Tag Archives: Country

Daryle Singletary: Rockin’ in the Country

Leave a reply

DaryleSingletary_RockinInTheCountryCountry hit maker recaptures his commercial ‘90s sound

The warm, thick tone of Daryle Singletary’s baritone sounds remarkably true to the decade younger voice first heard on his string of 1990s hits. His low notes, reminiscent of Randy Travis (who was instrumental in Singletary’s early career), are smooth and controlled, and his mid-range is velvety rich. And that’s not all that harkens back to his prime commercial period: the production is Nashville smooth, and the songs combine heartbreak with uplifting and heartwarming stories. On the ennobling side there’s community activism in “Rockin’ in the Country,” a tear-inducing lifelong love story in “That’s Why God Made Me,” and love brought into sharp relief from “Background Noise.” Even the seduction of “Love You with the Lights On” feels more wholesome than, say, “Behind Closed Doors.” The album’s broken hearts include those pained with longing, ringed by sorrow and scarred from experience, and the classic country ballad “She Sure Looks Good in Black” cleverly twines funeral imagery with a romance’s death. The album closes with a low-key cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Those who feel Nashville’s travelled too far down Crossover Road will find this dash back to the country sounds of the ‘90s a welcome respite. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Michael Dean Damron: Father’s Day

Leave a reply

MichaelDeanDamron_FathersDayEdgy singer-songwriter Americana

After three albums in front of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, Portland’s Michael Dean Damron transitioned fully to a solo career. As Mike D. he sang heavy and rough blues-edged rock that was at once rootsy and in-your-face. As Michael Dean Damron he’s reconstituted as a singer-songwriter, backed by a lower-key combo called Thee Loyal Bastards. His voice still has plenty of edge, but his songs are built for strummed guitars and shuffling rhythms, and with the backing band’s volume turned down, there’s more room for nuance in his vocals. He sings with the sort of grit you’ve heard from Willie Nile, Steve Forbert, John Hiatt, James McMurtry and others whose rock ‘n’ roll hearts are tattooed with stripes of country and blues.

This third solo album offers first-person emotions through original songs of dysfunctional relationships, broken hearts, suicidal situations, plainspoken social discontent (“same old shit, different day”), and memorable imagery (“poverty is a pistol, pointed at our heads”). Damron’s song titles retain the pungency of his earlier group’s, with “I’m a Bastard” rendered as a raw guitar-and-harmonica blues and the modern-day break-up “I Hope Your New Boyfriend Gives You A.I.D.S.” thankfully not repeating its death wish in the lyrics.

Damron shows off fine taste in covers with a haunted version of Drag the River’s “Beautiful and Damned,” a crawl through Thin Lizzy’s “Dancing in the Moonlight” that’s more Tom Waits than Van Morrison, and a folky solo of “Waiting Around to Die” that’s less aggrieved than Townes Van Zandt’s original. Whatever he sings, he digs into it, often using stripped down solo guitar arrangements to free himself from band time. The results have a live dynamic, with gentle plucking giving way to hard strumming and introspective realizations turning into shouted confessions. It isn’t pretty, but it’s not meant to be. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Father’s Day
Michael Dean Damron’s Home Page

Cledus T. Judd: Polyrically Uncorrect

Leave a reply

CledusTJudd_PolyricallyUncorrectFunny songs provide welcome relief in tough times

Country parodist Cledus T. Judd follows closely in the footsteps of Ray Stevens (to whom he recorded a tribute album, Boogity, Boogity), and earlier acts like Homer & Jethro and Sheb Wooley. To the MTV generation, weaned on video hits of the ‘80s and ‘90s, he’s more likely to appeal as the Al Yankovich of country music. Like all of these humorists, he’s a passable vocalist who treads a fine-line between clever and sophomoric as he lampoons the melodies of much-loved hit songs and pokes fun at Nashville stars. The parodies work best as singles, sandwiched between the real McCoys on radio, and will most please those familiar with the originals. Judd also writes original material that keeps his albums from becoming formulaic.

