Country, Folk, Acoustic, and Alt-Country: More Than Just Johnny Cash

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Country, Folk, Acoustic, and Alt-Country: More Than Just Johnny Cash

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HenryJLittlefinger: Jan 31, 2010; stomp clap

That is also a prime place to see him. The one problem with seeing him in a college town is the grip of bros shouting "TRUCK GOT STUCK" all night.

# ? May 10, 2016 01:59

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 01:35

stupid puma: Apr 25, 2005

1000 umbrellas posted:

"Get high/play a little Goldeneye/on that ol' 64" is the foundation for a new American poetry.

The last track is a sizzler, there are dashes of elegant moments throughout, the lyrics mostly leave me wanting more. They sound very personal, but they don't really seem to transcend the mundanity of most personal thoughts/feelings. The emphasis on horn arrangements strikes me as very adventurous musically, but I'm not sure that Sturgill is best suited to that kind of production.

The Goldeneye line is one of the best lyrics I've heard in years. Also, "see the world from the inside of a bar." I like the album generally, but Sea Stories seems like a perfect wheelhouse for Sturgill in particular.

# ? May 10, 2016 13:52

Kvlt!: May 19, 2012

Can anyone reccomend some good Gospel/Faith based bluegrass?

# ? May 11, 2016 18:26

Parachute: May 18, 2003

Kvlt! posted:

Can anyone reccomend some good Gospel/Faith based bluegrass?

16 Horsepower without a doubt.

# ? May 11, 2016 19:50

Paper With Lines: Aug 21, 2013; The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

H.O.L.Y. by Florida Georgia Line is the pinnacle of that sort of music.

# ? May 11, 2016 20:47

BigFactory: Sep 17, 2002

Neither of those bands are really bluegrass though? They're country bands.

# ? May 11, 2016 21:07

Paper With Lines: Aug 21, 2013; The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

I was joking with my response. That song is an abomination and FGL should go away. In general, a shitload of bluegrass is religious in some way. Especially when you start going back to the rootsy bluegrass.

I think a lot of Wailin' Jennys is pretty religious. Songs like Glory Bound or I think most of their first album (40 Days) has religious overtones.

The O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack of course is a good place to start (and to then go through the individual musicians contributions) but that was assembled basically based on depression era music gospel / appalachian folk.

Allison Krauss's I know Who Holds Tomorrow. Gillian Welch. Some of Crooked Still's music (Shaken by a Low Sound) touches on those topics.

I'll poke around and look for some more specific stuff but for sure the o brother where art thou soundtrack is the most concentrated album of what you might be looking for (it also owns).

# ? May 11, 2016 21:17

Kvlt!: May 19, 2012

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone! The O Brother especially, I love Allison Krauss but I haven't heard anything else off it, so I'll definitely check it out.

# ? May 12, 2016 01:29

BeastOfExmoor: Aug 19, 2003; I will be gone, but not forever.

HenryJLittlefinger posted:

I just discovered Brett Detar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E74yqtoqmU

The whole Bird in the Tangle album is quite good.

Haha. I used to be a fan of his old emo band (The Juliana Theory). I knew he had released some solo stuff, but I figured it wasn't any good. I'll have to check it out now that I have some positive feedback.

# ? May 12, 2016 04:58

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

I haven't listened to it yet but Sturgill Simpson is on the WTF podcast today.

# ? May 12, 2016 22:59

Happy Hippo: Aug 8, 2004; The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Batman's Shameful Secret > BSS Derailed Thread: Spider-Island

Bonzo posted:

I haven't listened to it yet but Sturgill Simpson is on the WTF podcast today.

Just listened to it today. Decent talk.

# ? May 16, 2016 04:23

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

Guy Clark died yall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KbS5t0NuOU

# ? May 17, 2016 21:53

tao of lmao: Oct 9, 2005

Any love for Murder By Death? They opened up for Minus the Bear last year and I've been diggin them ever since. Not sure if it totally fits this thread, but have a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czw6P7DrL2Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt2Sf2-o94g

# ? May 17, 2016 23:37

HenryJLittlefinger: Jan 31, 2010; stomp clap

Kvlt! posted:

Can anyone reccomend some good Gospel/Faith based bluegrass?

