Album Review: Marty Stuart – ‘Country Music’

Marty’s departure from MCA was not his final attempt at mainstream stardom.  He soon signed to Columbia, and in 2003 released his sole album for the label, the boldly titled Country Music.  Despite the title it was not as unabashedly traditional as Marty’s most recent work, combining some nods to tradition with more adventurous musical fare, and was his final record made for a mainstream audience.  It saw the debut of his new backing band, the Fabulous Superlatives.  Their musicianship is excellent, but the eclectic nature of the record feels it feel unfocussed.

The playful fantasies of the part-narrated ‘If There Ain’t There Oughta Be’, written by Bobby Pinson and Trey Bruce, were the first offering to radio, but just failed to crack the top 40.  It was a brave attempt at trying something a bit different, but the lack of tune and not particularly memorable lyrics fall flat.

The much more likeable ‘Too Much Month At the End Of The Money’ was a minor hit in 1989 for the shortlived  group Billy Hill (who comprised the successful songwriters Bob DiPiero, John Scott Sherrill and Dennis Robbins), but Marty’s version flopped even though it sounds like a return to his “hillbilly rock” big hits.

The last single, although a truly stellar song, did not chart at all.  This outstanding track, the thoughtful ‘Farmer’s Blues’ setting out the financial difficulties faced by farmers was written by Marty with wife Connie Smith.  Marty’s sensitive vocal is perfectly judged, and Merle Haggard’s duet vocal balances it beautifully as they swap verses and harmonise on the chorus.

Another highlight is Marty’s first recording of ‘Sundown In Nashville’ with its insider’s view of the dark side of the city, where “they sweep broken dreams off the street”, a great song he has chosen to revive on his excellent latest album.   The song dates from the 1960s, but its insight into the “dark side of fame” is timeless.

An introspective cover of the classic ‘Satisfied Mind’ verges on the depressing, and it took me a few listens to really appreciate, but the decision to interpret the song from the point of view of the unsatisfied seeker of peace is actually very effective.  ‘Walls Of A Prison’ is a Cash cover, with Marty trying out his best bass growl against a simple acoustic arrangement, and this is another fine track with effectively unhurried phrasing.

The part-narrated Tip Your Hat acknowledges the legends and great songs of the genre, but is musically closer to blues than country with minimal melody and shouty vocals on the chorus, although Earl Scruggs and Josh Graves on banjo and dobro lend it some musical interest.

‘Here I Am’ is a gloomily soulful ballad offering love, with Marty wrote with Rivers Rutherford.  On a broadly similar theme, ‘If You Wanted Me Around’, written with Paul Kennerley, is a better song, with the protagonist willing to offer anything if only she cared.  ‘Fool For Love’, written by Marty with Tom Douglas, has a jazzy feel with call and response backing vocals  not unreminiscent of some of the Mavericks’ ballads, but it’s the kind of thing that really needs a more intrinsically compelling vocalist to pull off successfully.

The rocking novelty ‘By George’ is rather weird lyrically.  A superior version of the energetic ‘Wishful Thinkin’’ was previously recorded by Joy Lynn White, who invested it with a wild abandon and intensity making Marty’s version sound pedestrian and emotionless in comparison.

This was an attempt to get back on terms with country radio after the commercial failure of The Pilgrim.  It was not a success, and Marty left Columbia to undertakes some even less commercial projects in the next few years –  the gospel Souls’ Chapel, another concept album, the Native American tribute Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota, and a live bluegrass album recorded at the Ryman.  It is a bit of a mixed bag musically, but there are some tracks worth hearing, especially ‘Farmer’s Blues’.

Grade: B

Album Review: Marty Stuart – ‘Hillbilly Rock’

The major label phase of Marty Stuart’s career is considered to have begun in earnest with the release of 1989′s Hillbilly Rock, following a brief and somewhat inauspicious stint with Columbia. Now signed to MCA, Marty finally began to enjoy some commercial success, primarily thanks to the album’s catchy but lyrically light Paul Kennerley-penned title track, which would become his first Top 10 hit.

