Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
I saw these clips on YouTube and needed to share them.
In this 1987 BBC Arena produced documentary Tammy Wynette discusses her rough and poor upbringing in Itawamba County, Mississippi, her troubled, richly creative but doomed marriage to George Jones and the glory and cost of fame.
It’s a wonderfully intimate glimpse at the Fist Lady of Country Music.
Let’s deal with the obvious first, yes, Nashville-by-way-of-Toronto Lindi Ortega’s soprano trill is reminiscent to a certain buxom, bewigged country music superstar. It’s not something she shies away from. Hell she even name-checks Dolly on the title cut. But where Dolly would chirp hopefully within every syllable leading to a home-spun happy ending Ortega takes a dreamy Julie Cruise into a beautifully melancholic coastal journey driving the protagonist toward a reunion with a love that may (or may not) end well.
The Day You Die is a dark tune about enduring a loveless marriage, though you might miss that with it’s lively shuffle. Despair and hopelessness also runs through Lead Me On, where a the title plays on the equine and behavioral definition. This tale of unrequited love is as beautifully sad and gritty and echos classic heartache from the Tammy Wynette songbook.
“Don’t Wanna Hear” simmers with rockabilly sass that show’s why she was slated to open slot for Orange County roots-punkers Social Distortion. The Middle-East tinged dobro of the confessional Murder of Crows and the Old Testament haunted Heaven Has No Vacancy are beautiful dark roots dirges that would make Lonesome Wyatt wail in agony.
Colin Linden ( Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett) production does an excellent job of allowing Ortega’s tales of darkness and love to glide over the entirety of “Cigarettes & Truckstops” by setting just the right amount of solemn atmosphere or shifting into an open road twang when necessary.
“Cigarettes & Truckstops,” Lindi Ortega’s follow-up to 2011’s excellent “Little Red Boots,” proves the lady’s no fluke. The nearly flawless album displays a maturity and depth that ” Boots” only hinted at and gives us one of the best Americana music releases of the year.
I am sad to announce the passing of yet another legend, Kitty Wells. Well’s known as the “Queen of Country Music”, died today in Nashville at the age of 92 following complications from a stroke. Her official site reads Wells “passed peacefully with family by her side at her home.”
Born Ellen Muriel Deason Wright, Wells started her country music career with her late husband Johnnie Wright in 1937.
In 1952 she was the first female singer to reach No. 1 on the country charts with her signature song, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” (below) The song was an “answer song” to the Hank Thompson hit from the same year, “The Wild Side Of Life.” Kitty was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976.
The news swept across social media rapidly. Elizabeth Cook tweeted “Thank you, and RIP Kitty Wells.” @WSMradio , the twitter account for the station that carries the Grand Ol’ Opry tweeted “The staff at WSM would like to express our condolences to the family of Kitty Wells, the “Queen of Country Music,” who passed away today.”
And this from Loretta Lynn Official Facebook page “Kitty Wells will always be the greatest female country singer of all times. She was my hero. If I had never heard of Kitty Wells, I don’t think I would have been a singer myself. I wanted to sound just like her, but as far as I am concerned, no one will ever be as great as Kitty Wells. She truly is the Queen of Country Music.”
[EDIT] In a press releases Barbara Mandrell, a longtime friend of Kitty Wells, offers her comments on her mentor’s life and work:“Kitty Wells was every female country music performer’s heroine. She lead the way for all of us and I feel very grateful and honored to have known her. She was always the most gracious, kind and lovely person to be around. I so appreciated her being a part of my life and a mentor to me.”
[EDIT]In another press release from Dolly Parton gives her respect “Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman. We will always remember her fondly.”
[EDIT] “She paved the way for generations after her and really made a mark for women in country. It’s a tough business for women. She proved that she could sell records and tickets and have hits in a time when that hadn’t been proven yet by female acts.” Lee Ann Womack
From 1953 to 1968, various polls listed Wells as the No. 1 female country singer. Tammy Wynette finally dethroned her. She continued her performing career occasionally on into her 80s.
WKRN reports funeral services will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at the Hendersonville Church of Christ in Hendersonville, Tenn. Burial will follow in Spring Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be held Thursday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to Goodpasture Christian School, C/O Kitty Well/Johnnie Wright Scholarship Fund.
