Tag Archives: Country

Twilite Broadcasters: Evening Shade

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Joyous pre-Bluegrass brotherly harmonizing

This North Carolina duo, Mark Jackson and Adam Tanner, sing the sort of two-part pre-Bluegrass harmonies that were popularized by the Osborne, Delmore, Monroe, Louvin and Everly brothers. The duo sings both happy and sad songs, but always with a sweetness that expresses the sheer joy of harmonizing. Accompanied by guitar (Jackson), mandolin and fiddle (both Tanner), the arrangements are simpler than a string band’s, with the guitar keeping time and the mandolin vamping before stepping out for relaxed solos. The instruments provide a platform for the voices, rather than racing to the front of the stage.

The duo performs songs written or made famous by the Delmores (“Southern Moon”), Everlys (“Long Time Gone”), Jim & Jesse (“Stormy Horizons”), and others, like Buck Owens & Don Rich (“Don’t Let Her Know”) who latched onto close harmonies that weren’t always high and lonesome. The waltzing invitation of “What Would You Give in Exchange For Your Soul” is sung in both harmony and counterpoint, and the oft-recorded “Midnight Special” sounds fresh and enthusiastic. Tanner’s mandolin steps forward for the instrumental “Ragtime Annie,” and he saws heavily on the fiddle for a cover of Doug Kershaw’s “Louisiana Man” and the celtic-influenced “Salt River.”

The public domain selections include a full-throated take on “More Pretty Girls Than One” (popularized and often credited to Woody Guthrie) on which the slow tempo draws out the chorus harmonies and begs the listener to find a place to sing along. Jackson and Tanner are fine instrumentalists, and winningly, they don’t hot-pick here with the fervor of bluegrass. Instead, they provide themselves tasteful support that leaves the spotlight on their voices and songs, and gives the record a warm, invitingly down-home feel. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Twilite Broadcasters’ MySpace Page

Luther Russell: Motorbike EP

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Inviting EP sampler of singer-songwriter psych, pop, folk and blues

Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Luther Russell previews his upcoming double album The Invisible Audience with this diverse six-song sampler. Variety has always been one of Russell’s strong point, and here he offers a mix of hypnotic modern rock, drifting country-folk, chugging minimalist blues, gutsy power pop, and an airy piano waltz. There are droplets of 1970s Canterbury prog-rock, Meddle-era Pink Floyd, Revolver-era psychedelia (including fantastic “Rain” styled McCartney high-fret bass trills at the end of “Tomorrow’s Papers”) and the modern iterations of Oasis. It’s a lot to fit into nineteen minutes, but Russell strings it together with terrific fluidity, gaining bonus points for the electric sitar sound on the title track.

Even more impressive is the ensemble sound Russell fashions from his overdubbed playing, never once suffering from the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none syndrome that plagues many one-man bands. The album’s title track is a swirl of revitalization and multicolored dust found in the freedom of two wheels on the open road, and the closing “Somehow or Another,” sung with Sarabeth Tucek, imagines a fiery end; in between Russell haunts with the wordless vocalizations of “Dead Sun Blues” and “Et Al.” One can imagine how this variety will expand on the forthcoming album, but here it feels complete at EP length. Listen to this as a digital download or on the limited edition white vinyl disc – but do listen! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Motorbike
Luther Russell’s Home Page
Luther Russell’s MySpace Page

Mindy McCready: I’m Still Here

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Recovering country singer mounts a solid comeback

After finding quick fame with her 1996 debut Ten Thousand Angels, McCready embarked on a career that declined and then disassembled. Her follow-up, If I Don’t Stay the Night, managed gold sales, but 1999’s I’m Not So Tough had little success and she was dropped by her label. A self-titled album in 2002 scratched the bottom of the charts with the single “Maybe, Maybe Not,” and McCready soon became more infamous than famous. A well publicized arrest of her ex-boyfriend for attempted murder, suicide attempts, drug addition and multiple entanglements with the law replaced studio sessions, hit singles, live concerts and awards shows.