Returning from radio stints at WQYK, Tampa and WUBL, Atlanta, Judd’s parody excels when he bites into contemporary events. His rewrite of Brad Paisley’s “Waitin’ on a Woman” snapshots the societal disaster of W and the political ineptness of McCain, and he catalogs outsized hopes with “Waitin’ on Obama.” He translates Larry Cordle’s sharp “Murder on Music Row” into the even sharper “Merger on Music Row,” digging behind Nashville’s crossover trends to consider the shrinking landscape of the music industry. His originals are infectiously silly as he celebrates the Dukes of Hazzard’s “Cooter” (with killer harmonies to accent the very mention of “Cooter”) and gives one of Santa’s original eight his chance to escape Rudolph’s bright red shadow on “Dang It, I’m Vixen.”

The album’s other seasonal tune, “Christmas in Rehab,” gives junkies, crackheads, coke fiends, tweakers, alcoholics and glue sniffers a surprisingly cheery start to the holiday season. The fantasy “(If I Had) Kellie Picker’s Boobs” is cornpone, and “Tailgaitin,” written and recited with Colt Ford answers the question of whether anyone really needs country rap (that’d be ‘no’). Judd is joined by Ashton Shepherd, Brooks & Dunn, The Grascals and Daryle Singletary, who clearly find him as likeable as does his audience. As the world economies continue to convulse and global politics spin further out of control, it’s good luck to find someone who’s retained their sense of humor. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Cledus T. Judd’s MySpace Page

Brandon Rickman: Young Man, Old Soul

Leave a reply

BrandonRickman_YoungManOldSoulLonesome River Band lead vocalist’s superb solo debut

Brandon Rickman joined a reconstituted Lonesome River Band as guitarist and lead singer in time for their 2002 album Window of Time, and like many of the band’s members, he’s stepped out for a solo album. Rickman departs from the band’s multipart harmonies and full instrumental arrangements, singing solo or with a single harmony, and stripping many of the tracks down to guitar with fiddle or mandolin. He paces the songs more leisurely than the hot-picking tempos of festival-bound bluegrass, and shorn of the typically bluegrass instrumental interplay of guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and bass, the arrangements have a looser country-folk feeling.

Rickman’s co-written several songs of pining lovers and broken hearts, but he connects most deeply with lyrics of approaching mid-life, including the wizened “What I Know Now” and the blink-of-an-eye youth in “So Long 20’s.” He memorializes vanishing small town geographies and digs into songs of faith, including The Stanley Brothers’ “Let Me Walk Lord” and a superb three-part harmony on “Rest for His Workers.” Rickman’s a compelling singer, and framing himself in stripped down arrangements not only differentiates these tracks from those of the Lonesome River Band, but truly highlights the qualities of his voice as an individual. Those who enjoy his singing and guitar playing with the band will love this disc; those who gravitate more to country than bluegrass should also check this out. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | I Bought Her a Dog
Brandon Rickman’s Profile Page
Brandon Rickman’s MySpace Page

Charlie Robison: Beautiful Day

Leave a reply

CharlieRobison_BeautifulDayA lovable rogue laid flat by divorce

It’s been five years since we last heard from Charlie Robison. After a run on Sony’s Lucky Dog label and a live album on Columbia, Robison moved to the indie Dualtone for 2004’s Good Times. Though he continued to perform live, the CDs he’d been releasing every year or two dried up. Perhaps now we know why: in 2008 his nine-year marriage to Dixie Chick Emily Robison ended in divorce. Rather than writing through the dissolution, he saved up his emotions for this post-divorce album. Only he and his ex know if the venom is righteous, but whether it’s well-founded criticism or angry lashing-out, it still packs a sting. One takeaway: don’t leave a writer feeling you’ve wronged them.

No doubt many of these songs were written in the final throes of Robison’s marriage, but the wreckage is viewed as aftermath rather than from the eye of the hurricane. Robison charts many of the classic stages of recovery, including shock, confusion, denial, anger, depression, and uneasy acceptance. He doesn’t bother to cloak his emotions in songwriter’s allusion, but there’s artfulness in the way he opens up the main veins to purge his bitterness. Given that his marriage had officially “become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities,” it’s unsurprising that Robison would castigate his ex for the lightweight echo of her former self he believes she’s become, and the broken promises with which he’s left.

