Tag Archives: Jamey Johnson

It Burns When I Pee Live Stream (heh!) Tonight

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  • It Burns When I Pee, the only podcast covering the cutting edge and proud tradition of country music, will be streaming their show live tonight (7:30pm CST) and showing us how the sausage is made. And yes, that is a lewd comment directed towards Norma Jean. The final gussied up and edited edition will be available  on Jan 23rd which will feature an interview and music by Bob Wayne.
  • George Clinton, leader of the psychedelic funk music collective Parliament Funkadelic, is one of the celebrities participating in this season ofCMT’s  Gone Country 3.  Says Clinton: “I wanted to do Gone Country because I wanted to learn how to write country songs. I’ve written a lot of songs before, but I’ve never been validated as country, not even to myself. I’m country. I am a country boy. Johnny Cash, I like his songwriting. I used to watch Roy Clark and all them all the time — Chet Atkins and all those guys are really good songwriters. The lyrics for country songs are miles and miles ahead of almost anybody else’s lyrics. I guess everybody would agree there’s no comparison to it. I’m pretty sure I’ve got to do something that’s pretty challenging. I try not to imagine what it is, so when it happens I’ll just say I don’t have no time to do nothing but get off my ass and do it. I’m funky about doing whatever it takes.” I might have to actually watch it this season in spite of the homophobic midget host John Rich.
  • Mercury Nashville is set to release an LP version of Jamey Johnson‘s Grammy nominated album That Lonesome Song on January 27.  Since That Lonesome Song was released, it has spent 8 weeks in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart and has appeared on numerous 2008 Top-10 lists (including mine.)
  • Ryan Adams has announced a musical hiatus citing health issues and “narcissistic over-indulgent behaviour” as the reason. Really!? Who knew? In all seriousness, I hope Adams finds peace of mind in his reprieve.  (guardian.co.uk)
  • Shooter Jennings talks about to NPR World Cafe host David Dye about Waylon Forever, a collection of songs Shooter recorded with his dad Waylon Jennings in 1995. Shooter then revisited the material with his backing band, The .357s.
  • Joe Whyte is back with his band at the Rockwood on inauguration Tuesday. Aang great show will be had by all: Rockwood Music Hall
    196 Allen St., NYC – 8pm – FREE
  • New York blues guitarist Popa Chubby is readying his foray into country music entitled Vicious Country. The release features his wife Galea on bass. Below is a video shot at New York’s Rodeo Bar of Popa Chubby covering Hank Williams III‘s song Straight to Hell.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbaYETD15yY[/youtube]

The Best of 2008 (For Reals)

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Propaganda has been honed to a fine art in the last half century. Americans have been convinced to fight wars, hand over civil and employee rights and consume ever crappier beer, food and, alas, music.

Mainstream Country Music is one of the few genres in the 21st century that tolerates no real deviation from certified Music Row and mainstream radio product. Sure there are exceptions, the Outlaw Movement cooped a largely ignored youth movement, Garth tweaked the business model and stage production and Big and Rich and their “MuzikMafia” was a painfully lame attempt to emulate Hip Hop’s concept of crews. But when it comes to altering the DNA of the music the image driven slickness and paint-by-numers narritives seem as tightly mandated as the McDonald’s Big Mac cooking process. If you don’t fit the hat act mold you are cast into the slums of Americana, folk, roots, alt.country or, if the sins were severe enough, rock!

Into this unyielding environment stepped artists that discovered that Cash, Willie and Hank were speaking to them in ways larger then the flavor of the week bands being crammed down their throats. That’s where the wild hillbilly muse dances. That way real beauty and art lay waiting.

Americana/roots/alt.country is attracting new talent that bravely straddles the cultural divide between trad sepia-toned country circa Jimmie Rogers and Carter Family and the current attitudes, sounds and stories of our times. New artists like O’Death, The Felice Bothers, Justin Townes Earle and Star Anna and road-tested warriors like Dale Watson, Eleven Hundred Springs and Tom Russell have Inject new blood, whiskey and adrenaline into a largely lifeless form of music that refuses to be embalmed.

