Country Music Without Boundaries

After a two-plus year hiatus, I’ve decided to revive the blog. We’ll keep doing album reviews, but I also want to do a little more commentary — there’s a lot happening in country music right now, especially with the kickback against the faux outlaw movement and the rise of XXX music led by Shooter Jennings and Hank3. We’ll get into that as we get back into the swing of things.

Just to refresh your memory as to what we’re all about, we have two internet music presences. First is our 24/7 constantly broadcasting Goodtime Country Radio (broadcasting through Live365 as a commercial-free “live” broadcast). We also do a live dj internet radio show on HomeGrownRadioNJ every Wednesday morning between 9am and noon ET where we take requests, feature a Forgotten Artist and play a set of music from a particular year in our Wayback Machine segment — that’s the Goodtime Country Radio Show. Tune into either of these when you get a chance.

We’ll get back into the blog shortly with an album review — it looks like Eric Church’s Chief is up first, followed by Merle Haggard’s Working In Tennessee. Stay tuned!

Despite being a huge Johnny Cash fan, I had not paid a whole lot of attention to his four albums he did for Mercury between 1987 and 1991. The “word on the street” was that they weren’t very good, and his resurrection with Rick Rubin at American Records pretty much overshadowed everything between Cash’s departure from Columbia and the American Recordings album. I did get the Wanted Man compilation of his Mercury stuff and found it uneven. Maybe the critics were right.

During Cash’s post-television years at Columbia he recorded albums with all kinds of arrangements. Some had the classic “boom chicka boom” Cash sound invented by Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant in the 1950s (notably One Piece at a Time) while some had strings – lots of them — such as John R. Cash and Silver. The traditional Cash sound was getting pushed away more and more, however.

Mercury has reissued two of the four Cash albums in a two-fer CD, 1987′s Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town and 1990′s Boom Chicka Boom. I had not heard these albums before (other than a couple of songs on the Wanted Man sampler) and it was like finding a brand new Cash album after two decades. Both have their strong points.

Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town continues the sound of his late Columbia years — a watered-down version of the 1960s sound. We start of with Elvis Costello’s The Big Light. Cash seldom sang about “the morning after” a wild night, and this drunk out of your mind song is just out of character for Cash. The Ballad of Barbara is a re-recording of a tune he did on a late Columbia album. This version is better. I’d Rather Have You is a fun song, but not a classic.

That brings us to Let Him Roll, a song written by Guy Clark. This is one powerful song — probably the best Cash ever did on Mercury. This ranks right up there with his best narratives, and could very well be one of the ten best performances of Cash’s career. This song is worth the price of admission.

Waylon Jennings chimes in on The Night Hank Williams Came To Town, a tune about the Drifting Cowboys playing the local auditorium. Next is what was probably Cash’s biggest commercial success on Mercury (albeit a small big success), his cover of the Merle Travis/Tennessee Ernie Ford classic, Sixteen Tons. The Cash version bounces a little more than Ernie’s. Letters From Home works a common theme of Cash songs, although Send A Picture of Mother from the Folsom Prison album conveys the same message a little better. W. Lee O’Daniel (And the Light Crust Dough Boys) recounts the early days of Western Swing, but misses in its production. Another Guy Clark tune, Heavy Metal (Don’t Mean Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me), bogs down for some reason. The album finishes off with My Ship Will Sail with all the Cash clan joining in.

That brings us to Boom Chicka Boom. Suddenly we have most of the extraneous instrumentation stripped away and Cash is in great voice with good material and a great sound behind him. The set starts off with A Backstage Pass, a story about everyone with a backstage pass at a Willie Nelson show (“There were wackos and weirdos and dingbats and dodos and athletes and movie stars and David Allan Coe…”). Funny stuff. Next up is Harry Chapin’s Cat’s In the Cradle which lopes along with the Cash beat. This is possibly the best version of this song I have ever heard. Following is the Farmer’s Almanac, which Cash has a lot of fun. It’s very reminiscent of Sold Out of Flagpoles from the One Piece at a Time album.

Cash recorded Don’t Go Near the Water on his Ragged Old Flag album on Columbia, and a better version of it appears on this album. The Cash sound brings fresh life to the old chestnut Family Bible (and Cash’s mother Carrie can be heard in the background). Harley is a song about getting ahead and falling behind in business and is as relevent now as it was then.

I Love You, Love You falls a little flat (and real guys wouldn’t promise a woman all this anyhow — guys don’t change). Hidden Shame was written by Elvis Costello, and while I really wanted to like this song I just couldn’t. The song doesn’t fit the Cash sound. We’re back to a great match of sound and material with Monteagle Mountain, a truck driving song in the spirit of Dick Curless’s Tombstone Every Mile. The album finishes off with the somewhat predictable That’s One You Owe Me. If you were to list the Top Ten Johnny Cash Albums of All Time, Boom Chicka Boom might not make the list, but you’d sure have to give it a lot of consideration. With Cash changing direction in 1994, it will go down as the last great stand of the traditional Cash sound.

