Music & More

Rounder at the Grand Ole Opry

Columbus Day evening at the Grand Ole Opry was a celebration of 40 years of Rounder Records music. The show was hosted by actress/singer Minnie Driver and included performances in the following order: Minnie, Nathan & the Zydego Cha Chas, Bela Fleck, Irma Thomas, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Alison Kraus & Union Station (hereinafter MCC and AKUS). It was quite a diverse musical offering. When I bought the tix on-line through ticketmaster, I didn't know that the show was going to be recorded for a PBS special in March of 2010. If I did, I may not have gone.

The show was supposed to begin at 7:30 pm but it was more like 8:20  by the time it got started. Since the show is going to be televised, they didn't want any empty seats in the front by the stage so people were there to fill them. I believe they didn't have enough regular seat fillers so they had to move other people down from the cheaper seats. In addition to the delay, I found this annoying because when I went on-line to buy seats, I was told that there were no tickets available in that prime area. I can't believe that there were that many no-shows. Maybe they were holding the better seats for their own people and then didn't sell them. It was a pleasant evening, so the weather was not a factor in keeping the attendance down. Before the show started, they asked the audience to provide three types of applause to be recorded for the tv show. The first was a mild sort of applause to welcome the entertainer. The second was an enthusiastic response short of a standing ovation. For the third, whistling was encouraged along with the enthusiastic applause. Apparently, the audience did a good job since no retakes were requested.

The first 4 artists each performed 4 songs while MCC and AKUS performed 5. You had to wait about 10-15 minutes between each act's performance so their own musicians could get set up. It was tough for me to judge the first 4 because I don't know their music and I couldn't always catch what they were singing. This was probably due more to my imperfect hearing than any flaw in their vocals. The acoustics seemed to be excellent.  I don't know how to characterize Minnie's music but she sounded ok and did a good job as MC. Nathan & the Zydego Cha Chas were an interesting group, described in the program as performing "accordion driven dance music of the Creole people of South Louisiana". Bela Fleck I thought was a woman until about a year ago. He's a very talented banjo player. A girl sang on one of his offerings and sounded good but I didn't catch her name and Jerry Douglas joined him on another. Irma Thomas has a great voice. She has been performing for 50 years and is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans". I got a kick out of her song "You can have my husband but don't mess with my man".

The main attractions were MCC and AKUS and both were outstanding. Before Mary could get started, she and Minnie had to make some small talk because of a problem with one of the keyboard instruments. Mary mentioned that she will begin recording a new cd here in Nashville in a week. She has enough songs written for the project which should be completed by Christmas for release next spring. She joked about her orthopedic shoes and height, or lack thereof in comparison to high heeled Minnie. Minnie had to redo part of her introduction for MCC because she inadvertently said "granny" instead of "Grammy".

I'm old. It's past my bedtime and I'm starting to yawn by the time Mary's set begins. I know she sang  "Grand Central Station", "Stones in the Road" and concluded with the rousing "He Thinks He'll Keep Her". But I'm not too sure what the other songs were. There must have been a song from "The Calling", her initial cd with Rounder in 2007. Alison sang "Gravity" and "Restless" and two others, one of which was a religious song written by band member Ron Block which she used to close out the evening. Dan Tyminski also sang but I don't recall the name of the song. During her set, Alison introduced songwriters Robert Lee Castleman and John Pennell and her parents. The show ended around midnight.

Castleman wrote AKUS's single "Forget About It" but it was originally recorded by Suzy Bogguss on her 1994 cd "Simpatico". It was not a single for Suzy. I don't know why but the songwriter was identified on the Simpatico cd as "R.L. Kass" rather than Robert Lee Castleman. In addition to "Forget About It", RLC wrote other great AKUS songs including "Let Me Touch You for a While", "The Lucky One", "Gravity" and "Restless".

Country Story Songs

I always loved story songs. Maybe it's because music to me is primarily for listening rather than dancing. The first story song I remember as a kid was "Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio. Other story songs I liked, although I probably didn't think of them as such at the time, included such diverse offerings as "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston, "Chain Gang" by Sam Cooke, the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", B.J. Thomas's "Billy and Sue" and O.C. Smith's "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp". Later, I came to love the story songs of Don McLean, Jim Croce and Dan Fogelberg.

Country music has always had its share of great story songs such as "Ode to Billy Joe" by Bobbie Gentry, Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John", Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans", Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley PTA" written by Tom T. Hall and Hall's own "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine". Here I'll comment on country story songs that I like from the 90's to the present to show that the tradition continues. Many were not huge hits and some were not hits at all or not even released as singles. The list is not meant to be all inclusive.

First of all, what is a story song? Does it have to be slow and/or sad? Can it be fast and/or funny? Does it have to be a ballad? As long as it is set to music and tells a story, I think it's a story song.

Here are some of my favorite country story songs of the last 20 years. The first group includes songs released as singles:

Mark McGuinn's "She Doesn't Dance" tells of a man who catches his wife in a bar with a stranger and tries to convince himself that it couldn't be her - she doesn't dance ...  great country song. In fact, if I were asked to give an example of a typical country song, it would be the first to come to mind. Mark co-wrote the song with Don Pfrimmer and Shane Decker.

Steve Azar's "Waitin' On Joe", solely written by Steve, is about a friend who always kept him waiting and died trying "to beat that morning train". There was also a great video with Morgan Freeman doing the intro and conclusion. It's still one of my favorite country videos. In the song, I love the line "tugboat's a leavin' 'cause it don't care, what's not on board and who's not there".

Jamie O'Neal's #1 hit "There Is No Arizona" tells of a woman whose man lies about sending for her once he gets to Arizona. She sings "If there was a Grand Canyon, she could fill it up with the lies he's told her". The song was written by Jamie, Lisa Drew and Charlotte Smith.

Emerson Drive's "Moments" tells about a homeless man saving a young man from committing suicide. In the video, Kris Kristofferson plays the homeless man. This #1 song was written by Dave Berg and Sam and Annie Tate.

Randy Travis's inspirational "Three Wooden Crosses", a Kim Williams - Doug Johnson #1 song is about  a farmer, teacher, preacher and a hooker involved in a crash and how it affected the sole survivor.

Travis Tritt's "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde", written by Walt Aldridge and James LeBlanc, is a funky tale with an ending described as "disappointing" for the new B&C, which beats dead, as Travis sings "Lord we never saw 'em coming, till they read us both our rights". 

David Ball had a #2 hit in 2001 with the Wood Newton - Thom Shepherd penned "Riding With Private Malone" about a Corvette the soldier left with the note "if you're reading this, then I didn't make it home". Later, Tim McGraw came out with a very different "If You're Reading This" which Tim wrote with the Warren Brothers.

Miranda Lambert's "Famous in a Small Town" (my favorite ML song by far) describes a place where everybody dies famous and getting the first buck of the season puts you on page 1 of the local paper.  It was written by Miranda and John Howard.

Blaine Larsen's "How Do You Get That Lonely" tells of a young boy's suicide without being maudlin about it. The song asks how you reach the point where "havin' no life at all is better than the life that you had" and how could "nobody know". Written by Jamie Teachenor and Rory Lee Feek.

After listening to Blaine, you might want to lighten things up with a funny story, Pam Tillis's "Queen of Denial", written by Pam, Bob DiPiero and Jan Buckingham. Good video too.

Collin Raye's "Little Rock" is a Tom Douglas song about a recovering alcoholic trying to rebuild a relationship. The girl's father told him "that Jesus would forgive, but a daddy don't forget". 

Trisha Yearwood's "Walkaway Joe" tells of a young girl's misadventures with a boy her mama warned her about. Don Henley's harmony adds to Trisha's great vocals in this song written by Vince Melamed and Greg Barnhill.

Alan Jackson's "The Little Man", a solo writing effort by Jackson, speaks of the demise of the small businessman. I think AJ's songwriting is better than his singing.

Jason Aldean's "Amarillo Sky" is a rocking country tale about about a farmer's perseverance, written by B&R, Bart Pursley & Rodney Clawson.

Martina McBride's "Independence Day", written by Gretchen Peters, is a powerful story of a woman whose fight against an abusive husband takes a surprising turn. It's told from the 8 year old daughter's viewpoint.