And then there are the genre-crossing big-wigs like  Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Chrissie Hynde and Robert Plant (who is currently nominated for 6 grammys and forgoing a Led Zeppelin reunion to continue Raising Sand with Bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss) that are moving toward a the wildser lands attracted by its proclivity for authenticity and celebration of  experimentation. The only sin is mediocrity, the only transgression is bovine conformity.

There’s no reward for compiling a “best of” list. People will quibble with the selections, the order of said selections will displease many and whether the writer is at all qualified to compile such as list will be questioned. Ridicule and contempt is sure to follow.

I do this to celebrate those that are willing to look past the wanna-be-celebrity choked road paved with pyrite. The Great Ones bent Nashville to their ways or took refuge in other regions far from the industry, Bakersfield California,  Austin Texas, to ply their wares. The Music Row road is not an easy one, it’s just crowded with sheep and the destination is less interesting.

Here’s to the on’ry, ragged, dusty dreamers.

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10) Hank Williams III – “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” (Sidewalk Records) -The man with a country music royalty pedigree, and an arguable entitlement to the moniker “Man In Blacker,” burns the middle-of-the-road with another custom hot-rod release. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

9) Jamey Johnson – “That Lonesome Song” (Mercury Nashville) -  Jamey Johnson does more than redeem himself for helping to pen Trace Adkins maga-seller Honky Tonk Badonkadonk with this brilliant release born of hard living and a love of Waylon Jennings and George Jones.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

8)  Sara Cahoone – “Only As The Day Is Long” (Sub-Pop) – Former rock drummer Cahoone has created a melancholy-shoegaze-Americana masterpiece with her rainy-day ready debut release.  Amazon | MySpace | Sub-Pop

7)  Star Anna – “Crooked Path” (Malamute Records) -  On this smoldering debut of Americana-noir Ellensburg, Washington’s Star Anna Krogstie proves she can hold her own with Lucinda Williams and Neko Case. Her voice seems to be the shear definition of longing and heartache.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

6) Hang Jones – “The Ballad of Carlsbad County” (Self Released) – Hang Jones is the alias for Stephen Grillos and his concept album, set in 1887 New Mexico, takes the typical elements – lust, jealousy, whiskey, gunpowder and blood – and works his gritty magic to deliver a great album.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

5) Luke Powers – “Texasee” (Phoebe Claire) – Powers stated in an interview that Texasee is a study of a mythical place that lies between Nashville and Austin and is done in a style reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah. Sign me up! Writers in the Western genre celebrate a few that are seen as more “literary.”  Powers like Tom Russell, James McMurty, John Prine and Joe Ely, occupies the mirror space in music.  CD Baby | MySpace | Pheobe Claire Site

4) Felice Brothers (Team Love) -From from the Catskill Mountains to the subways of New York city these actual brothers (and a bass player named Christmas) channel the Basement Tapes and spin  magnificently dark tales of desperation and violence. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

3) O’Death -  “Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin” (Kemado) – New York’s O’Death is a concoction of parts that if mixed any other way would result into a noxious mess.  Appalachian Mountain music,  Gypsy music, Gothic punk, funk and metal, it all just shouldn’t play nice together. On Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin the sounds meld magnificently in a dark and volatile masterpiece.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

2) Justin Townes Earle – “The Good Life”  (Bloodshot) -Before technology allowed us to cheat, musicians were the source of musical synthesis, or what is referred to by the hipsters today as mash-ups. Justin Townes Earle harkens back to these aural alchemists and has created a potent blend of 19th century folk, country swing and hillbilly boogie. Overcoming his Daddy’s long musical shadow (and his inclination towards illicit substances) Justin Townes Earle’s first full length release rejoices in heritage while transcending its creators youth.  Amazon | MySpace | Bloodshot Records