Robison begins his reappraisal with the title track’s scathing portrait of superficial life in Los Angeles, and continues with a bitter spit of words in “Yellow Blues.” The latter has a terrific country-psych arrangement, complete with Eastern influence, twangy and backwards guitars, and a thumping “Tomorrow Never Knows” styled bass line. The lyrics suggest that in an effort to bolster favorable public perception, Robison’s mate kept their marital problems quiet rather than facing them down. A pair of Keith Gattis songs, “Down Again” and “Reconsider,” covers the merry-go-round of depression and forlorn denial. Robison writes of self-pity, barroom self-medication, and tentative steps towards recovery, the latter is most healthily heard in the chiming mandolin and social reconnections of “Feelin’ Good.”

By album’s end Robison’s far from healed, and a defeated cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Racing in the Street” begs the question of whether failure has permanently short-circuited opportunity and hope. While Springsteen’s lyrics could illustrate the stunted adolescence of American Graffiti’s John Milner, Robison’s version suggests he’s stepping outside his own misery to consider the broader impact of his divorce. Either way, the roguish abandon of younger years has given way to middle-age doubt and regret. This isn’t nearly as depressing as it might seem, and though the processing isn’t pretty, the raw turmoil provides Robison the basis for this powerful album. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Charlie Robison’s Home Page
Charlie Robison’s MySpace Page

Ray Charles: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Volumes 1 & 2

Leave a reply

RayCharles_ModernSounds12The genius of soul re-imagines the Nashville songbook

Originally released on ABC-Paramount in 1962, Modern Sounds in Country and Western, was a revelation, both for fans of country music and for fans of Ray Charles. The former had never heard their favorites orchestrated with the depth of soul brought to the table by Ray Charles, and fans of the genius singer had never before heard him indulging his love of country songwriting so deeply. Nashville had adapted to brass and strings in an attempt to create crossover hits, but their charts and players never swung with the sort of big band finesse and bravado of these arrangements, and their vocalists rarely found the grooves mined by Charles. The second volume, issued the same year, follows the same template, with Nashville standards rearranged and conducted by Gerald Wilson and Marty Paich, and recording split between New York and Hollywood.

Having been a country music fan since his youth, Charles evidently didn’t hear any line that would separate him from the Nashville songbook. His recording supervisor, Sid Feller, was tasked with gathering songs, and ABC, thinking the whole ideas was a lark, left the pair alone to follow Charles’ muse. The album spun off four hit singles, including a chart-topping remake of Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and a heartbreaking cover of Cindy Walker’s “You Don’t Know Me” that fell just one rung shy of the top. Marty Paich’s strings brilliantly underline and shadow Charles’ vocals, adding atmosphere without ever intruding or overwhelming the singer or the song. Track after track, Charles, his arrangers and his band find wholly new ways through these songs, turning “Half as Much” into mid-tempo jazz, layering string flourishes into “Born to Lose,” laying the blues on “It Makes No Difference Now” and punching up “Bye Bye Love” and “Hey Good Lookin’” with big band sizzle.

Volume two may not have been as much of a surprise, but neither was it a second helping. Gerald Wilson’s soul vision of “You Are My Sunshine,” expertly rendered by Charles and a swinging horn section, leaves few traces of the song’s mid-20th century origin. Charles, spurred by backing vocals from the Raeletts, sounds like he’s reeling off a personal tale of devotion rather than singing someone else’s lyric. The Raeletts provide an edge to side one’s New York sessions, with the Jack Halloran Singers sitting in on side two’s Hollywood takes. Both album sides yielded hit singles, including a pained reading of “Take These Chains From My Heart,” and a slow, mournful take on “Your Cheating Heart.” As with the first volume, Charles finds a directness in country songwriting that matches the expression he developed with the blues.

