Classic Rewind: Randy Travis with George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Roy Rogers, and Vern Gosdin – ‘Heroes and Friends’

Another shot for Blaine Larsen

One of my favorite singers to come along in the past few years is Washington native Blaine Larsen.  In 2004, he released his first album on the small Giantslayer Records, under the wing of the label’s owners Tim Johnson and Rory Lee Feek, now of Joey + Rory fame.  The next year, the 19 year-old had an album out on BNA, the same tracks from his debut, with one single added.  It turned out to be the hit ‘How Do You Get That Lonely’, which was written by Rory Lee Feek and Jamie Teachenor and became Larsen’s only top 20 country hit to date, rising to #18.  He would release three more singles from his first 2 albums over the next couple years, with little success.

I first heard Blaine Larsen on the radio one day in 2005.  I remember thinking he was a great singer and also that it was nice to hear a mature voice on the radio.  His richly defined baritone and the powerful single ‘How Do You Get That Lonely’ definitely had my attention.  A couple days later the video was playing on CMT and I saw this skinny blonde kid, obviously younger than I am but sounding like a seasoned veteran.  I got over that initial juxtaposition and have been impressed with this guy ever since.  I kept expecting him to hit big with one of his singles, but despite some mild success – three top 40 hits – he hasn’t had that initial breakthrough yet.

Now Blaine Larsen has been signed as the flagship artist for the newly-founded Treehouse Records.  His first single ‘It Did’ is up on his MySpace page and is going to radio sometime this month.  Maybe this new deal with the label firmly behind him is just what Blaine Larsen needs.  Here’s wishing him good luck.

Also, check out this choice track from his sophomore album, ‘Lips of a Bottle’, featuring Gretchen Wilson.

Classic Rewind: Patty Loveless with Ricky Skaggs – ‘Daniel Prayed’

Album Review: Sarah Jarosz – ‘Song Up In Her Head’

I have a few things in common with Sarah Jarosz, a new addition to label Sugar Hill’s roster. We both:

- love to listen to music in the car
- are 18
- are National Honor Society members
- just graduated from high school
- are going to college in the fall (Me in Utah, her in Massachusetts)
- love bluegrass music (especially if it includes Chris Thile or Nickel Creek)

However, there’s one major difference: I am not a talented singer and multi-instrumentalist nor have I recorded a stunning bluegrass album. It’s mind-blowing that she’s my age and has made an album as good or as mature as Song Up In Her Head. If I didn’t know better, this album was made by a pro who’s been making music for decades, but it’s not. She plays piano, banjo, mandolin, guitar and clawhammer banjo, not to mention the amazing instrument that is her voice.

This isn’t one of those albums where Sarah’s “good for her age,” she’s just flat-out good. It’s interesting to see how she’s younger than Taylor Swift (By one year) and already she’s on a higher plane of maturity. Taylor is 2-note most of the time, either singing about a good boy or a bad boy. Sarah’s “just trying to figure this life out” and she does that by playing and singing. Scattered through her original songs are 2 covers, including one especially haunting rendition of “Shankill Butchers” by The Decemberists. This beautifully creepy song describes the infamous Shankill Butchers, a group that terrorized Irish Catholics in Ireland during the 1970′s. It’s heavy subject matter, but Sarah takes it in stride with confidence and talent.

In “Edge Of A Dream”, a gently swaying number, Sarah sings about life as a dance. We all dance to the same beat, why don’t we “learn a new dance”? Throughout the album, she makes small references to her age, but in a way that’s relatable and meaningful to older listeners, making good music that anyone can find meaning in instead of a select few.

This batch of songs is not only mature and deep, but they all sound really cool, with lots of picking and guests such as Jerry Douglas. A toy piano is used to great effect, not to mention Sarah’s excellence on the banjo- the textures are varied and interesting to listen to.

This album is really something special- Sarah Jarosz is here to stay. She’s confident and knows exactly the kind of music that she wants to make, and she makes it! I wish I was going to her college, I would ask her out for sure! Is that weird? Anyway, check out this album, it’s worth your time.