Billy Currington's recent #1 hit "People Are Crazy" by Bobby Braddock and Troy Wayne Jones, Jr. is another great story which I discussed in my post of 6/26/09.

Sometimes you find a gem on a cd that was not released as a single:

While I'm not a Big and Rich fan, I loved "Faster Than Angels Fly" about a young couple killed in a barrio by a street gang "out to make a retribution call". Written by Billy Henderson and John Phillips, it's my favorite B&R song.

Lisa Brokop's "Pearl" tells about the daughter of a drunk abusive father, who escaped him to sing the blues. Lisa co-wrote the song with Kim McLean.

Phil Vassar's "Athens Grease" is a word play story about auto mechanic Billy Joe Taylor, "the redneck Picaso of the manual transmission, the only man in town who can make Charlie Vincent's van go". This rocking story song with a sense of humor was written by Phil, Steve Mandile and Jerry Vandiver.

In Sugarland's "Very Last Country Song", the scene is a woman looking through family photos on her birthday and talking about each one. The chorus includes lines like "If nobody did nobody wrong ... this would be the very last country song". It was written by Nettles, Bush & Tim Owens.

Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Houston" talks about the aftermath of Katrina with lines like "look at all this water and somehow not a drop to drink" and who else but MCC could write "Halley Came to Jackson" about a town visited by Halley's Comet.

In my post of 9/17/08 I mentioned 4 of Hal Ketchum's story songs, "I Miss My Mary" about an alcoholic who abandons wife and child as his disease progresses, "Daddy's Oldsmobile" about a family living out of a car, moving from town to town looking for work during the Depression, "Trail Of Tears" about the plight of the American Indian and "Swing Low" about a young girl and her baby abandoned by the baby's father. None of these songs were released as singles. (See my post of 8/30/08 regarding "In Front of the Alamo" another great HK story song written by Gary Burr which was a non-charting single.)

That's My Story and I'm stickin' to it. What are your favorites?

Lari White

Just over a week ago, my wife and I got to see Lari White for the first time. She was doing a show at the Bluebird Cafe, a fundraiser for the YMCA which she does on a regular basis. Appearing with her were Joie Scott, known for writing the Collin Raye hit "Not That Different", Bill Champlin who was a member of Chicago for 18 years and Chas Sandford with his 12 string guitar who co-wrote "Missing You", most recently covered by John Waite and Alison Krauss. Lari, Joie and Bill played keyboards. Some may remember Lari's bit part at the end of the Tom Hanks movie "Cast Away".

I bought her 1997 best of Lari White cd probably about 7 or 8 years ago because it included my favorite song of hers, "That's How You Know (When You're in Love)" which she co-wrote with her husband, noted songwriter Chuck Cannon. It also featured her duet with Travis Tritt which she and Travis co-wrote, "Helping Me Get Over You" and "Now I know", a Chick Rains, Cindy Greene, Don Cook collaboration which became her highest charting hit at #5 according to Wikipedia. I didn't realize at the time that the guy singing backup on "That's How You Know" was Hal Ketchum. The rest of the 13 song cd which opens with "Amazing Grace", includes two other co-writes with her husband, "That's My Baby", a #10 hit which I didn't remember, and another uptempo tune,  "What a Woman Wants". Other songs that became favorites of mine included her solo writing efforts, the mellow "Just Thinking" and "Lead Me Not".  In addition to hosting the night's show, she sang "That's My Baby" and "Lead Me Not" from the Best of cd. The lyrics of the latter continue "into temptation, I already know the road all too well, lead me not into temptation, I can find it all by myself". She also performed two songs from her 2004 cd "Green Eyed Soul" and a new song. Can't remember the titles but I do know that this lady sure can sing. I would definitely like to see her again and look into her other cds.

Among husband Chuck Cannon's 202 song writing credits found on the BMI website are quite a few hits co-written with Toby Keith including "Me Too", "How Do You Like Me Now", "Dream Walkin", "American Soldier", "Getcha Some" and "If a Man Answers". He also co-wrote the John Michael Montgomery hit, "I Love the Way You Love Me", with Victoria Shaw in addition to his co-writes with Lari noted above.

