100 Greatest Men: #68. Mark Chesnutt
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
Even among the new traditionalists of the early nineties, Mark Chesnutt stood out as a traditionalist, bringing pure country to the radio dial for more than a decade.
Hank Williams Jr.
Single Review: Gretchen Wilson, “I’ve Got Your Country Right Here”
Where, exactly?
Besides the fact that Wilson has once again turned out a country pride anthem in the vein of “Redneck Woman”, she name drops several legends of Southern Rock while appropriating their style for her own.
Gretchen, I’ll give you a pass on Hank Jr. and Charlie Daniels, even though you sang about both of them on your first hit. But come on, the Allman Brothers Band? ZZ Top? Are you kidding?
Best Country Singles of 2009, Part 1: #40-#21
Here’s hoping you haven’t gotten completely burned out on countdowns yet. 2009 was hardly a favorite musical year for many of us, but amid each year’s glut of throwaway items, there’s always a good’un or two (or forty). The following is the first installment of our Best Singles of 2009 list, which will conclude tomorrow morning. Best Albums will follow next week.
As with the Singles of the Decade feature, this countdown has been compiled through combination of four equally weighed Top 20 lists by Kevin, Leeann, Tara and myself. An inverted point system was applied to the individual rankings (#1 on a list meant 20 points, while #20 on the list meant 1 point). The songs were then ranked together by number of total points, greatest to least. The final result is another rather stylistically diverse set.
As always, we hope you enjoy the countdown, and welcome all the feedback you can muster. Happy New Year!
#40
Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now”
The trio puts a country spin on an old school pop sound, but without forsaking raw emotion. The highlight of the song is Hillary Scott’s smoky performance, which draws out all the anguish and regret you’d expect from a desperate, 1 AM lover’s call. – Tara Seetharam
Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number
While Taylor Swift mania continues to grow, there’s another impressive accomplishment being achieved by two veterans of country music on the opposite end of the age spectrum.
Contrary to what is commonly believed, there has always been a ceiling on how old you could be and still get country airplay. This year, both George Strait and Reba McEntire have been working steadily to shatter that ceiling.
Take a look at the age of country legends when they earned their most recent top ten solo hit:
Mark Chesnutt Starter Kit
Back to the Nineties continues with a look at Mark Chesnutt, one of the strongest traditionalists to break through in 1990. He won the Horizon Award in 1993 while he was riding a streak of three consecutive #1 singles.
Chesnutt’s greatest commercial and radio successes came early on. His first three studio albums went platinum and his fourth went gold. He’d earn an additional platinum record with a hits collection assembled from those sets.
While he remained a consistent presence on radio for the entire decade, his sales tapered off. His last big hit was his 1999 cover of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” which went to #1. In more recent years, he’s limited his covers to The Marshall Tucker Band and Charlie Rich.
Ten Essential Tracks:
“Too Cold at Home”
from the 1990 album Too Cold at Home
Chesnutt’s first twelve singles reached the top ten, starting with this pure country hit that finds him hiding out in a bar on a sweltering summer day. “It’s too hot to fish, too hot for gold, and too cold at home.”
“Brother Jukebox”
from the 1990 album Too Cold at Home
He’s still at the bar for this hit, his first to top the charts. This time, the woman has left him, and his only family left are the jukebox, wine, freedom, and time.
Album Sales Update: July 2009
It’s time for an album sales update, our first since May 23. Brad Paisley is off to a strong start with American Saturday Night, selling 130k in its first week. That’s about 70k less than his previous two studio albums – Time Well Wasted and 5th Gear – opened with, but not a terrible drop-off, considering the state of the music market.
Meanwhile, the new studio albums by Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban are slowing down considerably, now being outpaced on a weekly basis by 2008 releases by Taylor Swift, Zac Brown Band, Darius Rucker and Lady Antebellum.
Among younger acts with a new album in 2009, the most impressive sales are coming from Jason Aldean, while 2008 releases from Kellie Pickler, Billy Currington, and Randy Houser are showing new signs of life.
Biggest disappointments? It’s hard not to look in the direction of Martina McBride, who has barely cleared the 100k mark on her new studio set. Lee Ann Womack’s 2008 set just made it over that mark, too. Then again, one only needs to have sold 455 copies to make the chart this week, with the anchor position going to Wynonna with that total. Her covers album Sing – Chapter 1 has sold 41k to date.
Here are the latest totals for albums released over the past three years that are still charting:
2009
- Rascal Flatts, Unstoppable – 842,000
- Keith Urban, Defying Gravity – 452,000
- Jason Aldean, Wide Open – 384,000
- Kenny Chesney, Greatest Hits II – 281,000
- Dierks Bentley, Feel That Fire – 219,000
- Martina McBride, Shine – 104,000
- John Rich, Son of a Preacher Man – 103,000
- Eric Church, Carolina – 94,000
- Rodney Atkins, It’s America – 88,000
- Jake Owen, Easy Does It – 81,000
Montgomery Gentry, “Long Line of Losers”
What do you know? Coming off of their invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry, Montgomery Gentry release their most country-sounding single in some time. The sound is a nice blend of Alabama, Hank Jr., and 70’s folk-rock, with a chorus ready-made for barroom singalongs and a colorful set of dobro fills.
It’s a credit to the songwriting that it manages to breathe life into a fairly tired theme. This whole “I’m proud of my broken family, gosh darn it” shtick has been done a good deal in recent years, and it’s been done well, with tracks like LeAnn Rimes’ “Family” and Eric Church’s “Sinners Like Me” providing some of the most memorable moments in those artists’ catalogs.
As with those examples, what elevates Montgomery Gentry’s take on the idea is its candor. Rather than try to falsely glamorize the relatives’ imperfections, as so many would-be Redneck Anthems would do, this song just throws them all out on the table, acknowledging them as they really are – not necessarily desirable, yet inescapable. Granted, the family does sound a little bit sensationalized, but the details are at least interesting enough to warrant a momentary suspension of disbelief.
Holly Williams, "Mama"
Justin Townes Earle, son of Steve Earle, has recently received considerable press regarding his beautiful and classy song that pays tribute to his mother. It’s been reported that before he sings the song at a show, he introduces it by saying that his father gets enough credit, but someone who does not is his mother. This is easily true about most spouses or ex spouses of famous people. So, it’s nice when an adult child takes advantage of his/her platform to rectify the oversight, which is something that Hank Williams Jr’s daughter has done as well.
Holly Williams sings a tribute to her selfless mother, simply titled “Mama.” While the song is as simple as the title, it is sweet and intriguingly revealing about her childhood. In “Mama”, Williams thanks her mom for shielding her from the emotional turmoil that undoubtedly plagued her as a result of a broken marriage to the famously rebel rousing, Hank Williams Jr.
Hank Williams, Jr., "Red, White and Pink Slip Blues"
I’ll confess that when I read the title of this song, “Red, White and Pink Slip Blues”, I mentally groaned. But alas, Kevin assigned the single to me and like a dutiful blogger, I clicked on the link anyway.
Hank Williams Jr., though inarguably talented, is often known for his swagger that, sometimes, overshadows the quality of his art. So, a song that quite obviously covers the theme of economic hard times that this country, and the world, is currently facing could easily seem like an opportunistic ploy to capitalize on the nation’s vulnerability, as seems to have been the problem with other recent songs of this nature. As a result, I was all but certain that a song with this title would be more frivolous than cathartic.
Instead, ol’ Hank comes through with a song that aptly captures the story of so many Americans at this frightening time. From the first person perspective, he tells of a man who’s tried to do everything right, but still finds himself jobless and unable to even afford survival. He desperately sings: