Week ending 10/31/09: #1 albums this week in country music history

1984: Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans (Sony)

1989: Clint Black – Killin’ Time (RCA)

1994: Mary Chapin Carpenter – Stones In The Road (Columbia)

1999: The Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2004: George Strait – 50 Number Ones (MCA)

2009: Taylor Swift – Fearless (Big Machine)

Classic Rewind: Doug Stone – ‘I’d Be Better Off In a Pine Box’

This was one of the first country songs I remember really loving.  Somehow the melody just sucked me in and I didn’t even know how dark the lyrics really were until I was much older.  There are lots of 90s country songs like that for me, those I memorized and then later learned what they meant.  One of my favorite things about this video is the audience is made of country music legends – you’ll see Vince Gill, Roy Clark, Bill Anderson, Janie Fricke, John Conlee, Little Jimmy Dickens, and many more - and they are all in the moment, enjoying the song.   I’m right there with ‘em.

Classic Rewind: Patty Loveless with Vince Gill – ‘On Down The Line’

Album Review: Patty Loveless – ‘Sleepless Nights’

Patty Loveless was dropped by Epic following disappointing sales and minimal airplay for her last album for the label, Dreamin’ My Dreams. She was in no hurry to make her next move, taking some time off the road to move down to Georgia, and dealing with family deaths and illness, but in 2008 she signed with the independent label Saguaro Road, and in September that year she released a new album, produced as usual by husband Emory Gordy Jr. She cast aside thoughts of regaining her chart-topping status, and instead recorded a tribute to traditional country music. It was heralded as a kind of companion piece or counterpart to 2001’s Mountain Soul, as it was billed on the cover as “the traditional country soul” of Patty Loveless. What resulted was even better than we could have expected. Sleepless Nights is a masterpiece.

Classic cover albums have a tendency to fall into one of two main categories: excessively cautious tributes where the artist sounds frankly overwhelmed by the thought of competing with a much-loved original, and ends up producing a carbon copy or high quality karaoke; and trying too hard to put their own stamp on the material in such a way that the merits of the original song are stifled. Sleepless Nights triumphantly avoids either pitfall. Patty sounds thoroughly invested in the material and style, and makes it sound alive. Her versions of each of these songs sounds as though it could have been the original classic version.

George Jones is a very challenging artist to risk comparison with, although perhaps it is less dangerous for a female vocalist where the comparisons will inevitably be less deleterious. Patty had already successfully tackled one Jones classic in the form of ‘If My Heart Had Windows’ back in the early days, and she chose to open Sleepless Nights with George’s first hit single (in 1955), the honky tonking ‘Why Baby Why’ (with a couple of minor lyric changes to fit the change in gender) which also served as the single released to promote this album. Sadly, if predictably, it was far too traditional for today’s country radio, but it is a perfect opening to the album as Patty tears into the song, the most up-tempo on the set.

Patty also picked three more Jones songs, including a truly lovely version of one of his greatest classics (written by Dickey Lee). ‘She Thinks I Still Care’ is altered here to ‘He Thinks I Still Care’. There is a fantastic take on ‘Color Of The Blues’ on which Patty actually achieves the almost impossible: improving on a song once recorded by George Jones as she infuses the lyric with pain. The most obscure Jones cover is ‘That’s All It Took’, from one of his 1960s duet albums with pop singer Gene Pitney, which is probably best known today from the 1970s cover by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Patty’s version features her former guitarist, Australian Jedd Hughes, on harmonies.

Classic Rewind: Dixie Chicks – ‘Cold Day In July’

Album Review: Patty Loveless – ‘Dreamin’ My Dreams’

Dreamin’ My Dreams was the last album Patty Loveless recorded for the Epic Nashville label before they closed shop. Some of their artists went to the Columbia Records roster.  Patty instead took a two-year hiatus from touring and recording before going the indie route, signing with Suguaro Records in 2008.  She has since recorded two albums for the label.  While this would be her last album for Epic, Patty delivered nothing less than a first-class set of songs, with some contemporary flavor, well worthy of radio airplay, as well as her signature bluegrass and rootsy album staples.

Though the lead-single, ‘Keep Your Distance’ is as good a track that’s been shipped to radio this decade, it failed to chart, and Epic didn’t release any follow-up singles. The single, written by Richard Thompson is a snappy number with some great guitar licks and a sing-along melody.