1) Eleven Hundred Springs – “Country Jam” (Palo Duro Records) – If you want a crash course in the best Texas country music over the last half-century the 2008 release from Dallas’ ESL would be a great place to start. From the hillbilly poetry of Mickey Newbury and Joe Ely to the Western Swing of Bob Wills to the pop and rock of  Doug Sahm and Buddy Holly all the influences are there.  And though the sounds are reflective of the Texas greats  ESL makes it distinctly their own on this superior homage to the Lone Star State. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

Honorable Mention:

Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creations Dark
The Whipsaws – 60 Watt Avenue
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – Cipher
Caitlin Rose -  Dead Flowers
The Power of County  – See You In Rock and Roll Heaven
Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
Kathy Mattea – Coal
The Wildes – Ballad of a Young Married Man
Hayes Carll – Trouble In Mind
Joey + Rory – The Life Of A Song
Kasey Chambers and Shane – Rattlin’ Bones
Ashton Shepherd – Sounds So Good
The Steeldrivers – Self-Titled
Whitey Morgan and the 78’s – Honky Tonks and Cheap Motels

Review – Jamey Johnson – That Lonesome Song (Mercury Nashville)

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Anybody that has read this blog for more than three seconds knows that I only review music that I like. I’m from Texas. I was taught if you don’t have anything good to say keep your trap shut. People work hard on the music they produce and I respect that even if  what they do may not be my shot of whiskey. That said, I would like to review the new release by Jamey Johnson three times to show how much I like it. I would like to but I was also taught to not repeat myself. So here goes…

Singer/songwriter Jamey Johnson is part of a movement that could be considered the new outlaws. Artists like Ryan Bingham, Hank Williams III, Shooter Jennings and the band Eleven Hundred Springs look back on country music’s diverse legacy (as well as a potent shot of rock thrown in for spice) to build a new movement that champions sincerity and grit over image and marketing.

These young’uns are not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves and, honoring country music’s history, willing to put their personal stories- happy, sad, sordid – to music. While celebrating country musics roots these artists ride precariously close to what has been labeled alt.country/Americana/roots music. These sub-genres are considered the aural ghetto of what the big Nash-Vagas music and mainstream country music radio deem worthy of the country music label. Some radio programmers have even described the sound as “too country.” The nerve!

The sound of “”That Lonesome Song”” is not as spare (or groundbreaking) as Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger,” but like Willie did at the time of RHS’s release, I can imagine Johnson receiving feedback from the Nash-Vegas label gatekeepers that these demos sound good, but when can we record of the final songs? (To their credit Mercury Nashville seems to have had the sense to leave the songs as is.)

Johnson found work early in Nashville cutting demos for other songwriters so he knows when the varnish is applied and how the official way a Nashville record is suppose to sound. He has purposely thrown all that out the window for something truer and rougher around the edges. The occasional flub and musicians chewing fat is all here in all it’s beautiful imperfection. Johnson is backed by exceptional Kent Hardly Playboys (Kent Hardly Play, Boys – get it?)

Imperfection is also a theme that runs throughout this release, Johnson’s own. Sure the songs on “That Lonesome Song” sound lonesome (It’s intellectually lazy to mention as much, it’s right there in the title!) but they also have a vein gritty resilience running throughout. Ex-Marine Johnson pulls no punches mining his life for songs and there was some hell to be sure, booze, drugs, divorce, risking his golden-boy Nashville career (Johnson wrote “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” which was a hit for Trace Adkins and George Strait had recorded his song “Give It Away”), it’s all here encapsulated in 13 bleak cuts of cathartic beauty. And after it all he sounds like he’s enjoying life.

The release starts with appropriately enough with the sound of a prison door being closed behind Johnson as he leaves jail and is told to “Stay out of trouble.” I suppose heeding that advice led to his nearly year long seclusion as well as this body of work.

