Winning and losing isn't something that usually comes to mind when thinking about music, but the guys in Reckless Kelly say that sometimes at the end of a concert you get one feeling or the other from a crowd. They definitely won Thursday night (Nov. 19) at Nashville's Exit/In. Opened by Scott Miller, the show ran past midnight for an audience that only seemed to want more.
Though it's not even quite Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but feel the Christmas spirit last night (Nov. 19) as my husband and I stood outside Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel. We were sipping hot apple cider and waiting anxiously with hundreds of others gathered to witness the ceremonial lighting of more than two million sparkling lights. It was the official kickoff of the hotel's "A Country Christmas," a series of holiday festivities that will take place through January. Even celebrity chef Paula Dean, entertainer Louise Mandrell and Montgomery Gentry's Eddie Montgomery attended the special commencement. Lucky for us, we got a sneak peek of this winter wonderland.
If you have fans, you have everything. Yes, record labels and money and relationships help but this is a story about how the fans matter the most. Take this guy, Jaron Lowenstein. Never heard of him? Me neither, until I heard some radio people talking (OK, Facebooking) about his new song, "Pray for You," saying listeners were going crazy for it in Detroit, burning up request lines in Cleveland, sending floods of e-mails to a few Wisconsin stations and so on. When I finally heard the song, it all became crystal clear. And it doesn't hurt that Lowenstein is smokin' hot, sings with an earnest voice, has a top-notch band and writes unexpected lyrics about praying that "your brakes go out, your birthday comes and nobody calls, all your dreams never come true."
Let me preface this entry by saying that I love, love, love country concerts. I do wish, however, that an artist would ask me for advice just once on making the perfect set list. I know these artists have to do their big hits -- the ones everybody is paying big bucks to hear. And I know they need to promote their newest album with songs they have on the radio now, or ones they might want on the radio later. And then there are the covers that give everybody a little something unorthodox to remember them by: "Oh my God! You should have heard Keith Urban on 'Material Girl.' He was better than Madonna!"
Some of my earliest memories of really connecting with music come from a Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol. 1: The 20 Greatest Hits CD that my mother owned, and usually it started with a guitar lick. The riffs that John Fogerty wrote with Creedence were so iconic and natural that I never gave any thought to his skill with his instrument. But according to this interview in The Tennessean, even after all of his success he felt guilty about his guitar playing and how he never reached the level of his inspiration, Chet Atkins. Disproving the old-dogs-can't-learn-new-tricks theory, he spent almost two decades practicing and now feels like he can jam with Buddy Miller -- who contributed to Fogerty's The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again album -- without having to apologize first. That's pretty amazing, if you ask me, and shows what determination can do. Needless to say, I am pumped to see what he's got this Sunday at the Ryman. Maybe it will be something like this trailer from his concert DVD, Comin' Down the Road.
In his nostalgic new video, "Charcoal Sky," esteemed singer-songwriter Chip Taylor reminisces about placing nickels on the rails as a kid and listening to his father chat with the conductors. Taylor sets numerous family stories to music on a new album, Yonkers NY, with one of the two discs bolstered with personal anecdotes. Taylor is most recognized for writing "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning" -- which couldn't be more different -- but throughout his brilliant career he's also placed songs with the likes of Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra and Dusty Springfield. There's also a terrific new Chip Taylor anthology on Ace Records, with dozens of vintage artists offering their own renditions of his work, in case you're in the mood for memories too.
I'm not an uber-traditional Catholic. I don't carry a rosary everywhere I go. I still eat meat on Fridays. And when my friend brings home a new Cadillac Escalade, I will definitely covet my neighbor's goods. But then I hear a song like Lee Ann Womack's "There Is a God," and I am so moved, I think maybe I'm more of a believer than I realized.
With a little bit of downtime at the office this week, I finally had a chance to read Beautiful Mess, an autobiography by Diamond Rio that was released a few months ago. It's a quick read and an insightful look at all six guys in the award-winning band, famous for hits like "Meet in the Middle," "How Your Love Makes Me Feel," "I Believe" and "One More Day." I was lucky enough to see them play a county fair in the early 1990s when they were just getting started, and it might even have been my first country concert. However, much of the storyline of the book involves their live performances over the last seven or eight years when Marty Roe just wasn't cutting it vocally. It got so bad that their longtime sound engineer quit the job after repeatedly getting jeered by nearby audience members.
Coming up as a journalist, I was encouraged to read as much as I could, to learn how to tell a story well. During an interview about his new album, Somedays the Song Writes You, I asked Guy Clark if songwriters should take the same tactic. "Yeah, of course, and read something good, too," he said. "Read Dylan Thomas or listen to it. I just got a new CD of the whole Under Milk Wood play. Every time Townes (Van Zandt) and I thought we were pretty hot shit writers, we would put on a tape of Dylan Thomas reading."
Technically I was not invited. Nor were a lot of Tim McGraw fans. But now that it's on the air and online, we can at least feel like we were there for this Invitation Only show. What I love most about McGraw's voice, especially at this show, is that it sounds like velvet. That's a standout right now when so many male country singers are putting a little more gravel and a few more growls in their voices. These shows have such a perfect balance of new and old, too. So you get to hear "Southern Voice" and another moving new one, "You Had to Be There." But there's no shortage of vintage McGraw: "For a Little While," Real Good Man" and "The Cowboy in Me." I also love the way his big Dancehall Doctors band surrounds him in a semi-circle. And the way he answers audience questions so candidly, like how when they're on stage, they see 30,000 people yet they all remember when there were only 30 people.
|
E-commerce on this website is brought to you by MTVN Direct Inc. |
Terms of Use | Job Opportunities |
©2008 Country Music Television, Inc., a Viacom company. A division of MTV Networks. All Rights Reserved.