Produced by Richard Bennett and Tony Brown, Hillbilly Rock, as its title suggests, has got a distinct rockabilly flavor and the influence of Marty’s mentor Johnny Cash is readily apparent. In fact, Marty’s first single release for MCA was a cover of Cash’s 1955 hit “Cry! Cry! Cry!” It was an odd choice to launch the career of a relatively unknown artist, especially since it occurred during a period when Johnny Cash was decidedly out of vogue in Nashville. Not surprisingly, Marty’s faithful-to-the-original version was not a huge hit, though it did crack the Top 40, making it his highest charting single (at #32) since 1985′s “Arlene”, which was his only Top 20 hit up to that time. The next single, “Don’t Leave Her Lonely Too Long”, is my favorite track on the album. It was written by Marty and Kostas and sounds a lot like the music The Mavericks were doing around that time. Unfortunately, it was met by a big yawn at country radio and it stalled at #42. The tune was revived by Gary Allan almost a decade later when he included it on his It Would Be You album.

Marty’s commercial fortunes began to change with the release of the album’s title track as the third single. Fueled by a video that was in heavy rotation on TNN and CMT, “Hillbilly Rock” allowed Marty to crack the Top 10 for the first time. Peaking at #8, it was not a smash hit, but it was a significant and hard fought milestone for an artist who had enjoyed a fair share of critical acclaim but seemed to be in danger of failing to catch on in the marketplace.

Mainstream country music in the early 1990s was obsessed with “hat acts”. Marty didn’t fit the mold and that may have made his music more difficult to market, though he eventually turned this to his advantage a few years later when he teamed up with Travis Tritt for the highly successful “No Hats” tour. It became apparent that he still faced an uphill climb at country radio when Hillbilly Rock’s fourth and final single, “Western Girls” disappointingly peaked at #20, though it deserved to chart much higher.

I was somewhat surprised at the time to learn of Marty’s bluegrass background and his vast knowledge and devotion to traditional country music because his music that was getting radio airplay at the time was anything but traditional. But after looking past the radio hits and delving more deeply into the album cuts, another side of his musical personality can be heard. “When The Sun Goes Down” is the album’s most traditional cut, sounding a lot like the Merle Haggard classic “The Bottle Let Me Down”, and the beautiful and understated closing track “Since I Don’t Have You” would be right at home on Ghost Train or Marty’s most recent album. Both tunes were written by Marty and Mark Collie.

Although Hillbilly Rock was only moderately successful, it earned a lot of critical acclaim and introduced Marty Stuart to mainstream audiences. It also stands as an example of how much more diversity was on country radio twenty years ago, before things became too homogenized, as it is quite different from most of the music on the charts at the time. It was a particular favorite of then-President George H.W. Bush, who requested and received a copy of Hillbilly Rock to listen to on Air Force One. It is still easy to find and is worth seeking out.

Grade: A-

Album Review – Ronnie Dunn – ‘Ronnie Dunn’

Ronnie Dunn’s long-awaited solo debut finds the singer staying close to the signature Brooks & Dunn sound, although with slightly more emphasis on the contemporary end of the country music spectrum. There are no fiddles and very little steel guitar to be found, but there is a healthy helping of Southern rock and even a dash of Tex-Mex, which make for a much more interesting album than I was expecting after the somewhat bland lead single “Bleed Red”, Dunn’s first solo Top 10 hit, which I reviewed back in February. Dunn produced the album himself and had a hand in writing nine of the album’s twelve tracks.

The album opens with the (presumably) autobiographical “Singer In A Cowboy Band”, one of the rock-leaning songs, which, though well written and well performed, contains some heavy-handed electric guitar work, which I found somewhat distracting. More effective is “I Don’t Dance”, which is also rock-flavored but with less intrusive electric guitars. Better yet is the quieter “Your Kind of Love”, one of only three tracks that Dunn didn’t write or co-write. Composed by Maile Misajon and Jeremy Stover, it’s a little closer to the familiar Brooks & Dunn sound and seems to be a good prospect for a future hit single. “How Far To Waco”, co-written with Terry McBride, opens with the sound of trumpets blaring and is reminiscent of the type of record The Mavericks used to make back in the 90s and would be another good choice for a single release. And finally, we get to hear some steel guitar on “Once”.

Overall, the tracks that work best are the quieter ones: “Last Love I’m Trying”, “I Can’t Help Myself”, and “Love Owes Me One”. But hands down, the best song on the album is the current single “Cost of Livin’”, a stripped-down track that is a testament to the current economic hard times. It tells the tale of an out-of-work war veteran who is struggling to make ends meet while he searches for new employment opportunities. Unfortunately, far too many people will be able to relate to this one. But despite the bleak circumstances he finds himself in, the protagonist is still hopeful that things will improve. This track is a masterpiece, which I can’t praise enough and it makes me wish that Dunn would release an all-acoustic album in the vein of Dwight Yoakam’s dwightyoakamacoustic.net.

iTunes offers a deluxe version of the album with two bonus tracks: “Boots and Diamonds”, and “King of All Things Lonesome”, both of would have been worthy of space on the main part of the album.

