Radio Shows: November 24 & 25

The Vandy students are gone for the week which means the schedule has been open for substitutions. So on the 24th, my pal William and i took over the airwaves for 3 hours and on the 25th i took it for 2 more hours. So here are two long and awesome shows for you to enjoy on your drive home for eating/arguing/footballing/arm wrestling; whatever it is you guys do for the holiday. Of course, if your drive is longer than 5 hours, click the Podcast tag on the right to pull up all my past shows.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 24th
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November 25th
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Merle Haggard :: Mama Tried :: 1968

We all know what's wrong with Country music these days. The biggest problem is simple: it isn't Country music. The only difference between most popular Country music today and most Pop music is the subtle addition of a banjo, pedal steel or fiddle buried in the mix simply to say "hey, this is country." Without that instrumental label, you might be fooled by the electronic beats and distorted guitars. Country today is not recognizable by the standards that existed 40 years ago. Everybody knows this and there's not really any point in going into that. It's just the basis for the following statement. A statement so obvious, it's going to sound dumb.

What i love about this country album from 1968 is that it sounds like a country album from 1968.

Again, that may seem like a meaningless statement on the surface. But it's not. At this point, albums like this are artifacts. It's a dinosaur bone or a clay pot buried under layers of earth. It doesn't represent anything living and breathing today. We can only use science and our imaginations to connect it to what we now see and hear around us. There is a certain amount of awe and fascination that accompanies listening to this music. Walking the stage of the Ryman is like walking the grounds of Shiloh. You've heard the stories, you can picture what happened there but you will never experience it and you will never know what it was really like. Time moves on and somebody writes its history.

Nearly ten years ago, i had the opportunity to work part-time at a popular Country radio station in southern Kentucky, WBVR, The Beaver. I'll admit i wasn't extremely thrilled with the format of the station which relied heavily on the likes of Shania and Garth (Garth Garth, not Chris Garth) who were at their peaks at the time. But i wanted to get my foot in the door of a radio station so i took the job. I wasn't going to be speaking on the air, i was actually running a show over satellite and my only real job was to plug in the local commercials at the proper time. What was a surprise to me was that i wasn't going to be listening to Shania and Garth. The show i was running was called "Country Gold Saturday Night" and played hits of Country past. While i still had to endure some bad 80's country and multiple Alabama songs in one 6-hour night, the majority of the show's playlist came from the three decades prior to that one. At the time, i still wasn't thrilled about old Country music but it was unmistakably better than hearing that damn song about the little girl behind the couch who watched her parents kill each other with the big reveal that Jesus was right there beside her the whole time (if you don't remember that horrible bit of country sap, consider yourself lucky). But i did my job, i plugged in my commercials and over time, to my surprise, i fell in love with many of the songs i heard each week.

You know how whenever you hear those first three notes of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On," you get kind of excited because you love that song. That's how i feel at the beginning of "Mama Tried" and it's all because of Country Gold Saturday Night. They played that song at least every two weeks and every time i hear that sliding guitar intro, it brings a smile to my face. (To be fair to Marvin, babies don't get made when "Mama Tried" comes on so it's not exactly the same thing.)

It's that steel guitar part that starts this album. As was common back then, all the singles are at the beginning of the album. The triple-single kickoff of "Mama Tried," "Green Green Grass of Home" and "Little Ole Wine Drinker Me" is pretty hard to beat. Those first two songs deal with a favorite theme of classic Country music: Prison. Sometimes these are just stories and sometimes this is true-life stuff. For Haggard, it's a little of both. After spending time in and out (mostly by running away) of juvenile detention centers, he was caught in a burglary and sent to San Quentin. Your random trivia fact for the day is that Merle Haggard was in the audience when Johnny Cash recorded his legendary At San Quentin album. It was these Cash performances that supposedly inspired Haggard to straighten up and concentrate on his music career that he had started before his incarceration.

When Haggard sings "I turned 21 in prison" in a song he wrote, that's actually autobiographical which leads you to believe he also means it when he sings "No-one could steer me right but Mama tried." "Green Green Grass of Home" may not be the singer's own story but i'll bet it's the story of the people he met behind bars. It's the story of a man dreaming of home while he waits for the priest to walk him to his execution. This song will break your heart the way country music is supposed to.