Of course, a troubled life doesn’t have to run a country music career aground. Personal demons can just as easily provide grist for an artist’s mill, and as McCready shows here, she’s willing to invest some personal travails into her music. The album’s title track and lead single, written by McCready in jail, is a moving confession of survivorship with a lyric of emotional clarity that’s a foundation for long term physical sobriety. McCready’s other two co-writes, the twangy “I Want a Man” and the ballad “The Way You Make Me Melt” resound with the appetite of someone who’s recently rejoined the living. It’s a wonder her voice – emotional and physical – is in such good shape after what she’s put herself through.

Though the bulk of the album was written by industry pros, McCready’s picked songs that fit the theme of recovery and reawakening. The addictive romance of “Wrong Again” takes on secondary meanings of rehabilitation as McCready works through powerlessness, forgiveness, inventorying and amend making, the sorrow in “By Her Side” could signal a farewell to a previous life rather than a lost lover, and “I Hate That I Love You” could be a recovering addict’s lament. The Nashville-modern production strays from McCready’s country roots, but her vocals are terrific throughout. She charges into each song with the ferocity of someone saved by making music, and back story or not, her commitment and determination are stirring. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com] 

Mindy McCready’s Home Page
Mindy McCready’s MySpace Page

Easton Corbin: Easton Corbin

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Country newcomer recalls Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson

The cover of newcomer Easton Corbin’s self-titled debut depicts a homespun image of the singer-songwriter strumming an acoustic while relaxing on a porch in a wicker rocking chair. It’s an apt picture. The album strips away much of Nashville’s contemporary bombast in favor of the relaxed country vibe of Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson. The comparison is particularly close in the sunny satisfaction and road trip escape of “Roll With it,” the forthright statement of home-spun roots “A Little More Country Than That,” and multiple mentions of good times and simple pleasures. Corbin and his co-writers have pulled together a collection of love songs, both warm and broken-hearted, and link Chesney with Tom T. Hall by drawing a blue line from Memphis to Key West in “This Far From Memphis.” There’s a moving lyric of imagined nostalgia in “Someday When I’m Old” and the second-chance glimpsed in “Let Alone You” is illustrated with sharply observed everyday details.

A few of the songs are a bit close to their inspirations for comfort. “Don’t Ask Me ‘Bout a Woman” rewrites the sentiment and mood of Brad Paisley’s “Waitin’ on a Woman,” and the sandy vacation of “A Lot to Learn About Livin’” is third-generation Jimmy Buffett by way of Kenny Chesney. Corbin’s vocals are lightly drawled and producer Carson Chamblerlain counts out a variety of tempos that allow is singer to show off his emotional prowess as both a balladeer and mid-tempo honky-tonker. The album closes with the thoughtful “Leavin’ a Lonely Town,” echoing the escapes and traps of Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town” and Chris Knight’s “Oil Patch Town.” The sound is Nashville clean, but it’s not slickly artificial; it’s sophisticated in the manner of George Strait and others able to hang on to their country roots even as they embrace modern studio production. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Easton Corbin’s Home Page
Easton Corbin’s MySpace Page

George Jones: The Great Lost Hits

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Terrific cherry-picked set of Jones’ 1965-71 Musicor sides

George Jones’ recordings for the Musicor label weren’t so much lost as hung up in legal limbo. When Jones left Musicor for Epic in a rancorous split with label owner and manager Pappy Daily, seven years (1965-71) of prime recordings were left to haphazard reissue and illegitimate copying, and worse yet, inferior contemporary re-recordings. This is a textbook example of the cultural blockades created by the multiparty complexity of music licensing, restrictive copyright laws and the lawyer tax that attaches to just about everything. Jones waxed over 250 master recordings for Musicor during the early prime of his recording life, so the riches that have been locked in the vault are substantial.

