All right, so no, I didn’t know we had new Gretchen Wilson music until yesterday when I heard it on WNIA Radio courtesy of my friend Zackary Kephart–check out his radio shows here–I guarantee you will never hear so much fiddle on country radio–, but that is what radio was meant to do all along anyway, and who knew it could still do that in 2017? And it turns out, yeah, we are evidently due for a new Gretchen Wilson album soon; this is the second of two new singles, and I’ll be honest and say I am not quite as thrilled by the first, “Rowdy,” which apparently came out in late 2016. But “Salt Mines” is a fine offering from Gretchen and reminds me why I miss hearing her music.
I forgot just how country Wilson’s voice and delivery can be, and it works well with the more traditional instrumentation. It’s the lyrics that stand out though, as Gretchen sings about going “back to the grind, another day at the salt mine” as she goes through each day married to a man who drinks, leaves his clothes all over the house, and generally doesn’t seem to care about much of anything. It’s told in a somewhat humorous light–“and you’d think I’d just quit, but you’re too good in bed”–what a line. She says she thinks about leaving all the time, but despite it all, she’s here to stay. Just a nice, solid country song. Glad she’s back and interested to see if we’ll get a whole album from her soon.
I had never heard Charlie Worsham before listening to Beginning of Things. I had heard his name before, but never took the time to check out his music. After hearing this album, I’m honestly not sure what I think.
Charlie Worsham’s voice is very pleasant to listen to. It’s smooth, and not too deep or high. He can definitely sing quite well, I just wish that all of these songs showed that.
My favorite moments on this album are the songs “For Old Time’s Sake,” and “The Beginning of Things”. “Old Time’s Sake” is probably the most country song on this album, as far as instrumentation goes. It features some really nice steel guitar. The song itself is about making a new beginning in a relationship. “The Beginning of Things” is a very well-done song about a man who left a woman right at the beginning of their marriage, and that woman later develops a condition where she can’t remember much that happened to her. All she remembers is the start of their relationship. What made it more poignant is the last half of the song which is told through the perspective of their daughter.
Other good songs on this album are “Cut Your Groove” for its message about making your mark on the world. “Take Me Drunk” is just funny, because he’s obviously had too much to drink. Part of the chorus says “Take me Drunk I’m Home”, which is quite amusing. It’s not a song you’ll love, but it’s fun.
Unfortunately, the other songs on this album don’t do as much for me. “Please People Please” is a bit repetitive, but its saving lyrics are “Even Jesus was preaching on the mountain side, Tryin’ to teach us about love when crucified, And it only goes to show, someone’s always gotta take offence”. The song is basically about how you can’t please anyone, which is a good theme. It just gets tiresome quickly when the same words and lines are repeated. “call You Up” is a song where he says he’ll only call his ex when he’s completely over her. “Only Way to Fly” is a pretty catchy song about having fun and taking life easy. The chorus, in particular, sticks in my head.
I don’t have too much to say about the rest of this album. “Birthday Suit” is probably the worst song here. It’s simply about getting naked, whether that’s on your own or with someone else. The backing vocals are a bit annoying, and the verse where Charlie Worsham starts rapping isn’t that good. “Southern By the Grace of God” wouldn’t be so boring if talking about how Southern you are hadn’t been done a thousand times before in recent memory. “Lawn Chair Don’t Care” is about how your lawn chair doesn’t care about the stress you’re under, which is just weird. I know it’s a metaphor for trying to relax and let stress leave you, but including a lawn chair in this just feels very out of place. “I Ain’t Going’ Nowhere” isn’t bad because it’s about how he’ll stick with the woman he’s with through thick and thin, but he repeats the title too much for my liking. As for the last song, “I-55”, I don’t mind it, but I don’t find myself coming back to it much, either. It’s about driving a stretch of highway, and how it helps him feel better in times of stress.
Instrumentally, the album isn’t particularly country, except for “Old Time’s Sake” as I’ve previously mentioned. There are a lot of pop influences, and even some R&B-sounding songs. “Please People Please” is interesting because it features horns, but none of the instruments really stick out as being anything special on this album.
Overall, I don’t love Beginning of Things. I think that there are some moments that were great, especially the title track. Charlie Worsham’s voice is very pleasant to listen to, as well. However, too many of these songs just did not do much for me. I found a lot of them repetitive, mediocre, and not very country in their instrumentation. I don’t think this is a horrible album, it’s just not for me.
So I had the opportunity to see Jason Eady at his album release show Friday in OKC at a cool little listening room called The Blue door, and I thought it was worth highlighting here.
