Before I go any further, I know this has nothing to do with anything, but you all may have noticed my lack of writing during the past week. Some things have happened to keep me from it, some of which are personal and have nothing whatsoever to do with CE and others which have affected CE directly. Regardless, there were several things I intended to write, reviews and otherwise, which didn’t get written for various reasons–life has that way about it. The reviews will come, the other stuff won’t because the time has passed to comment. Also, for all 7 of you lovely people who voted on Twitter, there will hopefully be a playlist for April coming eventually. Obviously none of that has anything to do with Maddie & Tae, but it felt like an update was warranted. And now, on to the first thing I’ve been excited to write about since I heard it earlier this week.
AS for Maddie & Tae, I’ve written so much about these ladies just in their short existence, and it simply makes me happy as a music fan to see them arrive with this lead single from their second album, and even more happy that it stays in their pop country lane so well. Yes, it’s more pop than most of what we’ve seen from them so far, but it’s still solidly pop country, and perhaps more importantly, still sounds like the duo. Their excellent harmonies are back, always a great addition to their songs, and the acoustic guitar and banjo can be heard in the mix, giving actual country flavor to the track, as you would expect from one of their songs. Their smart, clever songwriting is on full display here with the hook “we do, but friends don’t.” It’s describing all these unique, specific situations, like calling each other in the middle of the night just to chat and having conversations with only their eyes–all things that you don’t do if you’re just friends. The song lays out all these examples and then sells it with that hook, explaining that they can’t deny this chemistry between them any longer. That’s the thing about this–the songwriting is smart, but it’s also so relatable and something probably all of us have either experienced personally or have seen happening with our friends. Sometimes we can even see it in those around us easier than we can see it in ourselves. It’s a sentiment so many will understand, and portrayed cleverly by Maddie & Tae, at once specific to this couple and universal for the listener.
Solid single, looking forward to the album.
Written by: Maddie Marlow, Tae Dye, Justin Ebach, Jon Nite
If you’re looking for someone new to follow in the traditional country scene, meet Randall King. This self-titled debut album really fulfills any fan of the genre’s requirements. It features plenty of steel guitar, nicely varied tempos, and his voice is quite good. I just knew I was going to like this album once I heard his Southern drawl and the upbeat tempo of the first track, “Freightline”.
It’s no surprise, then, that “Freightline” is one of my favorites off of the whole album. It’s a song all about how the main character, a trucker, simply wants to get back home to his partner. She’s waiting for him, the least the trucking line could do is work faster. I just found this song a breath of fresh air, and it makes for a solid album opener. Another of my favorites off of the album is the slower “Mirror, Mirror”. It’s more introspective, with the character in the song looking into a mirror. It’s reflecting him, the biggest fool, who’s somehow managed to lose the woman he loved. Randall King’s voice really sells this song, and you get to see just how vocally talented he is. The steel guitar is amazing on this track, but since this is true for most of this album, I’ll try not to elaborate on it too much.
While we’re on the subject of songs wherein the main character isn’t perfect, there’s “Cool Under Pressure”. While it’s more upbeat, the character is saying how he has to hide his nerves around a girl he likes. I didn’t like it at first, because it seemed to me that he wasn’t being himself. When I really thought about it, though, I found the song a breath of fresh air. The man is admitting that he’s not smooth and that he doesn’t actually have the girl yet. I liked that a lot.
My absolute favorite song on the album is “When He Knows Me”. It’s about a truck driver who is losing his memory, told from the perspective of a friend or relative. It’s an incredibly sad song, wherein Randall King describes how some days the man remembers, and some days he doesn’t. The line that really gets me here is “those precious moments are getting fewer and farther between, when he knows me”. There’s also the verse where the narrator describes how he’s been mixed up with a field hand, a foe, and a friend. It really is one of the saddest songs I’ve heard all year. If you listen to anything off of this album, make it this.
While I’ve highlighted my favorites, the rest of the album is nicely varied between happy and sad, fast and slow. There isn’t really one song I hate. If I had to pick my least favorite song here, I think it’d have to be “Tuggin’ On My Heartstrings”. Which is sad, because I love it instrumentally. It’s fun, upbeat, with awesome fiddle and steel. The lyrics, though, is where I take issue. It’s about a man who’s in love with a woman, and that woman is changing literally everything about his life, from his friends to what he watches on TV. I just think that’s stereotypical and wrong. That said, I can’t help liking the melody, tempo, and everything musical about this song.