Grade: A

My top 3 tracks:
1. “Shankill Butchers”
2. “Song Up In Her Head”
3. “Edge Of A Dream”

Listen to Song Up In Her Head on Last.fm

Buy Song Up In Her Head on iTunes or Amazon.

Singers & songwriters

Country music has a long, rich heritage of artists who were both accomplished singers and songwriters — Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton are just a few examples of those who excelled not only as vocalists, but at writing their own material. Others, like George Strait and Reba McEntire, have occasionally dabbled into songwriting, but their true strength lies in interpreting the words of others.

In recent years, it’s become more expected for artists to write their own songs. Press releases for new artists boast about how many songs they co-wrote for their albums — emphasis on co-wrote; rarely do they seem to write songs without outside help. This has given rise to the oft-repeated “songwriting by committee” complaint. In addition, fans often argue that an artist who writes his or own material is superior to one who relies on outside writers.

Then there are those singer/songwriters whose true talent is with the pen and not the microphone. Kris Kristofferson, Bill Anderson, Nanci Griffith, and Matraca Berg have all been recording artists, but they are primarily thought of as songwriters.

While I appreciate the talent of those who can both sing and write, I’ve never considered it a prerequisite for someone to be able to do both in order to be considered a “true artist.” If someone is a great vocalist and knows how to pick good material and interpret the lyrics, I don’t care who wrote them. My enjoyment of a performance is not diminished by the knowledge that someone else wrote the song. I’d rather listen to a great vocalist who doesn’t write, than a mediocre singer who is an excellent composer. Still, there are those who insist that performers be able to do both, and do both well.

What are your thoughts? Is it important to you that your favorite performers write their own material? Can someone be considered a true artist if they are reliant on others to supply them with lyrics and melodies?

Classic Rewind: John Anderson – ‘Wild and Blue’

Album Review: John Anderson – ‘I Just Came Home To Count The Memories’

John Anderson’s third outing for Warner Brothers found him sharing production duties with a new co-producer, Frank Jones, and showcasing a slightly more polished sound. This is most apparent on songs such as the title track and “When Lady Is Cloudin’ Your Vision”, which feature a string section, something that hadn’t been typical of Anderson’s recordings up to that time.

The title track had previously been recorded by Bobby Wright in 1975 and had been a moderate hit for Cal Smith in 1977. Anderson’s 1981 version, in addition to the string section, finds him toning down the twang just a bit, possibly as a concession to country radio’s tastes at the time. It seems to have paid off; “I Just Came Home To Count The Memories” reached #7 on the Billboard country singles chart, helping Anderson rebound nicely after his previous single “I Love You A Thousand Ways” had stalled at #54. His inconsistent performance at radio continued, however, when the next single, “I Danced With The San Antone Rose”, failed to chart. Despite a poor reception at radio, it is a beautiful song, penned by Anderson and Lionel A. Delmore, and it is one of my favorites on the album.

Classic Rewind: Asleep at the Wheel with Reba McEntire – ‘Right or Wrong’

Recommendation: Songs about being lonely

As we all know, most of the best country music is culled from experiences of heartache and loneliness. A lot of my friends thought Taylor Swift’s “White Horse” was too sad of a song — they ain’t seen nothing yet! I love a good sad song.  It’s some cheap therapy for my own bad times, and too many happy songs can get boring anyway.

One of my favorite singers, Patty Loveless, sings about a lot of loneliness. Whether she’s constantly about to cry (“On The Verge Of Tears“), listening to her lover being gone (“Sounds Of Loneliness”) or has lost control of her limbs ( The oft covered “Crazy Arms”), she gets across the feeling of loss like no other.

