ballot reprise, comments cont. from Ghost Writers In The Sky

(that's a link)

Don Allred’s 2010 Country Critics Poll Ballot

(Listed just in the order they come to mind)

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2010:

1. Lydia Loveless: The Only Man (Peloton)

2. Nancy McCallion: Take a Picture of Me (Mama Mama)

3. Jamey Johnson: The Guitar Song (Mercury)

4. Chely Wright: Lifted Off The Ground (Vanguard)

5. Minton Sparks: Live at the Stadium Inn (MSM)

6. Marshall Chapman: Big Lonesome (Tallgirl)

7. Jace Everett: Red Revelations (Wrasse)

8. Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do (ATO/Red)

9. Los Lobos: Tin Can Trust (Shout Factory)

10. Marty Stuart: Ghost Train (The Studio B Sessions

(Hon Mentions: Justin Earle Townes: Harlem River Blues, Merle Haggard: I Am What I Am, Willie Nelson: Country Music, John Mellencamp: No Better Than This, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Hawk [the 7 or 8 tracks (out of 13)I like are all country]) Terry Ohms: What Do You Mean, What Do I Mean? [see Campbell & Lanegan comment, add term: “redneck bossa nova”] Moutain Man: Made The Harbor [also partly cloudy country). Black Prairie: Feast of the Harvest Moon, Corinne Chapman: Dirty Pretty Things [reversing this year’s trend: a strong indie country-rock (but no more so than a lot of country pop]EP that deserves expansion to album]), Various Artists: Twistable Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein (Sugar Hill)[despite crappy tracks from Jim James and Black Francis, even Kristofferson sounds good!) Choice Cuts: several on Deer Tick’s The Black Dirt Sessions)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2010:

1.Sunny Sweeny: "From A Table Away" (Republic)

2. Tony Joe White: "All" (Swamp)

3. Tony Joe White: "Tell Me Why" (Swamp)

4. Secret Sisters featuring Jack White: "Big River" (Third Man)

5. Miranda Lambert: ""Only Prettier (Columbia)

6. Robert Plant with Patty Griffin: "Harm’s Swift Way" (New Rounder)

7. Laura Bell Bundy: "Giddy On Up" (Mercury)

8.Kenny Chesney: "Hemingway’s Whiskey" (BNA)

9. Pretty Lights: "After Midnight/Midnight Rider"(Live Cale/Allman Mix) (Pretty Lights)

10. Keith Urban: "Put You In A Song" (Capitol)

(Hon Mentions: Olof Arnalds: "Close My Eyes," Isobel Campbell with Willy Mason: "No Place To Fall," Corinne Chapman: Dirty Pretty Things, Drive-By Truckers: "Your Woman Is A Living Thing," Reba: "Strange," Deer Tick: "Goodbye, Dear Friend")

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2010:

1.Hamper McBee: The Good Old-Fashioned Way (Drag City)(usually poignant and always ripe, rolling notes between teeth so easily some other teeth must have sacrificed themselves to make more, room, except no probs with diction, so how does he do it. Not “revelatory” as claimed for his discovery by folkies in mid-60s, but this is late-ish 70s. Not many probs with his tasteful deep folk standards and beyond tasteless anecdotes/testimonials and songs in the same throbbing vein, that sure seem like they could be even deeper folk standards)

2. Roland White: I Wasn’t Born To Rock ‘n’ Roll (Tompkins Square)(protesteth too much) But I Sure Can Cook (true)

3.Wynn Stewart: "Another Day, Another Dollar" (Sony) (reissued as mp3 in 07, but much more exposure in 2010, in Volkswagen Jetta commercial )

4.Ray Charles & Johnny Cash: "Why Me Lord?" (Concord)(yep, another single, actually virtually swinging the Kristofferson groaner)(prev. unreleased, but old enough to qualify)

5.Riley: Grandma’s Roadhouse (Delmore)

