The Official Country Music Thread Genre • Page 32

This is the first album I've heard of hers, actually.

 

Picked up Lydia Loveless' Real on vinyl today. Pretty pumped to add it to the collection.

 

Puxico is basically everything I love about country music. So good.

This is five songs in I'm saying this.

 

"Wine After Whiskey" by Carrie Underwood is standing the test of time for me as one of the great county songs

 

Brandi Carlile Enlists Pearl Jam, Adele, Jim James for 'Cover Stories'

 

Old 97s: "Good with God"

With Nikki Lane on Late Night w/ Seth Meyers


Album's out Friday!

 

Seems like there's a new John Moreland record coming out in May! There's a new song on Apple Music, but I don't think anything has been announced yet.

Big Bad Luv by John Moreland on Apple Music

 

Well that will be an AOTY contender then.

 

He posted on Facebook that the new album comes out May 5th and is named Big Bad Luv.

 

New song sounds great, btw!

 

Been really digging Puxico lately, love that laid back old school sound to it

 

So happy to see so many people digging that record.

 

Please send more great recommendations for recent stuff (or upcoming stuff to check out).

 

The new Steve Moakler record (which comes out toward the end of March) is aces. Just the right mix of pop, country, and classic singer/songwriter stuff. Here's the single (though he released half the record as an EP last year):

If you haven't checked it out yet, the new Little Big Town record is pretty solid. None of the songs are quite as good as "Better Man," but aside from a dud or two, it's a strong mainstream country record.

 

Thoughts on newest Little Big Town? Seems poppier/less country than their previous album, but I'm a sucker for great harmonizing, so I'm liking it

 

I'll give that a listen!

I gave the new Little Big Town record a listen over the weekend and wasn't really feeling it. Might be one that needs to grow on me. "Better Man" is definitely the highlight of it though.

 

There are some duds, for sure. "We Went to the Beach" and "Beat up Bible"--along with "Better Man"--are top-tier songwriting, though.

 

I'm actually pretty pleased with the album overall. They've never been a band that will deliver top-to-bottom great songs, but it was a nice return to their sound, has a few killers, and the real draw (the harmonies) are as pristine as ever.

 

"Free" and "Better Man" are tops for me

 

I definitely need to give it another listen. I was listening in the car while running errands so I didn't get to just sit through the whole thing at once.

 

Probably not something a lot of people around here would enjoy, but I've been really into this album lately for whatever reason. Pretty interesting story behind it too.

"The Singing Logger," Buzz Martin was the poet laureate of the timber industry, exploring through song the trials and tribulations of the brave men who risk life and limb working the forests of the Pacific Northwest. He was born Lloyd Earl Martin in a tent outside of Coon Holler, OR, on September 15, 1928. A cataract condition left him blind at age 13 and he was sent to the Oregon State School for the Blind, where he began his musical education. An experimental surgical procedure later restored Martin's sight, but in the interim he lost both of his parents, so he spent the remainder of his childhood in the care of older sister Nellie, learning the logging trade from her husband Bill Woolsey, a self-taught musical instrument maker who handcrafted his own guitars, fiddles, and dulcimers. Despite growing up without electricity, Martin occasionally tuned into broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry via battery-powered radio, and eventually began writing his own country songs as respite from a series of logging jobs including cutter, high climber, and whistle punk. In time he was regularly performing at logging camps and local dances, building a repertoire of original songs that vividly captured the demands and dangers of the timber life. In 1963 Martin appeared on country singer Buddy Simmons' Portland-area television program Channel 2 Hoedown, so impressing Simmons that he later helped land Martin a record deal. The single "Whistle Punk Pete"/"Sick of Settin' Chokers" followed on Lavender Records in 1967. A year later Martin issued his debut LP, Where There Walks a Logger There Walks a Man, the first of six full-length releases on the Ripcord label, including A Loggers Reward, A Logger Finds an Opening, and The Old-Time Logger: A Vanishing Breed of Man. He also toured regularly with the support of the Chips Off the Old Block, a family band comprising his children and their spouses, and in 1972 appeared on Johnny Cash's network television show, an experience that inspired the song "The Man at the Top Reached Clear to the Bottom to Give This Logger a Helping Hand." Martin also headlined Disneyland in 1973, and three years later was selected by the Smithsonian Institute to represent Oregon at its bicentennial Festival of American Folk Life. Martin relocated to Alaska in 1980 in search of new logging opportunities, and continued writing and performing music until his death in a hunting accident on August 1, 1983; son Steve Martin later issued the CD Where There Walks a Logger: A Tribute to My Dad Buzz Martin.


RIYL: Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson, Logging

 

Want to let you know I checked these songs out. Not for me, but always down to hear something new and that was intriguing. I just never like talking country songs.

 

No worries. It's def not for every one, but I figure anybody who is into that kind of Johhny Cash throwback sound might be interested. I will say though that the majority of the album isn't the talking country style, but several are. It also might wear on most people that the majority of the lyrics are about logging haha.

 

Jason Isbell is teasing on Twitter. Hopefully his definition of summer is actually late spring and hopefully we get something soon!

 

Oh yeah, the harmonies are great. I probably like this more than their last one, which I also enjoyed. A lot of good songwriters got cuts on this record too, which is cool. Lori McKenna has like three or four co-writes, and one of the Brothers Osborne guys wrote the title track.

"Free" is the other one I really love that I was forgetting about. Speaking of Natalie Hemby, she and Lori McKenna both have co-writes on that track.