Articles by Kevin John Coyne

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Forgotten Hits: John Michael Montgomery, “Friends”

April 24, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 10

Friends
John Michael Montgomery
#2
1996

Written by Jerry Holland

Every once in a while, I read something that sparks a post. This week, it was The Boot’s countdown of the Ten Best Friend Songs in Country Music.

As I scanned the list, I saw expected gems like Tim McGraw’s “My Old Friend”, along with curious selections such as Shania Twain’s “Come On Over.” Even #2 on the list was questionable: Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” is as much about friendship as “The Dance” is about the Fox Trot.

Left off the list completely is the country song that I think best describes the nature of friendship. John Michael Montgomery’s “Friends” may not have the scope and death of Plato’s Lysis, but it captures the essence of friendships as well as anything else I’ve seen this side of ancient Greek philosophy.

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ACM 2010: Ladies Night

April 19, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 75

Female artists dominated this year’s ACM Awards in a way that would have been unimaginable just five years earlier, with nearly all of the major winners of the evening coming from a female solo artist or a band that prominently features a female vocalist. More significantly, this year’s ACM dissented from the CMA this fall in the marquee categories of Entertainer and Female Vocalist, which makes this fall’s CMA Awards that much more unpredictable.

Here’s my spin on the show’s highlights:

Carrie Underwood wins Entertainer of the Year

Perhaps we should have known not to underestimate the fan base of Ms. Underwood, who helped deliver the singing siren her second consecutive win for Entertainer of the Year. With Taylor Swift dominating the Grammys and CMAs, it was easy to forget that Underwood has continued to do quite well in her own right. Her string of hits at radio – eleven consecutive top two hits, nine of which reached #1 – is unprecedented. She’s also had ten gold singles, three of which have sold platinum or better. Her third album, Play On, has moved her cumulative album sales past eleven million.

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ACM Flashback: Single Record of the Year

April 3, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 11

As with the similar CMA category of Single of the Year, looking over the history of this category is the quickest way to get a snapshot of country music in a given year. There is a quite a bt of consensus among the two organizations here, and it is very rare for the winner at one show to not at least be nominated at the other. The winners list here would make a great 2-disc set of country classics, at least for those who don’t mind a little pop in their country. The ACM definitely has more of a taste for crossover than its CMA counterpart, and the organizations have only agreed on 17 singles in the past four decades and change.

As always, we start with a look at this year’s nominees and work our way back to 1968.

2010

  • Zac Brown Band, “Toes”
  • Billy Currington, “People Are Crazy”
  • Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now”
  • Miranda Lambert, “White Liar”
  • David Nail, “Red Light”

There’s usually a “Huh?” nominee among the ACM list in recent years. This year, it’s David Nail. Good for him! Currington hasn’t won yet for this hit, even though he got himself a Grammy nomination for it. With Lady Antebellum reaching the upper ranks of the country and pop charts with “Need You Now”, my guess is that they’re the presumptive favorites. Then again, Miranda Lambert is a nominee for the third straight year, and she’s up for her biggest radio hit.

2009

  • Trace Adkins, “You’re Gonna Miss This”
  • Jamey Johnson, “In Color”
  • Miranda Lambert, “Gunpowder & Lead”
  • Heidi Newfield, “Johnny and June”
  • Brad Paisley, “Waitin’ On a Woman”

Adkins has been a fairly regular fixture on country radio since 1996, but this was his first major industry award. He also won the ACM for Top New Male Vocalist in 1997.

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ACM Flashback: Album of the Year

March 28, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 16

The ACM Awards has traditionally been overshadowed by the CMA Awards, despite its longer existence. This is for several reasons. First, the ACM originally existed to emphasize the West Coast country music scene, whereas the CMA Awards represented Nashville from the start. The ACM has also been more commercially-oriented from the beginning, as the history of this category proves. Eighteen of the last twenty winners in this ACM category are multi-platinum sellers, and the organization allowed greatest hits albums to compete for more than a decade.
Still, the ACM category has bragging rights of its own. Critically-acclaimed albums like Storms of Life, Trio, Killin’ Time and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend won at the ACMs but were overlooked by the CMAs. Additionally, women have also been far more successful at this ceremony. Only five women have ever won the CMA Album trophy, and one of them was Sissy Spacek! At the ACMs, women have dominated the category for the past three years, and the category has honored everyone from Loretta Lynn and Donna Fargo to K.T. Oslin and Shania Twain.

A special note about ACM flashbacks. Like the Grammys, the ACMs issue their award for a given year the following year, so the awards for 2009, for example, are given out in 2010. For the purposes of the flashbacks, Country Universe notes the year the award is presented. While the ACM first presented awards in 1966, the Album category wasn’t introduced until 1968.

As with other flashbacks, we begin with a look at this year’s nominees:

2010

  • Lady Antebellum, Lady Antebellum
  • Miranda Lambert, Revolution
  • Brad Paisley, American Saturday Night
  • Carrie Underwood, Play On
  • Zac Brown Band, The Foundation

Three previous winners – Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, and Carrie Underwood – compete against the debut albums of two hot bands. Lady Antebellum and Zac Brown Band each picked up a Grammy this year and are well represented on the rest of the ACM ballot. This is a very competitive race. Even the sales-friendly nature of the ACMs doesn’t help much here, as four of these albums are platinum and Lambert’s just went gold.

2009

  • Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song
  • Montgomery Gentry, Back When I Knew It All
  • George Strait, Troubadour
  • Taylor Swift, Fearless
  • Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride

Taylor Swift became the third consecutive female artist to win in this category, a feat that would’ve seemed unthinkable earlier in the middle part of the decade, when country radio all but exiled women from radio.

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Single Review: Blaine Larsen, “Chillin'”

March 23, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 6

What to make of a single that does Kenny Chesney better than Kenny Chesney does these days? Sure, it’s derivative and completely unnecessary, but I’d rather here this than “Ain’t Back Yet.”

I like a lot of the lines, too, particularly the imagery of “got my thinkin’ cap hangin’ on a scarecrow.” But hearing the song as a whole makes me wish I was listening to “Beer in Mexico” instead.

Actually, that’s a lie. Hearing this sent me in a completely different musical direction, one that goes a little something like this:

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Single Review: Kellie Pickler, “Makin’ Me Fall in Love Again”

March 20, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 14

Kellie Pickler has quietly become one of the most played female artists on country radio, the unthinking man’s alternative to fellow top twenty regular Miranda Lambert. She’s done it largely with fluff, but there’s no real shame in that. Sylvia made a whole career out of it an won a Female Vocalist trophy along the way. Granted, it was from the ACM, but a mantle decoration is a mantle decoration.

So the question is, how good is this fluff? As the man who trashed both “Red High Heels” and “Best Days of Your Life” but eventually added them on to my favorites playlist, I say with caution that it’s mediocre. I can’t see this one growing one me. Just not enough of a hook. It’s like they got the color and the texture right but forgot to put the sugar in the cotton candy.

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Forgotten Hits: Sammy Kershaw, "Yard Sale"

March 17, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 6

Yard Sale
Sammy Kershaw
#17
1992

Written by Larry Bastian and Dewayne Blackwell

Great country songs can find heartache in the most mundane places. For George Jones, it was “a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee that you poured but didn’t drink.” For Sammy Kershaw, a nineties star heavily influenced by the Possum, it was a family picnic table of discounted items.

“They’re sorting through what’s left of you and me,” he sings, and like in the Jones classic “A Good Year For the Roses,” it’s the steady observation of sights and sounds that tell the story. As he notes that there must be half the town on the grass and on the sidewalk, he muses, “Ain’t it funny how a broken home can bring the prices down?”

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Words to Live By

March 16, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 13

Earlier this week, Tara Seetharam posted about songs that resonate for reasons beyond the lyrics. This got me thinking about something close to the opposite: What about songs that stand out because of a particular lyric, a line that takes on a life of its own beyond the song?

I first heard “Too Many Memories” on the Patty Loveless album Long Stretch of Lonesome. It was later recorded by Hal Ketchum. It’s a good song, no doubt, but the kicker that ends the second verse has grown into words to live by for me:

What makes you grow old is replacing hope with regret.

I’ve used that quote countless times, and as I get older, it gets ever more true.

Is this just me, or do any of you also have lines from songs that are words to live by?

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RFD-TV: The Best Thing Ever?

March 13, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 14

Like many country fans who discovered the genre in the nineties, CMT and TNN were central to my experience of discovering music. When CMT shifted to non-music programming, GAC quickly became the channel of choice. But as that channel grew in popularity, it shifted its emphasis to only mainstream country music, losing the diversity that defined it in its early years.

When moving late last year, I switched cable companies. Initially, I thought the best country-related channel I’d gotten in the switch was CMT Pure, which plays only music. Unfortunately, older videos are limited to a 1/2 hour of programming called “Pure Vintage”, a pale comparison to the three-hour early morning extravaganza “CMT Classic” that once ran on CMT proper in the wee hours of the weekend.

By a fluke, I discovered RFD-TV, which bills itself as “Rural America’s Most Important Network.” I could care less about the horse and agriculture shows, but with country music, this channel has hit the jackpot.

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