The picture's faded, and Riley's set free! How often does that happen in a country song, or any song? Not nearly enough, and he rejoices. But he's the dominant and gut-busting voice, which will take some getting used to. He's better on the more rocking tracks--the bonus tracks are excellent and should have been on the LP, losing the included version of the title track, (that cool, down the steps melody's revealed in the outtake; no need for the master's rawkus caucus). Also could ditch "Field of Green", which distractingly recalls Crosby Stills & Nash; ditto "Funky Tar Paper Shack", with its "Lodi" roll. This version of "Easy People" 's recurring suggestion of "The Weight" is a little distracting, but main distraction is Riley's vocal squeezebox. But at least six keepers. Really digging the rubbery sustain over tilting groove, in "Gotta Get Away", especially, and many trax have some truly pungent electric piano (a truly rare thang re electric pianos of those years)

Update: Those and other keys, also guitars, are played by Gary Stewart, who co-wrote or wrote the tracks----backstory and all the music's here: https://delmorerecordings.com/album/grandmas-roadhouse

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2010

1. Olof Arnalds: ( seemingly off-the-cuff, except spot-on [-the-cuff, I guess) performances of some songs like “We’re Not The Jet Set” in YouTube archived visits to radio stations etc. Oops started to jump the gun again---main comments follow:

 Veteran Columbus OH teen Lydia Loveless sometimes includes the
Replacements' intensely frustrated "Answering Machine" and Def
Leppard's dynamically mesmerized "Hysteria" with her punky tonk combos
deliveries, unstoppably tumbling up, down and onto life's thrilling,
killing, chilling and flat moments. Loretta Lynn's points of departure
are extended and twisted through Loveless' compactly epic,
self-written debut, The Only Man, as desperately wired sexual power
struggles zap the void in passing: "Girls suck/They suck and suck and
never get enough," wails one contender, but it's time to ricochet off
another incisive epitaph.
Drive-By Truckers' The Big To-Do is one of their best-played,
best-sung, best-recorded, best-written albums ever. Pretty much in
that order, to the credit of this self-described "lyrics-driven" band.
The music crashes through "clouds that took Daddy up to Heaven" like
angry, daredevil spirits, before discreetly sniffing sleazy, eerie
evidence of real life's solved crimes and lingering mysteries. Young
Shonna Tucker's voice, bass and country/Motown/British Invasion-fueled
original songs unstoppably testify, further sparking the catchy
crackle of unexpectedly fresh perspectives on known zones of strange
weather.
Pretty Lights is DJ/Producer Derek Vincent Smith, frequently traveling
with jazz/hip-hop drummer Adam Deitch. Smith seeded 2010 with metal
chestnut " The Final Countdown", which becomes strenuously affirmative
gospel science, right be fore J.J. Cale's original "After Midnight"
pursues Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" over spinning borders. Pretty
Lights' poetic distortion is no more paradoxical than the blues, as a
mutating sample on Making Up A Changing Mind spells out, "I know you
been hurt/By somebody else/I can tell by the way/You carry yourself."
Mountain Man are three young women who explore and savor dimensions
and implications of everyday imagery, in mostly a cappella
harmonies.On debut set Made The Harbor, emotions also harmonize, so
whether you hear them singing "You make my bread and my wine" or "You
make my red in my white", it sounds right. Like Emily Dickinson and
the most talented service workers, Mountain Man's true folk tradition
lies in fluidly, boldly editing the stories worth sticking to. They
cut their losses and wins into a shapely path.
Nancy McCallion's Take A Picture of Me wisely includes no Mollys
re-makes, unlike her self-titled collection. It does include several
fellow ex-Mollys, all new material and tensile vitality to brace
conversational (yet deftly compressed) eloquence, Nothing pretentious,
nothing she couldn't look somebody in the eye and say--nor anything
she'd have to look somebody in the eye and say, no overt sales
technique required. If that's not mainstream enough, oh well. Key
phrase, mebbe: "In sorrow, not despair." Some sway-alongs on the way
to refreshing your drink too, like "It's never too late to get
lucky/It's never too early to cry." Accordions, electric picking,
boots disturbing the dust a mite--missing the fiddle though.