The rest of the album is what the industry most likely considered filler but the majority of it stands strong on its own. The Dolly Parton-penned "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)" and Mel Tillis's "I Could Have Gone Right" are classic Nashville and "Run'em Off" is the kind of fun song you'd expect from Buck Owens. But the other standout songs here are the ones written by Haggard, most notably the sweet love song "The Sunny Side of Life" and the you-better-not-be-cheatin' song "I'll Always Know."

In listening to this album a little more closely this last week, i've noticed a subtlety that i've never really heard before. On "Mama Tried" and "I'll Always Know," there seems to be a secret weapon that makes them sound a little different from the rest of the alum or any other Country song of the time. While this album sounds like the classics that had come before, the acoustic guitar on just these two songs sounds very modern, like what you would have heard from the folk scene of Bob Dylan and Fred Neil. Maybe that's what makes it sound like 1968. Of course maybe that's a mirror to what has happened now. When other popular music starts creeping in to a traditional form, it's going to change it. Music really should evolve or else it becomes stagnant. Bob Dylan's acoustic guitar might just be the equivalent of Britney Spears' drum track. The difference hear is the subtlety of Haggard's guitar while those modern drum tracks are as subtle as a fart on the wooden pew at the Ryman during an Emmylou Harris song. When the old sound outweighs the new, that's tradition being updated; when the new sound overpowers the old, that the identity of the tradition being killed. So while stations like The Beaver fill their days with the likes of Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban, i just hope they still find time on a Saturday night for that sliding guitar intro that brings a smile to my face.

Chris Gaines :: Greatest Hits :: 1999

I know it's odd to pick a Greatest Hits album for a review but the truth is, this is the one to own. All of Chris's other albums are a little uneven. While i could highly recommend Fornicopia to anyone that needed a little more, for the casual or new Chris Gaines fan, this is where it's at.

For such a long, complicated life, i'll just reference the liner notes of this cd:

Christian Gene Gaines was born August 10, 1967 in Brisbane, Australia. His family moved to the Los Angeles area when he was five years old. As an only child, Chris was expected by many to carry the torch in the Olympic waters. His father had been a coach for Long Beach State, and both the U.S. and Australian Olympic swim teams. Chris' mother is a former swimmer for the Australian Olympic team, and a Commonwealth Games medalist. The young Gaines, however, defied expectations of an athletic future and developed a life-long passion for music, a passion so great Chris decided to quit school his senior year at Morning Side High School to pursue his music professionally. He did complete his G.E.D. in 1987.

Chris joined his best friend Tommy Levitz along with Marc Obed in the band, CRUSH. The band signed with Capitol Records in 1985 and released their self-titled debut album in 1986. The second single, "My Love Tells Me So," was a smash and one of the year's most successful songs. But the band's success was short-lived when lead singer Tommy Levitz died in a plane crash later that year.

For the next two years, Joe Smith of Capitol Records and Chris discussed the possibility of a Chris Gaines solo career, and in 1989, Chris debuted his solo album Straight Jacket. Both the public and the music industry responded favorably; the album spent an extraordinary 224 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The album, which featured the hits "Maybe," "White Flag," and Digging For Gold," is still Chris' biggest-selling album to date.

Tragedy struck again when Chris' father died in the fall of 1990 after his long battle with cancer. Almost a year to the day later, Chris released his second solo album, Fornucopia. Even though it was a very dark and angry album, it debuted at #1 and spent a combined 18 weeks on top of the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart. The album included the soulful remake of the 1972 Ramsey Sellers classic, "It Don't Matter To The Sun," and the instant classic, "Main Street."

In the winter of 1992, Chris was involved in a violent single-car crash that nearly ended his life. Chris spent six weeks in the hospital and over two years undergoing extensive plastic surgery on his face, shoulder and hands. Although he would not allow himself to be seen or photographed, Chris released his third solo album, Apostle, in the winter of 1994. Without any artist promotion, the album still managed to spend a combined 8 weeks atop the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, and featured the singles "Way Of The Girl" and "Unsigned Letter."

Finally, in the winter of 1996, Chris re-emerged into public view for the first time with Triangle. Chris was dubbed "The New Prince" by the media because of his new look and the fact that his music showed a move towards R&B - a distinct change in musical style from his past. "Driftin' Away," "That's The Way I Remember It," and "Snow In July" are the featured hits on the album.

