanding. Brown went on to a successful solo career with classics like “Pop a Top” and “Morning” reaching the top five. Then he teamed with Helen Cornelius and had his biggest hits since his days with the Browns, most notably “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You.” At age eighty, he remains a force on the Opry and as a radio host, making him one of the longest-running personalities that the genre has ever seen.
Filed under Country Music Hall of Fame, Miscellaneous Musings
The Motor City might not exactly be known as a hotbed of country music talent, but it happens to be the home of one talented country voice by the name of Danielle Car. She has yet to ink a record deal, but has been actively making the rounds and building a fan following with her independent efforts.
Car has continually cited California country legend Dwight Yoakam as a favorite artist as well as a primary musical influence, but you don’t have to read her bio to guess that – it’s clear from one listen of her current single “Turn You On.” A driving Bakersfield-via-Detroit-style production puts the listener right in the middle of the dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music as Car’s narrator attempts to drown her blues in liquor, only to stumble into a new romance quite accidentally.
But while the sonic stylings may be an open nod to the legends of California country, the fun, flirtatious melody and the irresistible energy in Car’s performance are anything but derivative. What impresses most about “Turn You On” is the fact that Car honors her influences while still bringing plenty of herself to the project. The Yoakam influence in particular is unmistakable, but “Turn You On” remains first and foremost a Danielle Car record.
Far from displaying the complacency that weighs down far too much of today’s country music, Car delivers a blast of spirited country fun that begs to be replayed over and over again. The country radio listening experience would be a lot more engaging if today’s hits showed half as much personality.
Written by Danielle Car
Grade: A
Filed under Single Reviews