Music Playlists and cds - a senior's perspective

When you think of music playlists today, you think of computers and cd technology. To me a playlist gives you the music you want in the order you want to hear it. Although radio DJ's may have had playlists for their shows in the 50's, 60's etc., the term did not exist to my knowledge for music listeners in regard to their record collections in the pre-digital age. With my old 45's, I could stack some on a record player spindle in the order I wanted to hear them. In a very basic sense I was creating a temporary playlist although the term "playlist" never entered my mind. I wouldn't just flip the records over when finished and play the other sides because in most cases the songs on 45 flip sides were not very good. I could also stack vinyl albums but then I'd be stuck with any album tracks I didn't care for.

With blank audio tapes, you could make your own tapes (playlists, in a sense) by taping songs from the radio or from your vinyl records but it was a royal pain. I recall printing the name of the song and artist in ballpoint on the paper insert for the plastic tape holder as I recorded the song. Sometimes you had to abbreviate the song title to fit it in on the line. With the radio it was really hit or miss because you didn't know when the song or songs you wanted were going to be played. You'd sit there all set to record and a song would be played that you were not interested in. After a while you'd get tired or your mind would wander and you'd realize a bit late that your song was on. Then you'd frantically try to hit the record button. Stopping at just the right time and DJ talk overs were also problems you encountered. If you didn't stop in time, you'd have to go back and erase quickly before another song you wanted was played, unless you didn't mind having fragments of songs, commercials or DJ chatter on your tape.

The good old days of vinyl and tapes were not so good. Despite a sort of resurgence recently in vinyl sales, I don't think it will ever make a serious dent in digital sales. With vinyl and tapes there is another drawback I almost forgot - skipping tracks. It's so much easier on a cd. Click. With vinyl you had to lift the needle on the record player to get to the next song. Tapes were more difficult since you had to advance the tape and you either went too far or not far enough. Expletives were frequently a part of the process.

With the cd there are none of these problems. Even a low tech oldtimer like me can load music on to my computer from my own cds or purchase complete cds or individual songs from sources such as I-Tunes. Within minutes of completing my order, the songs are downloaded to my computer. That's amazing. I can open/create a new list on the computer, give it a name and drag over the songs I want and voila. I have only the songs I want to listen to and I can modify the list any time I want. I don't have or want an I-Pod (don't like wearing earphones) but I do like to play cds in the car and sometimes on a separate radio/cd player at home. I can burn a cd from a playlist in about 6 or 7 minutes. It took longer when the cd burners were not built in to the computer and I had to have my wife help me. She's much more computer savvy than I am. When cds first came out, I used to think that wouldn't it be great if you could make your own cds (like I made my own tapes). For about the past 8 or 9 years you can.

Think of all the great playlists you can create. There is practically no limit to the number of songs you can put on a playlist on your computer. If you choose to burn a cd from a playlist, you're limited to about 20 songs on a cd which is actually good since most store bought cds don't have more than a dozen tracks. Here are some of the "theme" playlist cds I've created over the last few years. Where I have dates indicated it refers to a post on this website related to the subject:

Around Christmas, you can make your own Christmas cds. (12/11/08)

Country Duets - The first duet cds I made included songs that were not true duets (10/20/08).

Rain Songs - one such cd included Gary Allan's "Songs About Rain" in which he mentions four or five famous rain songs. I included those songs right after the Allan song.

Fun Songs - rather than funny because what's funny to me may not be to you.  (3/8/09)

USA - where every song mentions the name of a city or state in the U.S. like Tracy Lawrence's "Paint Me a Birmingham", Trisha Yearwood's "On a Bus to St. Cloud" and Lonestar's "Walking in Memphis".

Gone songs - every song title has the word "Gone" like Chris Cagle's "What Kinda Gone", Jimmy Wayne's "Stay Gone", Diamond Rio's "You're Gone", Pam Tillis' "All the Good Ones Are Gone", etc.

Doo Wop - all those great nonsensical sounds you might hear in the still of the night. (5/10/09)

Country Covers - of pop songs (8/24/08)

Story Songs - like Steve Azar's "Waitin' On Joe", Mark McGuinn's "She Doesn't Dance" and Hal Ketchum's "I Miss My Mary".