These country and Americana music classics go out to all you moms out there!
Johnny Paycheck (with Merle Haggard)- “Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoSKEhJvP2Y
Carter sisters & Johnny Cash – “Dear Mama”
Tammy Wynette – “(You Make Me Want To Be) A Mother”
Willie Nelson – “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”
Justin Townes Earle “Mama’s Eyes”
Merle Haggard – “Mama Tried”
Bodacious is a Southern/Southwestern portmanteau of bold and audacious. It’s meaning is remarkable, courageous, audacious, spirited and unmistakable.
Corpus Christi TX native Amy Francis uses this linguistic fusion and forms the title of her new release , Balladacious. Just as she reinterprets words Francis also uses this skill to give her own take on some of country music’s best-known classics.
The album opens with Francis beautiful voice powerfully breaking the silence with a vulnerable delivery of the Hank Cochran barroom lament Don’t Touch Me. Francis brings the longing and apprehension contained in the song to a palatable level and disarms you of all cynicism. A staple of country music is it’s unabashed sentiment and Francis’ heart is emblazoned boldly on this first song.
The spirits of Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette and Brenda Lee are conjured with all their romantic weariness giving testament. Not just because Francis covers Sweet Dreams, Apartment #9 and Fool Number One respectively, but because she is a believer. She brings authenticity to these songs because she embodies them wholly not simply mimicking them like many Music City talen dipping a toe in traditionalism.
Her take on Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billy Joe reworks this dark song of small-town gossip and makes it swing with an acoustic guitar and strings accompaniment. Her covers of George Jone’s “Picture of Me Without You” and “I’ll Share My World With You” elevates them to the honky-tonk majesty they deserve and Vince Gill’s hit “When I Call Your Name” is covered with barrel-house piano and pedal steel accompaniment and achieves a forlornness that LeAnn Rimes’s cover never came close to. Ronnie Milsap’s “Stranger Things Have Happened” is given an equal turn with Francis’ voice soaring at heights while singing about the depths. The hope against hope and lessons contained in these testimonials of despair makes country music some of the greatest forms of contemporary tragedy. Francis approaches each with dignity and grace they deserve and strikingly nimble vocals that breath life into every barroom confession.
I have an ambivalent relationship with Nashville Sound era country music. When Owen Bradley, with Chet Atkins and Bob Ferguson moved hillbilly music from the hollers and honky tonks to the supper clubs, by adding strings, backing vocals and other adornment better suited for crooners of the day, they laid the path toward the enormously lucrative but culturally superficial pop-country industry we’ve inherited. Like the great performers of the Nashville Sound era Francis charms me into putting aside bias by keeping the soul enact while stripping back just enough veneer to let you hear the heart break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ssAJ4u7VRA&list=UUCdLHmRYCJy-e9k_rh2Zhgw&feature=plcp
These days duets are more like joint corporate sponsorships than a simpatico union of the heart and mind through song. Great male and female collaborations transcend their individual craft and emerge with something altogether new and remarkable. Kitty Wells and Red Foley, Ferlin Husky and Jean Shepard, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Johnny and June – they made music that was more than the sum of their already amazing parts.
The Americana world seems to be coming into its own in the duet field. What arguably began with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris got a real boost with 2005’s Begonias featuring Whiskeytown and Tres Chicas’ Caitlin Cary and her friend singer/songwriter Thad Cockrell. 2007 saw Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T. Bone Burnett’s Raising Sand set a standard for craft as well as sales. Now 2009 has already endowed us with two dazzling releases that build handily on this legacy.
Gretchen Peters is no stranger to the world of Nashville songwriting. Her songs have been recorded by Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, George Strait, Martina McBride, and Patty Loveless who was nominated for a 1996 song of the year Grammy for Peters’ “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am.” for such a prolific songwriter it’s surprising that her seventh solo album, One To The Heart, One To The Head is a covers album. On it she partners with L.A. native, El Paso resident and Renaissance man Tom Russell who penned one song, Guadalupe, co-produced and painted the album cover image of what looks like a stylized dead horse. Russell knows his way around songwriting, his songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith, Dave Alvin and Suzy Bogguss as well as 16 solo releases. These are two heavyweights and they bring their considerable collective talents to bare on a great release.