True, the Musicor sessions didn’t always live up the standard of “Walk Through This World With Me,” “Where Grass Won’t Grow” or “A Good Year for the Roses,” but these simpler productions provide key contrast to the more complex arrangements Billy Sherrill would employ at Epic. Among the thirty-four tracks are twenty-three charting hits (missing only “No Blues is Good News” and the Melba Montgomery duet “(Close Together) As You and Me”), and eleven album sides. Lesser known singles like “Small Time Laboring Man” are complemented by excellent obscurities later resurrected by Keith Whitley, Elvis Costello, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Emmylou Harris and others. Listening to the high quality of these performances it seems criminal for seven prime years of Jones’ career to have been available only to collectors who’d maintained a turntable.

Bear Family produced the full Musicor output on a pair of 2009 box sets (Walk Through This World With Me and A Good Year for the Roses), but the price tag of these imports is out of reach for many. Time Life’s two-CD set gets to the core of Jones’ greatness in the latter half of the 1960s, and though a couple dozen more sides could have fit on these discs (their absence no doubt a by-product of the U.S. per-track royalty structure), what’s here is true country gold. A few tracks seem to have been re-mastered from vinyl as there are a few minor pops and ticks, but the fidelity is excellent and the performances uniformly superb. The sixteen page booklet includes terrific photos and informative liner notes by Colin Escott. If you can’t afford the box sets, this is a must-have. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

George Jones’ Home Page
Time Life’s Home Page

Gary Allan: Get Off on the Pain

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Superb country originals and passable Nashville stock

Allan hit his stride with 1999’s Smoke Rings in the Dark, and recorded a series of albums that retained his California twang even as Nashville dug in its fingers. His eighth album still offers some edgy and forceful vocals, but starts out with several tunes whose arrangements of piano, organ, strings and studio drums resound with Nashville’s overbearing contemporary country-rock sound. Allan’s relegated his superior original material to the album’s second-half, opening the album with songs from Music City pros whose work leaves a more calculated impression. The productions on the first few cuts overwhelms Allan’s earthiness, and even the sprightly “That Ain’t Gonna Fly” sounds more like a studio band attempting to rock than a country band actually rocking.

But the mainstream sound fades away when the album reaches Allan’s original material at track six. The intimate details of “We Fly by Night,” co-written with Jamie O’Hara and Odie Blackmon, are given a stately tempo that allows Allan to consider the lyrics and add an echo of Roy Orbison’s drama. Or maybe it’s an echo of Raul Malo, as Dan Dugmore’s steel and gentle notes of vibraphone give this track a compelling sophistication. Allan writes poetically of opening up to opportunities, begging for forgiveness and finding oneself, and the emotion with which he sings his own words is a world away from what he’s able to muster for the album’s stock Nashville compositions. Perhaps his label didn’t trust that Allan’s originals were radio-ready, but his songs are deeper and feel as if they’re born of personal experience rather than someone else’s songwriting appointment.

Thos who liked See If I Care might skip lightly through the first five tracks, as the album’s second half is a twangy and soulful gem worth the wait. The deluxe CD edition adds four bonus cuts: the newly recorded “Long Summer Days,” and live versions of “Right Where I Need to Be,” “Best I Ever Had,” and “Watching Airplanes” that were recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience. The disc (which also unlocks on-line video content) is delivered in a digipack with a 16-panel booklet that includes lyrics to the album’s core ten tracks. Allan is effective in playing both the country mainstream and its rootsier edges, which may leave some fans enjoying one half of this disc more than the other. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Great American Taxi: Reckless Habits

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Loosely polished album of country, blues, bluegrass, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll

The second album from this funky jam-band exhibits the same sort of artistic serendipity with which the group was born. In the wake of Leftover Salmon’s demise, front-man Vince Herman hooked up with Chad Staehly and a hand-picked group of local musicians for a charity performance that spawned Great American Taxi. The polished looseness of Leftover Salmon’s jam-band legacy informs the new group’s music, as do the New Orleans influences found on songs like “Baby Hold On” and “Mountain Top,” but there’s a heavier dose of blues and southern rock boogie here. Think of the Grateful Dead at their most driving, Little Feat traipsing through their trademark rhythm ‘n’ roll or The Band playing reflective and bittersweet.