Now, on the eve of the millennium, Chris has assembled his greatest hits, as well as two new songs, "Lost In You" and "Right Now." Chris' Greatest Hits is the perfect bridge between his upcoming solo album, The Lamb (which the critics are already predicting will be the "definitive album of the new millennium") and the albums that have defined our times over the last decade.

Ok, i just wanted you guys to read that load of what-the-huh? As most of you know, Chris Gaines does not actually exist (except in my heart). Chris Gaines is none other than Mr. Thunder Rolls himself, Garth Brooks. Y'see, Garth's not content with just playing the role he's given and being a Country music star. He's a true artist, a rebel, a maverick, a... bad decision maker. Garth decided he wanted make a pop album and decided to do it in the guise of Chris Gaines. I'll give him some credit, he really did take a chance against what i'm sure his business associates told him. But those other guys were right this time, Chris Gaines tanked.

It wasn't for a complete lack of trying. For about a month Garth and Chris were the talk of the town. The only true Chris sighting that i know about was on Saturday Night Live. Garth hosted and Chris was the musical guest. There was no secret that the two were the same and they even poked fun of it on the show. The problem here is that nobody really knew what to do with this whole game of pretend. Here are my thoughts; prepare for more analysis over Chris Gaines than you ever wanted to read or ever even knew existed:

The main reason the Chris Gaines scheme failed isn't just because it was probably a bad idea from the beginning but because it was done totally half-assed. There are a couple of possible ways this could have been handled differently. Option #1 is that Garth could have tried to keep his Clark Kent identity a secret. This record was released on Capitol Records. Capitol could have promoted him as a new artist, put all the backing you need to get on MTVH1 and Clear Channel radio. They could have pushed for late night talk show performances and interviews. He could have played smaller venues and record store performances. Once Chris made a name for himself, they could have pulled back the curtain and it might have actually been kind of cool. Option #2 is Garth could have just said "I'd like to make a pop album." He could have released it under his own name and promoted it just like his country albums. It's not as much fun but it could have expanded the world's view of him as just a country artist. However, had he gone with either of these instead of the lukewarm middle path, there is still one hurdle to get past. In order for option #1 to have worked, the songs would have needed to be a little bit better. In order for option #2 to have worked... the songs would have needed to be a little bit better.

Here's the thing with the music on this album. It's not all that horrible. I bet my mom would find some stuff on here that she likes. She listens to Michael Bolton and Bonnie Raitt and this crap could fly just well as that crap. However, in option #1, this music is way too adult-contemporary. They want Chris to be some kind of tortured artist but the lead off single, "Lost In You," really just sounds like Sade. In option #2, while Garth could have appealed to my mom (she did after all ask for his autograph on the back of a deposit slip in a department store once though she's never owned any of his albums), with the exception of the Sade song and one or two others, this stuff is the most boring, we-need-a-song-in-the-background-of-a-restaurant-scene-in-a-soap-opera music that's ever been written. It's not worthy of being one of the long blond pubic hairs that comprised Michael Bolton's former flowing mullet. So while it's not all that horrible, it mostly is.

But let's examine the path that was taken, Option #3 if you will. This was the whole plan: In the Life of Chris Gaines (the official title of this Garth Brooks album) is considered "the pre-soundtrack to the movie The Lamb." This movie was going to be the story of Chris Gaines, basically what you read above stretched out to 90 minutes starring Garth in the lead role. At the same time, Chris would release his new album by the same name. As we know, that part never happened. According to a Garth fansite that exists in the graveyard of never updated but never deleted webpages, it was in pre-production in February 2001 and was to be released in late 2001 or early 2002. Obviously the failure of step 1 meant there was no point in continuing with steps 2 & 3. Thus The Lamb was sacrificed for the sake of saving Garth's career.

Beyond the fact that the music was not very good in general, there is another glaring problem with the songs here and it would have been even more noticeable had the movie been made. The songs on this CD are supposed to represent the entire career of the artist formerly known as Garth. Chris had released 5 albums in his career and this CD, being a greatest hits, collected 2-3 songs from each of these albums. So why do the songs recorded in 1986 sound so much like the ones he recorded in 1999? Of course we know why; because in reality they were all recorded at the same time. But when you're trying to create a work of fiction, you have to pay attention to the details. The music of 1986 does not sound like the music of 1999. The music a person makes when they are 19 is not the same music they make when they're 32. Recording the "old" songs with a current sound is sort of the equivalent of Moses wearing a Members Only jacket when he parted the Red Sea because that's what Charlton Heston wore on the set that day. This lack of attention to detail is indicative of the half-baked nature of this whole project.