Although not every track on the album was to my taste — I could have done without “Singer In A Cowboy Band” and “Let The Cowboy Rock” — I found myself liking it more with repeated listenings. Dunn has succeeded in widening his repertoire a bit while still retaining the vintage Brooks & Dunn sound that should keep long-time fans feeling satisfied.

Grade: B+

Album Review: Rick Trevino – ‘Whole Town Blue’

Back in 2003 the Texas-born Hispanic country artist Rick Trevino (a talented but inconsistent hit maker in the ’90s) released In My Dreams on Warner Brothers, produced by Raul Malo of the Mavericks. It didn’t sell very well, and the follow-up, also produced by Malo, was shelved. Now, following their resurrection of Shawn Camp’s 1994 last year, Warner Brothers have plucked this out of their vaults to finally see the light of day. And (like Camp’s record) it was well worth reviving, proving to be substantially better than its immediate predecessor.

Like its predecessor, with which the CD release pairs it a two-on-one basis, this album has a strong stylistic feeling of the Mavericks, although Trevino’s voice is very different from Malo’s Orbisonesque tenor. The arrangements are basically country-rooted, with Mexican flourishes (lots of mariachi horns) and some strings, making a very consistent musical palette. Trevino wrote most of the generally high quality material with one or both of Malo or Alan Miller, but one of the exceptions is the standout track.

‘Separate Ways’ is a downbeat piano-led ballad with a big soaring chorus and delicate string arrangement, written by Bill Anderson, Jimmy Yeary and Wally Wilson. Starting as a closely observed third person look at a couple, once so close, and their breakup, we see how:

The road that they were ridin’ split in two

Separate ways, his and hers
A love that went from great to good to bad to worse
Separate lives, what a waste
The last thing they ever did together was go their separate ways

The narrator is scared by this example (eventually revealed in the last line of the second verse to be his parents) and promises to work at his own relationship “every day”. The song is perfectly constructed and impressively sung, and it should have been a big hit in 2007, when it was released as a single but didn’t reach the top 40.

The only other outside song comes from the hands of Rodney Crowell. His ballad ‘Loving You Makes Me A Better Man’ is pleasant enough, with very Malo-ish vocal inflections, but the production doesn’t quite work for me, with its multi-tracked vocals.

Rick’s current single is the cheerful Tex-Mex ‘Better In Texas’, in which the protagonist abandons his Mexican sweetheart for a new love in Texas, deciding:

I know everything is better here in Texas
…
Now Mexico aint nothing but a memory
Pleasant as it might have been, it’s gone
I’d rather be here north of the border
The place where I belong

The exuberant mariachi horns work well on this track.

Secret tracks

Reading the comments section on one of the many country blogs I read, I came across a thought that resonated with me.  The comment was about when you find an album cut that you love as much or more than the album’s radio singles – the singles are usually the reason you bought the album in the first place.  But, when you do happen upon an album cut that you make your own, it’s like you have your own little secret, but one you want to share with the world.  I’ve never been greedy with my music, offering and even force-feeding it to my friends and acquaintances at times.

When I would buy a new album, I used to go through and try to pick which songs I thought would go to radio next, but I was never very good at that.  The songs I think would be hits and that the whole world would love usually get passed over for songs I don’t like as much.  But then those same songs are the ones that become the biggest hits.  So for that, I don’t think I’d make much of an A&R man for a Nashville label.  What I could do is pick songs that would resonate with the minority audiences like myself who want more substance than style in their songs, rather than choose those that appeal to everyman.

Trisha Yearwood’s albums rarely, if ever, have what is known as filler.  So if you’re picking up a Trisha Yearwood album at random and playing any song from one of them, odds are you’re going to find a gem of your own.  But I want to point you out a couple of them, both by Trisha Yearwood, I’ve already discovered over the years and implore you to share your own secret tracks with us.