Country music and Charles’ career each received a boost from these albums. Nashville expanded its audience outside its core region, Nashville songwriters found new ears for their songs, and Charles gained an influx of fans who might otherwise have never bought R&B records. These were all lasting marks, as Charles’ fame continued to expand, and country music gained new flavors for its crossover dreams. Concord’s reissue includes the two volumes’ original twenty-four tracks, full-panel cover art (front and back!), original liner notes for each, and new liners by Bill Dahl. Volume one previously appeared as a standalone CD in the 1980s, but the complete volume two only appeared on the (out-of-print) box set The Complete Country & Western Recordings 1959-1986. This single disc is the perfect way to get Charles’ 1962 country sessions in one sweet package. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Concert

Leave a reply

CCR_TheConcertCreedence live on their home turf in 1970

After reissuing bonus-track laden CDs of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s first six albums, Fantasy’s new owner, the Concord Music Group, adds a straight (no bonus tracks) reissue of the group’s 1970 concert at the Oakland (California) Coliseum. While many bands’ live shows sound like their records, in Creedence’s case their studio albums had the muscle of their live shows. The difference may be lost on some, but it was never lost on the group’s audiences, who found themselves overwhelmed by the power of the rhythm battery and entranced by John Fogerty’s guitar playing.

With four albums under their belts and Cosmo’s Factory on the way (“Travellin’ Band” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” are included here), the live set list was essentially a greatest hits package. The two non-Fogerty compositions are the blues “The Night Time is the Right Time,” and the traditional “Midnight Special.” The latter may as well have been a Fogerty tune, given how well it fits with his original tunes. By 1970 Creedence had moved away from the Fillmore-styled jams of their earlier days, with only the nine-minute “Keep on Chooglin’” getting a lengthy exploration.

Given their prowess as a band, it’s a shame they didn’t continue to stretch out more on stage, but with their audience accumulating listeners from radio, the two- and three-minute hits became the public part of their catalog. The short clips of chatter and song introductions show Fogerty to be an engaging front-man, backed by a powerhouse band and fueled by a killer song catalog. This isn’t a revelatory live album, such as the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, but it is a true snapshot of the Great American Band at the height of their powers. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Covers the Classics

Leave a reply

CCR_CoversTheClassicsTwelve covers cherry-picked from Creedence’s albums

Early in their career as both a live band and a recording unit, Creedence was fond of covering material they loved. They rarely had hits this way, but they often managed to absorb even well known hits into the swampy Creedence universe. This new collection pulls together twelve covers that have been cherry-picked from Creedence’s studio albums. The only hits in the lot are single edits of Dale Hawkins’ “Suzie Q,” and the post-breakup release of Cosmos’ Factory’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” Both singles forgo the lengthy psychedelic jamming that made them such essential album tracks. The rest of the collection is a good look at the group’s influences, but only a few of the covers beyond the two singles, notably “The Midnight Special,” and “Cotton Fields” truly benefit from the Creedence treatment. When mixed in with Fogerty’s originals, the original album’s cover songs provided linkage to his songwriting and performing influences, but drawn onto a separate disc, they don’t always add up to anything as profound as the group’s originals. With only 12-tracks and a 40-minute running time this collection is no substitute for any of the group’s first five original albums. If you want hits, you’re better off with Creedence’s greatest original hits rather than Creedence’s covers of other people’s greatest hits. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Owen Temple: Dollars and Dimes

Leave a reply

OwenTemple_DollarsAndDimesSoulful country-folk-rock travelogue of today’s North America

Austinite Owen Temple takes inspiration for his fifth album from his extensive travels as a touring musician, and from Joel Garreau’s book The Nine Nations of North America. Garraeu argues that national and state borders are mere geographical lines that fail to surround populations of like interests and lives. He proposes nine regions, such as Ecotopia (the northwest coast), Breadbasket (the midwest US and Canada), and Foundry (the industrial northeast) that are held together by shared economic interests and cultural beliefs. He asserts that what people do (or, in the current recession, don’t do) defines their common character more clearly than borders drawn from rivers or arbitrary surveyor’s marks.

