Sunday Selections: May 1, 2016

Merle Haggard passed away on April 6th, and it has taken just about 20 days for people to try to politicize his death.

… And, boy howdy, are they bad at it.

Whatever your political leanings, we have an infuriating, poorly-researched, and terribly-written essay about Haggard’s death to make your blood boil this week. It speaks to the complexity that made Haggard’s body of work such a vital force in contemporary popular culture that writers approaching his work from a reactive and ideologically slanted POV would struggle to get a grasp on his legacy. And it speaks to the quality of modern political discourse that there’s a whole lot of smug name-calling and values-policing in these attempts to use Haggard’s death as some kind of political capital.

And if that isn’t enough to send your blood pressure through the roof, there are some interviews with country radio insiders that should do the trick. Some journalists claimed this week that the state of radio has improved since #SaladGate last year, but we remain skeptical of a format that encourages artists to do exactly one thing then bitches-and-moans that they have too many sound-alike ballads in their playlists, and whose programming directors can’t be bothered to name a single woman when thinking about current music.

Fortunately, there are some fantastic videos to make up for all of the nonsense. Vince Gill and Paul Franklin pay tribute to Haggard, Maren Morris and Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats gave great performances on the talk-show circuit, while Jamie Lin Wilson and the Dixie Chicks unveiled some killer covers.

Onward!

New Releases & Reissues, 4/29/2016
The Bo-Keys, Heartaches By The Number. (Omnivore Recordings)
Glen Campbell, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour Country Special (DVD). (Shout! Factory)
John Doe, The Westerner. (Cool Rock / Thirty Tigers)
Buddy Guy & Otis Clay, Live in Chicago 88. (Klondike)
The Jayhawks, Paging Mr. Proust. (Sham / Thirty Tigers)
George Jones, When My Heart Hurts No More. (Southern Routes)
Lonestar, Never Enders. (Shanachie)
Martina McBride, Reckless. (Nash ICON)
Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors (DVD). (Warner Home Video)
Linda Ronstadt, Canciones de mi Padre (1987), Mas Canciones (1991), Frenesi (1992). (Elektra)
Leon Russell, Leon Russell (1970). (Audio Fidelity)
Boz Scaggs, Other Roads: The Deluxe Edition (1988). (Friday Music)
Shenandoah, Good News Travels Fast. (New Day / Daywind Records)

News & Notes

“No tears from me over Merle Haggard, the legendary country singer who died today of pneumonia at age 79. Haggard was a punkass criminal (literally) who spent his life in anti-war attacks on America and then rushed to the defense of Barack Obama… It’s a commonly believed myth in America that country music artists–particularly the older ones–are conservative patriots. In fact, in many cases, they are not. See Willie Nelson. And see the late Mr. Haggard (friend of Willie). The “Okie From Muskogee” was one of the most successful country music artists of all time and one of the most well known “pioneers” of the depressing genre of music and song, with at least three dozen #1 country music chart hits in almost six decades. He was a White House guest of both Presidents Nixon and Reagan, so it’s easy to assume he leaned right. Not so.”
— Debbie Schlussel, a political commentator whose “online fanclub is the internet’s second-largest for a political personality– behind only Ann Coulter,” posted an invective-filled screed in which she celebrated Haggard’s death and insulted country music and its fans. (JK)

“Throughout his career, Haggard was disdainful of the wealthy while showing fierce loyalty to the poor. But this led him toward bigotry, territorialism, and nostalgia. In the vain hope of reviving an imaginary epoch of hard work and big rewards, he defended the very forces that produce the poverty he lamented… We can defend the millions of Americans — many of them poor, rural, and neglected — who find comfort and companionship in Merle Haggard’s music without defending Haggard himself, because we understand what Haggard didn’t: together we can build a just, prosperous world for the future, rather than simply imagining one in the past.”
— Jonah Walters, a researcher at Jacobin, proved no less condescending and insufferable than Schlussel in “Merle’s America: Merle Haggard provided the soundtrack of American reaction for five decades,” a maddening essay that illustrates how both conservative and liberal ideologues have utterly and comprehensively failed to grapple with the complexity of Haggard’s public persona and body of work. (JK)

