Listen Up! Willie Nelson – “Grandma’s Hands” featuring Mavis Staples

Willie-Nelson-To-All-The-Girls

Willie Nelson just doesn’t know the meaning of quit. The Texas Yoda took time from his extensive (some might say grueling) touring schedule to enter the studio with some of his favorite female singers for a duets album entitled ‘To All The Girls….’ (Oct. 15 on Legacy Recordings.)

Nelson features his talented daughter Paula Nelson, as well as legends like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash and newcomers Secret Sisters, Norah Jones, Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert.

Also representing the legend status is Mavis Staples. She and Nelson do a smooth version of Bill Withers’ deeply personal “Grandma’s Hands.” Besides Withers the song has been previously covered by Mavis’ own legendary family gospel group, The Staple Singers.

Preorder the album here.

To All The Girls track list:

1. Dolly Parton — From Here To The Moon And Back
2. Miranda Lambert — She Was No Good For Me
3. Secret Sisters — It Won’t Be Very Long
4. Rosanne Cash — Please Don’t Tell Me
5. Sheryl Crow — Far Away Places
6. Wynonna Judd — Bloody Mary Morning
7. Carrie Underwood — Always On My Mind
8. Loretta Lynn — Somewhere Between
9. Alison Krauss — No Mas Amor
10. Melonie Cannon — Back To Earth
11. Mavis Staples — Grandma’s Hands
12. Norah Jones — Walkin’
13. Shelby Lynne — Til The End Of The World
14. Lily Meola — Will You Remember Mine
15. Emmylou Harris — Dry Lightning
16. Brandi Carlile — Making Believe
17. Paula Nelson — Have You Ever Seen The Rain
18. Tina Rose — After The Fire Is Gone

News Round Up: Allison Moorer Heads Back to Nashville

  • Country Rapper, Colt Ford,tweeted (twittered?) that he “… sat down today with DMC from the Iconic Group RUN-DMC. We are gonna do a song together. He is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Wow.” I hope Colt Ford can do for country/rap what RUN-DMC and Aerosmith did for rock/rap…oh wait. (Twang Nation review of Colt Ford’s  Ride Through the Country)
  • I’m a fan of Alabama native Allison Moorer (AKA sister of Shelby Lynne and better-half #6 for Texas legend Steve Earle as well as his opening act if you’ve been to any of his shows the last few years) and her earlier, more country flavored work. Moorer makes the song A Soft Place to Fall, off 1998’s Alabama Song a transcendental experience. The news that Moorer is coming back to Nashville at the end of the year to make a new album with producer R.S. Field is great news! Earle, how about you?
  • Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood returning as co-hosts of the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville this fall is not news. Call me when Caitlin Rose and Mojo Nixon are on the bill.

I was directed to this great video of  Kim Deal (The Pixies/The Breeders) and Kelly Deal (The Breeders) doing a cover Hank Williams’ I Can’t Help It (if I’m still in love with you)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o83kIRpkjD0[/youtube]

Country Music – Blonds Leading the Bland

The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica has a feature on the growing predominance of younger female artists in Music City (Country’s New Face: It’s Young and Blond)  in the wake of the success of Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler, and how spunky DIYers, like Peoria, Illinois’ Veronica Ballestrini, are busy using the web to build a fan base for their performances and raise their profile.

Though the piece is trying to make a big deal about these women making a dent on the male dominated Music City culture, the phenomenon is not at all surprising. Nashville’s big country labels are in the business of making money. Period. They are not in the business of  pushing a cultural bias outside of the aforementioned quest for profit. A large part of that goal is to develop product with a predictable success i.e. charting hits that move product and can be replicated ad nauseum. Right now that success means young blond women.

Underwood and Pickler are American Idol alum and Swift developed her skills by playing country songs with karaoke backing tracks at her local mall. These young women had visual evidence of their ability to perform on cue and be adaptable to an external idea of a star in order to be successful. And even though Swift showed an early streak of independence at 15 when she turned down a development deal with RCA Records when not allowed to write her own songs, the songs she did write and were featured in her best selling debut were distinct from most Music City product by having the emotional depth of school notebook scribbling and being in tone more Britney than Loretta.

So yeah, the upcoming crop of Music City groomed country music performers are going to be young, female and mostly blond and largely indistinguishable from many of the clones coming out of the Disney and other tween culture behemoths in which Hanna Montana‘s Miley Cyrus and Jennette McCurdy of Nickelodeon’s show iCarly are the most viable examples.

This is the current business model of success with current benchmarks for profit, and in the music business this is the closest thing you can get to a sure thing.

Unlike the major rock labels band-signing shotgun approach in the 90’s during the Seattle Grunge  mania you can be assured that the Nashville’s major labels will keep a tight rein on product, how it looks and how it sounds. The difference is that with Grunge, as well as the country music phenomenons of Outaw Country and the Bakerfield sound, the labels were then left to play catch up to culture and were trying to capitalize on something that occurred organically and crackled with intensity. Playing catch up is messy and costly, controlling production from the get go contains cost and better assures success.

