Month: January 2011

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Where’ve You Been? – 2011 Edition

January 23, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 25

It’s hard to believe that there once was a time that country artists put out two full-length albums a year. If they were part of a regular superstar duet team, like Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn or Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, a fan might hear as many as four new studio albums from their favorite artist.

By the time that I got into country music – twenty years ago, natch – things had slowed down a bit. Artists usually released a new album every 12-18 months. Sometimes they’d push it to two years, but not often.

Those were the days. Waits between album releases have gotten crazy lately. I’m all for taking the time to get it right, but once we push past the half-decade mark, things have gone too far. Sure, we’re given side projects to carry us over, but there’s no substitute for a full-length studio album of all-new material.

Here are five artists who I’d really love to see make a long-awaited return with a new album in 2011, along with a brief rundown of the side projects that they’ve been busy with while we’ve waited for that new album:

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2011 Singles: A Wish List

January 22, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 52

The bulk of our work at Country Universe this month has been catching up on singles currently at radio. Collectively, they’ve been abysmal, with review grades rarely reaching a B, let alone an A.

How can we turn this around? Here are five songs that I’d love to see sent to radio tomorrow. Share your own in the comments!

Zac Brown Band, “Let it Go”

A dizzying dose of positivity, with a few great musical twists to boot. The Serenity Prayer never sounded so good.

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Single Review: Jamey Johnson, “Heartache”

January 20, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 9

When I was a very young child, maybe five or six, there was a song that used to scare me a little bit: “Maneater.”

When Hall & Oates sang about her only coming out at night and warned, “Watch out boy, she’ll chew you up,” my literal little mind thought she was a monster that was going around eating people. It creeped me out.

Somewhere tonight, there must be another small boy or girl listening in terror to Jamey Johnson’s “Heartache.”

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Single Review: The Band Perry, “You Lie”

January 19, 2011 Leeann Ward 28

Much credit has been and should be given to The Band Perry for resisting the popular urge to rock out with their country music. As a result of their more laid back hybrid of folksy country instrumentation, this young group has received well-deserved critical praise. Where they falter, however, is with their lyrics.

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100 Greatest Men: #95. David Allan Coe

January 18, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 6

He wasn’t part of the landmark Outlaws album, but David Allan Coe has been more the living embodiment of that label than any other artist in the history of country music.

Coe was born in Akron, Ohio in 1939. He spent his youth in and out of reformatory schools, the beginning of a long history of run-ins with the law. After spending most of his twenties in prison, he moved to Nashville in the late sixties. His style was jarring, with tattoos, long hair, and piercings, and for a stretch, he lived in a hearse parked right outside the Ryman Auditorium.

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Choice Cuts: Kathy Mattea, “Beautiful Fool”

January 17, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 11

A repost from last year, in honor of Dr. King.

Beautiful Fool
Kathy Mattea
from the 1997 album Love Travels

Our antiseptic approach to the legends of American history often results in the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being reduced to four words and a three-day weekend. To prevent this in my own mind, I often revisit “Beautiful Fool”, a Don Henry composition that can be found on Kathy Mattea’s 1997 album Love Travels.

What I love about this song is its realism and its willingness to take on two voices of perspective at the same time. As an older woman reflects on King’s impact on her country and the sacrifices he was willing to make, she remembers her far less charitable opinion of him when he was alive: “Walter Cronkite preempted Disney one night, and all us kids were so upset. We thought you were a trouble instigator marching through our TV set.”

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Single Review: Sugarland, “Little Miss”

January 16, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 15

“Little Miss’ is one of many socially conscious songs on Sugarland’s The Incredible Machine, but it’s the only one that truly works. It succeeds where the others fail for two main reasons.

One, it describes things as they are now, instead of trying to inspire us with idyllic images of how the world could be if we just, you know, did something. The details used to describe a woman who “is so much more than you like to talk about” captures the dilemma that faces so many women today with little descriptions that add up to a larger picture of all of the compromises that must be made to a woman’s ambition and talent for her to not offend those who might be offended by them.

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100 Greatest Men: #96. Gary Allan

January 15, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 16

He started off as a new traditionalist with only his raspy voice making him distinctive. But when he embraced his California country roots, he became one of the defining male vocalists of the early 21st Century.

Gary Allan Herzberg hails from California. He grew up in a musical family, and by age thirteen, he was playing honky-tonks at night with his father. His talent was evident even at that young age, and at age fifteen, he turned down his first opportunity at a major label record deal, opting to finish school instead.

He quickly became a big draw on the local concert scene, playing to overcrowded rooms but refusing to move up to bigger venues that wouldn’t allow him to play the traditional country covers that made up a big chunk of his set. He cut some demos in a small California studio in the early nineties, and the tape caught the interest of BNA Records in Nashville. But restructuring at the label prevented him from being signed.

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