She slows things down with Lee Roy Parnell and Tony Arata’s ‘Old Soul’, my favorite track on the set.  The tale of a young heart who, after being hurt and down-trodden by life, is wise beyond her years.  The haunting arrangement and the ache in the vocal combine to make for a punch to the listener.

Laugh too little and you cry too much
Way too long without that gentle touch
Weight of the world resting down in your bones
Pretty soon you’ve got an old soul

Likewise, ‘Nobody Here By That Name’ is reminiscent of her 90s hits.  Smart lyrics, flawless vocals, and a strong-woman spirit underscore the melancholy lyrics. Listening to the song, it’s evident that this is another Tony Arata cut; it’s very much in his style, and he co-wrote this with Pete Wasner.

The album gets back to the tempo with ‘Same Kinda Crazy’, a jazzy-rocking number, later recorded by George Strait.  The tale of two kindred spirits is told with a ferocious vocal from Patty.  ’Dreamin’ My Dreams With You’, the almost-title track was written by producer-extraordinaire Allen Reynolds.  The song has also recorded by Alison Krauss and Waylon Jennings, among others.

Classic Rewind: Patty Loveless – ‘You Don’t Seem To Miss Me’

A genre by any other name …

Anyone who reads a country music blog for any length of time, is at some point bound to come across a heated discussion about what country music is and what it is not. There are no cut and dry definitions, and a lot of songs borrow heavily from different styles, and are thus, hard to classify. The fact that the genre is constantly changing makes the task even more difficult, if not downright impossible at times. Some people suggest that we should avoid labeling music altogether; however, labels are a useful way for people who like a particular style of music to find more of what they like. It’s when the music gets divided into too many sub-categories that things begin to get too complicated.

The Americana movement has, if you’ll pardon the pun, taken root largely in response to the over-commercialization of mainstream country, which bears little resemblance to the music I grew up with. Americana is even more difficult to define than country; it is best described not by what it is, but by what it is not — in other words, it is a hodge-podge of music that is on the fringes, the music that is rejected by the mainstream.

This leads to the question, what is meant by mainstream? Is mainstream status automatically conferred upon any music that is embraced by country radio and CMT, or does the term refer to anything that is released on one of Music Row’s major record labels? A few weeks ago, a commenter on The 9513 said that he or she (I can’t remember which) didn’t like mainstream country music, preferring instead to listen to artists like Miranda Lambert. That comment surprised me because, as an artist who is signed to a major label, who gets at least some radio airplay, and with one gold and one platinum album under her belt, Lambert doesn’t seem like someone who is outside the mainstream. Admittedly, she’s a bit of an outsider in Nashville, but Americana or alt.country she is not.

A lot of the “fringe” music that I listen to was once very much considered to be mainstream. While I have deep respect for Americana artists and am glad that there is a place for those who don’t get played on mainstream country radio to be heard, it annoys me greatly when people declare that artists like Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard are no longer considered country artists, and are now categorized under the Americana umbrella. While Haggard himself has gone on record as saying he is not bothered in the least by the fact that his music isn’t played alongside the 80s pop/rock fluff on country radio, it doesn’t seem right that the term “country” has been co-opted by the poseurs, while the legends, like Haggard and Lynn, who built the genre, are cast aside and told to find another outlet if they want their music to be heard.

I came of age in a time when country was not what young people listened to, at least not in my part of the country. It was considered a bit eccentric, if not downright odd, for a teenager to listen to country music. Yet I was never ashamed to admit that I was country fan. Ironically, it is now, when country music is a lot more accepted by the masses, that I feel the need to explain that I like country music, but not Rascal Flatts or Taylor Swift or most of the artists that can be heard on the radio today.

In the past, whenever the genre began to lose touch with its roots and move too much in a pop direction, there would be a backlash and a rediscovery of tradition. Nowadays, instead of the mainstream realigning to what the fans want it to be, fans are abandoning the mainstream. They are turning off their radios and seeking out more roots-oriented, less commercial independent artists on the internet. Instead of the mainstream pendulum swinging back in a more traditional direction, the genre seems to be splitting into sub-categories: the mainstream and the non-mainstream/Americana/alt.country or whatever the term du jour currently is.