First up is ‘Victim of the Game’, which Garth Brooks and Mark Sanders wrote, and Garth included on his sophomore album, No Fences.  Trisha’s reading of the song appears on her debut album.  This is such a great song that I’m surprised neither released it as a single, especially Trisha Yearwood, whose debut album didn’t contain the embarrassment of riches of her later albums.  The song tells the story of a heartbroken individual.  For most of the song, you think it’s about a friend consoling another friend and telling them all the things they did wrong, told in a second person perspective,’You know its really gettin’ to you/When you take to tellin lies‘.  It’s not until the final bridge of the song that you realize it’s the narrator herself who’s been heartbroken, ‘When I look into your eyes I can really feel your pain/Staring in the mirror at a victim of the game‘, and it’s herself she’s been trying to comfort all along.  It’s one of those songs you have to listen to all the way through every time and also packs an emotional punch with every listen.

Much has been said about the Hearts In Armor album, the first one that really made her a critical darling, and I agree that the album is one of Trisha’s finest moments and a masterpiece of modern country music.  But the songs everyone points to as the album’s greatest aren’t my personal favorites.  Sure, I think ‘Walkaway Joe’ is marvelous and that Trisha’s cover of Emmylou Harris’s ‘Woman Walk The Line’ is flawless, but I find myself drawn most to Jamie O’Hara’s ‘For Reasons I’ve Forgotten’.  The bluesy tune features harmony vocals from The Mavericks lead singer Raul Malo, who’s now making fine music of his own.

So those are a couple album cuts that are among my favorites, and I feel like they’re my own little secret.  I’ve loved them for a long time, and I wanted to share them with you.

What are some of your favorite album cuts that you feel are your own personal treasures?

Album Review: Trisha Yearwood – ‘Hearts In Armor’

Trisha’s second album, released in 1992, is still my favorite. Garth Fundis’s production is sympathetic, with a number of special guests who support the record without overwhelming it. Trisha, who I regard as one of the most naturally gifted vocalists in country music and a subtle and tasteful interpreter of emotion, was at the peak of her vocal powers and interpretative ability, and the song selection was excellent.

The hypnotically bluesy lead single ‘The Wrong Side of Memphis’ (written by Gary Harrison and Matraca Berg) was a big hit, peaking at #5, with a semi-autobiographical tale of a young singer on her way to Nashville. The instrumentation is punchy without being over-produced, with harmony vocalists including Raul Malo, whose Mavericks’ bandmate Robert Reynolds was shortly to become Trisha’s second husband. It is atypical of the album as a whole, which is focussed on failed and failing relationships, a theme perhaps resulting from Trisha’s own recent divorce from her first husband.

Harrison also co-wrote (with Tim Mensy) ‘Nearest Distant Shore’, a beautiful ballad addressed empathetically to a friend (or perhaps to the protagonist’s inner self) trapped in a destructive relationship, and advising:

You vowed you would not fail
But this ain’t success
It’s a living hell
There’s nothing left to lose
You’re already alone

Swim to the nearest distant shore
There’s only so much a heart can endure
You gave it your best
Forgive yourself
You can’t hold on anymore
It’s not as far as it might seem
Now it’s time to let go of old dreams
Every heart for itself
Swim to the nearest distant shore

Trisha perfectly conveys the intensity of the emotions here without ever seeming melodramatic, supported by Garth Brooks’ harmony.

The second single, and the album’s biggest hit, adhered to the general mood, while being less obviously personal. The exquisitely sung ‘Walkaway Joe’, featuring a harmony vocal from former Eagle Don Henley, tells the cautionary tale of a young girl who makes a catastrophic choice of boyfriend (“the wrong kind of paradise”). Ignoring her mother’s words of warning, she finds out the hard way when he robs a gas station and then abandons her. It peaked at #2 on Billboard, making it the album’s biggest hit, and was nominated for a Grammy.

Secret tracks

Reading the comments section on one of the many country blogs I read, I came across a thought that resonated with me.  The comment was about when you find an album cut that you love as much or more than the album’s radio singles – the singles are usually the reason you bought the album in the first place.  But, when you do happen upon an album cut that you make your own, it’s like you have your own little secret, but one you want to share with the world.  I’ve never been greedy with my music, offering and even force-feeding it to my friends and acquaintances at times.

When I would buy a new album, I used to go through and try to pick which songs I thought would go to radio next, but I was never very good at that.  The songs I think would be hits and that the whole world would love usually get passed over for songs I don’t like as much.  But then those same songs are the ones that become the biggest hits.  So for that, I don’t think I’d make much of an A&R man for a Nashville label.  What I could do is pick songs that would resonate with the minority audiences like myself who want more substance than style in their songs, rather than choose those that appeal to everyman.

