Country Universe

YouTube Great Discoveries Contest

April 26, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 35

To our readers, I present a challenge.

To the winner, a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

YouTube is home to countless country music clips, including some very rare live performances. Your challenge is to find the most surprising and unexpected live performance by a country artist.

24 hours from now, I’ll post a poll on the front page and allow readers to vote for the clip that they deem the greatest discovery. The commenter who posts the winning clip will receive the gift card!
Here’s all you need to do:

1. Find the clip on YouTube and copy its url into the comment box.

2. Add a “v” after the http, so the beginning of the link now reads httpv://

3. Write a brief description of the find and why you think it’s a great discovery.

Stagecoach Music Festival: Day One

April 26, 2009 Guest Contributor 9

Live and learn. I did a lot of living and learning during my first day (ever) at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, California. First lesson: Don’t rely on MapQuest. I didn’t take the large black freeways on the map to the beautiful but bizarre desert retirement slash resort community that hosts Stagecoach. Or the smaller blue lines, or even the teensy red ones. I took the non-existent purple ones through the backcountry past unusual rock formations and the odd farmhouse. It was just me and the random tanker truck going mach negativo.

Second lesson: Show up early. The tanker truck and purple lines aside, I didn’t plan well. And any plans I did have were shot to h*** as soon as I arrived at the polo fields and, well, circled the fields at a crawl (which is a generous term) for nigh two hours before entering the parking lot. So, as I slowly watched the thermometer inch up towards 100 degrees on my dashboard, I kissed goodbye my plans for The Infamous Stringdusters and Lynn Anderson. I’m sorry, guys.

Third lesson: Don’t presume anything about country music fans. While I was very slowly making my way into the parking lot, I took notice of the cars around me. There was a BMW in front of me, a Porsche on my left and a Mercedes behind me. Hmmm…didn’t they hear that polo was cancelled this weekend? But no, the fancy cars were full of college kids, a large family and an old couple…all dressed in cowboy boots and hats and headed to the festival. I’d say welcome to country music, Southern California style: cowboy boots and Gucci purses, but that would cheapen the genuine spirit of those who attended the festival. While not precisely diverse, I doubt you will find a more overall wholesome group of people anywhere. You can only have organized chaos in a group this large with people like this.

Rascal Flatts, <em>Unstoppable</em>

April 25, 2009 Tara Seetharam 23

There are two ways to view Rascal Flatts: as the group that just won its seventh consecutive Academy of Country Music award for “Best Vocal Group” and is currently out-selling every country group in the industry, or as a pop-country group filling a country music niche. If you choose the former, you’ll likely deem the group’s sixth studio album, Unstoppable, a categorical failure.

But here’s the thing: if every album was judged against context –against its reception instead of its actual merit– all of the original value would be lost. While Unstoppable is not the show-stopping, brilliant piece of work you’d expect from the most successful country group in the industry, it is a decent album, solid in delivery and emotion. It may not do much by way of moving the group forward, thematically or artistically, like the previous album hinted at – but I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just don’t expect to gain any new fans.

Unstoppable is consistent in all the ways you’d expect vocalist Gary LeVox, guitarist Joe Don Rooney and bassist Jay DeMarcus to be consistent. LeVox’s polarizing tenor riffs play lead, the production is smooth and heavy, and the songs fit almost squarely, though effectively, within the thematic duo of heartache and inspiration. If this is your cup of tea, the boys are on point.

Oh, Alexis!, "Strugglin'"

April 25, 2009 William Ward 6

A native of Puxsutawney, PA, Alexis Thompson, who currently resides in the Nashville area, boldly claims on her website that her “style (for those who need comparison) is Judy Garland meets Johnny Cash.” This somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference immediately shows she does not believe in artists simply being boiled down to comparisons. Yet, spend some time listening to Oh, Alexis!, and the comparison, while wild, starts to make a peculiar type of sense.

Oh, Alexis’ first single “Strugglin’,” self-released through Itunes, opens with a heavy traditional influence, supplemented by the velvet voice of Alexis Thompson. Delivering on familiar themes, Alexis, with an almost detached vocal interpretation open the song singing, “It was as if you waited 25 years / To taste the Jack and coke and beer / That had settled on my breath as it slowly left my lips.” Given that two decades is long time to burst with emotion, this appropriate delivery, along with production that manages to invoke tradition without sounding imitative or tired, makes this first release stand out even among more recognizable contemporaries.

Nab Eli Young Band's Latest Album for $.99

April 24, 2009 Dan Milliken 8

I like Eli Young Band. These boys play catchy pop-rock tunes with a little bit of country flourish, and given the right songs, they do it very well. “When it Rains” is so good that it climbed into the Top 40 with hardly any promotion, and listening to numbers like “Get in the Car and Drive” and “Enough is Enough” is like hearing Rascal Flatts with a less polarizing lead vocalist and more subdued production style.