Overall, this album is solid. Not every song is a standout, but Randall King has a really good voice. He’s definitely got the talent to pull off the variety found here. With songs like “When He Knows Me”, and “Mirror Mirror On The Wall”, I’d say he’s one to watch. The fact that the whole album wasn’t slow and sad just makes it that much better, and I definitely recommend checking this out.
Eat your heart out, every Americana artist ever who has either bored me to death or failed to consistently sing on pitch for an entire performance because Willie Nelson, at the age of eighty-four, has just owned all of you. I’d like to hand deliver this record to all of you who, in your twenties and thirties, have half the vocal prowess and not an ounce of the charisma, with that simple message: “Owned.” As he says in a song from his last album, he “woke up still not dead again today,” so he apparently decided to bless us with another great record and embarrass a sizable chunk of the makers of independent music in the process.
As for that album, God’s Problem Child was a good record, and I stand behind my thoughts about it, but one listen to the opener and title track of this new one inherently and immediately makes me enjoy that album less. That album reflected heavily on the end of life, and the songs were well-written, but it didn’t really have too much staying power or relatibility for me. This one deals with many of the same subjects, but more often than not, they’re approached in a lighthearted, charismatic way. The aforementioned “Still Not dead” was a rare moment of levity on God’s Problem Child, but this record is mostly lively. The title track muses, “I don’t want to be the last man standing, oh wait a minute, maybe I do” and advises people to go ahead and leave “if you’re in such a hurry” because heaven and hell are both waiting. Heaven and hell appear again on “Heaven is Closed” as he remarks that “heaven is closed and hell’s overcrowded,” so he’ll just stay here on earth. He says he can hear someone calling him to come in from this world, which he calls “the craziness,” but still he remains here.
That craziness is the center of one of the albums’ best songs, “Me and You.” This deals with the current divisiveness of our world, and the genius in the writing here is that he says “it’s just me and you” against everyone, and then we find that he’s talking to himself. Another cool part is that he doesn’t take a specific political or social stance, so people on both sides of the divide can surely relate to this, to feeling like everyone else besides them has gone crazy, or that, as Nelson sings about a friend with whom he can no longer have discussions, “he ain’t got a lick of sense.” This is how to write a political song–this doesn’t divide or cause half an audience to hate it, it becomes something people from all backgrounds and political affiliations can get behind. Another moment of slightly less obvious political and social commentary comes in “Don’t tell Noah,” and again, this message could strike a chord with both sides, as he’s basically telling us all not to take positions on things about which we know nothing–“don’t tell Noah about the flood, don’t tell Jesus about the blood.” This one features some upbeat piano and harmonica which really add to its infectiousness.
This is just so much more fun and charismatic than Willie’s last album, and like I say, inasmuch as I don’t want to take away from that record, this inadvertently does just that by showing Willie Nelson in a more relatable light. Willie’s at his best when he’s doing these upbeat tunes like “Don’t Tell Noah” or the Western swing-influenced “Ready to roar.” I’ve already mentioned the piano and the harmonica, both integral parts of this record, but the great guitar licks sprinkled throughout this also add a lot of flavor to it. This swing/jazz-influenced country style suits Nelson more than the restrained, adult contemporary ballads which characterized his last album. Not only that, it makes the ballads, like “Something You Get Through,” stand out more, whereas they ran together some on God’s Problem Child.
And it’s worth noting that wile we have all these artists–like Joshua Hedley most recently, but he’s not the only one–trying so hard to be vintage and throwback that they’ve even adapted their songwriting to make it feel retro, here we have Willie Nelson using modern phrases like “it’s getting hard to watch my pals check out” in the title track, and owning an iPhone in “I Ain’t Got Nothin’.” The sentiments in Nelson’s songs remain timeless, and this slight modernization only adds an accessibility to his lyrics. I’m not saying doing this is vital, and indeed, some songs sound dated when they’re modernized too much, but the point is, not everything has to be retro to make it “authentic,” and often, the concentrated effort to make something so actually renders it the opposite, leaving the writing sometimes feeling unnatural. You’d be an absolute idiot to call Willie nelson anything other than authentic. I wonder what the throwback types think about the fact that Nelson and his songwriting partner and producer, Buddy Cannon, wrote most of this album by text…but I digress.