“‘We understand what Haggard didn’t’ is perhaps the most condescending phrase of all time. It screams of, ‘let me tell you, poor whites, what the real and correct politics are.’ It says that Haggard’s songs, or at least the few cherry-picked songs to support this essay and not the actual catalog of Merle Haggard, are actually wrong and we now know better.”
— Eric Loomis, in part of his well-researched, logical, and unapologetic dismantling of Walters’ article, points out the shallowness of the Jacobin hit-piece and how it fails to account for the entirety of Merle Haggard’s legacy. Loomis’ response is a true mic-drop that defends Haggard by accounting for his songwriting, live performances, and interviews and how they interact to create a persona that cannot be dismissed with reactionary contemporary political discourse. (JK)

Vince Gill & Paul Franklin performed a new song, “A World Without Haggard” at this year’s All For The Hall concert. (JK)

“… A lot of Merle’s songs were really about a way to escape that life, from working that hard and not having a lot to show for it. He wasn’t giving you a way out in the sense of ‘you should make your life better,’ he was giving you a way of imagining that you’re somewhere different, that you have a life out fishing and hunting in the woods, or roaming free somewhere in the West, rather than having to get up and go to work. Merle was always able to live inside his songs, whether it was his own story or somebody else’s.”
— Jason Isbell, proving that not everyone who has spoken about Haggard in the past two weeks has been more interested in politicizing his work than in recognizing the greatness of Haggard’s persona. As ever, Isbell gets it. (JK)

Last week, we posted a few videos of country artists paying tribute to the late Prince. This week, we have Chris Stapleton singing the fire out of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” (JK)

“Hey Ashley. It’s Neil. Let’s write together someday. Just meet me towards sunset.”
— Neil Young, in a message he left on Ashley Monroe’s voicemail. Monroe used the phrase, “meet me towards sunset,” as the jumping-off point for a songwriting session with 2014 lyric contest winner Blair Bodine. (JK)

“I’ve been doing it for years with Sugarland: understanding that communicating with the most amount of people starts at the songwriting stage and because I wrote all of our songs that are mine it’s a very quick feedback process – you know when you’re failing. You walk up and you’re like, that’s not working, and you immediately go back and write the songs that seems to work. It’s great feedback.”
— Kristian Bush, in an interview with Aimee Dunn of The Shotgun Seat, talks about how the immediacy of the feedback he gets as a performer during music festivals impacts his songwriting process. (JK)

Maren Morris gave a spirited performance of “My Church” on Good Morning America. The performance vaulted the single back to the top of iTunes’ country charts, though Morris continues to tread water just outside the top 10 at country radio. (JK)

“In the Billboard top 30, I’ve got 10 coded as ‘ballad’ or ‘can’t play next to ballad.’ If you look at the top 30 as the snapshot of the format, a third of it is too low-energy for late spring. Then you look at what’s waiting in the wings, [and] I’m getting sent more ballads … in April!”
— Bob Walker, PD at WCTK in Providence, Rhode Island, spoke with Billboard‘s Phyllis Stark about the fact that radio is currently over-run with ballads… Meanwhile, Chris Stapleton’s “Nobody to Blame” barely scraped the top 10, Morris’ “My Church” is still struggling to gain traction, and Maddie & Tae’s uptempo “Shut Up & Fish” peaked outside the top 20. Moreover, Walker gives a long list of current songs that he describes as “really good” despite their lack of tempo and a bunch of songs slated for release later this spring– and literally every song he mentions is by a man or a male-led band. Mark McKay, PD for WGH-FM in Virginia Beach, provides a list of current songs that offset the number of ballads on playlists– and, again, every song that he mentions is by a man or a male-led band. Country radio is pretty much beyond repair. (JK)

“Hey – if we can give Lee Brice 40-plus weeks to hit top 10, we can certainly show the same patience and commitment to Stapleton. As I have said before: this is low hanging fruit. Pick it, take credit for planting and growing it, then sell it – and keep on stocking it.”
Or is it? Current VP of CRS, R.J. Curtis, wrote a must-read editorial about some of the current trends at country radio, and he goes in hard for Stapleton and Jon Pardi. (JK)