The purpose of this blog is to inform you about, and recommend to you, albums which i think you should listen to. Let me be perfectly clear. You should not own this album. If you see it in the $1 bin at your local used CD store and you're curious enough, go ahead but i do not recommend or endorse this album. So why is it on my own shelf and why would i spend so much time writing about it? Frankly, because i'm fascinated by it in every way. I'm fascinated that this happened in the first place but i think what really draws me in is the way it's been--not just forgotten--swept under the rug. In true 1984 fashion, the powers that be have tried to make Chris Gaines disappear as if he never existed. Of course, with the intenet being what it is, nothing can disappear completely. However i have tried to find t-shirts, posters, in-store promo displays, etc.; all i can find on eBay are a million copies of this CD. I haven't been able to find even a sentence from the screenplay for The Lamb. If it was in fact in "pre-production" then i would assume they would have a script but if they did, it's in "The New Prince's" vault and will never make an exit. While this may just be evident that nobody cares enough to put this stuff online, i have one bit of solid proof that backs up my "Chris never existed" conspiracy theory.

I mentioned the SNL episode earlier. I did not get to see it when it originally aired. A few years later, i saw a rerun on a cable channel of SNL with Garth Brooks hosting. I was pretty excited because i was finally going to see the elusive Chris Gaines in action. There was only one problem. When it came time for the musical guest, all of the sudden Robert Duvall is standing there. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Garth Brooks." ???!!?!!!??! That's right, a Garth Books performance from another episode had been substituted for syndication. Chris Gaines never existed. It was at this moment my true obsession began.

I've only heard one other reference to Chris in pop culture since. In the movie I [heart] Huckabees there is a character who likes to recount his brush with celebrities. When he mentions his encounter with Garth Brooks, another character asks "Chris Garth or Garth Garth?" I may have been the only one in the theater to laugh out loud at that but it was because i knew then that i was not the only one fighting the fight. I have had a few plans that i'm unfortunately too lazy to follow through with, though this being the 10th anniversary of the album's release, it's the best time. The master plan is to learn to play all the songs and, since i live in Music City USA, begin performing around town as Chris Gaines and see how long it takes to receive a cease and desist order. [Originally i thought i'd play the part of Chris but i'm really a better bass player and i happen to know a dark haired gentlemen who can sing and play guitar and grow a decent soul patch so Newton, if you're reading this, what do you think?]

The easier plan is to make flyers and plaster them all over Music Row. The flyer is simple. Chris's name, a brooding image of his mysterious face and the message:

"We Will Never Forget"

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If you'd like to have look at all of Chris Gaines' past album covers (and believe me, you do), you can find them on the aforementioned fansite here. And now a feast for you eyes and ears. While i described the music on the CD as "not all that horrible," i'd like to introduce you to the exception. This one, an honest to God single by the way, is ALL horrible.


And for his Sade song, here's some dude singing it in his living room. Youtube is weird.

Radio Show: October 19, 2009

I'm back to being a week behind on posting my shows for download but i'll try to catch up. On this particular show, i reveal my deep dark secret: I have a trainee. Enjoy.

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Paint My Album

If you go to PaintMyAlbum.net, you'll find a couple of guys collecting album covers created using Microsoft Paint. Here's my contribution:

Here's the original:

Faces :: Ooh La La :: 1973

"Rarely has a singer had as full and unique a talent as Rod Stewart; rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely."

-- Greil Marcus, from The Rolling Stone History of Rock 'n Roll

There's this dirty little secret that is revealed to every real music fan at some point in his or her life. It's actually a pretty well-known secret but it still comes as a surprise to most every person when they first discover it. It's like when you first see "Arrested Development." You've heard people mention that it's good but suddenly you realize how amazing it is but your parents still don't know about it so it's like you've become a member of a really large secret club. That pretty much goes for the deliciousness of mini-corndogs too. So, if you're not already a member, i'm going to give you admission to this special club through the knowledge of the following run-on sentence.

There was a time, many years ago, pre-Cell Phones but post-Dinosaurs, pre-Cosby show but post-Civil War, pre-New Wave but post-British Invasion; a time all but forgotten by modern men, forever to be sanctioned to historical accounts, record-store conversations and music blogs; a time before the decline of the Western Civilization, believe it or not... there was a time that Rod Stewart did not blow goat balls."