(For my Mollys gateway saga, with later links at end:

https://myvil.blogspot.com/2005/12/clockwork-pinata.html
Minton Sparks is a poet, maybe playwright, anyway increasingly drawn
to musical expressiveness of the spoken word, esp with former Dylan
touring guitarist John Jorgenson. Familiar elements and you can call
it Southern Gothic, but there's no zoning out in oh-wow morbidity,
although her characters shine in tough spots, hopping like bugs about
to be crushed. But not too soon, and they use their moment in the
light memorably (like Nancy McCallion's gal, who instructs: "Take a
picture of me", or so Sparks' canny observers hear it, as they slip
closer, closer than they intended in some cases, close as required. We
even get some high school girl's basketball team bus folk-bug
hip-hop, on the way home from this week's big game: "I can tell by
your eyes you been kissin' Mr. Wise/Say sardines/An' pork an' beans."
Yeah she's got some hooks, and some call her the Soutthern Laurie
Anderson, although for that you might get closer with Jo Carol
Pierce's Bad Girls Upset By The Truth.Yet Sparks and Pierce both lack
most of Anderson's sentimental tendencies--any (the few) angels
dropping by ate crusted with whatever's most likely up there.
Justin Townes Earle's voice smoothly paves the way for romantic
fatalism and/or squirrelly urges, currently far too restless for even
the joyful choir of suicide resolutions, on the title track of his new
album, Harlem River Blues. Diverting uptempo reveries reverberate
through boxcars, bars, beds and subway tunnel walls, while Earle
continues "punching holes in the dark", until he gets it just right.
On Los Lobos' Tin Can Trust, it seems like the narrator is on the
verge, he's some old tired guy, but made up his mind to do something,
take revenge and/or a commission, various indicators of volatility
keep rolling by or up the block, and little jolts--I know, enough with
the foreplay already, but the tension keeps getting renewed,
reinforced, and the Dead cover fits perfectly, with no crunchy granola
attached (it's all sidewalks and traffic, the whole album, and then
there's the sardonic "happy ending" history short). A cliche to say
it's a soundtrack for movies you can make up, but it really seems to
work that way, rumbling implications--if it were so definite a
storyline, would get too familiar too fast, perhaps. It is badass
urban country, obsessive as a shot glass lens.
When I first heard that familiar mid-tempo chug of Chely Wright's
Lifted Off The Ground, I thought for a moment it was gonna be too
musically straight, with pop-psychology shadows and positivity, but
the first song quickly unfolded into complex clarity, and the music is
luminous, it's all seamless, chugging those detailed lyrics right
along. Not just, "Look, this is how mainstream country could be,
incorporating this stuff we haven't talked about", but, "This is it,
this works now." I would like room for a big ol' righteous yowly slide
guitar solo in "Damn Liar", and maybe some more instrumental
kick-out-the-walls in other songs, and it seems a bit dicey that so
many of the songs are probably that voice in her head. But there's
room for interpretation, especially the last track, so nice and
sensuous and welcoming the instruments to crawl into and around the
bed she's perching on, while she addresses whomever it may concern
(mind that trace of her punchline-as-preview passing by). Liked
Merle's and Willie's latest, and some others I may comment on, but,
since they (like many others) both sport an EP's worth of keepers,
they'll all benefit from the sentiment of those who favor a return to
EPs as country albums.This set needs no such plus-size/-sign
adjustments.
John Mellencamp, No Better Than This (Hon. Mention)not nec expecting
that much,but past the first couple tracks, things got amazing pretty
quickly. Track 3 def conjures with the fiddle, which I just realized
may not be on many other tracks, but by the same token, it really is
the overall vibe, as advertised--plus the songwriting. "A Graceful
Fall", despite its fancy title, is a genuwine honky tonk classic;
could def see it on Merle's next set, with any luck. And "No One Cares
For Me At All" ("If I had to guess/It's cawse I'm spotty at best")
totally gets that side of Hank, and his studies of Jimmie and Woody
have paid off as well. "Love At First Sight" could be the pappy of
Paisley's excellent "Me Neither", albeit with a twist in the last
line; ditto the parting spark of "Easter Eve", to say the least. And
Coug Age catchiness isn't off the map either (reminds me that, just as
we might not know or care about musical differences between 1830s and
