Album Review – “Country Never Dies” (Gavin Adcock? Various Artists)

Well this album certainly presents a curious case. All of the marketing and packaging ahead of its release made us believe this would be some sort of Gavin Adcock traditional country covers album, with a host of other artists participating, perhaps in duets with Adcock, all to pay tribute to some of the classics from the country music songbook.

But that’s not exactly what you get. A pair of Gavin Adcock cover songs bookends the 11-song release—a rendition of “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line” by Waylon Jennings, and a version of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” Neither will bump the original out of your listening rotation, but they’re otherwise decent. Yet that’s where Adcock’s participation really begins and ends. He’s also marked as an “executive producer” on the album, but that can really mean anything, including Gavin doing absolutely nothing more than contributing the two songs.

Even more interesting, the metadata for this album treats it like a various artists compilation as opposed to a Gavin Adcock release, even though the press release from Warner Records proclaims, “Gavin Adcock pays tribute to country legends on brand new album.” The primary artist for the album is listed as “Country Never Dies,” not Gavin Adcock, which makes sense seeing how he only appears on two tracks.

Gavin Adcock is one of the most vilified performers in modern country. He might even be one of the most vilified performers in country history at this point. He picks fights with other performers. His shows often descend into a drunken mess with a shirtless Adcock pouring beer and whiskey all over himself and the audience. If anything, the music is the least offensive thing about his career.

So releasing an album where he covers various classic country songs with other up-and-coming artists seemed like a good way to attempt to rehabilitate Gavin’s image, or maybe ingratiate himself to the supposed “gatekeepers” of the country genre, while also paying dues by paying tribute to the past greats. But the way this all unfolds, it feels like a false promise, or a marketing scheme that goes off half-cocked.

Very similar to the marketing, labeling, and rollout of this album, taken as a whole, the music of this release is just kind of a mess. But don’t take that to mean there aren’t some good renditions of classic songs on it. In fact, there are some absolutely excellent ones.

If nothing else positive comes from this compilation/tribute/whatever, we have one of the best renditions of “He Stopped Loving Her Today” ever recorded by anyone not named George Jones. Jake Worthington picked perhaps the hardest composition to attempt to master, called his shot, and hit it out of the park with this one. Kudos, Jake.

The Creekers are a young band out of eastern Kentucky that should definitely be on your radar. They signed with Warner Records recently, and could be poised to break out big time in the coming months. Their take on Keith Whitley’s “Kentucky Bluebird” is excellent, and really shows off what this band is capable of, with different band members taking turns on verses.

Braxton Keith also deserves credit for his rendition of “Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets,” originally performed by Johnny Paycheck. Braxton is a great new neotraditionalist everyone should be aware of. This song does emphasize how he sings slightly higher in the register though, and so it might not be the best entry point to Braxton’s music.

Exposed voices, and poor pairings definitely come into play with many of the remaining songs on Country Never Dies. Ashley Cooke’s version of “Southern Nights” (Glen Campbell) just takes all the grit and punch out of the original treatment, while the Auto-tuned performance is a turn off. Vincent Mason is a quality young artist, but doesn’t really bring anything special to Hank’s “You Win Again.” Austin Snell’s “Simple Man” (Lynyrd Skynyrd) is fine, but doesn’t really add anything new or exciting to the song.

There’s a lot of “going through the motions” energy on this album, including the Gavin Adcock tracks. And though it’s sold as covering great songs from country music’s past, you don’t really think of “Big City Blues” by the late Keith Gattis as such a track, even though that is what Shelby Stone selected to cover. Hudson Westbrook’s take on Conway Twitty’s “Slow Hand” is another questionable contemporary treatment on what’s supposed to be a traditional country album, and exposes another mild voice amid today’s country hopefuls.

Frankly, Gavin Adcock being the “executive producer” of this album and making executive decisions between beer bong shots would make a lot of sense. Though this could have been an opportunity for Gavin to gussy up his country music reputation and bonafides—and for consumers to discover a bevy of new artists and old songs—Country Never Dies feels more like a missed opportunity, and one that could sully Adcock’s reputation even more as a slovenly, low-effort opportunist.

But really, it’s not that this album and the songs and performances are bad. It’s more just … blah. This is one of those albums where you take the handful of real good songs for keeps, and shove the rest aside to never be thought of again.

5.8/10

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