Rod started his musical career in 1962 with a group called Steampacket. Other than a pretty hideous name, the only other notable fact about Steampacket is that it included as its members, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll and Long John Baldry, who all went on to have successful careers on their own. In 1966, Stewart signed on as the singer of the Jeff Beck Group. I just recently (finally) picked up Jeff Beck Group's Truth and Beck-Ola after a friend made the statement that, at their best, they rivaled Led Zeppelin. Having never heard anything mentioned as "rivaling Led Zeppelin," i had to know. While the Zep still operates way above Beck's group as a whole, i completely see the argument. Beck's guitar is on fire and Rod rips out some vocals that would make Robert Plant pee in his way-too-tight bell bottom jeans. In 1969, Stewart and bassist Ronnie Wood, switching to guitar, left Beck to join a new lineup of the Small Faces who changed their name to simply Faces.

As the new Faces began recording, Stewart simultaneously began his solo career. Over the next few years, Faces released several fine albums, leading up to Ooh La La, their final album together. Where the Small Faces fit the British Invasion mold and the Jeff Beck Group went to louder and heavier lands, Faces went for a good-ol' rootsy, blues based rock 'n' roll. It was a path most notably cut by The Rolling Stones, and unlike Zeppelin, i have heard it said many times that, at their best, Faces rival and probably even surpass The Stones. I agree.

Many songs on this album are piano/guitar driven barroom boogie like "Silicone Grown" and "Borstal Boys." Others get a little bluesier and give the organ some time to shine like the instrumental "Fly in the Ointment." For all the rocking, one of the standouts for me has to be "Glad and Sorry" which is a much more laid back track and features group vocals on the entire song. The final track is the title track. It's also one of Faces best-known songs and ironically sung by Ronnie Wood. You know the song, it's the one with the chorus "I wish... that... I knew what I know now... when I was younger." Perhaps it's a fitting epitaph for a band that, in one more year, would no longer be.

Stewart gets a lot of notice for Faces success perhaps because he was the frontman or perhaps because it's so amazing that something so awesome came from someone so lame. But the truth is that Faces was a group. Stewart, Wood and bassist/sometimes vocalist Ronnie Lane were fairly equal parts in the songwriting department and the way they all played together was so loose and free that it created a certain magic that was missing on Stewart's solo albums of the time. After Faces, Wood joined The Rolling Stones, Lane began a solo career, drummer Kenney Jones covered for the late Keith Moon with The Who and keyboardist Ian McLagan became a bit of a session man playing over the years with The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and a million others.

As for Stewart, we all know what happened. After his first four, mostly excellent, solo albums, he began his long descent into suck. He recorded some disco, he married supermodels, he danced all over Mtv, he recorded standards albums, he pops up on American Idol, all presumably in search of the perfect set of goat balls. Rod Stewart is dead. There's no hope that he'll someday come back to us and rock a face or two. He's gone but it's up to our secret society, of which you are now a member, to make sure he is not forgotten.

This is a pretty long version of "Borstal Boys" due to an extended guitar and drum break buy, my Ford, it's good.

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A lot of people will tell you that "A Nod is as Good as a Wink..." is Faces' best album. They might be right.

Radio Show October 12, 2009

Julian and Kristin from The Young Republic joined me in the studio this week to play a few songs from their new album, Balletesque. They'll be celebrating its release with three shows at Edgehill Studio Cafe in Nashville, October 15, 16 & 17. You can find more info and hear songs and look at pictures and post witty comments and stalk and invite them to join your mafia on the Young Republic MySpace page.

Here's the radio show. They play four songs in studio, plus we play one from the new CD. We also play a song by a guy that's kind of like Sondre Lerche but not as good.
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Radio Show: October 5, 2009

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Radio Show: September 28, 2009

More electronic than it was supposed to be. How does that happen?

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Steve Earle :: El Corazon :: 1997

There was a period of time between 1998 and 2002 that i listened to a lot of Americana/Alt-Country music. I'm not "blaming" my friends but i was somehow influenced by my peers more than any other time in my life, concerning the music i listened to. Johnny & June were the figureheads. Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams were the King and Queen. Ryan Adams was the unruly Prince. Alejandro Escovedo was some related Duke. Emmylou Harris was an angel sent to remind us of the spirit of Gram Parsons, who conquered Country for the Rock kids and thus birthed the State of Americana.