Recently, in my quest to obtain all of Patty’s albums, I got her 1997 album Long Stretch Of Lonesome. The song that really stood out to me was the title cut, “Long Stretch Of Lonesome”. It has a gorgeous performance from Patty as the instrumentation builds up to a crescendo with strings and guitar aplenty. She knows that someday she’ll break her “Long Stretch Of Lonesome” and she’ll succeed in life; she’s just waiting for that to happen. That’s why I love Patty Loveless’ music because she just does them so well.

What are your favorite songs about being lonely?

Classic Rewind: Emmylou Harris – ‘Together Again’

Single Review: Zac Brown Band – ‘Toes’

Everybody who is sick and tired of Kenny Chesney’s brand of island-themed hits should definitely take a listen to the Zac Brown Band’s latest single, ‘Toes’.  Come to think of it, it would behoove Chesney to take a few notes on this one, too.  He just might learn a thing or two about how to take an old idea and make it sound fresh again.  Hot off their first two chart-topping singles, this feel-good-at-the-beach tune has been tapped as their third single from the gold-selling The Foundation.

It’s the tale of a country boy who leaves Georgia for a little rest and relaxation in the tropics.  He soon finds himself on the beach drinking tequila and surrounded by sexy senoritas. This guy is obviously just enjoying his Summer, whether it’s in the Bahamas or Georgia.  But like all good things, the Summer comes to an end and the money runs out. By the last verse, our narrator has found his way back home after ‘four days flew by like a drunk Friday night as the summer drew to an end’ and he retires to his lawnchair, trading the sand for the red Georgia clay and the tropical drinks for a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon.  But he’s just as happy in his backyard with his beer, and that gives the song its overall message of having a good time no matter your location or circumstances.

Brown’s warm vocals are surrounded by equally balmy instrumentation to give the track an overall sunny feeling.  Harmonies drive the chorus home and it’s Zac Brown’s vocal that keeps my attention as much as the lyrics.  It’s a combination of superior vocals, fresh lyrics, and general happy-go-lucky attitude that these guys exhibit so naturally that gives them an edge over Chesney and every other artist who’s tried their hand at reggae-country.  Zac Brown and the boys seem to mesh several styles into their kind of country effortlessly.

The Zac Brown Band has the ultimate hit of Summer 2009 on their hands here.  Though some of the lines might ruffle the feathers of conservative country radio – particularly the line ‘Gonna lay in the hot sun and roll a big fat one/And grab my guitar and play’.  The word ‘ass’ being uttered no less than five times may also hold it back a little, but judging from the roll these guys seem to be on, I doubt even those hurdles will slow them down much.

Grade: A-

Listen to Zac Brown Band – ‘Toes’.

Classic Rewind: John Anderson with Merle Haggard & The Strangers – ‘Swinging Doors’

Featuring the late Bonnie Owens singing harmony:

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Sad Songs and Waltzes’

There are very few that can sing a sad one like Keith Whitley. At least that’s what I’ve discovered in our recent Spotlight Artist feature on Keith in May. So it’s appropriate that one of the posthumous releases featuring Keith’s vocals is titled Sad Songs and Waltzes. As a relatively new fan of country music, I fell in love with this album on a number of levels.

First, there’s the story behind the album’s production. To be honest, I sometimes love the stories behind the songs as much as I love the songs themselves and this album has many.

Keith sang with several bands early in his career before striking out on his own. J.D. Crowe and the New South was the band that provided his launching pad into country as a solo artist, and their LP Somewhere Between was the ignition.

Keith joined the band in 1978 after singing and playing with the bluegrass band Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys along with his friend Ricky Skaggs during their teens.

According to Crowe, Keith didn’t realize when he joined The New South that Crowe was also into country having met Lefty Frizzell when he himself was in his teens. So when Keith eventually approached Crowe about the band doing a country album, Crowe was more than open to it. He offered to produce one and Somewhere Between got its start featuring some great classics like Frizzell’s ‘I Never Go Around Mirrors,’ Merle Haggard’s ‘Somewhere Between’ and ‘Long Black Limousine’ released in 1968 by Jody Miller.