This is indirectly going to be an endorsement of the blue door as well as Jason Eady because in order to explain the intimacy of this setting, I have to explain The Blue door. It’s known as “the best listening room in Oklahoma,” and that’s what you’re getting–it’s not a bar or a club or something where they play some live music and you get some drinks and maybe dance, it’s a room that holds about a hundred people, and it’s made for, yeah, listening. IN fact, this listening room is well-known as a “BYOB establishment,” and it’s perfectly normal to see people walking into The Blue door with ice chests and YETI cups. But it’s this laidback, intimate atmosphere that really lets Jason Eady’s mellow, thoughtful type of songwriting shine.
That’s not to say the whole night was mellow and laidback. In fact, much of it was quite upbeat, from the opener, “drive” from Eady’s new record to older songs like “Go Down Moses and “Back to Jackson.” But it’s in a setting like this where songs like “Barabbas” and “Black Jesus” really hit you, and where you can hear all the personal implications for Jason in songs like “Not Too Loud” and “Forty Years.” Eady told us he’d do every song on his new self-titled album, and he delivered, along with quite a few older ones from other albums and covers of Guy Clark and Merle Haggard. He even ended the night with a bluegrass song completely stripped down and allowing the listening room to fully live up to its name because, as Eady stated, “not every place is like this.” at that point, it wasn’t like he was on a stage singing for us; it was pretty much like Jason Eady was just sitting around in the living room with his guitar, and we were all singing along together.
I don’t want to speak too much about this or get into a long review, as it were, it’s just something I had to write about because you have to make it a point to see Jason Eady if you can. I can’t really pick a highlight of the night either, and that’s simply because the entirety of it was that brilliant. This is one of the best live music experiences you will be giving yourself, and I have to say I’m thankful to be here in Oklahoma where it will probably be easier to see him again. And while we’re on the subject, I’m going back to The Blue door too because let me tell you, that is one of Oklahoma’s best-kept secrets.
Sturgill Simpson is one of my favorite artists. He’s not afraid to experiment with his sound, or to write lyrics deeply grounded in real life. I know that his last two albums are the ones most talked about now, but I thought I’d discuss High Top Mountain. It’s the most country of the three albums Sturgill Simpson has released under his name so far, and it’s the one that introduced me to his music.
Release Date: 2013
Style: Traditional Country
Who Might Like this Album: People who love steel guitar and honest lyrics
Standout Tracks: “Life Ain’t Fair and the World is Mean,” “Water in a Well,” “You Can Have the Crown,” “Hero,” “Some Days”
Reflections: Right away, when “Life Ain’t Fair and the World is Mean” starts off, you know what you’re in for. The song’s fast, unashamedly country in instrumentation, and Sturgill Simpson’s voice is deep and Southern. The album does eventually slow down, but it starts with a whirlwind. When I first heard the beginning of this album, I was instantly in love. This is the kind of music I want to hear. The fact that his band is so talented with guitar, drums, and pedal steel is the icing on the cake. The lyrics, though, are what makes this album stand out. “that’s the way it goes, life ain’t fair and the world is mean” is part of the chorus. Unless you’re leading a charmed life, you can’t help but relate to that.
Things slow down though, for songs like “Water in a Well”, and the writing gets even better. “Our love has all dried up like water in a well” is such a fabulous line. The slower melody and the steel guitar really help to carry this song, too.
My absolute favorite track on this album is “You Can Have the Crown”. It’s like cynicism dialed to ten, and it’s fantastic. The song is fast, with great steel guitar, but the lyrics steal the show, once again. I mean, who says stuff like “They call me King Turd up here on Shit Mountain, if you want it you can have the crown”? Once you’ve gotten over that particular line though, you see that The magic of it is that it surprisingly works. He’s broke, is wife wants a child, and he’s over it all. I love it.
Before you think this album is all doom and gloom, listen to “Hero”. Sturgill Simpson tells the tale of his grandfather who helped him through hard times, and it’s one of the best songs about love for family I’ve ever heard. He praises the generosity of his relative, and his grandfather’s work ethic to provide for his wife. It’s truly a fantastic song. “I know I’ll never find another hero, not another one like him” tells you everything you need to know about this song’s theme.
“Some Days” is a great track too, where he claims “people only wanna be your friend if you’ve got something they need”. Again, this is extremely relatable, as most people in their life have known friends like this. It’s another cynical song filled with frustration, but the thing that keeps the album from becoming too repetitive is that it’s real-life frustration. He frames his stories around people and situations you can picture, or you know that someone else has been in.