Trisha Yearwood’s albums rarely, if ever, have what is known as filler.  So if you’re picking up a Trisha Yearwood album at random and playing any song from one of them, odds are you’re going to find a gem of your own.  But I want to point you out a couple of them, both by Trisha Yearwood, I’ve already discovered over the years and implore you to share your own secret tracks with us.

First up is ‘Victim of the Game’, which Garth Brooks and Mark Sanders wrote, and Garth included on his sophomore album, No Fences.  Trisha’s reading of the song appears on her debut album.  This is such a great song that I’m surprised neither released it as a single, especially Trisha Yearwood, whose debut album didn’t contain the embarrassment of riches of her later albums.  The song tells the story of a heartbroken individual.  For most of the song, you think it’s about a friend consoling another friend and telling them all the things they did wrong, told in a second person perspective,’You know its really gettin’ to you/When you take to tellin lies‘.  It’s not until the final bridge of the song that you realize it’s the narrator herself who’s been heartbroken, ‘When I look into your eyes I can really feel your pain/Staring in the mirror at a victim of the game‘, and it’s herself she’s been trying to comfort all along.  It’s one of those songs you have to listen to all the way through every time and also packs an emotional punch with every listen.

Much has been said about the Hearts In Armor album, the first one that really made her a critical darling, and I agree that the album is one of Trisha’s finest moments and a masterpiece of modern country music.  But the songs everyone points to as the album’s greatest aren’t my personal favorites.  Sure, I think ‘Walkaway Joe’ is marvelous and that Trisha’s cover of Emmylou Harris’s ‘Woman Walk The Line’ is flawless, but I find myself drawn most to Jamie O’Hara’s ‘For Reasons I’ve Forgotten’.  The bluesy tune features harmony vocals from The Mavericks lead singer Raul Malo, who’s now making fine music of his own.

So those are a couple album cuts that are among my favorites, and I feel like they’re my own little secret.  I’ve loved them for a long time, and I wanted to share them with you.

What are some of your favorite album cuts that you feel are your own personal treasures?

Emotional truth: sentiment and sentimentality in country music

Maschera Tragica (Mask of Tragedy)

Emotional truth is at the heart of almost all truly great country songs.  There is a very fine line in country music between the true tearjerkers, for which the genre is justly known, and the cloying sentimentality which outsiders sometimes ascribe to the music. Not, I have to admit, always completely unfairly – if the strings are too obvious, the emotion feels forced, and the song just doesn’t work.  But as I said, the line is a fine one, and a song’s impact depends on a number of factors.

Country music does not consist solely of confessional singer-songwriters, and we do not expect every song recorded to be a personal slice of the author’s life – certainly not when it comes to a love song or cheating song. However, when we are aware a song draws on its writer’s experiences, I think we are more disposed to respond to them as “real”.  If a love song is said to be for its writer’s spouse, and the marriage subsequently breaks up (as, for instance, with Vince Gill’s ‘I Still Believe In You’, written for first wife Janis Gill before he left her for another woman), the song may suddenly seem emotionally dishonest in retrospect, purely because the listener has bought into the story behind the song.  In the case of a song specifically designed to elicit an emotional response, this authenticity is all the more important.

There is a line in the Mavericks’ song ‘Children’ which refers to “a life where everything’s real and nothing is true”.  I do not believe a song has to be factually real to convey emotional truth, but it does help to dispel accusations of sentimentality.  An example of this would be Tammy Cochran’s ‘Angels In Waiting’.  This tribute to Tammy’s two brothers, who both died young as a result of cystic fibrosis, would be cloying if the song were an invented one.  It probably wouldn’t even work if it were sung by an unconnected singer, even though it was written from the heart and is a well-constructed song. Here it is almost completely the fact that it is the true story of the person singing it which carries the emotional force of the song.

Another instance is Jimmy Wayne, whose first self-titled album was filled with intensely emotional songs inspired by his childhood. These songs — the hits ‘I Love You This Much’ and ‘Paper Angels’, and other less-known numbers on similar themes — would undoubtedly fall in the emotionally manipulative category if they were not genuinely based on Jimmy’s appalling childhood in foster-care. That lends an emotional truth which is not found in the same singer’s love songs which are forgettable.  American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler is frankly not a very good singer, but her song ‘I Wonder’, about the mother who abandoned her in childhood, has an emotional resonance, which is lacking in her other material, and is genuinely moving — as long as you know the story behind it is true.  I don’t think it stands on its own merits.