“High Cost Of Living” follows with it’s woozy pedal steel and tells a stark tale of substance abuse taking its toll on his life, his health and his relationship with his wife. “The high cost of living ain’t nothing like the cost of living high” Johnson sings in his plain Alabamian baritone drawl that advises us to “Leave that stuff alone.” The song then dissolves into guitar and pedal steel searing swapping solos. “Angel” is a lost-love lament done in slow-motion classic Texas waltz style that aches with longing, regret and a weeping pedal steel.

“Place Out On The Ocean” is a breezy beach song Kenny Chesney would never have the subtlety or sense to record. It’s like Guy Clark went some time in Key West and came home to Austin and wrote a ditty. Johnson even uses the cliched hip-hop couplet of “Mercedes” and “Ladies” and somehow just fits naturally.

As a humorously black foil to the song “Angel,” “Mowin Down The Roses” kicks off like a slinky funk tune complete with a mumbled “Crank it, aw here it comes” but shows it’s dark hillbilly humor right soon as the subject catalogs the remembrances he is dutifully trashing in his estranged’s absence.

“The Door Is Always Open” is eerily reminiscent of Waylon Jennings at his rollicking dusty best in yet another thematic turn of events as he assures his ex that she will always be welcomed back in his arms.

“In Color” is probably the most single-worthy (whatever that is) of the release. It’s a nostalgic mid-tempo tune on lineage and recollection that comes off as genuine, and stops short of cloying sentimentality by playing it straight.

“The Last Cowboy” begins with a distant tolling bell and then laments the vanishing world of great country music and the culture that cultivates it. In a  nip if not a bite at the hand that fed him Waylon Jennings, John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers are name checked as heroes that have been forgotten by Nash-Vegas establishment. The title song again conjures up visions of Waylon Jennings at his forlorn, ornery best.

“Between Jennings And Jones” concludes the release, It is a song that was derived of after a friend of Johnson’s said he found his first release in the CD store “Between Jennings And Jones” and the song recounts Johnson’s history in Nashville with it’s highest highs and lower then lows, with a few laughs and memories thrown in for good measure.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jamey Johnson a couple of years ago after seeing him perform at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Cafe (where he played in a guitar pull with my uncle Tony Lane) and he genuinely seemed like a good guy that was loving life (and tequila, a few shots of which I enjoyed along with him) and living no wilder then Southern boy who had come into his own. It’s a shame that he had to fall when he was riding high but if “That Lonesome Song” is any indication of how he’s doing I’d say he’s back in the saddle.

Official Site |  MySpace |  iLike

Chrissie Hynde Goes Country

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Popmatters.com has a review of the DVD “Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music” which they discribe as “Informative and educational, intriguing and entertaining, part American history lesson, part biography and part concert film…”

The good folks over at The 9513 brought to my attention that current Twang Nation favorite Jamey Johnson will be joining Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, and Kenny Chesney (?!) for the 2008 Farm Aid music festival in New England on Sept. 20. Nashville Scene (High Lonesome Sound) and CMT.com(Don’t Tell Jamey Johnson That He’s “Too Country”) both offer features on Johnson.

The guardian.co.uk Music Blog has a brief run down of the current state of American alt.country/Americana scene (Are you ready for (more of) the country?)

Chrissie Hynde of the bad the Pretenders states that the bands first new album in six years (“Break up the Concrete”) will be “moving in a country direction.” Of all the country music carpet bagging that has been happening recently I have to say that a musician with Hynde’s credibility makes me think she’ll do it right, but she is a vegitarian, so does this mean that Jessica Simpson has to get another t-shirt?

Loretta Lynn in the New York Times

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A Smithsonian Institution exhibit on the roots of American music opens today in Shepherdsville, KY.

The Tennessean.com has a piece on a guy I like and will keep my eye on, Montgomery, Ala., native Jamey Johnson.

The New York Times reviews Loretta Lynne’s recent show in New Jersey. Even though Lynne was ailing from a recent back operation the crowd was charmed and captivated.