I know that this album(and Sturgill Simpson himself), have been talked about endlessly for years. However, I just couldn’t let an opportunity to discuss him and this album pass by. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite album by Sturgill Simpson, but I love how extremely country this one is. His lyrics, whether about love lost, his heroes, or his frustration over life, are extremely well-done. I still come back to this album, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Wrangled is an explicitly forthright journey through my experience in the business of Country Music. I tried to tackle uncomfortable realities like the discrimination against female artists at the height of Bro-Country, the high school mentality of Music Row and the pain that’s just beneath the surface of the road to stardom
These words came from Angaleena Presley ahead of her second album, and they serve better than any introduction I could hope to write. Wrangled lives up to that description from the opening track, “Dreams Don’t Come True.” Written with fellow former Pistol Annies Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe, it delivers this message in a matter-of-fact way and even advises us, “don’t let anyone tell you they do.” It’s that straightforward honesty coming through to shatter your dreams on the opening track that makes you listen to, an believe, Angaleena Presley throughout the record. After all, who is going to tell you your dreams won’t come true, that you’ll end up pregnant instead of selling hit records? That’s a truth our friends and family would be even, and perhaps especially, hard-pressed to give us. But there’s something about the unapologetic way Angaleena broadcasts that truth, and right there at the start of her record, that makes you take notice and respect what she has to say–it might be brutal, but she damn sure won’t lie, and there’s a refreshing quality in that which can only come from such authenticity as this.
I said Presley’s honesty makes you respect what she has to say, and it turns out she has to say quite a lot. “High school” tells of the harsh realities of getting through each day in high school, and based on the quote above, I have to wonder if this is also directed at Music Row. Either way, I have to say this would have been a hell of a lot more helpful to have heard in high school than most of the mainstream music marketed to today’s youth. Other tracks are more obviously commenting on Music Row and the struggles in the business. “Groundswell” details Angaleena’s travels from Georgia to Kentucky to Alabama as she tries to make enough to support herself. “Outlaw” feels like this song’s antithesis; here, Presley sings, “It’s too hard to live this way” and says the money would be easier if she weren’t an “outlaw” and a “renegade.” You get the feeling listening that if she could change herself, she might conform, but she knows that it would be impossible, and she can’t be something she’s not.
The most blatant protest of Music Row is “Country,” and I can’t believe I even have to explain this in detail, but after reading the barrage of SCM comments misunderstanding and flat-out hating this, it seems apparent that I must. It’s hard to explain without listening, and I’ll post the video, but obviously it can’t stand alone, so I’ll say that the distortion is purposeful. The name-checking of every bro country reference in the verses and the hook devoid of any actual words is purposeful. And the killer rap verse added by Yelawolf name-dropping Sturgill and telling Music Row to “fuckin’ save it” is not only purposeful, it’s genius and adds to the parody. By all means, hate this song, but at least take the time to understand what it is before you decide it sounds like crap, as that was part of the point, and the song is all the better for it.
Angaleena Presley also said she wanted to discuss the discrimination against female artists. This is done in a more subtle way–there’s not really a track dealing with that specifically, but there are certainly many that speak to the female perspective and address the unique realities faced by women. The crown jewel of the album is the title track, where the narrator feels “wrangled” by her life and by her husband. It’s very nice melodically, an the lyrics are some of the best on the whole thing–“girls down at church can go to hell. Ironing shirts and keeping babies quiet ain’t no life, it’s a livin’ jail.” As much as I hate to pick a track off this fantastic album, if you must choose one, make it “Wrangled.” As the album progresses, Presley’s irritation only seems to grow; on “Wrangled,” the woman portrayed is tired of her life and resentful of the women around her who seem to enjoy it. That frustration comes out in “Bless my Heart,” where she casually informs any woman who is content to backstab others for their own gain, “If you bless my heart, I’ll slap your face.” There’s more of that frustration on “Mama I Tried,” another highlight of the record, as the main character laments that despite everything she did, she couldn’t be the lady her mother wanted–“always a bridesmaid, never the bride.” And finally, that pent-up frustration comes spilling out in anger on “Good Girl Down,” co-written with Wanda Jackson–“It’s a man’s world, and I’m a lady, and they’ll never appreciate me. They don’t take the time to get to know who I am, frankly, boys, I don’t give a damn.”
Yes, we do have a Miranda Lambert-esque song, “only Blood,” where the narrator marries a preacher who abuses her, and yes, she kills him. There have been a lot of songs like this certainly, but I do feel this one stands out some because it is built around the line “only blood can set you free” and serves a double purpose of exposing the hypocrisy in the church. “Motel Bible” does this in a much more understated and fun way to close the record–“God don’t give a damn how I’m dressed.”
But Angaleena Presley is not always angry or discouraged on this album; in fact, “Cheer up Little Darling,” written with Guy Clark, expresses a hope seen rarely on Wrangled, and in doing so, it completes the record; “It feels like a tight spot, but it’s just a loose end.”
This album lived up to everything Angaleena Presley advertised it to be, and for the honesty and songwriting alone, it deserves the highest praise. It’s the second ten of 2017, and it has earned this rating for exactly the opposite reasons as Marty Stuart’s–that album was special musically, and this one is special because of the lyrics, the stories, and the emotions running throughout it. An honest, compelling album that gets better with each listen. Three chords and the truth.