What are your thoughts? Will mainstream country eventually rediscover its roots, or will those who want more roots-oriented country have to look elsewhere? Is the genre splitting into mainstream and non-mainstream niches? And what exactly is mainstream, anyway?

Recommendation: Kurt Nilsen & Willie Nelson – ‘Lost Highway’

One of the featured tracks from the T for Texas, T From Tennessee — The Lost Highway Sampler, which is available as a free digital EP from Amazon. It’s well worth checking out.

Classic Rewind: Pam Tillis – ‘Detroit City’

Album Review: Tim McGraw – ‘Southern Voice’

Tim McGraw has never impressed me as one of the great country voices, but where he frequently has impressed me is in his choice of interesting material, the kind of songs which are worth hearing in anyone’s hands. His tenth studio album is produced by the same production team of McGraw, Byron Gallimore and Darran Smith (the lead guitarist in Tim’s band the Dancehall Doctors) as Tim’s last three, with backing from the Dancehall Doctors on all but one track, occasionally augmented by additional musicians or string sections. The sound is definitely quite rock-influenced, and a long way from traditional country, but the production is a good deal more restrained than on much of what is emerging from Nashville at the moment. Overall, there isn’t much variation in tempo or melody, but the material is mostly interesting and adult. There isn’t much to appeal to the children and emotional adolescents at whom current radio playlists seem aimed, and this is a good thing. I don’t like everything here, but it is a serious attempt at making an artistically satisfying album.

It gets off to a discouraging start. Opening track ‘Still’, written by fellow-Curb artist Lee Brice with Kyle Jacobs and Joe Leathers, is a very well-written song with a nice reflective feel and effective restrained vocals in the verses about seeking refuge from the stresses of the world in memory and imagination, and finally in church, but the chorus is musically rather pop-sounding, with strings and detectable vocal processing in places. The next track, ‘Ghost Town Train (She’s Gone)’, a heavily allusive song written by Troy Olsen and Marv Green about a woman leaving, is a bit dull and emotionally unconvincing with a lot of soulless “oh nos” despite some nice fiddle lines from Dean Brown.

Things really start to pick up with ‘Good Girls’, the first of the well-chosen story songs which dominate the song selection. The downbeat melancholy tale of a woman’s murderous response to her husband cheating with her best friend was written by the Warren Brothers with Aimee Mayo and Chris Lindsey, and is well played out although I don’t much like the tune on the chorus.

Classic Rewind: Keith Whitley – ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’

Album Review: Terri Clark – ‘The Long Way Home’

Following her exit from long-time label home Mercury Records in 2006, Terri Clark inked a deal with BNA Records just a few months later.  Under the Sony imprint, she released two singles to radio, but both stalled just inside the Top 40 on the U.S. Country chart.  Both were bona fide hits in her native homeland of Canada, however, as ‘Dirty Girl’ rose to a #13 peak and the unreleased album’s title cut, ‘In My Next Life’ went all the way to #1.  After delaying the release of the album several times, the label and Clark parted ways, with the singer promising to focus more of her energy on her native country, and possibly form her own label.

She did just that in earlier this year when she created BareTrack Records.   As promised to her fans, a live album was soon available.  Terri Clark Live: Road Rage was the first release on the new label, sold digitally and exclusively through Terri’s website and at her concerts.  When time came to release The Long Way Home, BareTrack struck a distribution deal with Capitol Nashville/EMI Canada to get physical copies of the CD to retailers across North America.  Recording the album in a bit of an unconventional way, Terri took to the studio for two days, and recorded the entire album in three takes.

Amid the turmoil within her career and label changes, Terri’s mother Linda Clark, was diagnosed with cancer.  The singer’s priority became caring for her mother and she returned to Canada for an extended stay.  After a long fight and with her mother in remission, Terri returned to Nashville to record The Long Way Home, armed with an arsenal of stellar songs and a vision of just how she wanted them to sound.  Every track on the album was written or co-written by Terri and her age is showing, and the signs of maturity setting in on Terri Clark, the woman, is evident in these songs.

‘Gypsy Boots’ is the album opener and first single, released in the U.S. and Canada, and reached the top 10 in Canada, but failed to chart below the border.  Terri wrote the song that tells of a musician and her penchant for the traveling life with Leslie Satcher and Jon Randall.  An acoustic version, which showcases the lyric in a much more flattering aesthetic, closes the album.