The group’s country tunes, such as the pedal steel-lined “New Madrid,” have more in common with cosmic American music than Leftover Salmon’s string-band influences, and the album’s title track pays twangy tribute to Gram Parsons. “Unpromised Land” suggests what Lynyrd Skynyrd might’ve sounded like as a progressive-bluegrass band, and at six minutes you get a taste of the band’s instrumental jamming. The original “American Beauty” (with its tip of the hat to the Dead) rolls along on an Allman-styled groove. There’s funk, boogie and humor that variously brings to mind the Neville Brothers, Commander Cody and the Morrells, but more than anything there’s an enormous feeling of satisfaction that comes from making music.

The album opens on an optimistic note with the fanciful dreaming of “One of These Days,” and the road warrior of “Unpromised Land” is pained by his longing for someone back home. But really, how bad can you feel when you’re packing a banjo player and a fiddler to cut a jig for you? Even the list of modern-ills that fuel the fast-paced “New Millennium Blues” are rolled out with the matter-of-factness of fatalistic observation rather than the ire of complaint, and the daily grind of a working musician has more fringe benefits than the title “Tough Job” might at first suggest. The group’s guitar, bass and drums are augmented by a four-piece horn section that adds New Orleans-styled brass (leading the march on the bonus instrumental “Parade”), and a trio of backing singers that adds gospel flavor.

This is a seamless hour of confident and self-assured roots music that effortlessly combines country, rock, blues, bluegrass and second-line funk. The instrumental jamming is fluid but focused, limiting the album’s three longest tracks to six minutes and the two instrumentals to fewer than three apiece. The top-line string band sound of Leftover Salmon has given way to sublime country-rock and the flavors of New Orleans. Herman seems tremendously energized by this music, his band is sharp and the guest playing of Barry Sless (pedal steel), Matt Flinner (banjo), the Peak to Freak Horns, and Black Swan Singers provide icing on a sweet cake. Fans of the Dead, Band, Burritos, Byrds and Little Feat, as well as recent acts like the Band of Heathens will love this one. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | One of These Days
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Great American Taxi’s MySpace Page

Derek Hoke: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll

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Sweet, optimistic country with pop, folk and blues shades

Georgia-born Derek Hoke opens his debut with the album’s bold title declaration: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s an immensely catchy song whose pedal steel and thumping honky-tonk beat underline the bittersweet lament of a man who must bid adieu to his first love. Hoke declares his never-ending affection for rock ‘n’ roll even as he falls further into the embrace of country music. He’s confused and heartsick, but like the fatalism of film noir, he can’t fight the impulse to turn down the amps and turn up the twang. He walks away from the big guitars and screaming audiences with sweet sorrow in his heart.

Hoke styles himself a country artist, but there are rich threads of pop, folk and blues to be found in his music. The vibraphone chime of “Hot on the Heels of Love” lay behind a melody that’s equal parts Buddy Holly and early Beatles, and the whistled solo adds to a satisfied, easy-going early-60s mood. Hoke is a pop omnivore who smoothly combines Lyle Lovett’s ambling swing, Marshall Crenshaw’s earnest pop, Dr. John’s rolling funk and Hank Williams’ twang. Mike Daly’s steel nods to Williams’ legendary sideman Don Helms, and Chris Donohue’s double bass add supper-club bottom end to several songs.

At first these seem to be songs of romantic distress, but Hoke’s an optimist who dispels dark clouds with a never-ending view towards the sunny side. The frazzled morning-after of “Rain Rain Rain,” delayed infatuation of “I Think I Really Love You” and unrequited longing of “Still Waiting” are voiced as hope and opportunity rather than defeat, and even the straying lover of “Not Too Late” is given one more chance. Hoke sings of small pleasures (“The Finer Things”) and traipses through a litany of Southern terms of affection (“Sweat Pea,” with Jen Duke singing Loretta Lynn to Hoke’s George Jones) as his songs swing through buoyant rockabilly, acoustic blues and twangy country.