Album Review: Rhonda Vincent – ‘Destination Life’

Rhonda Vincent’s latest album underlines her status as one of the best of today’s female bluegrass singers. It is part of what has proved to be a very consistent body of work over the course of her career. The main innovation this time is that Rhonda’s road band, the Rage, takes center stage with her for the first time, providing every aspect of the music we hear. It almost goes without saying that the musicianship is impeccable. The band’s fiddle player Hunter Berry takes on co-production duties with Rhonda, a task borne for the last couple of albums by Rhonda’s brother Darrin, who is now concentrating on his own career with duo Dailey & Vincent.

One of my favorite tracks is ‘It’s Crazy What A Lonely Heart Will Do’, a lovely duet with the Rage’s guitar player Ben Helson.  The traditionally-styled country ballad, written by former Highway 101 lead singer Paulette Carlson with Nashvile writer Jimbeau Hinson, is perfectly suited to Rhonda’s bell-like voice as the lovelorn protagonists attempt to ease their loneliness in another’s arms. Helson’s pleasant and listenable voice is not quite in the same league as Rhonda’s, but he complements her well. I also really like Pete Goble’s ‘I Can Make Him Whisper I Love You’, another take on love lost as she wistfully fantasizes about a long-gone ex still thinking of her as she still does of him, but is forced to admit it is only in her imagination.

My outright favorite, though, is a delightful and committed bluegrass cover of the much-recorded country classic ‘Stop the World (And Let Me Off)’, which I like more every time I hear it. Rhonda’s voice also sounds particularly beautiful on 70s country-rockers Poco’s ‘Crazy Love’, perhaps a more unexpected choice of song, but one which she manages to make fit in well with her sound.

The title track, penned by New Zealand’s Donna Dean, offers a word-picture of a woman in the process of driving away from a neglectful and unloving husband one moonlit night. “He cannot criticize her if she ain’t around”, she notes bitterly, reflecting that they would have stayed together “if only he’d respected, loved and cared for her”. Although the overt message of the song is that there’s no going back and her future is a new life, in fact the lyric focuses more on what has passed than what may lie in store for the protagonist.

Rhonda co-wrote three of the songs, the best of which is the gospel ‘I Heard My Savior Calling Me’, a genuinely compelling first-person account of conversion at a country church revival. This track also features some of Rhonda’s finest singing, and traditional gospel bluegrass harmonies from the band. ‘What A Woman Wants To Hear’ is a pleasant but slightly old-fashioned sounding love song paying tribute to the kind of man who says and does all the right things. ‘Last Time Loving You’, the opening track, sounds beautiful musically, but is rather forgettable lyrically.

The fast-paced ‘Heartwrenching Lovesick Memories’, in contrast, has an interesting lyric but is taken at too brisk a pace for the lyric to make an emotional impact on the listener; I simply can’t detect any heartwrenching (or even mild regret) in the vocal delivery. It gives the impression of having been picked in order to allow the band the opportunity to stretch out and show off their impressive licks, and this may be the downside of not using an external producer. A better balance is achieved with the love-on-the-road ‘Anywhere Is Home As Long As You’re With Me’, which has some dazzling instrumental passages, but the best showcase of the band’s musicianship comes with a version of Chubby Wise’s brilliantly entertaining composition ‘Eighth Of January’.

The album ends with a slow, serious and really rather beautiful acappella performance of the hymn ‘When I Travel My Last Mile (He Will Hold My Hand)’, starting with Rhonda solo, gradually joined by the boys from the band.

Grade: A-

Album Review: John Anderson – ‘John Anderson 2′

As the title suggests, John Anderson 2, was the singer’s second studio album for Warner Brothers, released in 1981. Produced by Norro Wilson, it picked up where the previous year’s debut album left off, calling on some of Nashville’s premier songwriters and musicians, and stood in stark contrast to the typical Urban Cowboy fare of the day. Among the legendary musicians contributing to the album were Harold Bradley (Owen’s brother), Jerry Reed, and Fred Carter, Jr. (Deana’s father) on guitar, Pete Drake on steel guitar, and Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano.