Songs added to Goodtime Country Radio rotation:
Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town — Let Him Roll, The Night Hank Williams Came To Town
Boom Chicka Boom — A Backstage Pass, Cat’s In the Cradle, Farmer’s Almanac, Family Bible, Harley, Monteagle Mountain

Okay, this two album set is sold as one unit, so we’ll judge it that way. Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town has one of Cash’s greatest performances of all time on it but is otherwise average, so on its own it would get three stars. On the other hand, Boom Chicka Boom is going to pull in five stars for being consistently strong. Give the set four stars. ****

Fresh off their #1 hit on the Texas music charts we have Honeybrowne, a quartet out of Austin. Their new release is fairly typical Texas fare, which is to say it’s better than mainstream country.

Kicking off Mile By Mile is Help Me Find My Way Home, which gives the album a great opening. By the chorus you’ll be hooked on Honeybrowne’s music. Yesterday’s News follows, which is slightly more of a rocker — if you like Reckless Kelly, you’ll enjoy this. Good sound. The group mellows out with the title song, Mile By Mile, but so far three songs into the album we have three winners.

Love Wanted could have been recorded by Lonestar (except Lonestar would have given it a lot more of a pop sound). Nonetheless, would be fairly typical if it were coming out of Nashville; coming out of Austin it’s simply not that good. The group gets back on track with Left Me A Mess, which reminds me of lyrics Rodney Crowell would have written with its observations of regular life on the downside. A touch of honky tonk comes in on Bowling Green, a bouncy song across Kentucky. Trouble’s Got a Thing For Me isn’t quite up to the rest of the material on the album.

Personal Lullabye is not what you’d expect from a lullabye with its strong beat. Very listenable, but it might not put you to sleep. The weakest song on the album is Line, Sinker & Hook, a cute idea gone awry. The album closes strong with their recent #1 Texas hit, Put That Ring Back On Your Finger.

Songs added to Goodtime Country Radio rotation — Help Me Find My Way Home, Yesterday’s News, Mile By Mile, Left Me A Mess, Bowling Green, Put That Ring Back On Your Finger.

The Texas music scene is worth checking out if you like country music but are unhappy with the pop/bad 80s music sound coming out of Nashville. Honeybrowne will show you what the music is all about. Four stars, easy.

This album suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. It’s called Hall of Fame 1997, commemorating the year Harlan Howard was inducted into the Nashville museum; the release notes say it came out in 2002; but if you poke around you’ll find that this album consists of nine of the twelve songs that appeared on Harlan’s 1971 album To the Silent Majority With Love. And it’s important to know this because the album is full of pro-America sentiment at the time the Vietnam War was battering down a weary nation.

There is a little bit of a problem with over-production on this album, as some songs have an annoying horn or something coming out of one of the stereo speakers. But Harlan’s songwriting and voice carry the album nicely. For those who don’t know Harlan Howard, he wrote songs like I Fall To Pieces, Busted, The Streets of Baltimore, Pick Me Up On Your Way Down and a myriad of others. On the country song writer scale you have (in my opinion) Kris Kristofferson on top, but just behind him are Harlan Howard and Hank Cochran. Harlan is one of the best.

As a singer, Harlan is fairly typical of singer-songwriters — he has a limited range, but he uses those limits to put life into the songs. Mellow and somewhat reminiscent of a less-polished Charlie Rich.

The album starts off with Sunday Morning Christian, a song recorded by Cal Smith. That annoying horn in the left speaker is present, but Harlan interprets this song his way rather nicely. Next up is Uncle Sam, a stand-by-your-country ode. Funny, it could have been written today and been just as relevent.

The Little Boy Who Follows Me is not Harlan’s best work. You could compare it to some of the sippy cup drivel that has come out of Nashville recently. The straight-country arrangement and Harlan’s vocals make it listenable, however. Better Get Your Pride Back Boy is a trucker vs. hippy story, with a touch of deserter criticism tossed in. That annoying horn is back in the left speaker. Three Cheers For the Good Guys sticks up for the “regular joes” who never get credit for just being regular.

She Called Me Baby was recorded by Charlie Rich when he was with RCA, and was finally released as a single after Charlie hit it big with Behind Closed Doors on Epic in 1973. Here we get a pretty good comparison of Harlan’s voice as compared to Charlie’s. Pretty good stuff.

