Country traditionalist Big City Brian Wright isn’t the first to record a country trucker album, and he won’t be the last. But he is the first to take a country trucker album, and make it fly.
Country music is unlike most other popular music genres. It’s humans impressing fingers on wood and wire, and singing from the gut and soul in the beautiful imperfection of authentic expression.
You called on him when you wanted something a little different, something a little more soulful, with a rhythm and blues disposition brought to country, or maybe a rock edge.
This Rolling Stone list of the 25 Best Country Soul Albums has so many holes you could strain your spaghetti with it, while simultaneously including some titles that have no business being there.
Whether it was the Tickemaster monopoly, or a situation where the police in Oklahoma were running a speed trap and harassing otherwise law-abiding citizens, Zach Bryan saw something that he believed was unjust, and spoke up.
At the beginning of his career, John Fullbright was considered one of the fastest-rising names in the Americana scene, validated by a Grammy nomination. Now an album released eight years later into a musical world where there are dozens of rising names, the threat is that it gets overlooked.
Yesterday amid many calls for my opinion and participation, I finally tuned into The Voice finale to see what all the hubbub was about … just in time to see Sundance Head performing with KISS. I promptly returned to the Dolly Parton telethon.
Lucinda Williams is getting ready to release a double LP called Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone on September 30th through her new label Highway 30 Records on Thirty Tigers. Lucinda Williams stopped down to talk to Rolling Stone, and she had some interesting things to say when asked if she pays attention to mainstream country much these days.
All the silly talk about who was first and who ripped off who is mute when you bury your nose in the music catalog of the prototype of that predatory, aggressive, two-piece sound that blends blues, rockabilly, rock, country, surf, and a cavalcade of other obscure influences into the wild-eye concoction Dex Romweber has been throwing down for going on 30 years.
As if the Austin, TX guitar slinger-songwriter, and Chili Cold-Blood and Moongangers-fronting Doug Strahan didn’t have enough pots boiling on the stove, here he is throwing together a new project called Doug Strahan and the Good/Bad Neighbors, and releasing a new album Coal Black Dreams, Late Night Schemes that etches yet another notch on his barrel of badass releases.
Did you know the first song to ever be featured on Breaking Bad was a classic country tune by Stonewall Jackson? They may not play real country on the radio anymore, but there’s many different ways you can skin a cat. As popular and critically-acclaimed TV series like Breaking Bad breathe new life into television, they have become an invaluable market for showcasing quality country and roots music from the past and present.
JJ Cale passed away yesterday evening (7-26-13) from a heart attack. He was 74. His influence on music was great. His influence on country music was unfairly unheralded and understated, but important nonetheless. the first established country artist to really do country funk right was Waylon Jennings in 1974 with the song “Louisiana Women” by JJ Cale.