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Carrie Underwood featuring Randy Travis, “I Told You So”

March 24, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 14

What a fascinating collaboration. Both Randy Travis and Carrie Underwood have recorded distinctly different but equally compelling versions of “I Told You So.”

Travis was all tortured uncertainty in his version, like a nervous inner monologue made public. It was only on the chorus that he truly sang, as the verses were practically spoken.

Underwood chose to sand down those rough edges in her spin on the classic, expanding the hook into a power note and crafting a smooth melody out of the jagged verses.

Each original recording played to its artist’s strengths, but how can such disparate performances come together to make one cohesive record?

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Idol Opry Night: Live Blog

March 17, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 122

Country Universe continues its annual tradition of live-blogging country night on American Idol. LIVE BLOG 9:55 Kind of boring night overall. I liked Anoop the most. Not too much stood out for me. 9:52 When

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Hall of Fame, By the Numbers

March 16, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 11

My good friend and favorite sports blogger Charles Geier, of The Widening Geier fame, has long used statistics-based reasoning when making the case for the best in sports, whether for the current season or throughout

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My Start in Country Music

March 2, 2009 Guest Contributor 11

The following article is by guest contributor and Country Universe commenter, Craig R. My Start in Country Music By Craig Ross My memories only started collecting at age four. That year, 1969, my uncle was

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Perfect Producer/Artist Pairs

February 25, 2009 Leeann Ward 17

Last week, I berated producers that I could count on to produce bland, generic albums that I inevitably would not enjoy. As promised, I’ll be more positive this week. As previously noted, producers play a

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