“If it makes any statement, I think it’s just a reminder that we have some strong female artists in this format and even more than that, we have strong and passionate female fans that definitely relate to our music. The fact that ‘This One’s for the Girls’ is still relevant 13 years after its release, and that the fans in the audience will be singing every word, proves that songs by female artists can stand the test of time and resonate with both male and female fans alike.”
— Martina McBride, in an interview with Beverly Keel for The Tennessean, talked about the lasting impact of one of her biggest hits, while Keel also spoke to some radio insiders who argued that the state of country radio has improved significantly for women in the year since Salad Gate. Emily Yahr of The Washington Post made a similar argument based upon the successes of Kelsea Ballerini, Cam, and Morris. (JK)

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats performed their latest single, “I Need Never Get Old” on The Late Late Show With James Corden. (JK)

“I didn’t think music meant I’d live my dreams, because all my friends were musicians and they were all poor, screwed and depressed. But I thought maybe I could move in a general direction of what my dreams could be. I know that’s not something catchy you put on a poster, but that’s what I’ve been doing since.”
— Sam Outlaw reflected on his aspirations for success in an (infuriatingly titled) interview with L.A. Weekly. The profile suggests that Outlaw could develop into L.A.’s biggest country export since Dwight Yoakam. (JK)

This week’s highest-profile new release is Beyonce’s incendiary, politically-charged Lemonade, and there has been considerable discussion about whether or not the track “Daddy Lessons” is a country song. Genre purists have, predictably, bristled at that notion, with some going so far as to suggest that Beyonce is guilty of appropriating country music. Victoria M. Massie of Vox provides a thoughtful counterpoint, outlining country music’s important roots in black and West African music. (JK)

The Dixie Chicks covered “Daddy’s Lessons” in concert this week. Already a killer country song in its own right, the Chicks kicked it up with an even more country arrangement. (LMW)

And, because we have missed hearing the Dixie Chicks cover Patty Griffin something fierce, this performance of Griffin’s “Don’t Let Me Die in Florida” makes for a most welcome return. (JK)

“… At the time I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. It’s the end of the world. I’m never gonna live past this… And that’s why we wrote that song, because I personally had to heal from it. I had to know that it’s gonna be okay. Like, someone does not define your self-worth.”
— Maddie Marlow of the aforementioned Maddie & Tae, recalled the origins of the duo’s new (uptempo…) single, “Sierra,” in an interview with Rolling Stone Country. (JK)

The legendary Dolly Parton announced dates for the first portion of her “Pure And Simple” tour, which will kick off in Greensboro, North Carolina, on June 3rd. (JK)

Friend of the blog Vickye Fisher recommended that we check out “Hurtin’ Songs” by Shotgun Wedding this week, and we can’t not pass along a recommendation for this killer track. (JK)

“There was no scene that we felt like we were part of. If anything, there was Uncle Tupelo, but I think we were a little bit ahead of some of the other bands. There weren’t a lot of people doing what we doing at the time, and that was part of the thrill of it. It didn’t fit in Minnesota and didn’t fit anywhere else. There was never any kind of country-rock summit meeting. Even to this day, we’re still outsiders. We never get acknowledged by any kind of Americana music festival. It’s almost like we don’t exist in some way, and that’s ok. Part of it is probably a result of being isolated up here in Minneapolis.”
— Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, in an interview with Rolling Stone, considered his band’s under-the-radar status throughout the entirety of their career, and how, despite being grouped with acts like Wilco, Whiskeytown, and The Bottle Rockets, they are still outsiders within even the alt-country and Americana scenes. (JK)

“Next time I write a record and pour my heart out, I gotta remember that I gotta go out and sing that shit.”
— Sturgill Simpson had an epiphany about the difficulties inherent in writing a deeply personal album that he then has to go out and perform on stage night after night. The quip came as part of an in-depth profile for Esquire magazine. Simpson will have to get used to that difficulty, since A Sailor’s Guide to Earth debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s country, folk, and rock albums charts and finished the week at #3 on the Billboard 200, following a late-week surge for two Prince albums. Josh Hurst wrote an absolutely essential review of A Sailor’s Guide this week, giving the dense album the kind of thoughtful analysis it both merits and rewards. (JK)

And finally, the just-awesome Jamie Lin Wilson posted a series of performances from her front porch this week. Her cover of Lyle Lovett’s “South Texas Girl” is everything, and her covers of George Jones and Jessi Colter songs are also spectacular. (JK)

 

As ever, let us know in the comments if we missed anything!