Giveaway: Patsy Cline Prize Package

UPDATE:  The winner is … Lanibug.  Congratulations and we’ll be in contact with you shortly.  Everybody else, thanks for commenting and keep coming back to check out the Gary Allan giveaway we’ll be starting shortly.  Thanks again for reading My Kind of Country.

Patsy Cline has been one of the most influential female vocalists in the history of country music.  The fact that her recording career lasted less than a decade is a testament to her pure talent.  That her recordings have stood the test of time and are still beloved some 50 years later is an even greater accomplishment.  So when we began discussing legendary artists for our Spotlight Artist series, Patsy’s was one of the first names that came to mind.  We’ve been working hard this month to get you acquainted with her catalog if you weren’t already, or just reminisce with you readers who already love these songs.

Be sure to check out all the Classic Rewinds that we’ve put up of Patsy’s limited television appearances.  And to get you started with your Patsy Cline collection – or maybe just add to it – we’re giving away a Patsy Cline prize package.   One reader will win:

- Patsy Cline Gold 2 CD set

- Sweet Dreams movie starring Jessica Lange on DVD

Certainly Patsy’s influence on artists from Loretta Lynn to Reba McEntire to LeAnn Rimes and everywhere in between can be heard in their own recordings.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg to Cline’s far-reaching and lasting impact on the genre of country music.

To enter, tell us who your favorite singer who’s been obviously influenced by Patsy Cline is, and why. Commenting will close January 31, 2010 at 11:59 PM.  Good luck!

Classic Rewind: Statler Brothers – ‘Flowers On The Wall’

10 things I hate about CD liner notes

The CD may be a dying format, but it’s still my personal preferred way to buy music. Partly that’s because I like having proper printed liner notes to refer to and keep physically with the music they refer to. But I often have cause to complain. Here are my top ten peeves with unsatisfactory liner notes:

10. Songs not listed in the correct order (most recently I found this on Marty Raybon’s religious album from 2008). This is deeply confusing when you’re listening for the first time and aren’t yet familiar with the material. You wonder why a song has the apparently dissasociated title it appears to, before you realize they’ve had a last minute change in the sequencing, after the liner notes were printed. Not a frequent error, but really annoying when it happens. It’s more common for the songs to be listed in order, but only if you unfold the paper in just the right way.

9. Print too small to read without a magnifying glass or a torch. What’s the point of printing it if no-one can read it?

8. Text and background in a color combination too faint/dark to read ever.

7. Mis-spelling songwriters’ or musicians’ names. This looks embarrassingly amateur as well as being disrespectful to the person in question. On Brandon Rickman’s very good album last year, for instance, fiddle player Jenee Fleenor’s name was spelt correctly twice and incorrectly three times. Misspelt sogwriters’ names are even more common.

6. Mis-spelt words on printed song lyrics or in commentary. There is no excuse for this on a high-budget release. If the person responsible for putting the notes together can’t spell, employ a proofreader.

5. No lyrics at all.

4. No songwriter credits – not common these days, but some low-budget releases do omit them; this is an economy too far for me. I want to know who wrote the songs.

3. Your liner notes are printed on a glossy, multi-page brochure with room for dozens of fetching pictures of the artist in various outfits, holding instruments, posing with pets, etc, but somehow they still have no room for the lyrics. (Okay, I like the odd picture of a dog. I’d stil rather have the lyrics, though.)

2. You can’t be bothered to print the lyrics in the liner notes, but tell buyers you can see them on the label or artist website. Websites are transitory. I hope to still be listening to your album in 10, 20 or more years’ time: is your website still going to be there?

1. A note saying lyrics (or credits) are available on the label website, when they aren’t, at least when the album is released (Anita Cochran’s Serenity and Randy Kohrs’ Quicksand are recent guilty parties here). This is extremely frustrating.

What are your pet peeves?