Rockin' Country Songs - uptempo

Cowboy songs - such as "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" by Suzy Bogguss and "Cowboys Are My Weakness" by Trisha Yearwood.

Motown Mix - 4 Tops, Drifters, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Temptations, etc.

Greatest Hits of - After you have 3 or 4 cds by a favorite artist, create your own GH or Best of collection. You know how an artist will put out a GH cd and leave out one of your favorites. You can include it as well as omit hits songs you didn't like or add favorite album tracks that were not released as singles. The trend now is for artists to add 3 or 4 new songs to a GH cd to get you to buy it for those new songs. If you make your own GH cd, you can just buy the new songs you like on I-Tunes. For example, I never liked the Keith Uban song, "Where the Blacktop Ends" but I loved "You Look Good in My Shirt". A while after I made the cd, Urban released "Shirt" as a single.

Some may wonder since I did a post on Sappy Songs (9/29/08) why I didn't make a tearjerker playlist. While I like a sappy song every once in a while, a whole cd of them would be hard to take. Strangely enough, I haven't yet put together a country love songs cd. I think it's because there are too many great songs to choose from.

You can take any of these themes and modify them by placing a time frame such as Country Covers from 1990 to the present, by having a playlist be all female or all male artists, limiting by genre - country, rock, jazz, etc.  Music loving seniors you can do this. Customize your own cds and computer playlists. Don't complain that you have nothing to do. Retirees especially have no excuse.

Country Music Blogs, Websites, etc.

Since I don't listen to a lot of radio, the internet is the main way I keep up with new country music, news, etc. For quite a few years I've been checking out CMT.com and then GACTV.com. Strangely enough, on the net I prefer CMT but on TV I'm more likely to watch GAC. Why? They play a lot more music videos. A few years ago I found Roughstock.com which has a lot of good reviews and articles and I generally check out ACCTOP40.com each weekend for the weekly top 40. They've gotten a lot better recently at updating the survey. In the past, it would usually appear by Monday afternoon however some weeks it wasn't updated til Tuesday or later. Now it's generally available by Saturday morning. There seems to be a pattern to the top 40. On alternating weeks, there will be a lot of movement with some songs moving up or down a half dozen or more slots or very little movement with no song moving more than 3 in either direction.

A few weeks ago I was looking to see if anything had been written about a Matraca Berg song, "The Dreaming Fields" and I stumbled upon a country music blog called Country Universe (It can be accessed at www.countryuniverse.net). The blog was started in 2004 by one of the six writers at CU, Kevin Coyne. They have a lot of good reviews on a wide variety of country artists, interviews, most recently on Joey & Rory,  and special articles such as their current series on artists of the 90's. So far they've covered Joe Diffie, Travis Tritt, Mark Chesnutt, Brooks & Dunn, Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Collin Raye, Diamond Rio, Wade Hayes, Rick Trevino and the Mavericks, among others. They provide a short writeup about the artist and then give you a "starter kit" usually with what the writer feels are their 10 best songs which they call essential tracks plus two "hidden treasures", songs that were not hits. For those with just a few hits, they write up a "6 pack" of songs. You can send in comments easily and it's very interesting to see what others think, what songs they like, etc. and the writers at CU often join the discussion with their comments. So far I'd have to say it's about the best country music blog around. I guess they're not worried about competition since they provide links to other country music blogs. Check out the surprising bios of the writers in the About Us part of the website - not what you'd expect.

What's great about all these sites is that it alerts you to new artists and songs you may have missed by established artists. Then you can go to the artists website or MySpace and listen to some of their music or hear the 30 second snippets on I-Tunes or other source. I no longer buy a cd by a new artist based on their debut single. I try to hear as much as I can online before plunking down any cash. I'll still buy cds by my favorite artists without making such an effort as long as they put out good albums. Some do run out of ideas after a while.

B&D Breakup

In these tough economic times, you might look at the title of this post and think that Black & Decker has gone belly up. Rest easy. It's only Brooks & Dunn, the most successful duo in the history of country music. After a career of close to 20 years they will split after a final tour in 2010 and another greatest hits cd. They are the Hall & Oates of country music. My guess is that Ronnie Dunn will continue to make cds since he is a truly great singer. 