This is a great record on so many fronts. Willie Nelson still sounds good vocally, and his charisma is just ridiculous. I wrote that God’s Problem Child was a good record, but not probably an album that would make new Willie Nelson fans; this one undoubtedly has that potential, with its relatable songwriting and vibrant personality. Much like John Prine’s latest album, it paints the end of life in a humorous light and somewhat alleviates the fear of death. And like Prine, Nelson proves that artist can still have something meaningful, worthwhile, and yes, even relatable and entertaining to say no matter their age. This record will have staying power, and it will be in the conversation when December comes around.
The South has her fair share of scars and stains and things her people would like to forget. It’s easy, in trying our best to forget and even eradicate that history, to also let go of her heritage and her culture and the things that make her unique. It’s easy to think of country and bluegrass music, as well as Southern culture, as marks of a backward and rural people who need to be brought into the present, and the people that perpetuate these stereotypes only complicate these issues. The South was and is not perfect, but Old Crow Medicine Show are living proof of what makes Southern music beautiful, and why its unique and rich culture is embraced by many and should be preserved.
It’s not an overarching intent with this project or with Old Crow Medicine Show, like something like Southern Family, so don’t let that mislead you—it’s just what comes naturally from listening to this record and to this string band in general. WE have “Child of the Mississippi,” one of the brightest, most fun, energetic songs here, portraying a narrator who grew up on the Mississippi River, “just a barefoot boy born in Dixieland.” The river is in his blood, even more a part of himself than his family. Immediately following that is “Dixie Avenue,” featuring some cheerful harmonica and referencing a couple who falls in love by the light of the Southern moon and eventually settles down in their sleepy little town, buying a house on Dixie Avenue. And then, after these two ridiculously infectious songs, everything slows down in the heart of the album for the premise of it all and one of its highlights, the five-minute ode to the South known appropriately as “Look Away.” Using those well-known lines from “Dixie,” this song paints a picture of a world-weary man returning to his Southern homeland “where the cotton grows” after many years away. Piano licks accentuate this song, as well as the ever-present fiddle and rich harmonies, both such integral parts of the sound of Old Crow Medicine Show.
Speaking of fiddle, there’s a track here called “Shout Mountain Music,” which is basically an “f you” to anyone that wants them to change their sound, even referencing Nashville. This features some fiddle and banjo up front in the mix, despite the advice that these instruments might not belong. They double down on this sentiment with the fiddle instrumental “Elzick’s Farewell,” which anyone who knows anything about me at all knows I love on principle. The fiddle is a rhythmic instrument often for Old Crow, but it’s also used excellently melodically here in “Old Hickory,” a song about a troubled man named Virgil Lee who found his solace in playing music. The Southern references are here as well, as we see “kindly” for “kind of” and “too big for your britches”–as I say, it’s not a specific or purposeful intent of Old Crow, but the Southern language is a unique feature of this album.
It’s nice to be able to have positive words to write about Dave Cobb as well. The man did a fantastic job here, letting the strings and the harmonies and the band’s personality shine. The fun songs, which make up the majority of the album, are vibrant, and each instrument is clearly heard in the mix. The interaction between the band members on tracks like “Flicker & Shine” adds another layer of infectiousness, and Cobb did a good job of capturing that. He didn’t overproduce the more serious songs either, allowing the harmonies and lyrics to be the main focus. The closer, “Whirlwind,” said to be inspired by a couple who were married for many years and stayed together during hard times in the rural South, concludes this album elegantly and may be one of the best songs here.
Actually, the best song is really hard to pinpoint on this album because aside from three songs here, I love all of these selections. This album is literally filled with standout songs–it’s not a solid record of good material, it’s an album of mostly excellent tracks. There’s only one I could do without completely, and that’s “The good Stuff,” as that one crosses the line from infectious to obnoxious. “Old Hickory” and “Homecoming Party” are not quite as strong as the rest, mostly in terms of the writing. “Old Hickory,” as mentioned, is definitely elevated by the instrumentation, and “Homecoming Party” carries an interesting theme of getting off the road and not really being welcomed at home, but both songs just don’t stand out as much lyrically. Still, these are really minor nitpicks on a very solid album.