18880s, many now living are likewise 1930s & 1980s, or soon enough
will be--and indeed, long as it works)
Having written plays with novelist Lee Smith and a new book also just
about to be published around the time of this album's release,
Marshall Chapman reportedly hadn't planned to get back into making
albums, but was inspired by Tim Krekel, a compatibly idiosyncratic
music biz lifer (he contributed an intricately comfortable version of
"Version City" to The Sandinista! Project, which mad comp coutained
enough country to make a previous Scene ballot). They were set to do a
set of duets, when he was diagnosed with cancer, and died three months
later. Chapman was floored, but the completed Big Lonesome rolls on,
through many sensuous shades of blue The opening title track is a
companionably speculative duet, the only studio duet they completed
apparently (an equally fluid and compact live duet closes the album).
Then, she's left looking "Down To Mexico", staring at the distance
they were gonna travel together, to record in San Miguel. She repeats
a few lines, then it sounds like she's beginning to see the way, the
route still there, the possibilties of what they had planned, and
glimpsed together. So she gets up, starts to move, groove cautiously
at first, but persistently, gathering momentum, in the sultry
nocturnal atmosphere of the track.
And this really sets the tone, way before we get to her Hank cover:
"The silence of a falling star/Lights up the purple sky". Hank
reportedly had doubts about "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", wondered if
he'd gotten carried away with the imagery, but Chapman wisely doesn't
try to follow his formidable vocal delivery, she keeps it more
conversational and late in the set, re-affirming what she trusts we
can feel. And she trusts the music, mostly self-written, but recorded
with Will Kimbrough and others she'd never met before. Despite having
been out of recording for so long, she does that, and the sound is
sensuous release and relief of grief in life, in living. Its aesthetic
isn't prettification (no mention of angels that I've noticed, no
balloons released over the gravesite), it's also discipline, focus,
that kind of release and relief as well.
Plus a number of connections that fall into place, like in the live
duet, she mentions how she and Tim reached a stalemate in songwriting,
took a walk and came back to find a tree lying across their path. They
took this as a good omen, and finished their song. Also a song she
wrote by herself "Falling Through The Trees", which is more about
becoming aware, and that "falling star" of Hank's and the way
"believing in" chaos, entrophy etc also implicity involves things
sometimes falling into a good (though not nec. "better") place, like
this album. That's the beginning of "Riding with Willie", where she
comes up with her own variant of Nelsonic philosophy while observing
(she's usually pretty observant) Willie and Bobbie making music on the
bus, which surely fits with (and precedes) the final duet with Tim
(they were like brother and sister, kindred spirits with long-time
spouses, which also helps the album's balancing act). They Came To
Nashville, Chapman's newly collected profiles of and conversations
with fellow pilgrims, led her to complete "Riding", re: "Bobbie and
Willie play music all night/Songs long forgotten come to light/That's
the way I like it. " Anyway, Big Lonesome's no masterpiece, but it
makes a clear, strong impression that lingers, good to listen to while
thinking about it, and vice versa, unlike a number of albums better
for one or the other.
bonus track: double bill preview:
Icelandic singer/songwriter Olof Arnalds gently nudges folk-shaded
nostalgia toward fresh fascination,via breezes from her native turf of
volcanoes, glaciers, mud, and blown-out banks. She's also at home in
several languages,while covering tropicalia pioneer Caetano Veloso's
" Maria Bethania", a tribute to his equally restless sister, and
slipping through newly beveled levels of Springsteen's "I'm On Fire",
which begins with an easy familiarity, "Hey little girl, is your daddy
home?" She also favors the homely poise of country classics like
George Jones and Tammy Wynette's "We're Not The Jet Set", traveling
with the right feel even when picking it up second hand ("We're the
Prine and DeMent set"). Cheyenne Marie Mize nurtures lines like "I
knew we would see/It was all for the best", in a post-Americana ghost
town of explosive implications. She also grows narrative from
repetition, like Willie Nelson on a good night. That's where the
resemblance ends, fortunately.

¶ 1/11/2011 0 comments