While I like a lot of their songs, they are what I used to call a Greatest Hits Group. Buy the GH and forget their other cds. If they were starting out today, I'd call them an I-Tunes Group. Buy the individual songs you like and forget the rest. I have The Greatest Hits Collection from 1997 on Arista with 19 tracks including "My Maria", "Hard Workin' Man", "Neon Moon", "Boot Scootin' Boogie", "That Ain't No Way To Go", "She's Not The Cheatin' Kind', "She Used to Be Mine", "He's Got You", "My Next Broken Heart"  and "Rock My World (Little Country Girl)". I also have The Greatest Hits Collection II from 2004 on Arista Nashville with 17 tracks including "That's What It's All About", "How Long Gone", "Ain't Nothing Bout You", "Red Dirt Road", "Husbands and Wives" and "Only in America". While they're both very good, anyone new to B&D should wait for their new cd which their website says will be released September 8th. It's called "#1's ... And Then Some". Go to their website and click to preorder. It takes you to Amazon where you can find the titles of the 30 songs on this 2 disc cd. Most of those songs just noted above are included plus more recent hits. At $11.99 plus shipping (free, if your order is over $25), it's a real bargain. Maybe they'll offer it at the same price or less when it goes to stores.

Some other B&D thoughts. Whenever I hear "Only in America" I think of the music video with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center so there's a tinge of sadness attached to this great song. I never did get to see them in concert mainly because they're so popular that they don't play the type of small venues my wife and I prefer. Maybe some day Ronnie Dunn will play TPAC or the Schermerhorn here in Nashville. My least favorite B&D hit - "Hillbilly Deluxe". Loved their cover on the old Roger Miller hit "Husbands and Wives". A highlight - Ronnie singing"Believe" at one of the country music awards shows a few years ago.

My Top 40 Revisited

Just a little over a year ago, I posted a list of my all-time top 40 female and male country music singers. See my post of 7/22/08. The list is not a definitive statement that these are the best based on record or cd sales, concert revenues or any other barometer of popularity. It is merely a list of my favorite country music performers. There are significant omissions such as King George and Queen Reba, Kenny and Taylor. There is no denying their accomplishments. I just don't care to listen to them. If the list were a top 50 or 60, they wouldn't have been included. The list includes artists from as far back as the late 1950's like the Everly Brothers and Patsy Cline to current performers like Jennifer Nettles and Joe Nichols. 

Some favorites that I included in this list are lead singers of a group rather than solo artists. They are the sound of the group. In most cases, without them there is no group. Note Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland, Ronnie Dunn of B&D, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Randy Owen of Alabama, Marty Roe of Shenandoah, Marty Rabon of Shenandoah and Bluegrassers Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent who perform respectively with Union Station and the Rage. Some Union Station fans might point to Dan Tyminski's "Man of Constant Sorrow" but without AK the group's popularity would diminish greatly.  Phil Everly did the solos for the Everly Brothers while Don sang harmony. Unlike the above, the Eagles have successfully relied on more than one lead singer so they could have continued without Don Henley who, as most popular music fans know, shares lead singing duties with Glenn Frey and occasionally Timothy B. Schmit. Richie McDonald shared the lead for Lonestar with John Rich. Then Rich left and the group hit it big for about 5 years . (McDonald's a solo act now with very little commercial success.)

If I were to redo the list this year, there wouldn't be many changes. Picking 40 wasn't easy and if I tried to reproduce it without taking a peek at the list, I doubt it would be the same. In many cases, singers I liked just about equally had to be assigned numbers for the sake of the exercise that would make it appear that I rated one a lot higher than another. For example, I may have liked the artist number 8 as much as number 5. I could have listed them as 5a, b, c, d, e, etc. but it was too much trouble. It's safe to say though that I like those in the top ten better than those occupying slots 31 - 40.

