It was June of 2014, and an unsolicited submission came into my inbox from an artist named Luke Bell, accompanied by a BandCamp link to an album called ‘Don’t Mind If I Do.’ Nearly six years later, the most common query that lands into that same inbox that Luke Bell first submitted his music to is “Where is Luke Bell?”
In some ways, bass singers are like the superheroes of music. The rarest of all the vocal ranges, they can doing things the rest of us just can’t do. But when nobody’s looking, when we’re behind the wheel or home alone, we try and pretend we can. Because singing bass is super cool. It’s the air guitar of vocal ranges.
This new Trolls movie is very explicitly lashing out against the monogenre, and the intrusion of other musical forms into other genres, just like what Saving Country Music has been actively advocating against for a dozen years now.
These Opry performances during the Coronavirus have held a unique gravity due to the circumstances, and you can feel that weight in each song and moment. But sticking out like a sore thumb through the process has been the presence of pop country radio personality Bobby Bones.
With the recent death of John Prine at the hands of COVID-19, the question has been posed by many about the legendary songwriter’s prospects of ever being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It’s an interesting discussion point for sure, and one with a few important qualifiers.
We were lucky that we had John Prine as long as we did—on loan from the cosmos. But life on this cold ball of rock was always too ordered and normal for John. So now he’s moved on to where light and love comprise the ground and sky, to spin his little stories that might seem silly or even inane if written on paper, but rang profound in our hearts and souls.
And we’re not talking close approximations here that come up commonly in music. Whether it’s the latest symptom of the sameness permeating much of mainstream country at the moment, or a straight up ripoff is a matter for audio experts and the courts. But the similarities are patently obvious.
Any effort to give more emphasis to artists who are deserving of a greater share of the spotlight in country music should be seen as a sum positive, and generally supported, including this Indigo playlist. But there are some serious issues with Indigo, first and possibly foremost being that the name.
Jan Howard’s death was marked with obituaries enumerating her many accomplishments in country music, including her hits, her collaborations with John Anderson, and her long tenure at the Grand Ole Opry. But when it comes to Jan Howard, it was just as much about the work she did off the stage, and out of the spotlight.
Sure, perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the indefinite hiatus of the boys from Oklahoma has us all foggy-eyed in recollection. But according to one industrious Twitter user’s social experiment in the midst of the Coronavirus quarantine, the Turnpike Troubadours rule the roost.
Holly Williams, Sam Williams, and Hilary Williams were featured on a new CMT series called “Another Round” that looks to capture performers in an intimate setting. But noticeably absent from this assemblage of Hank Jr.’s progeny was Hank Williams III.
It’s hard enough to get the world to pay attention to your record when so many of them are being released every week. Now artists are having to compete with Coronavirus news for the world’s attention, along with the nightly parade of live streaming concerts many artists are offering to help supplement income due to touring losses.
With passing of Kenny Rogers, there’s the passing of a little part of all us—a little part of our childhood where he loomed so large, a little part of our silly little slivers of life in this world where he reigned so ironically, a little part of ourselves where we separate certain eras in our own histories to the contributions of this bearded singer and actor.
In a teary-eyed address on Instagram Wednesday night (3-18), Zac Brown explained that after 15 years of touring, he was having to let go of 90% of his full time employees as part of his road crew due and support staff due to the Coronavirus cancellations. Though there is no doubt this was a tough decision for Zac Brown, some are questioning if it was necessary.
This is bound to create a problem in the already-crowded festival and touring space. Even before Coronavirus, we saw many festivals cancelling or postponing 2020 plans due to the inability to secure talent or due to competing festivals moving into their markets. Now you will have spring festivals competing with fall ones.
The fans of much-beloved Texas music songwriter Dalton Domino were disappointed to scroll through their social media feeds on Saturday (3-14) to see a missive from the Lubbock, TX native that seemed to imply he’s done with music. Finito. Game over. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you,” Dalton posted.
When it comes to saving country music in the mainstream, Tim McGraw and Reba McEntire both have played important roles recently. During Tim McGraw’s time at Big Machine, he showed a somewhat unexpected but welcomed turn to his roots, and Reba’s “Stronger Than The Truth” was one of the best mainstream albums in years.
Well here we sit on the eve of the Ides of March, just a few days removed from live music Armageddon the likes we’ve never seen before in history, in a moment we’re sure to remember keenly for generations to come. Fears of the spread of the Coronavirus have now reached every sector of music. But the Grand Ole Opry endures.
When Dierks Bentley announced that his next album cycle would surround his screw off side project with his road band called Hot Country Knights and that they’d actually signed to UMG Nashville, we really didn’t know what to expect. We knew he was getting silly, but we had no idea he’d be getting funny too.
Without a single case of the Coronavirus either confirmed or even suspected at the moment in Austin, TX or the greater Travis county area, the mayor of Austin, Steve Adler, has declared a “local disaster,” mandating that the music portion of SXSW set to transpire in Austin the 3rd week of March will no longer happen, against the wishes of SXSW itself.
“Nashville.” Oh how people love to wag a dirty finger in its direction as this monolithic homogenized reprehensible blob-like entity looming on the horizon, responsible for all the current ills in country music and some of the cultural filth beyond.
Tyler Childers is already regarded as one hell of a singer, songwriter, and country music performer, so much so that even without mainstream radio play, he’s getting nominated for Grammys. But who the hell knew this boy could play fiddle too?
As tax season approaches and we get the opportunity to tie a bow around the doings of 2019, it’s always interesting to look back on the year at the Grand Ole Opry to see which performing members are paying their proper dues to country music’s most historic institution, and which one’s aren’t.
Handing out the award for Best Rockabilly Male were rockabilly legends Jim Heath of The Reverend Horton Heat, and Nick 13 of Tiger Army. As opposed to the regular canned statements ahead of handing out the award, Nick 13 spoke about the importance of not just rockabilly, but all roots music that is going ignored in mainstream music.