Replicating the current stable of blond fembots may make business sense, but it’s  not likely to result in anything worth listening to.

Those Darlins Ready New Summer Release

  • Craig Shelburne  over at the CMT blog has posted a great video I had never see with Willie Nelson and fantastic bluegrass Melonie Cannon covering Willie’s Back to Earth.
  • Speaking of Texas (Wille, Texas…same thing) If you’re in the San Francisco area tomorrow night head over to the historic Fillmore to catch Houston’s own Robert Earl Keen with the great Hayes Carl as the opener
  • <!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

    I heard that Miley Cyrus is slated to Perform at the 4th Annual Country Music Awards on April 5. Aand here I thought it was Miley’s buddy Taylor Swift’s job to serve the ‘tween demographic with insipid tales of mall heartache. Or maybe that’s Carrie Underwood… Point is the CMA’s continue to embody thier new acronym definition, Country Music my Ass.

  • Murfreesboro, Tenn’s country-punk sweethearts of the prison rodeo, Those Darlins,  got a lot of deserved attention at SXSW ’09 and it looks like they are due for more love this Summer when their self-titled debut album is released on July 7th (vinyl on July 23rd) on OH WOW DANG records. Here’s the title cut off their current Wild One EP to hold you over until then.

<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Those Darlins – Wild One(mp3)

PopMatters Interviews Gary Louris and Mark Olson

  • PopMatters.com’s Juli Thanki in her current Torch & Twang dispatch looks over the history of coal mining in country and folk music and asks if the topic is still relevant today. As the jobless rates soar I’d say the sentiment these songs embody is as important as ever.
  • Continuing with the PopMatters.com love, Michael Franco sits down with ex-Jayhawks Gary Louris and Mark Olson to talk about their new release Ready for the Flood and the possibility of a Jayhawks reunion.
  • Twangville has a review of Changing Horses, the new Americana venture by indie-pop singer/songwriter Ben Kweller.
  • Plant, Krauss and T Bone Burnett have some interesting, endearing and funny things to say after their bonanza at the Grammys.
  • The best thing for me about Carrie Underwood’s bombastic performance at the Grammys (besides her dress) was the smoking blonde supporting her by shredding axe. Her name is Orianthi and she’s a 34 year-old Australia guitar prodigy whos  first support show was for Steve Vai when she was 15.

The 51st Grammy Awards- Carrie Underwood “Last Name”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QvOAzkaAxA&feature=related[/youtube]

Ladies and Gentlemen…Ms. Rachel Brooke

You can keep your Carrie Underwoods, your Taylor Swifts, your Jewels and your Jessica Simpsons…I’ll take a beer and another song by Michigan’s Rachel Brooke.

Rachelle Brooke Covering Hank William’s Old Log Train

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3YNlIVxwWk[/youtube]

Carrie Underwood’s Modern Love

AOL’s Country Corner posts that country pop-tart Carrie Underwood admitted to ‘Extra’ (who else?) that she and Lubbock, TX. native and ‘Gossip Girl’ actor Chace Crawford “ended their highly-publicized relationship through text messaging, saying, “We broke up over text so . . . it’s like ‘peace out.'”

Underwood assured fans that there were no tears and that she’s doing just fine. In fact, she says the breakup was completely mutual. “It just didn’t work. We both knew it didn’t work and [had] no hard feelings at all whatsoever.”

Gee Carrie, I wonder why I was never blown away by those heartfelt songs you belt out. Could it be the mall-variety glibness displayed in this statement above? Tears and longing is where great coutry songs come from, not text messages.

Peace out? Who are you? Snoop Dogg?

CMA / AMA Best Artists – My View

So the Country Music Association and the Americana Music Association have recently released their nominees list for their respective awards and in an attempt to figure what passes for country music nowadays and what the heck “Americana” means I am going to compare a category they share…sort of.

CMA Entertainer of the Year
Kenny Chesney
Brad Paisley
Rascal Flatts
George Strait
Keith Urban

CMA Male Vocalist of the Year
Kenny Chesney
Brad Paisley
George Strait
Josh Turner
Keith Urban

CMA Female Vocalist of the Year
Alison Krauss
Miranda Lambert
Martina McBride
Reba McEntire
Carrie Underwood

AMA Artist of the Year
Joe Ely
Lucinda Williams
Patty Griffin
Todd Snider

Being good, progressive minded folk the Americana place the boys and the girls in one “artist” category. The CMA naturally plays it like a broken record with Chesney and Rascal Flatts nominated for the millionth time. I have a question, to qualify for EOTY shouldn’t you be entertaining? And I don’t mean in a comedic sense. And what is the difference between “Entertainer of the year” and Vocalist of the year” I mean all the nominees are vocalists,that’s what they do to entertain, sing. Is the CMA rewarding acrobatics, ripped biceps and hair gel as a separate category?