The biggest change in my favorite forty female singers would be the inclusion of Lisa Brokop in the top ten. She wasn't even on the list last year, largely because I was unaware of her music. I would add Karen Staley after seeing her a few weeks ago at the Bluebird. Amy Dalley finally released a cd and newcomers Melissa Lawson, Emily West, Joey of Joey & Rory and Caitlin of Caitlin & Will and Hillary Scott of Lady A could be added too. I must be forgetting some. That's why it would be nice to see someone else's top 40.

On the male side, Billy Currington has come on strong lately with songs like "Don't" and "People Are Crazy" and Darius Rucker is off to a great start since shifting to country after his Hootie & the Blowfish days. Charles Kelley of Lady A, James Otto, Chris Young and Randy Houser all have outstanding voices.  Mark Chesnutt is a veteran performer I overlooked last year. Love Buddy Jewel's voice but he hasn't done much that I like other than "If She Were Any Other Woman". Are the Carter Twins the new Everly Brothers? The question is who do I drop if any of these are added? Hmm. Think I'll put off revising my list for at least another year.

Rissi Palmer - Country Girl

Rissi Palmer's self-titled debut cd was released in October of 2007 and one of my Christmas presents two months later. Since I'm retired and don't need much in the way of new clothes any more, when asked what I want on gift giving occasions I usually opt for cds and books. Singles "Country Girl" and "Hold Onto Me" fell short of the top 40, reaching #54 and #59 respectively according to Wikipedia. The cd also included great songs such as "Anybody Out There", "All This Woman Needs", "Butterflies", a cover of Patsy Cline's "Leavin' On Your Mind", "Love You Like a Woman" and uptempo songs like "Mr. Ooh La La" and "Sweet Contradictions". Risssi co-wrote 9 of the 12 songs and already has 20 writing credits on BMI.

Her vocals on the cd were outstanding however most singers sound good on recordings thanks to pro-tools, etc. A fair amount of these "singers" can't come close to duplicating the sound in a live performance. At the Bluebird Cafe on July 22nd I got to hear Rissi for the first time. Wow can she sing - and she said that she's been on vocal rest. She performed three songs from her cd - "Country Girl", "Butterflies" and "Mr. Ooh La La" - and two new songs, "I Can Take It" (?) and "Beautifully Human". Both sound like potential hits, especially the latter,  but I'm not good at predicting what country music fans will like. If country fans don't embrace her music, I'm sure she can be successful as a pop or R&B artist. Rissi seemed very comfortable performing and talking about how each song came about, joking about herself on occasion. I look forward to her next cd and to seeing her someday in a full length concert. Check out her website and MySpace.

(The question mark after the song title "I Can Take It" is obviously because I'm not sure I heard it correctly. My short term memory is not that great. I hear something, repeat it to myself a few times and figure that I don't have to write it down. I can remember. Two minutes later I'm unsure and questioning myself.)

Tricia and Karen at the Bluebird

My wife and I went to the 9 pm show at the Bluebird Cafe Thursday evening June 25th. We check the online Bluebird performance schedule on a regular basis. Our main reason for picking this show was to see Tricia Walker whom we had seen there two years ago with Kathy Mattea, Jon Vezner and Fred Knobloch. We bought her cds, "Velvet" and "Heart of Dixie" off her website. Velvet, released in 2007, she refers to as her "Torch" cd. Her voice is like velvet and she co-wrote 5 of the 10 songs. Heart of Dixie, released in 2004, is more of a regional folksy cd and includes funny songs like "New South" and "Funeral Food", a cover of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit "Ode to Billy Joe" along with other songs of the south including the title track, "Honey Chile", "Page Out of History", "Henry" and more. (When I put the songs on my MacBook, I-Tunes shows the genre for "Velvet" to be Jazz and Folk for "Heart of Dixie".)

Tricia sang the Gentry song, "Honey Chile", "Heart of Dixie", "He's Not You" (reminiscent of Patsy Cline's ""Why Can't He Be You") and a few others including a new song she wrote which can be found on I-Tunes, "What a Wonderful Day" - a song for cancer survivors. She chatted about the songs, her career and the work of the Nashville Songwriters Association International. (The show was billed as a NSAI legislative fundraiser.) One of her stories dealt with her writing of a Grammy award winning song for Alison Krauss called "Looking in the Eyes of Love". She asked if she would get anything for writing the song and was told that she could get a certificate - for $40. She sent in the money and got the certificate. She also sang harmony with the other performers at times and, according to her MySpace has been a backup singer for Shania Twain. Although Ms. Twain has been hugely successful, I'd much rather listen to Ms. Walker.