Ricky Skaggs.

tao of lmao posted:

Any love for Murder By Death? They opened up for Minus the Bear last year and I've been diggin them ever since. Not sure if it totally fits this thread, but have a listen.

Red of Tooth and Claw is their most country album. I posted some of it a while back I think.

# ? May 20, 2016 15:02

Tias: May 25, 2008; Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Hi thread!

Going to see Wardruna in december! I'm hella stoked :3:

# ? May 27, 2016 10:01

HORATIO HORNBLOWER: Sep 21, 2002; no ambition,
no talent,
no chance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJb1_EGnapY

# ? May 31, 2016 00:54

Paper With Lines: Aug 21, 2013; The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

I feel like a piece of poo poo for not realizing he wrote it and that Zac Brown only covered it. I was just reading about the Isbell (who is a Serious Country Musician) relationship with Zac Brown and I found this great quote.

"As Isbell said yesterday, 'If you want more popular country artists to sing songs that have some real meaning, don�t be pissed at the ones who do.'"

It is cool because Zac Brown does seem to do some pretty cool and real stuff so I'm glad they get along.

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/zac-brown-band-covers-jason-isbells-dress-blues-on-college-gameday/

edit: memorial day video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hlYNU6xPJc

Paper With Lines fucked around with this message at 04:10 on May 31, 2016

# ? May 31, 2016 04:07

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

I love that cover but props to the guy who wrote the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiN_vlzx6Po

# ? May 31, 2016 05:02

Paper With Lines: Aug 21, 2013; The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

Hahah, fail x 2.

Original and best cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4-w2FYIJbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBPchPZqvX4

hopefully I've gotten it this time!

# ? May 31, 2016 05:09

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

Anyone going to the American Roots Music Festival in Katonah this month? I just got tickets with a friend of mine and I'm pretty excited. I don't know a lot of the bands, but I've seen Hurray for The Riff Raff a few times so at least I know there'll be at least one fantastic headliner.

# ? Jun 1, 2016 17:42

Hot Diggity!: Apr 3, 2010; SKELITON_BRINGING_U_ON.GIF

Not gonna read 18 pages but listen to Mekons and Robbie Fulks

# ? Jun 2, 2016 04:17

Hot Diggity!: Apr 3, 2010; SKELITON_BRINGING_U_ON.GIF

Also Lambchop who is horribly underappreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyPBI27iL9c

# ? Jun 2, 2016 04:45

El Miguel: Oct 30, 2003

TubeStank posted:

Also Lambchop who is horribly underappreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyPBI27iL9c

Loved their Sisters of Mercy cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G6wy2wzzbs

# ? Jun 2, 2016 14:34

Paper With Lines: Aug 21, 2013; The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

The red dirt spotify playlist is pretty cool.

https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/7r3Xe4UBkkEtolAJEkvik8

# ? Jun 8, 2016 02:24

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63tKCTchc70

# ? Jun 12, 2016 03:06

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

Sheng-ji Yang posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63tKCTchc70

I was thinking about posting this because they are my new favorite band. Currently opening for Wheeler Walker Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRsEnDl8DUc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uHHebLL37c

# ? Jun 12, 2016 04:35

Suicide Watch: Sep 8, 2009

I got to see the Dixie Chicks the other day. I think they've definitely self-selected into having the most liberal country music audiences you'll ever see.

# ? Jun 18, 2016 06:59

HORATIO HORNBLOWER: Sep 21, 2002; no ambition,
no talent,
no chance

New Drive-By Truckers track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB4aP31heQE

New album September 30. West Coast tour dates announced. In a rare bit of luck the dates correspond with a trip we were already planning. I'm beyond pumped.

Check this out:

quote:

Drive-By Truckers have always been outspoken, telling a distinctly American story via craft, character, and concept, all backed by sonic ambition and social conscience. Founded in 1996 by singer/songwriter/guitarists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, the band have long held a progressive fire in their belly but with AMERICAN BAND, they have made the most explicitly political album in their extraordinary canon. A powerful and legitimately provocative work, hard edged and finely honed, the album is the sound of a truly American Band � a Southern American band � speaking on matters that matter. DBT made the choice to direct the Way We Live Now head on, employing realism rather than subtext or symbolism to purge its makers� own anger, discontent, and frustration with societal disintegration and the urban/rural divide that has partitioned the country for close to a half-century. Master songwriters both, Hood and Cooley wisely avoid overt polemics to explore such pressing issues as race, income inequality, the NRA, deregulation, police brutality, Islamophobia, and the plague of suicides and opioid abuse. As a result, songs like �What It Means� and the tub-thumping �Kinky Hypocrites� are intensely human music from a rock �n� roll band yearning for community and collective action. Fueled by a just spirit of moral indignation and righteous rage, AMERICAN BAND is protest music fit for the stadiums, designed to raise issues and ire as the nation careens towards its most momentous election in a generation.