The opening track, “I’m Just An Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be A Diamond Someday)”, an instant classic composed by Billy Joe Shaver, was the first single released from the album. It brought Anderson to the Top 5 for the first time, peaking at #4.

It was followed up by “Chicken Truck”, composed by Anderson, Ervan James Parker, and Monroe Fields. This is a light-hearted tune about a motorist who is stuck on the highway behind a truck transporting chickens, which it is unable to pass. It’s my least favorite song on the entire album; the lyrics are foolish, and it has some rock overtones, which make it seem out of place with the rest of the album. It is also an indication of things that were to come in the relatively near future; it’s somewhat similar to 1983′s “Swingin’”, the biggest — and worst, from an artistic standpoint — hit of Anderson’s career. The production on “Chicken Truck” isn’t as obnoxious as the tune it foreshadows, but it wears thin after repeated listenings. Radio programmers apparently agreed; even though it reached #8, this song had a short shelf-life. I don’t ever remember hearing it on the radio, which suggests that it didn’t have any staying power as a recurrent once its chart run was finished.

Single Review: Brad Paisley – ‘Welcome To The Future’

A scene from the music video

In my recent foray into Twitter, I became a follower of Brad Paisley. Here’s the first message I saw from him, accompanied by a picture of Pac-Man on an iPhone:

My in flight entertainment this evening. Welcome to the future.

I was puzzled by the meaning of this picture until I heard the song “Welcome To The Future” on American Saturday Night, and it all became clear. The entire song is about how far we’ve come to get to today. Technological advances like TV in cars, video chats and games on phones are all name-checked, but the song continues into more serious fare. In the 3rd verse, Brad relates the story of a friend from school who was the target of racism for asking out the homecoming queen on a date. He never mentions Barack Obama, but it’s pretty obvious:

I thought about him today,
Everybody who’s seen what he’s seen,
From a woman on a bus
To a man with a dream.

He-e-ey…
Wake up Martin Luther.
Welcome to the future.
He-e-ey…
Glory glory hallelujah.
Welcome to the future.

It’s a nice payoff to a song that feels kind of frivolous until that point. It’s not usual summer fodder, but it’s such a great sentiment that doesn’t take a stance politically, only recognizing the significance of Obama becoming president in how far we’ve come as a society. Accompanying the great lyrics is a normal fast-paced Paisley production with fiddle, steel guitar and plenty of electric guitar. During the chorus, strange futuristic sounds appear, but they’re not distracting, as they could have been.

Clocking in at nearly 6 minutes on the album, the song is cut down by about a minute in the single edit, removing the guitar solo at the end, thankfully. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite Paisley tracks, only because of the 3rd verse and the timeliness of it. It’s nice that Paisley can use his clever writing for purposes other than making gender jokes and I hope he stays on this track.

Grade: A-

Written by: Brad Paisley & Chris DuBois

Buy “Welcome To The Future” off iTunes.
Listen to “Welcome To The Future” on Youtube.

Classic Rewind: Merle Haggard – ‘Mama Tried’

Week ending 7/4/09: #1 this week in country music history

1949: One Kiss Too Many — Eddy Arnold (RCA)

1959: The Battle of New Orleans — Johnny Horton (Columbia)

1969: Statue of a Fool — Jack Greene (Decca)

1979: Amanda – Waylon Jennings (RCA)

1989: Come From The Heart — Kathy Mattea (Mercury)

1999: Write This Down — George Strait (MCA)

2009: Sideways – Dierks Bentley (Capitol)

Happy Independence Day

Here’s a selection of some of my favorite songs about America.  They’re not ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’, but they all make a statement about the state of our nation.  And though most of these tracks are 20 years old or more now, their message still rings true.   So Happy Independence Day and enjoy some great country music on this, our nation’s birth day.

Classic Rewind: Moe Bandy – ‘Americana’