New Adds to Saving Country Music’s Top 25 Playlist (#179)
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Summer is officially in full swing, so what better time to juice up the Top 25 Playlist with some fresh entries. No matter where you turn, new strong country songs, and very promising artists are emerging.
Album Review – Amanda Fields – “What, When and Without”
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Every once in a while, an album or artist comes along, and it only takes a song or two, or maybe even a minute or two of the first song before you to start asking, “Where have you been all my life?” Amanda Fields is one of those artists, and “What, When and Without” is one of those albums.
Country Rapper Katie Noel Goes Viral with “Southern” (A Rant)
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Will this be the next trend to overtake mainstream country? Of course not. That’s part of what is hilarious about this. As disturbing as Katie Noel’s take on “country” is, it’s also horrifically outdated. This stuff peaked in 2011 with Jason Aldean and “Dirt Road Anthem.” Heard from Colt Ford lately?
Billy Strings Goes Full Blown Traditional for Final Nashville Show
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Billy Strings commonly includes traditional bluegrass songs in his live shows, but there is ample improvisation showcased too, which despite the bluegrass instrumentation, can take Billy beyond the bluegrass genre. That’s not what Sunday night was about though. “This is hallowed ground.”
CONFIRMED: ‘Cocaine Bear’ at KY for KY & Origin Story Fictionalized
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Unless you’ve been living on a different planet, you’re probably aware of the movie released on Friday, February 24th called Cocaine Bear about a booger sugar-loving bear that terrorizes people in the woods. The movie is extremely fictionalized, but the “Cocaine Bear” actually did exist.
The Ballad of the Laid Back Country Picker and “Go West”
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Welcome to the world of the country music underground and general audio oddities, eastern Kentucky edition. Making your way to Louisa, Kentucky and Lawrence County on the West Virginia border, you enter the habitat of the one and only Laid Back Country Picker.
The Importance of Music to the World (an excerpt)
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For every pleasure, there is a cost, or a consequence. Relaxation comes at the loss of productivity. A luxury comes at the expenditure of wealth. The one exception to the entanglement of weighted outcomes when it comes to the partaking in the pleasures of life is the illustrious gift of music.
Alan Jackson Assures That He’s Not Done Creating Just Yet
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Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease has affected Alan Jackson’s ability to perform. But Alan Jackson assured people that he’s not done creating just yet, even if he’s not out there playing concerts on a regular basis on his daughter’s podcast “In Joy Life with Mattie Jackson.”
30 Years Ago, Marshall Tucker Band’s Toy Caldwell Dies
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Toy Talmadge Caldwell Jr. is the name his parents gave him when he was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina on November 13th, 1947. Little did Toy Talmadge Caldwell Sr. or anyone else know at that time that they had brought one hell of a spitfire guitar player, singer, and lyricist into the world.
Sturgill Simpson Drummer Miles Miller Announces Debut Album
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You probably know him from being the drummer, bandleader, and harmony singer for Sturgill Simpson during Sturgill’s rise to fame. But if Miles Miller has his way, soon you’ll be regarding him as your new favorite country-flavored singer/songwriter, with his debut album “Solid Gold” on the way.
Album Review – Channing Wilson’s “Dead Man”
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Reaching for Channing Wilson is reaching for the hardest stuff possible in the realm of country music. If this music was alcohol, it’d be the kind of spirits that are illegal in some parts of Alabama—the stuff that dubs as turpentine in a pinch. You want country damn music, straight with no chaser.
February 24th is a Big Release Day. Here’s What Not to Miss
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There have been busier release days in the past year or so with 20+ albums on the Saving Country Music radar hitting the shelves all at once. But it’s who is releasing albums, and what those albums are that makes Friday, February 24th feel like an especially important release day that is worth highlighting.
Lineup for Willie Nelson’s 2023 Luck Reunion Revealed
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Over the last eleven years, one of the major events worth seeking out as a refuge from the madness is Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion held at his ranch just west of town … if you’re lucky enough to be able to get in. Held on the Thursday of SXSW every year (which puts it on March 16th in 2023).