Of course a lot of this influence was a great thing. Through them, i found a greater appreciation for Neil Young and The Rolling Stones. I discovered Faces and Moby Grape. I was forced to hear Wilco so many times, i actually started to like them. If it was no more than four chords, channeled Cash, Stones or Dylan and mixed well with beer, that's what was being played at the parties i went to. It's what people talked about. Those were the concerts everyone went to. And i was right there with them.

But after a while, all the newer bands started sounding alike to me. Son Volt, Drive-By Truckers, Jayhawks, Lucero, Bottle Rockets. All these bands that i appreciated on their own just became a big ball of unoriginality. We all know the classic Country themes. They were presented in the titles of a Johnny Cash box set and a series of Merle Haggard compilations. Together, you get the list "Love, God, Murder, Cheatin', Drinkin', Hurtin', Prison." Yep, that about covers it. The problem is that it's hard to come up with a new way to approach a song about Drinkin'. All of these themes have been touched on so many times for literally over a hundred years now. For me, the music became just as derivative and repetitive. If you exceed that 4-chord limit or started singing about wizards and shit, it's not longer Americana. It's a small box and most of the inhabitants have not found a way to sneak out and still keep one foot in.

It all became very boring for me. Soon, a lot of these artists that i had loved (and many that i still do love) just sort of fell to the side. I still don't listen much to Americana music. There was even a big Americana festival here this past weekend and i didn't even look to see who was playing. I think i just got burned out. There's a lot of music out there to listen to and this stuff doesn't scream for my attention the way it used to.

One of the reasons i enjoy writing this blog is that it makes me re-examine albums i've heard a million times. I know/think something is good but so often i've never really thought about why it's so good. I've listened to El Corazon about 10 times in the last week so i would know what to write about but more importantly because i have a new appreciation for Steve Earle that i never had before, even when i listened to him on a regular basis. Suddenly, he's screaming out for my attention again. What sets Earle apart from so many in the Americana/Alt-Country crowd became very evident to me last night while listening to a Lucero album. While so many artists, particularly younger artists, take their cues from the likes of Gram Parsons, Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown, Earle takes his from Woody Guthrie and more importantly, America.

His writing shows that "Americana" must actually represent the history of this country and its music. He understands from Guthrie the importance of telling a story. Sometimes it's for fun, sometimes it's to share an emotion and sometimes it's to kill fascists. And with the past in mind, Earle creates something very modern. El Corazon's opening song "Christmastime in Washington" relates the mood in the country in 1996 the way Guthrie related the mood of the country in 1940. He doesn't try to pretend he was in the Dustbowls, he just writes about where we are now. His call to Guthrie, Jesus & Martin Luther King to come help us out comes from the repressed reality that he and every listener are now the ones that have to set the world straight. I think this is one of the greatest bits of songwriting from the 20th century. I don't say that lightly. This is one for the history books.

For song #2, Earle does what every Americana artist does at one time or another. He pulls out the big gun, Emmylou Harris on harmony. With her help, he tells the story of a black boy who heads down to Taneytown, where his mother told him not to go. And he soon learns why vowing "I ain't goin' back there anymore." It's a dark rocker that sends chills down your spine. On "I Still Carry You Around," he solicits the help of the Del McCoury Band (which he would do further on their joint album The Mountain) in a legitimate nod to Bluegrass. "Somewhere Out There" and "Poison Lovers" cover the "Love" and "Hurtin'" themes in songs where you hear the harmonies even when they're not there. He closes it out with "Ft. Worth Blues," a sincere tribute to the travelling life and the love for home.

Steve Earle is a songwriter that will be remembered and re-discovered forever. He doesn't fake it, he lives it. He knows what songs are for.

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These are dang fine albums too.



Transcendental Blues
and
I Feel Alright





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For the Nashville crowd, i'd like to propose an idea. Let's try to get The Traveling Wilburys to reunite. In place of the late Roy Orbison and George Harrison, i nominate Steve Earle and local perennial rock god Dave Cloud to take their place. With the new lineup, we'll create a Monkees type tv show where they live together. Dave Cloud will constantly sing "Lay Lady Lay" whenever Bob Dylan's in the room and wackiness ensues when he pees on Tom Petty's couch.