I like George Strait and think his 07 release “It Just Comes Natural” is good but not great. I like Brad Paisley somewhat but think he’s choosing the corn-ball and schmaltz cuts that are beneath him and his fine guitar playing to chase the dollar. I think Miranda Lambert is the best thing to happen to country in a long time and she has the good sense to cover excellent songwriters like Gillian Welsh. Alison Krauss is the one crossover artist here but she had to soften her bluegrass roots and get a make-over to get acceptance by the CMA crowd. Britney 2…er..I mean Carrie Underwood has the pipes but not the soul or courage to be interseting.

Joe Ely is a Texas legend and should when in any category he’s in. And even though I love Lucinda, I think “West” was a weak effort and shows that moving to L.A. will kill even a dignified soul.

I will use the CMA boy/girl dichotomy and ignore the useless EOTY category and play nice and not add other deserving artists like Elizabeth Cook and Wayne Hancock into the mix, and say:

Male Artist of the Year: Joe Ely

Female Artist of the Year: Miranda Lambert

Bob Lefsetz Does Country

I usually hang on every acerbic and insightful post from music business gadfly Bob Lefsetz. He’s a no bullshit guy that sees the bloody writing on the wall for the big labels and pulls no punches. I hope this blog allows me to do 1/16th of what he’s been able to do in exposing the hypocrisy and crap in the music industry and also point the way to a great talents that are trying make a difference and do great work.

But recently Mr. Levitz was caught in L.A. Traffic and came across Sirius radio Channel 60, “New Country” who, by the blurb on their web site states they play ” Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney.”

Lefsetz writes that while listening to the station that:

“…every one of (the) words rang true and glowed like burnin’ coal, pourin’ off of every page like it was written from me to you, but I was not tangled up in blue, I was laughing, I was alive, I was ECSTATIC! This was a joy I hadn’t experienced in oh-so-long!

But I don’t know shit about country. Maybe this is the crap. Maybe this is the stuff those deep into it rail about. Then I realized, I was the target audience, I was fucking IGNORANT!”

I’m here to tell you Bob, you are listening to the crap, and allow me to school you.

You are a fucking genius savant when talking about rock and pop of the past, present and future, but when you stray into country music, I won’t say “fucking ignorant”, but I will say sadly naive.

What you were listening to was the country equivalent of listening to Beyoncé or Fallout Boy. Sad, shallow reproductions of artists that came before that did it not just do it better, but did it in a way that was breathtaking and dangerous. What you were listening to was formula, contrivances and confection.

You pine for the days of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. When the Velvet Underground and the Stooges were punching sonic holes in the cultural malaise of the 70’s. If you’re looking for the contemporary country equivalent of that, then you’re not going to find in on Channel 60, “New Country.”

The country equivalent to these ground-breaking artists, the giants that the current talent of country artists are standing on the shoulders of is Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. It’s the Allman Brothers and The Band. It’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, X, Jason and the Scorchers. Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam.

You’re more likely to find these artists on the Dallas area station Lone Star 92.5 that, despite being a Clear Channel station, is taking risks and plays artists that better represent the spirit you crave. Bands like The Drive By Truckers and the Bottle Rockets. Artists like Hank Williams III and Shooter Jennings. But Lone Star 92.5s are hard to find just as great rock stations are. The playlists are still the most common framework for commercial radio, and playlist are driven by sales.

Shooter Jenning’s band, the .357s comes closer to Led Zeppelin than the comparison you draw between Zeppelin and Tim McGraw. Tim McGraw is less Led Zeppelin and more Peter Frampton.

There is great country music out there and Bob Lefsetz, with a little counseling, is just the gauge that will recognize it. I for one would love for him to turn his laser eye on the Nashville money machine and the way it takes great talent and churns out dull, gray sausage.

Miranda Lambert Makes The Cover of No Depression – Hell Reports Snow

I don’t know what it is, the end times, global warming, whacked mojo…but Miranda Lambert seems to be winning the hearts and minds of Nashville pop lovers as well as the alt.country crowd. I mean she’s on the cover of the yall’ternative bible “No Depresssion” for crips sake! (Yeah that her swinging her hair all rocking out like.) First the white trash American Idol (I mean that in a good way), a performance at the ’05 CMA Awards and now ND?
I mean ND has indy darlings The Shins on the last cover. What are they trying to do? Rise from relative obscurity and sell magazines?

I mean what’s next? Toby Keith on the cover of Spin? Carrie Underwood on the cover of Playboy? Okay, I could actually imagine that last one.

Good on the fellow Texan on all the good vibes and good on No Depression for risking their hipster cred to feature great music!