The group is fairly new on the mainstream country scene, but they’ve been building up a grassroots following in Texas for years, and it’s beginning to pay off, with single “Always the Love Songs” currently sitting at #14 on the charts.

Now, thanks to Amazon’s Daily Deal, you can own their major-label debut, containing all of the above songs, for only a buck. It’s a solid album – I gave it 3 stars myself – and at the price you’d normally pay for just one track, it’s hard to lose!

Tanya Tucker (featuring Jim Lauderdale), "Love's Gonna Live Here"

April 23, 2009 Leeann Ward 33

Tanya Tucker has teamed with Saguaro Road Records, the same record company that hosted Patty Loveless’ stellar covers project, to create her own covers album entitled My Turn. The lead single is a cover of the Buck Owens’ classic, “Love’s Gonna Live Here.”

While it is impossible to predict if Tucker’s effort will be as well received as Loveless’ highly regarded album, “Love’s Gonna Live Here” provides a promising glimpse of the direction that the album is likely to take.

With “Love’s Gonna Live Here”, Tucker does not set out to reinvent this iconic song, but rather, pay tribute to a beloved classic. With the help of Jim Lauderdale’s very recognizable twang, Tanya’s signature husky voice leans into the Owens composition with decided grit and re-energizes a song that is always deserving of being revived.

Stagecoach Festival: <em>Your Call</em>

April 22, 2009 Guest Contributor 15

It has finally cooled off here in Southern California, so I’m headed out to the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California this weekend, April 25-26! The country cousin of Coachella, Stagecoach is now in its third year and will be playing host to nearly 40 acts, including Reba McEntire, Brad Paisley, Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum, Darius Rucker, Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown Band and Miranda Lambert.

I’m excited for the festival, particularly because it hosts a mix of country music, from mainstream country to bluegrass, folk, roots rock and alt-country. With three different stages – appropriately named “Mane,” “Palomino” and “Mustang” – set on the beautiful Empire Polo fields in Indio, the Festival provides a fantastic opportunity to check out the entire gamut of styles and personalities in country music.

Hank Williams, Jr., "Red, White and Pink Slip Blues"

April 22, 2009 Leeann Ward 8

I’ll confess that when I read the title of this song, “Red, White and Pink Slip Blues”, I mentally groaned. But alas, Kevin assigned the single to me and like a dutiful blogger, I clicked on the link anyway.

Hank Williams Jr., though inarguably talented, is often known for his swagger that, sometimes, overshadows the quality of his art. So, a song that quite obviously covers the theme of economic hard times that this country, and the world, is currently facing could easily seem like an opportunistic ploy to capitalize on the nation’s vulnerability, as seems to have been the problem with other recent songs of this nature. As a result, I was all but certain that a song with this title would be more frivolous than cathartic.

Instead, ol’ Hank comes through with a song that aptly captures the story of so many Americans at this frightening time. From the first person perspective, he tells of a man who’s tried to do everything right, but still finds himself jobless and unable to even afford survival. He desperately sings:

Introducing Tara Seetharam

April 21, 2009 Tara Seetharam 22

It is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce the newest writer for Country Universe, Tara Seetharam. As you’ll soon discover, we are quite blessed to have her. On behalf of the Country Universe staff, please join me in welcoming Tara! – Kevin J. Coyne

Hi all! It is such a thrill to step foot into this community of talented and well-versed writers. I am humbled and can’t thank the staff enough for so graciously taking me in.

I graduated about a year ago from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism, and I am currently residing in Houston and working in corporate communications. Writing and music are two of my greatest joys in life, so the opportunity to use this site as a medium to interlace the two is an absolute blessing.

When I tell people that I live and breathe country music, I’m almost always met with surprise. Some are better at hiding it than others, but I typically receive an inquisitive stare, a “Really?” or a confused smile. It leads to about 20 seconds of awkwardness, with me trying to sum up my passion for the genre in an eloquent explanation, and generally failing. Because quite frankly, how do you prove to a near stranger that yes, an Indian-American can love country music from the depths of her soul?

Miranda Lambert, "Dead Flowers"

April 20, 2009 Dan Milliken 23

No doubt about it: Miranda Lambert knows what’s up. After giving us two of last year’s riskiest and most rewarding singles (“Gunpowder & Lead” and “More Like Her”), she previews her forthcoming album with another sharp lament that, once again, finds her charging into thematic territory most of her peers wouldn’t even glance at for radio release.

Alas, the same cannot quite be said for Lambert’s musical territory this time around. As a character sketch of a quietly suffering woman, “Dead Flowers” has some of the most original lyrics you’re likely to hear on mainstream radio this year, but the track itself sounds about as bland as can be, with an arena-rock treatment eerily similar to Rascal Flatts’ “Take Me There” (seriously, listen to them in succession) that does more to dull the song’s edge than to sharpen it.

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