�I don�t want there to be any doubt as to which side of this discussion we fall on,� Hood says. �I don�t want there to be any misunderstanding of where we stand. If you don�t like it, you can leave. It�s okay. We�re not trying to be everybody�s favorite band, we�re going to be who we are and do what we do and anyone who�s with us, we�d love to have them join in.�

Mike Cooley is somewhat more direct. �I wanted this to be a no bones about it, in your face political album,� he says. �I wanted to piss off the assholes.�

AMERICAN BAND�s considerable force can in part be credited to the sheer musical strength of the current Drive-By Truckers line-up, with Hood and Cooley joined by bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan � together, the longest-lasting iteration in the band�s two-decade history. AMERICAN BAND follows ENGLISH OCEANS and 2015�s IT�S GREAT TO BE ALIVE!, marking the first time DBT have made three consecutive LPs with the same hard-traveling crew.

�This is the longest period of stability in our band�s history,� says Hood. �I think we finally hit the magic formula. It�s made everything more fun than it�s ever been, making records and playing shows.�

Drive-By Truckers might have maintained constancy but Hood embraced change by moving his family to Portland, OR in July 2015, a physical shift which he says �opened the floodgates� to a batch of deeply felt, strikingly emotional new songs. Having recorded the bulk of their canon in Athens, GA, the band was also eager to reinvent their own surroundings. Memphis was considered but when DBT�s November 2015 tour wrapped in Nashville, the band decided to spend a few days at the legendary Sound Emporium getting a head start on the new record.

Never ones to screw around in the studio, DBT cranked out nine new songs in just three 14-hour shifts, as ever with producer/engineer David Barbe at the helm. Coming in directly from the road put a head of steam behind the band, allowing them to lay it all out live on the floor, tracking songs like �Once They Banned Imagine� in little more than a single take.

�We realized we had most of the record,� Hood says, �so we went back after the holidays for four more days, but ended up finishing it in three. We tend to usually take about two weeks to make a record so this was really quick.��That was a lot of fun,� the Alabama-based Cooley says, �and a shorter drive for me.�

Speed was of the essence, as DBT was determined to get their record out at the height of the 2016 election season. By their very nature, Drive-By Truckers has always been an inherently political act, �but this is the first time it�s been out there on the surface,� Cooley says, �No bones about it.�

�I�ve always considered our band to be political,� Hood says. �I�ve studied and followed politics since I was a small kid. I got in trouble in third grade for a paper I wrote about Watergate � the teacher sent a note home to my parents saying I was voicing opinions about our president that she didn�t appreciate. That�s the one time I got in trouble at school where my parents sided with me.�

�SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA was a pretty political record,� Cooley says. �But we hadn�t had our first black president yet. We hadn�t sat in the bleachers and watched the backlash, which, as acquainted as we are with racism, went beyond what anyone imagined it would be.�

Political matters reared their head on 2014�s ENGLISH OCEANS, most explicitly on Cooley�s �Made Up English Oceans,� detailing the life and crimes of late Republican black ops master Lee Atwater. Hood further sharpened his own skills by penning an op-ed for the New York Times condemning the Confederate Flag and its vile role in Southern culture.�That was a major learning experience,� he says. �Working with an editor, how to streamline what I�m trying to say, how to find the most powerful part and get rid of some of the excess. It was really grueling but I was eager to take it on and learn as much as I could from it.�

Hood delivered a finished draft to the Old Gray Lady and within moments, wrote the ferocious �Darkened Flags On The Cusp Of Dawn� on a borrowed guitar � his own gear in a moving van on its way to his family�s new home in Portland. The song, like so much of the album, is a direct response to 2014�s police shootings of unarmed African-Americans, a moment both Hood and Cooley see as the catalyst for their blunt new approach. Long haunted by the police shooting of a mentally ill neighbor in his former hometown of Athens, GA, Hood wrote �What It Means� in the heat of Ferguson, Staten Island, and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