Overall, this is a really fun, vibrant record that embraces and captures Southern culture in the best way. It’s mostly upbeat and infectious, but there are enough serious moments to add some variety. The production is crisp and tasteful, the writing is strong, and the instrumentation, as you’d expect from an Old Crow album, is stellar. Not that anyone should be surprised by any of this, but Volunteer is another great release from Old Crow Medicine Show and an excellent case for the preservation of Southern music and culture.
For the people that like to get caught up in the rating and not focus on anything else, six is always the weirdest number to assign. Sometimes, like with Chris Stapleton’s latest record, it can be a mark of disappointment after higher expectations. Often with brand-new artists like Mason Lively, it’s a sign of potential. I debated for a long time whether to write a full review for this or whether to feature some of it in Memorable Songs–I went with a review because while I think Lively has things to improve upon, there’s so much promise in this debut, and I’m excited about this artist more than the album. The Texas/Red Dirt scene has such a way with cultivating new artists and letting them develop their own unique sound, and that, more than really anything else about it, is the thing that separates it from Nashville. It’s not the quality of the music or the style, it’s the sense of individuality and originality so carefully preserved and passed down. Few Nashville artists get the chance to develop into themselves, either because of labels dictating them or else being dropped before they can find themselves as artists, but in the Texas scene, new artists are allowed to grow and come into their own.
Although he hasn’t quite come into his own yet with the debut Stronger Ties, Mason Lively has laid a nice foundation here. Tracks like “Heavy Toll” and “Early Grave” display a fine sense of himself sonically, both residing in that traditional Red Dirt space of blending country and rock to make something unique. “Early Grave” has that classic mix of fiddles and rock guitars so common on these records. Both these tracks also do the best job of showcasing Mason’s charisma and personality, and it’s good that they are the opening selections. These are the two I would have chosen had I selected this for the Memorable Songs feature, and it’s these two I’d suggest if you only listen to one or two songs from this record. His personality also comes out on “The Ballad of the Broken Heart,” another stronger moment on the album.
Lively is best at these more up-tempo, country rock tunes, but there are also some nice quieter moments. “Worry About Nothing” sees him vowing to stop focusing on everyone else’s needs without paying attention to his own and saying he’ll pray about everything rather than worrying. There’s some nice harmonica to add some character to this one. The fiddle shows up again in “Right Back to You,” as the narrator keeps returning to the one he loves despite the fact that he said he never would–“two wrongs make a right back to you” is a cool line and one of the flashes of potential in his songwriting peppered throughout the record. The wistful “Hard to Let Go” is probably the strongest of the softer moments, laced with some lovely steel to accentuate it.
Songwriting is both this record’s greatest strength and at times a weakness. Most of these songs are well-written and impressive for a debut, especially for a debut by a twenty-year-old artist. It’s just that, similar to Joshua Hedley’s recent album, a lot of it feels like a great take on the Red dirt style more than actual original expression by Mason Lively. Incidentally, I think Lively’s writing is better than that on Hedley’s album, but they share a similar problem of needing some originality and development. “Hard to Let Go,” for example, is a paradox; it’s a great song, but he sings about having been in this relationship for three years and now coming to the conclusion that their pride ruined it. It’s at once very mature and pretty well-written while also being slightly hard to believe. It’s the same for many of these songs, as the world-weary references to the road sprinkled in various places just don’t ring true at this stage of his career. This is essentially the entire theme of “Heavy Toll,” but that’s also one of the album’s strongest tracks–so it’s all very much a paradox and a difficult criticism. But the cool thing about it all is that in this scene, Lively will get the freedom to grow into these songs and into more original expression, and then his songwriting will shine all the more.
Still, on this record, the songs themselves are good, and people will enjoy this. The writing and presence of Mason Lively have both consistently impressed me on this album, and it’s why I chose to write about this. Stronger Ties feels like a solid beginning rather than a spectacular triumph, but I am excited about this artist and eager to see where Mason Lively will go from here.
Promising debut and certainly an artist to keep on your radar.
