Week ending 11/14/09: #1 albums this week in country music history

1984: Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans (Sony)
1989: Randy Travis – No Holdin’ Back (Warner Brothers)
1994: Mary Chapin Carpenter – Stones In The Road (Columbia)
1999: LeAnn Rimes – LeAnn Rimes (Curb)
2004: George Strait – 50 Number Ones (MCA)
2009: Taylor Swift – Fearless (Big Machine)

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 [...]

Week ending 11/7/09: #1 albums this week in country music history

1984: Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans (Sony)
1989: Randy Travis – No Holdin’ Back (Warner Brothers)
1994: Mary Chapin Carpenter – Stones In The Road (Columbia)
1999: The Dixie Chicks – Fly (Monument)
2004: George Strait – 50 Number Ones (MCA)
2009: Tim McGraw – Southern Voice (Curb)

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 [...]

Classic Rewind: Randy Travis – ‘It’s Just A Matter Of Time’

Classic Rewind: Randy Travis – ‘On The Other Hand’

Thank God For Believers

Sometimes world events or personal events pile up and the needle on my emotional dashboard veers into the red “overwhelm” zone.  Depending on the day and the circumstance, I might dial up my favorite “drown your sorrows” country songs in order to know I’m not alone in the “overwhelm” zone.
However, there are other days when [...]

Album Review: Kim Williams – ‘The Reason That I Sing’

I’ve mentioned before that I always enjoy hearing songwriters’ own interpretations of songs which they have written for other artists. The latest example comes from Kim Williams, a name you should recognize if you pay attention to the songwriting credits. Kim has been responsible for no fewer than 16 number 1 hits, and [...]

Listening and learning

I’ve been listening to country music since I was 9 years old.  When I was a kid listening to some of these songs, I just sang along, memorizing the melody and the lyric, never really knowing what the song meant.  It wasn’t until I got older that I realized Garth Brooks was singing about murder, [...]

Classic Rewind: Randy Travis & Josh Turner – ‘King of the Road’

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

Something with a twist to it

Some of the most memorable country songs are the ones which surprise you, the story song with a twist in the tale, or the song which suddenly goes in a direction you really weren’t expecting. Sometimes the effect is desigend to make you laugh; sometimes it may bring you to tears; there are some songs [...]

More than one outlet

Hank Williams recorded under the guise of Luke the Drifter in the early 1950s, Garth Brooks was Chris Gaines, and George Jones as a rockabilly singing duck.  These are just a few of the alter egos country music has created.  An alter ego is a second self – ‘the other I’.  So what drives a [...]

Recommendation: Randy Travis – ‘You Didn’t Have A Good Time’

I don’t have a theme for my recommendation this week.  But I do want to point you to a great song on Randy Travis’ latest album, Around The Bend.  The song is ‘You Didn’t Have A Good Time’.  It’s a stark look at the morning-after a hard night’s drinking.  Randy Travis is the owner of [...]

Week ending 5/9/09: #1 this week in country music history

1949: Lovesick Blues — Hank Williams (MGM)
1959: White Lightning — George Jones (Mercury)
1969: Hungry Eyes — Merle Haggard & The Strangers (Capitol)
1979: Don’t Take It Away — Conway Twitty (MCA)
1989: Is It Still Over? — Randy Travis (Warner Bros.)
1999: Wish You Were Here — Mark Wills (Mercury)

Album Review: Keith Whitley — ‘L.A. to Miami’

After the commercial failure of his RCA debut mini-album, Keith Whitley changed directions somewhat, moving away from traditional country and more towards a more contemporary (i.e., commercial) sound. The result was 1985’s L.A. to Miami, produced by Blake Mevis, who had produced some of George Strait’s early work. At that time, country radio [...]

Spotlight Artist: Keith Whitley (July 1, 1955 – May 9, 1989)

Last month we spotlighted the Class of ‘89, noting the many creative and commercial triumphs that occurred during that landmark year for country music. The same year brought one of country music’s great tragedies — the untimely death of Keith Whitley from alcohol poisoning. May 9th marks the 20th anniversary of that sad day. This [...]

1989 Album Review: Reba McEntire – ‘Sweet Sixteen’

After making a surprise 180° turnaround with 1988’s pop-oriented Reba, the singer alienated many traditional country fans, and Sweet Sixteen was an attempt to recapture them. Now, Sweet Sixteen is in no way a traditional album the way The Last One To Know was a traditional album, but it’s still considerably more country than Reba. With some fiddle and steel [...]

1989 Album Review: Gene Watson – ‘Back In The Fire’

1989 was supposed to be a new start for Gene Watson. He had been one of relatively few traditional country artists flying the flag for real country during the Urban Cowboy era of the earlier 80s, so the neotraditional revival should have given him a great opportunity. He signed to Warner Brothers, and [...]

Missing from radio?

A comment made by Kevin at Country Universe got me to thinking more about the minuscule playlists of today’s country radio stations.  Satellite radio almost seemed like a savior for the format at one point, but since that idea didn’t really catch on with the mainstream even enough to affect the Top 40, hope for [...]