Classic Rewind: Lee Ann Womack & Jamey Johnson – ‘Give It Away’

A few thoughts on the CMA awards

We didn’t do too well with our predictions of this year’s CMA Award winners. In part, that’s probably because we gave the CMA way too much credit for artistic integrity. Next year, I’m going to take a look at the nominees and predict the very worst person in each category, and I suspect [...]

Who will win the CMA Awards

We shared our wishlist for this year’s CMA awards with you of last week. Now for the hard part – this is where we go out on a limb and try to predict who will actually walk home with a CMA award this year. We collectively sucked at prediction the last time [...]

Who should win this year’s CMA Awards

This year’s CMA Awards are due to be announced on November 11th. There are bound to be a few surprises, with unexpected winners or losers. We’ll share our best attempts at prediction with you next week, but first we thought we would let you all know not who we expect to win, but [...]

Album Review: Joe Nichols – ‘Old Things New’

A few years ago, Joe Nichols looked to be one of the brightest young country stars, with an interestingly textured voice and a sound with genuinely country roots which still worked on country radio, thanks to some very good songs. His career seems to have gone off track since them – no doubt not [...]

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 [...]

Single Review: Jamey Johnson – ‘My Way To You’

After constantly hearing amazing things about Jamey Johnson’s sophomore album, That Lonesome Song, I had to buy it. I enjoyed most of it, but it didn’t quite blow me away like I thought it would. Now, hearing about his new single, I heard similar hype, but I didn’t quite believe it all. From what I [...]

Album Review: Darryl Worley – ‘Sounds Like Life’

After almost ten years of varying degrees of success, Darryl Worley’s latest album came out recently on Stroudavarious Records. It is produced by Jim ‘Moose’ Brown and Kevin ‘Swine’ Grantt, and Darryl himself wrote or co-wrote almost all the material. One of the few exceptions, ‘Tequila On Ice’, written by Rivers Rutherford and [...]

Album Review: Josh Logan – ‘I Am What I Am’

Kentucky-born Josh Logan was one of those artists who fell through the cracks of a major (or almost-major) label deal when he was signed to Curb in the late 80s. His excellent 1988 album Somebody Paints The Wall included the first version of the title track, later a big hit for Tracy Lawrence and also [...]

What makes it country?

Even after a good three years of listening to my local country station, rooting around on the internet and exploring country music blogs, I still often wonder to myself, “What makes country music, country?” There’s such a variety of artists with a diversity of sounds and looks these days. Is there a definitive element that [...]

ACM Predictions

Tomorrow night’s Academy of Country Music awards are on everybody’s minds and lips. Reba will be hosting for the 11th time as the Academy hands out the awards on their 44th annual show.  Here then, is our contribution to the ACM Awards media frenzy.  These are the predictions of the My Kind of Country writing [...]

Right there in black and white

I’m a newbie lover of Country music. There’s just something about it that’s drawn me in. I know it has a great deal to do with the stories – both in the songs and of the artists themselves. Similarly, I love it when the tune or the arrangement or the inflection in the singer’s voice [...]

Are record labels stupid, or is it just radio?

Lately I’ve noticed that the worst songs seem to be picked for release as singles from a number of artists.  Alongside that, labels seem to be increasingly confused about how best to promote albums, with songs being announced as the next single from a given artist, and then hurriedly replaced by something else.  It all [...]

Can You Beat Us? – Grammy Predictions

So finally after all these polls about the Grammys, we’re going to have a little contest using the results! I thought we could see who will guess the most winners! We have the predictions of all the writers here at My Kind Of Country, as well as all of the top choices as voted by [...]

Poll – Grammy For Best Country Song

First, if you haven’t yet voted for Best Country Collaboration or Best Duo/Group Performance, click the respective links to do so!
Here we are, my last poll on the Grammys! This is for a biggie: for Best Country Song Of The Year! Past winners include “Where’ve You Been” (Kathy Mattea), “Love Can Build A Bridge” [...]

Poll – Grammy For Best Male Country Vocal Performance

Here is our second poll about the upcoming Grammys, this time for the Best Male Country Vocal Performance category! I have to say, as it seems to be normal for this year, these are some very strong nominees. As always, check out all the past winners at Country Universe!
I have to say, these are some [...]

Poll – Grammy For Best Country Album

So I figured out how to make and post polls here, so I thought I would start with this one:
Simple, but probably a tough choice for most people. My personal choice? I’m not quite sure, but Trisha edges out to the front for me with Loveless next, then Johnson, then Strait. The Travis album is [...]

J.R.’s End of 2008 List: Top 20 Singles

20. Heidi Newfield – Johnny & June
Epic.  That’s the only word to describe this song.  Newfield’s performance is perfection, but the production – a throwback to the Meatloaf power ballads of the 80s – could have easily fallen into cheesy name-dropping semantics.  I am usually the first one to spit at a Johnny Cash or [...]

Chris’s End of 2008 List: Top 30 Singles

This is my 2008 top-30 singles post! First, about my singles list, I attempted to avoid songs that could still impact the charts more, songs like Miranda Lambert’s “More Like Her” or Little Big Town’s “Good Lord Willing”. I made some exceptions as you’ll soon see, but I tried to keep it to songs that [...]