It was our first time seeing Karen Staley but we had heard some of her music before on her website and MySpace. Her songwriting credits include Terri Clark's "Everytime I Cry", Faith Hill's "Take Me As I Am", Trick Pony's "On a Night Like This", Tracy Byrd's "Keeper of the Stars" and an early Patty Loveless song, "Wicked Ways". She sang the last three - loved her rendition of "Keeper of the Stars" - in addition to "Still a Dog" (the first of the evening's funny dog songs) and "Somebody's Child", a compassionate look at an exotic dancer - not likely to be heard on radio.

"Thyroid Condition", Karen's hilarious parody of the Hank Williams, Jr. song, "Family Tradition" was the hit of the evening. It's currently on her My-Space. The audience absolutely loved it, laughing throughout the song. The lyrics pose blunt questions like why are you fat? why don't you lose weight? why must you wolf down that fourth piece of cake? Great lines like "It ain't fudge rounds putting on these pounds", "I said hey sawbones, it ain't the provolone" and "no it ain't french fries causing my big thighs" are all followed by the refrain, "It's a Thyroid Condition". Clever lady and a damn good singer/songwriter.

The charm of the Bluebird as a music venue is not dependent solely on the quality of the singing. It's often the stories behind the songs, the interplay between the artists, the humor, etc., that make evenings spent there so enjoyable. The two songwriters appearing with Tricia and Karen have written some great songs. Singing them however is not their strong suit. Danny Wells is known for writing "Couldn't Last a Moment" for Collin Raye, "This Everyday Love", "While You Loved Me" and "These Days" for Rascal Flatts and, for you Strait fans, "Check Yes or Know". He also sang a funny song about how he wished his wife would treat him like their dog called "Treat Me Like a Dog". Phillip White has written hit songs such as "I'm Movin On" for Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton's "Nobody But Me", Trent Wilmon's "On Again Tonight" and Neil McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On". His wife sang a song and sounded very good. 

Billy C's People Are Crazy

This song keeps going through my head. It's not the first time this has happened to me and it won't be the last. I play it on my laptop whenever I get a chance. I made a new country song compilation cd with it so I can hear it in the car. My wife has called these compilations "Twangers" and now I'm up to Twangers 21. Generally they consist of recent songs with a few oldies thrown in. Oh, the song? "People Are Crazy", written by Bobby Braddock and Troy Wayne Jones, Jr. and a hit for Billy Currington. I first heard it on Billy's MySpace. (According to BMI, Braddock wrote Toby Keith's "I Wanna Talk About Me", "Texas Tornado" and "Time Marches On" for Tracy Lawrence and co-wrote Mark Chesnutt's "All My Old Flames Have New Names". I'm not familiar with the other works of Mr. Jones.)

The song tells the story of a young man meeting an old man in a bar and talking about everything - politics, women, bad habits, etc. The old man sums things up by concluding in the song's great hook that "God is great, Beer is good and People are crazy". Turns out the old guy was a millionaire, he dies and leaves everything to this young man he met only once. Great job by Billy C on this offbeat, interesting song with a tale most people can relate to (except perhaps those who have been cut out of a will). In addition to the great hook, I loved the lines "What brings you to Ohio? He said, Damn if I know". They reminded me of another song that treated the state with disdain, "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" by John Denver. He called the experience "like being nowhere at all".

To personalize the song I'd have to alter the title a bit since I enjoy a beer only about once every couple of weeks, usually a Michelob Light. I'll call it "God is great, coffee is good and people are crazy". My coffee of choice is Choc Full of Nuts when I'm at home and Dunkin Donuts on the road, appropriate choices for this song for obvious reasons. Do they still call crazy people nuts, or even crazy? You can see from this drivel digression that I may be nuts too. Since I write this fluff to prevent brain atrophy, you may conclude that it's already too late. If you feel that way, please keep it to yourself.