�It was all in my head and just kind of bubbling at the surface,� Hood says. �I think we knew early on that was the direction this record was going to go in.�Hood�s friend and collaborator for more than half their lives, Cooley was a on similar trip, reading, writing, and pondering the very same issues that rend the country in two.�We have conversations about all this stuff,� he says, �but not necessarily in terms of planning an album or anything. Then we go home, he writes a song, I write a song, and they�re both basically about the same thing.��We tend to come to the same conclusions separately but together,� Hood says. �We don�t really discuss it until we have a bunch of songs. We�ve always been astounded at how much common ground our songs have, record after record. SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA is the only time we discussed a game plan for what we were going to write, the only time. It�s kind of uncanny. Truly a beautiful thing.�

Further creative inspiration came from a pair of American milestone pieces of art, Ta-Nehisi Coates� National Book Award-winning Between The World and Me and Kendrick Lamar�s TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY, �in my opinion, the greatest musical work of our current time,� says Hood.�It�s an inspiring album and one that made me question myself,� he says. �I�m a white guy from the South, do I have the right to be singing about this stuff? What can I do? The only conclusion I could come up with was maybe white guys, with Southern accents, who look like rednecks, need to say Black Lives Matter too. It�s a start, a tiny start, but a step in the right direction is better than no step at all.�

�I couldn�t not do it,� says Cooley. �I�ve got to speak about this stuff, somehow or another. And I�m going to speak about it from a middle aged Southern white working class evangelical background male point of view.�Much like Lamar�s GRAMMY� Award-winning song cycle, AMERICAN BAND serves as a stark, tightly focused snapshot of today�s America, an exemplary illustration of rock �n� roll as a vehicle for social commentary and clear-eyed reportage. �Guns of Umpqua� captures Hood�s reaction to the 2015 shooting at Roseburg, OR�s Umpqua Community College while Cooley�s breakneck �Ramon Casiano� is a topical folk rocker telling the little known tale of former National Rife Association leader Harlon Carter and the murder of 15-year-old Ramon Casiano. Known as �Mr. NRA,� Carter transformed the organization from its original role as a sportsmen and conservationist group into what Cooley correctly declares �a right wing, white supremacist gun cult.� A Southern-rooted band opening their album with such a song makes for a singularly powerful statement, the NRA�s monolithic control of the debate demanding opposing artists to be as overt and vocal on the issue as possible.�The NRA needs to be turned into a political turd in a swimming pool,� Cooley says, �so all these fuckers will start paddling away.�What I�m trying to do is point straight to the white supremacist core of gun culture,� Cooley concludes. �That�s what it is and that�s where its roots are. When gun culture thinks about all the threats they need to be armed against, what color are they?�

Of course the personal can also be politic, represented here by Hood�s deeply felt �Baggage.� Penned the night of Robin Williams� death, the song sees Hood examining his own demons and long bout with depression, �the worst I�ve had as an older adult,� he says. �I was kind of blindsided by it. There had always been a tangible thing that I could point to as to what was wrong, but this time I was grasping for something and not quite finding it.�AMERICAN BAND is surprisingly optimistic thanks to Hood�s �absolutely� improved mental health as well as Drive-By Truckers� passion for the issues behind the material. The band intend to hit the road harder than ever in support of AMERICAN BAND, bringing their songs to the people as they have always done, only this time with the country�s very future at stake. Fortunately for America, Drive-By Truckers are, as a Great Man once said, fired up, ready to go.

�I feel like Cooley and I both nailed what were going for on every song on this record,� Hood says. �I don�t think there�s a wasted line or word on this record. There�s nothing I would change, that�s for sure. I think we got this one right.��I�m sure there will be people saying �I wish they�d keep the politics out of it,�� Cooley says, �but one of the characteristics among the people and institutions we are taking to task in these songs is their self-appointed status as the exclusive authority on what American is. What is American enough and who the real Americans are. Putting AMERICAN BAND right out front is our way of reclaiming the right to define our American identity on our own terms, and show that it�s out of love of country that we draw our inspiration.�

Sounds like a loving barn burner.