OTTH,OTTH is referred to as a “western album” which Peters tapped into her earlier life in Boulder, Colorado to draw inspiration. The instrumental opener North Platte does set a western landscape with a Elmer Bernstein or Jerome Moross sense of expanse as well as gravity. The landscape contracts just a bit for the stark and beautiful Prairie In The Sky which beautifully highlights Peter’s shimmering trill as she floats over cello and piano accompaniment. Bob Dylan’s Billy 4, from the soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah’s film Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, gets a serious borderlands infusion with Joel Guzman’s extraordinary Conjunto-style accordion and Russell bringing his silky-graveled voice counter to Peters’.
Tom Dundee’s tale of cultural isolation shines as the classic country sound of These Cowboys Born Out Of Their Time and with Russell’s end of the road lament Guadalupe woe never sounded so good. The accordion and barrel house piano that kicks off Bonnie Raitt’s tequila fueled barroom sing-along Sweet & Shiny Eyes sets just the right cantina vibe. It takes guts to cover a Townes Van Zandt song and Snowin’ on Raton is done with delicate beauty and a proper sense of deference. If I Had a Gun furnishes this album with its title. “If I had a gun you’d be dead. One to the heart, one to the head. If I had a gun I’d wipe it clean, my fingerprints off on these sheets. They’d bury you in the cold hard ground, fist full of dirt would hold you down. They’d bury you in the cold hard ground, it’d be the first night I sleep sound.” Peckinpah would be proud.
Gretchen Peters Site | Tom Russell Site | Buy
Buddy Miller was featured on the cover of the No Depression’s final issue last year. The bible of alt.country/Roots/Americana declared Miller the Americana journeyman the Artist of the Decade and it’s hard to argue he’s not. On top of his great solo work Miller played lead guitar and provided backing vocals for Emmylou Harris’s Spyboy band, performed with Steve Earle on his El Corazon tour, performed on Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s 2000 album Endless Night and appeared on several albums by songwriter/singer Lucinda Williams. Most recently Miller has been busy performing lead guitar and backing vocal duties for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand touring band. Julie, his wife of over 20 years, is no slouch either with six solo albums, and three collaborating with Buddy, under her belt. Her songs have been covered by Dixie Chicks, Linda Ronstadt, Lee Ann Womack, Emmylou Harris, Julie Roberts and others.
But as prolific as they are Written In Chalk is their only their third collaboration in their first over six years, and though both Buddy and Julie share vocal duties the real magic comes when Julie’s lyrics are swathed in her world-weary angel vocals and complemented by Buddy’s chameleon-like guitar picking that’s been hewed by years of studio sessions.
Buddy and Julie collaborated on Wide River which was later recorded by Levon Helm and the superb album opener Ellis County, a song aching for the good old/hard days, is cut from the same Steinbeckian gingham. Robert Plant described Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) from Raising Sand as “shimmy music” and Gasoline And Matches has the same vibe, swamp mud guitars and bad ass drums. Julie winsomely sings Don’t Say Goodbye which features Patty Griffin who has the good sense to lend only a supporting role to Julie’s already elegant voice.
Robert Plant lends restrained support for Buddy in a backwoods rendition of Mel Tillis’ What You Gonna Do Leroy which is reported to have been recorded in a dressing room at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre during the Raising Sand tour. The song sounds like the source material for a thousand rock songs not least of all Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues. A Long, Long Time exquisitely shows off Julie’s smoky jazz side and Patty Griffen makes an appearance on the excellent cut Chalk. As good as she is Griffen is she seems superfluous when you have Julie Miller at your disposal. Hush, Sorrow is a pensive beauty with Buddy accomapnied by Regina McCrary. Agian I say, when you have Julie Miller….
Smooth is another “shimmy” style swampy rocker with Buddy and Julie sharing vocals. Julie show up on another delicate beauty with June which was written and recorded as a tribute the day June Carter Cash died. The song is justly somber and celebratory. The Selfishness Of Man is a slow motion testament on hope featuring Emmylou Harris. I love Emmylou but my earlier comments on Patty Griffin’s appearances still apply. Julie would have been a better choice.
Buddy & Julie Miller Site | Buy
