CMT Blog: History

Rosanne Cash's music has remained one of the constants in my life as a young adult. I've always felt a connection to her songs, even though I've never felt that "Seven Year Ache" or escaped from a hectic life by "Sleeping in Paris." After reading her new memoir, Composed, it seems that we also share an inherent urgency to travel, an early love for language and a determination to build a life in music. Fortunately, Cash is further gifted with the ability to write concise lyrics with an interesting melody to match, plus her earthy singing voice is so revealing. All the while she remains rooted to country music through her father, Johnny Cash, and their intimate connections to the Carter Family, but continues the circle on her own terms.

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If it was not for Jerrod Niemann's swift rise to fame, and his very infectious "Lover, Lover," I might never have heard of Sonia Dada. Neimann remade the group's 1992 hit, "You Don't Treat Me No Good," into "Lover, Lover." And if it was not for Kenny Chesney's "Down the Road," I might not have taken it upon myself to fall in love with Mac McAnally's music, as he sings the thoughts of a hesitant father on that tune. And really, I might not have paid enough attention to Kelly Clarkson until she and Reba McEntire came together for that unforgettable collaboration on Clarkson's "Because of You."

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Kanye West wants a fur coat. Kanye West orders bellinis too early. Kanye West drinks New York City tap water. Kanye West likes his new collaboration with Beyoncé. And Kanye West is thrilled he has more than 600,000 followers on Twitter. And that's all well and good, for Kanye West. But have those 600,000 people forgotten what West did? Do they not remember that just about a year ago, he yanked the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hands during her MTV VMA acceptance speech for "Love Story" "You Belong With Me" and told her and the millions watching that, essentially, Beyoncé had the better video? I am not quite over that. So I don't know that I'd want to follow him. Plus, nothing says "It's All About Me" quite like a man with around 610,000 followers and 0 people on his following list.

Photo credit: Christopher Polk/Getty Images

The Desert Rose Band returned to Nashville for the first time in 20 years last night (Aug. 9), arriving to a full Belcourt Theatre -- and eager fans like Emmylou Harris and Brad Paisley at their side. Lead singer Chris Hillman told the crowd that the band decided to reunite for the music's sake, with no intentions of making another record, so there was no new, unfamiliar material to politely sit through. Instead, the dynamic band capably and cheerfully rolled through their country hits from the late 1980s, like the fully-charged "Ashes of Love" (with Paisley taking a verse), "Love Reunited," "One Step Forward," "He's Back and I'm Blue," "Summer Wind" and "I Still Believe in You." As soon as they kicked off the first song, "She Don't Love Nobody," I just couldn't quit smiling. They've still got that cool California vibe, yet with an obvious affinity for traditional country music.

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I thought I could handle the Brooks & Dunn Last Rodeo show I saw last night (Aug. 8) in Chicago. I thought I'd seen them in concert enough that I'd be a bit cavalier about the whole thing and not get swept up in the emotions that come with the realization that this is it. The last time they will saunter down that catwalk. The last time Ronnie Dunn will bring out the "Neon Moon" guitar. The end of an era. But I was so, so wrong about keeping my cool. I was a mess.

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Do you ever meet those music snobs who tsk-tsk your iPod and tell you that music's only good when it's on vinyl? (They are the same folks who tell you that the book was SO MUCH better than the movie.) Well, now the snobs have a new fetish to get all in love with again: cassette tapes. "A tiny but busy tape-based music culture is growing from roots in economic necessity, thrift-store crate-digging and, yes, a pride in being difficult for its own sake," according to a story in the L.A. Times. Even though many of us hated cassettes when they were all we had, all that rewinding and fast forwarding and flipping over to the other side, there's a little burst of nostalgia happening in hip music boutiques. Maybe that's because tapes are tangible. Maybe it's because they are as dirt cheap as the vintage boom boxes you can play them on. Or maybe we all just want to take a little trip back down memory lane to those mix tape days.

Tim McGraw has been officially recognized as the most-played artist of the last decade across all formats. I had a feeling this was the case. It seems like whenever I get in my car, there's some song of his on the radio. Old ones like "Everywhere" and "Don't Take the Girl," and all the new ones like "Southern Voice" and "Still" -- and every single single in between. But I didn't realize it was happening that much and that he was literally the most-played artist overall. Nielsen BDS has been keeping track, though, and their research determined that he had 7,965,000 radio spins from Jan. 1, 2000 to Dec. 31, 2009. This total includes huge hits like "Live Like You Were Dying," "Something Like That" and "Real Good Man." And that's all good news for McGraw, for sure. But it's even better news for fans who have loved him since "Welcome to the Club."

Photo credit: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Most of the Merle Haggard articles out there tend to read like Wikipedia entries. And we already know all about his colorful past. But this new Q&A in Vanity Fair gets down to some new issues, like how Lindsay Lohan should act in jail, why he doesn't sign autographs anymore and what it was like peeing next to Johnny Cash. The back-and-forth with the writer does seem to get off to an awkward start, though. Like when the magazine asks him if he takes "outlaw" as a compliment and he says, "That term does seem to get used an awful lot when people talk about me." So they ask the follow-up question, "But you're not breaking any laws with your music, right?" And Haggard replies, "Not that I know of. We might not be doing country music in the way Nashville would recommend, but I don't think it's illegal." But the very best answer is when they ask him if he thinks "I'm in no mood to be Merle Haggard today?" Haggard answers with a question of his own: "Well, why in the hell would I do that?"

One of the readings at Mass yesterday (July 25) was about Abraham bargaining with God. So naturally, the homily was all about how often people bargain with God when they pray. Like, "Hey God, if you do this for me I swear I'll work at a soup kitchen and feed the homeless for a hundred years." Anyway, because country music is usually always on my mind, I found myself thinking about Brad Paisley's song, "No." It's a song that Paisley wrote with Bill Anderson and Jon Randall and it pulls you in with a duet of piano and steel guitar. The lyrics are about how every prayer you pray gets answered, even though sometimes the answer is no. So Paisley doesn't get the bike he prayed for, he doesn't get away with smoking some stolen cigarettes and at the end he doesn't get to keep his Grandpa here on earth when he is called on home.

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Do you ever get a line from a country song embedded in your mind, not necessarily because it's catchy but because it is just so fitting in so many situations? That's how I feel about this line from Lee Brice's "Love Like Crazy": "Never let your prayin' knees get lazy." It is such a simple thought (always remember to pray), but when I hear it I just think it's so genius that I say it out loud at least 10 times a day and share it with family and friends. But for some reason, the song itself is taking its sweet time to climb up the charts. Billboard is reporting that it is making the slowest climb ever into the top 10 because the tune has been on its way for 46 weeks. It is apparently the fourth-longest chart run in the 66-year history of Billboard's Hot Country Songs. Gary Allan's "Right Where I Need to Be" took 48 weeks back in 2001. Someone at Brice's record label even admitted, "This song was declared dead at least a dozen times, and here we are inside the top 10 and setting records." Brice himself said, "Hey, I'll take it any way I can get it."