# ? Jun 22, 2016 02:59

HenryJLittlefinger: Jan 31, 2010; stomp clap

Watching Corb Lund right now. Good as ever.

# ? Jun 22, 2016 04:32

HenryJLittlefinger: Jan 31, 2010; stomp clap

He just took a couple shirts off and has a Slayer shirt on.

Edit: And it turns out he's parked next to me.

HenryJLittlefinger fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jun 22, 2016

# ? Jun 22, 2016 06:11

KICK BAMA KICK: Mar 2, 2009

HORATIO HORNBLOWER posted:

New Drive-By Truckers track.

I am uh not really feeling this track. Maybe I need more time with it but if it was on English Oceans I think it would be one of the ones I barely remember.

Also I hate to say this and I am gritting my teeth as I type but while I get why that excites people on paper I liked DBT being exactly as political as they used to be, where it was there but they were always storytellers first, and am not super optimistic about the result of white dudes on the verge of 50 saying they are really inspired by To Pimp a Butterfly.

# ? Jun 22, 2016 06:48

Happy Hippo: Aug 8, 2004; The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Batman's Shameful Secret > BSS Derailed Thread: Spider-Island

that quoted post posted:

AMERICAN BAND follows ENGLISH OCEANS and 2015�s IT�S GREAT TO BE ALIVE!, marking the first time DBT have made three consecutive LPs with the same hard-traveling crew.

Um, no. DBT has, in fact, made three albums in a row with the same line-up before (Decoration Day, The Dirty South, A Blessing and a Curse). This line-up, however, has not. Unless you count the live album, which I don't because it's a live album.

edit; Oh yeah, Shonna didn't play much on DD, my mistake. Still, counting the live album is dumb.

# ? Jun 22, 2016 17:03

MikeyLikesIt: Sep 25, 2012

RIP Ralph Stanley, one of the pioneers of bluegrass music.

# ? Jun 24, 2016 02:47

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

Just got back from the American Roots Music Festival. Good times. Saw some bands I wasn't familiar with (The Lowest Pair is really good), saw John Fullbright, and got to hang out with most of Hurray for the Riff Raff for a while. Definitely worth the trip to westchester.

# ? Jun 26, 2016 04:46

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

Is this don't warm your heart...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICdDGZphspA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAfz-LUyib0

edit: I'm pretty sure Doo pinched Faith's rear end.

Bonzo fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jun 26, 2016

# ? Jun 26, 2016 05:44

HenryJLittlefinger: Jan 31, 2010; stomp clap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mT89QTpU0

This guy is pretty good.

# ? Jun 28, 2016 19:33

Fenrir: Apr 26, 2005; I found my kendo stick, bitch!; Lipstick Apathy

I don't know if this has been posted yet but this is the best version of Anderson's "Seminole Wind" I've ever heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8sh9P3X33w

John Anderson owns.

# ? Jul 10, 2016 13:07

mearn: Aug 2, 2011; Kevin Harvick's #1 Fan!

John Anderson is fantastic. Old Crow covered Seminole Wind when I saw them in concert last year and I got way more excited than I rationally should have been.

# ? Jul 10, 2016 15:56

Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

I used to be in a band that played nearly every dive bar in Southern Indiana/Northern Kentucky. One night our lead guitar player bought an old band mate to sit in with us. The guy quit playing years ago because he had a really good job with the railroad and a few kids to take care of.

Anyway, this guy could sing just like Jon Anderson. If you closed your eyes you'd never know it wasn't the real thing. When we played Seminole Wind.... I have never, in my life, seen an entire beer joint suddenly silence themselves and look toward the stage.

# ? Jul 10, 2016 20:33

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 01:35

Fenrir: Apr 26, 2005; I found my kendo stick, bitch!; Lipstick Apathy

I'd have loved to see that. I haven't seen John live in over 20 years, and Seminole Wind is one of my favorite songs ever. I know I don't post here much, I'm mostly a rap/metal/shoegaze guy but good country always has a place in my heart.

And the last time I walked in the swamp,
I sat upon a Cypress stump,
I listened close and I heard the ghost of Osceola cry.

# ? Jul 11, 2016 02:30

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Country, Folk, Acoustic, and Alt-Country: More Than Just Johnny Cash

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