Mountain country magic: A tribute to Patty Loveless

When we announced Patty Loveless as our Spotlight Artist, all of us here at My Kind of Country were very excited about the opportunity to write about one of our favorites.  In past months, we’ve brought in Guest Contributors to help out with the reviews.  But this month, all the reviews were snatched up [...]

Discussion: Crossover roots?

Last week, this article about Taylor Swift’s crossover success got me to thinking about not only Swift, but other country stars who have met with major success in pop and adult contemporary markets.  It’s a mixed bag among the genre’s most steadfast supporters, while we welcome all the new listeners and fans to the format, somehow [...]

Classic Rewind: Sara Evans – ‘Three Chords and the Truth’

Thanks to Steve from Boston for this one.

Single Review: Sara Evans – ‘Feels Just Like A Love Song’

In 2006, Sara Evans was riding high.  She was the reigning female vocalist for the Academy of Country Music and had ridden the hits from her 2005 release Real Fine Place to the upper reaches of the chart.  She was also appearing that fall on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars and was about as high-profile [...]

Signature songs from superb singers

This past year, Taylor Swift had a massive hit in “Love Story.” I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It went to #1 on 3 charts worldwide, including the American and Canadian County charts as well as Australia’s all-genre chart. Beyond that, “Love Story” went into the top 5 on U.S. Billboard’s Hot 100, Pop 100 [...]

Single Review: Tanya Tucker with Jim Lauderdale – ‘Love’s Gonna Live Here’

When Tanya Tucker enlisted the aid of Pete Anderson to produce an album covering classic country songs, it was perhaps inevitable that at least one Buck Owens song would be included in the project. Anderson is, of course, famous for his work with Owens’ friend and protege Dwight Yoakam. He also produced Sara Evans’ 1997 [...]

Brad Paisley ‘Playlist’ album

This topic came up a few weeks ago when we were discussing the Brad Paisley and Sara Evans duet “New Again”. Some of you were looking for the song as a digital download. We were able to find it on the new Brad Paisley “Playlist” collection, but it was only available in CD [...]

Happy Easter

Album Review: Sara Evans – ‘Real Fine Place’

After seeing massive success with “Suds In The Bucket”, one of her most traditional singles, Sara decided to record a more traditional-leaning album. At a shallow listen, the sound and production of Real Fine Place is not very different from Restless or Born To Fly. What differentiates this album from those is, however, Sara’s choice [...]

Buying albums: standard CD or super-duper deluxe collector’s edition with bonus tracks and DVD?

 
Buying albums sure has gotten complicated over the past few years. Sure, there have always been choices of format; I can remember when the choices were LP, 8-track or cassette. Then 8-tracks were phased out and CDs became available. Then LPs and eventually cassettes went by the wayside. If you wanted an album, you had [...]

Just a recommendation …

I’ve written about this song on various occasions before in comments on other sites.  But, here is my official recommendation for ‘Nashville Girls’. The track was recorded back in March 2008 for Terri’s album, In My Next Life – scheduled to be released April 29, 2008.  It features guest vocals from Reba, Sara Evans, and [...]

Week ending 3/7/09: #1 This Week in Country Music History

1959: Don’t Take Your Guns to Town — Johnny Cash (Columbia)
1969: Only the Lonely — Sonny James (Capitol)
1979: Golden Tears — Dave & Sugar (RCA)
1989: I Still Believe In You – The Desert Rose Band (MCA/Curb)
1999: No Place That Far – Sara Evans (RCA)

Rare tracks: Sara Evans

Since the recent discussion about Sara Evans generated a lot of comments, I wanted to share this track which many of you may not have heard.  It appeared on a 1998 tribute album to Dwight Yoakam.  This is the sort of thing I’d like to hear Sara sing all the time.  Hope you enjoy it:

The [...]

Stars that faded too soon

It’s almost impossible to predict with any accuracy which new acts will attract the attention of radio and country music fans.  I’ve been famously wrong with some of my predictions. The first time I ever  heard Tim McGraw and Billy Ray Cyrus I didn’t think I’d ever hear of them again.  Conversely, there are some [...]

Single Review: Gloriana – ‘Wild At Heart’

 

I first heard of this group at Roughstock where Matt B. discussed this same single. Since my computer doesn’t do the audio files that Roughstock uses, I couldn’t hear the song. I saw the picture of this group (The same one posted here) and I instantly thought “Little Big Town knock-off.” I was only partially [...]

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 [...]

40 and Fabulous

Fox News recently published its 40 Hottest Over-40 Hotties. The list contains 2 of country music’s most beautiful women – 3 if you count Sheryl Crow as country, but I don’t. But I think they missed a few. Where is Dolly Parton? Martina McBride? Sara Evans? Lee Ann Womack? Shania Twain?
Here [...]