Temple explores this idea in a set of songs drawn from impressions or observations of these regions, from the rusting industrial dreams of “Broken Heart Land,” through the vast emptiness of “Black Diamond” and the title track’s study of the migrations that built and sustain America. He examines the social mobility that’s led many to wander rootlessly from metropolis to metropolis, often draining into the artificial oasis of Southern California (“Los Angeles is the city of the future, and it’s coming to get you”). He draws sharp portraits of working people whose labors are for “making a life, not just a living,” as well as those sick of their daily grind. It’s not as dark as Slaid Cleaves’ Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, but stands on the same observational singer-songwriter ground.

There’s a very American streak of nostalgia in many of these songs, including the fictional transplants who find adopted homes not what they expected, and Temple’s own memories of his early days in Austin and later years in the frigid north turn his pen inward. This is a more studied album than 2008’s Two Thousand Miles, though it retains the same soulful folk-country sound. Temple’s stock taking creates a more personal, more interior, less archetypal version of the Americana travelogues Johnny Cash wrote in the 1960s. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Broken Heart Land
Owen Temple’s Home Page
Owen Temple’s MySpace Page

Holly Williams: Here With Me

Leave a reply

HollyWilliams_HereWithMeHank Sr.’s granddaughter cuts a superb country and pop album

Williams’ gold-plated lineage (her father is Hank Williams Jr., her grandfather was Hank Williams) is in many ways misleading rather than informative. Though she’s the product of two generations of country music royalty (and a broken home), her songs are modern in style and her lyrics are mostly untouched by self-destructive rebelliousness. Unless, that is, you count her charting a mainstream musical course as rebelling against the family business. The Williams’ troubles passed from Sr. to Jr. to III, but in changing gender (and mother, Hank III is a half-brother), the darkest demons seem to have lost their grip on the steering wheel.

That’s the long-way around to saying that you shouldn’t expect a female version of the rowdy Williams sound or style here, though you will get a helping of the family’s breed of talent. Williams’ 2004 major label debut, The Ones We Never Knew, was a moody singer-songwriter album that lived in the contemporary folk and adult pop world of Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Jewel. After the album stiffed (and its single “Sometimes” failed to crack the charts), Williams was dropped by her label. A car accident and several years further along, she’s back with a new album for Mercury Nashville that has a stronger country flavor.

The opening “He’s Making a Fool Out of You” is an original slow waltz that would be a good fit for Lee Ann Womack, and Williams’ duet with Chris Janson, the sweetly themed “A Love I Think Will Last,” is an upbeat, two-step shuffle. Williams’ hasn’t abandoned the sophisticated contemporary pop sounds of her debut, she’s simply mixed things up a bit. There are songs of coping, faith, troubled relationships, emotional growth and unbridled love. There are biographical lyrics about Williams’ mother and father, and a quick name-check of her grandfather, but they’re more like waypoints than destinations.

Williams’ voice fits smoothly into both the highly produced tracks and the twangier arrangements. She’s a powerful singer, emoting forcefully when unburdening herself and choking up when delivering the romantic doormat’s heartbreaking simile “like a leaf in mid-October I still change for you.” She favors Rosanne Cash a bit on the country tracks. The album closes with a solid cover of Neil Young’s “Birds,” sung slower and shorn of the backing choir of After the Gold Rush. It’s a nice showcase for the expressiveness of Williams’ voice, and though it’s not as plaintively bereaved as Young’s original, it’s no doubt a showstopper on stage.

Those who felt Williams’ debut hewed too much to one tempo or sound will like the breadth in her songwriting and the new opportunities this provides for her stellar voice. This isn’t your father (or grandfather’s) country album. In fact, it’s as much a contemporary pop album as it is modern country. But as on her previous album, Williams shows herself to be a talented artist whose songs are dark but not damaged, and whose music doesn’t stand in anyone’s shadow. Now, Mercury Nashville just needs to figure out whether to break her on country or pop radio. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Holly Williams’ Home Page
Holly Williams’ MySpace Page