Thursday, November 26, 2009

My Top 50 albums of the decade

As I was working on my 2009 album review, I realized that the end of the decade is just over a month away. It made me think of what albums I'd put on my 'best of' list for the decade. Here's what I came up with:

1. Brandi Carlile – The Story
2. Patty Loveless – Mountain Soul
3. Those Darlins – self titled
4. Kelly Willis – Translated From Love
5. Alison Krauss/Robert Plant – Raising Sand
6. Lacy J Dalton – The Last Wild Place
7. Lonesome Wyatt & Rachel Brooke – A Bitter Harvest
8. Alison Pipitone – I’ll ask her
9. Serena Ryder – Is it okay?
10. Stevie Nicks – Trouble in Shangri-la
11. Mary Gauthier – Mercy Now
12. Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around
13. Chely Wright – Metropolitan Hotel
14. Tegan & Sara – The Con
15. Joan Osborne – Little Wild Ones
16. Shelby Lynne – I am Shelby Lynne
17. Kid Rock - Cocky
18. Pink – Missundaztood
19. The Wreckers – Stand Still, Look Pretty
20. Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
21. Brandi Carlile – Give Up The Ghost
22. Loretta Lynn – Van Lear Rose
23. Jack Ingram – This Is It
24. Patty Griffin – Children Running Through
25. Rosanne Cash – The List
26. The Wrights – Down This Road
27. Heart – Jupiter’s Darling
28. Steve Earle – Transcendental Blues
29. Ryan Bingham – Mescalito
30. Jill Sobule – California Years
31. LeeAnn Womack – There’s More Where That Came From
32. Willie Nelson – The Great Divide
33. Beth Hart – 37 Days
34. Blake Shelton – Blake Shelton’s Barn & Grill
35. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie
36. David Ball - Amigo
37. Sheryl Crow - Detours
38. Patty Loveless – On Your Way Home
39. Rosanne Cash – Rules of Travel
40. Lisa Brokop – Hey, Do You Know Me?
41. Anne Murray – Duets: Friends & Legends
42. Kathy Mattea – Coal
43. Sheryl Crow - Wildflower
44. Becky Hobbs – Swedish Coffee & American Sugar
45. Todd Fritsch – Sawdust
46. Lisa Marie Presley – To Whom It May Concern
47. Jewel - Perfectly Clear
48. Justin Townes Earle – the Good Life
49. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Welcome To Woody Creek
50. Jessi Colter – Out of the Ashes

So, what did I miss?

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Give Mainstream Country its own name and let 'Country' get its identity back

The CMA Awards are coming up this wednesday night. It's usually billed as "Country Music's Biggest Night". Well, for that to be true, I think there'd actually need to be some "country" music involved, right?

I give a big standing ovation to Country icon George Jones for having the balls to speak up on that subject: George Jones: New Country Music Needs A New Name

He's absolutely right. There's no "country" left in today's Mainstream Country Music. I cringe to even add the word "country" in that title. I can count on one hand the number of artists that make up today's Mainstream Country Music who actually have a hint of 'Country' to their music. Let's see: George Strait, Alan Jackson, a little bit of Brad Paisley (however, his music keeps morphing to mainstream and losing its country feel more each time out), Joey + Rory, The Wrights (does radio play them anymore?), and ... is there anyone else? That barely fills up the fingers on one hand.

I think George explained it well in that interview: - "They had to use something that was established already, and that's traditional country music." -
That's exactly what I've been saying for the past two decades. "Country" is the easiest genre for an artist to get their name in the spotlight. Once their name is established, they get the liberty to make any kind of music they want and Mainstream Country Radio will play it because the Teeny-boppers will listen to it, as long as the artists are cute enough. And how many of the Mainstream Country artists of today can actually play an instrument, let alone write a country song?

The sad thing is - the people who actually sing & play real country music are still out there. They've just been pushed back behind the curtain. Thankfully, with the advanced technology of this age, fans of the real country sound are able to at least find some of them. Matraca Berg, Kelly Willis, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Patty Loveless, Todd Fritsch, Ryan Bingham, and oh so many more.

You might think that I hate the Mainstream Country Music of today. That's absolutely untrue. I love quite a bit of the music that's released by those artists. What I highly object to is them actually calling it "country" music. As George said, give the music its own name and let "country" music get its identity back. What is the identity of country music? Well... that's for another rant all by itself.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

On a dark flat land she rides, on a pony she named Wildfire

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Michael Martin Murphey has done a remake of his wonderful song from the mid 1970's "Wildfire". The remake is a duet with Carrie Hassler and is done in more of a bluegrass style than the original. I love the new version. I always thought the original had a bit too much 'mush' of musical instruments, but loved the lyrics and melody.

Check out the new version: MMM & Carrie - Wildfire

Sunday, November 1, 2009

the real duets

What ever happened to the 'real' duets in country music?

I don't mean those 'groups' that always get the awards for 'duet of the year', like Brooks & Dunn, Montgomery Gentry, The Judds, Sugarland, etc. I'm talking about 'real" duets where there are two separate artists who aren't part of the same group that get together to sing a song. I guess these days they officially call it "collaborations", but whatever label you put on it, it still seems to be a dying entity.

Remember the good old days of country music? George & Tammy, Conway & Loretta, George Jones & Melba Montgomery, David Frizzell & Shelly West, Jim Ed Brown & Helen Cornelius, Johnny & June, or how about Barbara Mandrell & Lee Greenwood or Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton.

There have been very few real duets to emerge in the past decade, but when they do, they seem to be big hits - remember Brad Paisley & Alison Krauss with "whiskey lullaby"? Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow with "picture", or how about Reba McEntire & Linda Davis with "does he love you"?

Duets featuring two or more female artists is even more rare. Remember Lorrie Morgan & Dolly Parton (best woman wins), or Faith Hill & Shelby Lynne (keep walkin on), or how about Dolly Parton's "Romeo" which featured Kathy Mattea, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tanya Tucker & Pam Tillis. Mary Chapin Carpenter sang "he thinks he'll keep her" on a tv show and featured Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis, and Suzy Bogguss as her backup singers (that was a great show!) Then there's Reba's "on my own" with Martina, Trisha & Linda.

CMT tried to bring the duets back a bit with their "Crossroads" series, and it was great for the first handful of collaborations they had - Willie Nelson/Sheryl Crow, Dolly Parton/Melissa Etheridge, Martina McBride/Pat Benatar, Dixie Chicks/James Taylor, Lucina Williams/Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris/Dave Matthews, Lyle Lovett & Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash/Steve Earle. Then the pairings became very weird and not really musically appealing (Taylor Swift/Def Leppard?).

I know a lot of artists collaborate on stage with other acts they're touring with at the time, but why don't they make an effort to go into the studio and record an actual duet that doesn't include screaming fans in the background to take away from the song itself.

They say that all things old will be new again, hopefully that includes the 'real' duets in the foreseeable future.