Hoke has steeped in the music of his youth, but also that of his parents’ and grandparents’. His period influences are worn cleverly in guitar strums, bass thumps, vocal harmonies and steel bends, interweaving periods and styles rather than blocking out pieces from whole cloth. His farewell to rock ‘n’ roll takes him back to a time when American music’s roots were still tangled in the same plot of mountain soil. This is a charming record that plays like a vintage radio station hopping from one thing you love to another, alighting long enough to set your toe tapping. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll
Buy Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll on Bandcamp
Derek Hoke’s MySpace Page

Here’s the video for “Where’d You Sleep Last Night?”

Harlem Parlour Music Club: Salt of the Earth

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New York City collective’s sophisticated roots music

The fifteen-strong membership of the Harlem Parlour Music Club seems to be more a collective than a group. Their eleven-track debut album includes songs from half the members as songwriters, and half the members contribute vocals. The group’s rootsy music would have once been quite at home downtown in Greenwich Village, but they’re an uptown aggregation who recorded these tracks in a Harlem townhouse. The combination of top-notch talent and informal studio sessions gives this debut a nice balance of heart and polish. There’s a professional air to the playing, but also the ease of a living room jam. The group’s New York roots and Appalachian aspirations provide a similar balance between big city sophistication and rural roots. Elaine Caswell’s “Snakeskin,” for example, sounds like something a post-Brill Building Carole King might have recorded outside the city, and the group’s cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Fallettin Me Be Mice Elf Again)” is both soulful and rustic as the vocal chorus sings against twangy strings. There are tight harmonies, British-tinged folk melodies, lonesome fiddles, gospel glories and train rhythms, but with so many participants this is more of a songwriter’s round than a cohesive band session. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Dyin’ to Be Born Again
Harlem Parlour Music Club’s MySpace Page

Sara Petite: Doghouse Rose

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San Diego country singer/songwriter backed by stellar Nashville players

The opening track from Sara Petite’s third album will grab your ears if for nothing else than the phased guitar sound that recalls the soul of Waylon Jennings’ “Are Your Sure Hank Done it This Way?” Petite sings with the girlish lilt and firecracker energy of Rosie Flores, and her crack band (which includes studio hotshot guitarist Kenny Vaughn, bassist Dave Rorick and drummer William Ellis) adds instrumental nuances that really give the productions something extra. Petite’s voice is twangy, perhaps too country for Country, and there’s a lot of rock ‘n’ roll punch in the band’s playing. The slap-back echo of “Baby Let Me In” adds a vintage twist to Petite’s voice, but Vaughn’s guitar is tougher and the rhythm more overpowering than straight rockabilly or honky-tonk.

Petite’s a gifted singer with a lot of texture in her voice, a bit like Texas singer Kimmie Rhodes. She sings the album’s title track with a parched tone that seeks acceptance, and infuses desperate longing into a cover of Harlan Howard’s “He Called Me Baby.” Her band is right there with her, laying back or charging hard ahead as befits each song. The electric guitars provide sympathetic vamps for the sadder tunes and prod Petite to stand up when she’s fallen down. Sasha Ostrovsky’s dobro adds stringy twang throughout, and the rhythm section really adds muscle to the up-tempo numbers. Petite wrote all but one of these songs, and her lyrics have a conversational easiness that makes her stories, observations, realizations and confessions feel intimate.

Doghouse Rose has been out since November of 2009, but like many independent releases it’s only slowly gathering the attention it deserves. Petite’s well known in her adopted San Diego (she’s originally from Washington State) and made connections in Nashville; she’s gained exposure in Europe, opened for Josh Turner, Todd Snider and Shooter Jennings, and won several songwriting awards, yet her third album is still seeking broad release and listeners’ ears. Perhaps she needs to get to Nashville or Austin or North Carolina or New England to find herself a sympathetic label. In the meantime you can find Doghouse Rose in her website store. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Baby Let Me In
MP3 | Doghouse Rose
Sara Petite’s Home Page
Sara Petite’s MySpace Page