A Little More Time mixes narration with a sung chorus. Three people are profiled in the song, and it’s quite the eclectic mix — Stephen Foster, John Kennedy and Jesus. Hmmmmm. The Chokin’ Kind was recorded by Tanya Tucker and may be the strongest vocal on this album as Harlan’s voice works within his range. The album finishes up with Mr. Professor, a tune about how good Christian kids are sent to college where they are taught (corrupted) by liberal anti-God anti-war teachers.

While most of this album isn’t Harlan’s best writing work, it does give a rare glimpse into how he interprets his own music (although I’d bet he’d have gone for a few fewer instruments backing him). Harlan’s warm vocals carry the day.

Songs added to Goodtime Country Radio’s rotation: Sunday Morning Christian, Uncle Sam, She Called Me Baby, The Chokin’ Kind.

Final thoughts — if you aren’t a fan of 1970s country, then leave this one alone. But if you like Charlie Rich, you’ll probably enjoy this one. It would have gotten four stars, but the production brings it down just a notch to three. ***

Ever hear a really good song and rush out to buy the album, only to discover that the one really good song sounds nothing like the rest of the album? Welcome to Son of a Preacher Man by half of Big & Rich, namely John Rich.

Shuttin’ Detroit Down is perhaps the best song to come out so far in 2009 and it kicks off this set of tunes, some topical of today’s times. One fear you have with Rich is that he’ll slide into the buffoonery that marred the Big & Rich collaborations. He avoids that for the most part, and in the process might play it a little too safe. Anyhow, the first track on this album is a more-than-solid great country tune.

Sadly, the album rapidly slides downhill from there. Trucker Man has the in-your-face guitars that marked Big & Rich, but really doesn’t do a whole lot other than make noise. Good Lord and the Man is a song about World War II and patriotism. Not quite Toby Keith, and not bad. Another You is a power ballad that Rich’s voice can’t pull off.

The album almost regains traction with Preacher Man, but the bluesy sound at the beginning degenerates into an over-produced ending. I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love is typical 1980s pop — perhaps Rod Stewart could have done better with this song. Once again, we get an over-produced finale. John escapes the ballads with Everybody Wants To Be Me, a rocker of the first order. Not a good rocker, but a rocker nonetheless. It’s vaguely reminiscent of Huey Lewis’s The Heart of Rock And Roll. Vaguely.

You can’t have John Rich without a neo-hillbilly white trash ode, and If You Want To Turn a Country Boy On fills the bill here. This kind of stuff was interesting back when Hank Jr. was first doing it, but in the ensuing three decades it’s gotten pretty predictable. The album bottoms out with Why Does Somebody Always Have To Die. This one is difficult to describe. Blues? Bad? I’ll go with bad blues. After Why Does … the bland predictability of I Thought You’d Never Ask is a breath of not really fresh air. Steve Wariner does this kind of material soooo much better. This one has radio-ready written all over it.

Just about the time you think the album has completely clunked out, along comes Drive Myself To Drink. This is a 1940s swing arrangement with country-drinkin’ lyrics. The juxtaposition of the conflicting styles is really a hoot. Great, great tune. Great, great idea. Think Sinatra singing lyrics written by Harlan Howard.

Songs added to Goodtime Country Radio’s rotation: Shuttin’ Detroit Down; Good Lord and the Man (barely); Drive Myself To Drink.

Overall this album would probably rate only two stars out of five for its long stretch of blandness in the middle. But the bookend songs of Shuttin’ Detroit Down and Drive Myself To Drink pull the rest of the material up a notch. Let’s give John Rich three stars out of five. ***

What is it with country music? Especially country radio? Everyone tries to fragment the music into sub-genres, when the beauty of country music is the combination of sound and history.

Turn on your radio and you’ll hear “hot country” — Toby Keith, Sugarland, Keith Urban and the rest. But no Clint Black or Randy Travis, never mind Hank Williams. You might catch a passing reference to Johnny Cash, and a token playing of “I Walk the Line” every now and then.

If you’re lucky, you might have a “classic country” station, but even these seem to fragment the music. Some consider “classic” to be post-outlaw — Waylon, Willie, the Oak Ridge Boys, Barbara Mandrell. Others consider “classic” to be pre-outlaw — Hank and Lefty, Bill Anderson, Buck Owens (but not Jimmie Rodgers or Floyd Tillman). There’s very little cross-over between the two versions of  “classic.”

So I’ll ask again — What is it with country music? Country music is a tapestry, not a few random threads. It’s Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams and Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and Garth Brooks and — gulp — even Carrie Underwood. And if you follow the branches of country music away from the main trunk, you’ll find the Eagles and the Byrds and — continuing further out — Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen.

That’s the purpose of Goodtime Country Radio — to present the full tapestry. We like Lucinda Williams and Hank Thompson and Bob Dylan and George Strait. We’ll explore more of this in the days and weeks to come. Listen — it’s all country!