There are really no throwaway tracks on the set, but plenty of standouts.  The second single, released only in Canada, is the melodically-driven ‘If You Want Fire’.  Drums and bass kicks help keep the song moving too.  It’s thematically similar to Garth Brooks’ ‘Standing Outside the Fire’, and is just a real lyrical treat with a great hook. Spoken like someone who’s been burned a time or two herself, Terri imparts a bit of wisdom she’s picked up, ‘If you gotta have it, all that madness and  passion, then you’ll learn/If you want fire, it better be worth the burn.’

Classic Rewind: Charley Pride – ‘Kiss An Angel Good Morning’

Week ending 10/24/09: #1 singles this week in country music history

1949: Slippin’ Around — Margaret Whiting & Jimmy Wakely (Capitol)

1959: The Three Bells — The Browns (RCA)

1969: The Ways To Love A Man — Tammy Wynette (Epic)

1979: All The Gold In California — Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers (Columbia)

1989: Living Proof — Ricky Van Shelton (Columbia)

1999: Something Like That — Tim McGraw (Curb)

2009: Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song) — Chris Young (RCA)

Week ending 10/24/09: #1 albums this week in country music history

1984: Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans (Sony)

1989: Clint Black – Killin’ Time (RCA)

1994: Mary Chapin Carpenter – Stones In The Road (Columbia)

1999: The Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)

2004: George Strait – 50 Number Ones (MCA)

2009: Toby Keith – American Ride (Show Dog Nashville)

Classic Rewind: Gary Allan – ‘Songs About Rain’

Classic Rewind: Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, & Marty Stuart – ‘Where The Soul Of Men Never Dies’ / ‘Shine On Harvest Moon’

Thanks

It was just this March that, after only three months online, this little blog passed the 25,000 hits mark.  Now, less than 8 months later, I am very, very happy to be able to say thank you for stopping by 250,000 times.   That’s right: in less than one year, we’ve managed to get over a quarter-million hits!  I never expected My Kind of Country to be as successful, or have as many loyal, daily readers as it does, and I sure do appreciate everybody who visited us in these past forty-seven weeks.  Oh, and I hope you keep coming back too!

Album Review: Patty Loveless – ‘On Your Way Home’

2003′s On Your Way Home marked Patty Loveless’ return to mainstream country, following her critically acclaimed bluegrass album Mountain Soul. She and producer Emory Gordy, Jr. revisited the formula that had worked so well for them in the nineties, combining traditional country with the best contemporary songs they could find, drawing upon writers such as Paul Kennerley, Marty Stuart, Rodney Crowell, Ronnie Samoset, Matraca Berg and Jim Lauderdale.

Things got off to a strong start with the lead single, a cover of Rodney Crowell’s “Lovin’ All Night”. Her three previous singles had failed to chart, but radio initially seemed happy to have Patty back in the mainstream and added “Lovin’ All Night” to their playlists. Patty sounds more energized on this track than she had in a long time, and her version easily trumps Crowell’s own recording. Though it was her strongest showing on the charts in years, “Lovin’ All Night” stalled at #18, which seemed to indicate that Loveless was past her commercial peak.

The second single was the beautiful title track, written by Ronnie Samoset and Matraca Berg. Had it been released about a decade earlier, it would have been a huge hit. That it only climbed to #29 on the charts is nothing short of criminal. Similar in style to Loveless’ earlier hits “Here I Am” and “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am”, “On Your Way Home” manages to sound contemporary yet country, without being overproduced or drowning in pop overtones. Its failure to gain traction at country radio can be partially attributed to the format’s increasing tendency to embrace fluff and reject substantive songs. It might have gotten a warmer reception if it had been released by a younger artist, but it is hard to imagine any other vocalist who could have sung this song with the passion and emotion that Loveless does.

Epic released one more single from this set — “I Wanna Believe”, written by Al Anderson, Gary Nicholson, and Jessi Alexander. Peaking at #60, this was the last time Patty Loveless appeared on the Billboard country singles chart as a solo artist. I probably would have released the more radio-friendly Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Miller and Julie Miller composition “Looking For A Heartache Like You” instead of this one, though it likely would not have fared any better on the charts. “I Don’t Wanna Be That Strong” is the most contemporary song on the album and seems like another good candidate for a single release, but in all likelihood, Epic was unwilling to invest any more money promoting this album, given the lukewarm reception the previous singles had received.