The 9513 - Country Music Blog

Whitney Duncan didn’t say “I want to be a country music singer” with her very first words, but she might as well have. With a passion that belied her age, Whitney sang at school events, including multiple elementary and middle school graduations as well as finished as a medalist at a talent competition at Loretta Lynn’s ranch.

Country music was always her first love. She begged to go to the famed Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in downtown Nashville and managed to get up on stage and play when she was barely a teenager. She began traveling to and from Nashville from her home in Scotts Hill, Tennessee, in high school, writing with some of Nashville’s best writers. By her senior year, she had landed a record deal. Almost immediately, Duncan landed a duet with country legend Kenny Rogers, but the first big record release still eluded her. In the meantime, she’d write and co-write cuts for Lee Ann Womack, Katie Arminger and Crystal Shawanda.

In 2007, Duncan participated in the USA Network show Nashville Star, and self-released her debut album. After placing on Nashville Star, she signed to Warner Bros. Records Nashville and the life of the recording star started in motion. Her first solo single, “When I Said I Would” tasted the charts at #48 but it is her third single, “Skinny Dippin’,” that is making its mark. It is in the Top 20 on the Music Row charts and just entered the Billboard Top 50. Meanwhile, the sexy video for the latest single has been a staple across the country music video stations.

KEN MORTON, JR.: Have you been given the key to the city from the mayor of Scotts Hill yet?

WHITNEY DUNCAN: I was. It was awesome. A few years ago, they did that. They had a little parade in town. This town has the nicest people and the coolest people ever.

KMJ: I understand it was your grandfather that introduced you to country music. Tell me about that influence.

WD: I could always hear him singing around the house, and he had such a great voice. But he would never perform in front of other people or anything. And he was always such a big fan of country music. He definitely introduced me to it–and Elvis. I would go to my grandparents’ house on the weekends a lot and I was a total Granddaddy’s girl. I would go and we would watch Elvis performances, movies and everything. I was obsessed with Elvis from age four. We would also constantly watch the Jerry Lee Lewis movie Great Balls Of Fire. Oh my gosh. We would watch that movie every single weekend. As a little girl, I could say the words to the movie before they came out of the actor’s mouths. When I found out that Dennis Quaid was not Jerry Lee Lewis, I think I cried.

When I finally saw the real Jerry Lee Lewis, I said, “That’s not Jerry Lee Lewis!” I had in my mind that Dennis Quaid was Jerry Lee Lewis. I was pretty heartbroken. Not to say that Jerry Lee Lewis isn’t good-looking or anything, but he is no Dennis Quaid. I would say that Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis–both of them–made me want to sing. My parents never played or anything but they both loved music and we always had it around the house and playing in the car. My dad didn’t like country too much. He would listen to the Rolling Stones, John Cougar Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton and all that stuff. My mom would listen to nothing but country. There would always be that battle. And of course, my mom always won. She loved Tanya Tucker, Tammy Wynette, Travis Tritt, Don Williams and all that stuff. I had a lot of different influences growing up in music.

KMJ: And just how early were you performing at the famed Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge?

WD: Too young! When I wanted to go somewhere, my parents were the best. I could talk them into anything. I always wanted to go Tootsies. And during the day, there’s lots of tourists and stuff in there. So I got to go up and play with the house band. I did “Stand By Your Man.” But I had to get out of there when it started to get dark and they started to serve alcohol. I think I was 10, 11 or 12.

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Songwriter: Elliot Park

There are umpteen “road” songs out there, but few are told from the road’s point of view. After all, what’s a slab of asphalt got to say? Turns out the road is full of tough love, telling its travelers “I offer many choices and places you can go/But you must choose/I’m just the road.”

This anthropomorphization comes to you courtesy of Aaron Watson on the lead single from his upcoming 2010 album. Never heard of Aaron Watson? Better start getting used to the name: you might be hearing it for some time. The Texan, who’s experienced quite a bit of regional success and is slowly building a national fanbase, seems poised become the next “overnight” star after spending the past decade in the honky tonk trenches making a name for himself.

The road, a metaphor for life’s long journey, isn’t always a smooth one. As Watson sings, it’s “paved with memories, glory and regrets…lined with broken dreams and cigarettes.” When you die, the road’ll be there to lead you to your final destination. And if that destination happens to be a lifetime stay at Lucifer’s B&B? Well, that ain’t the road’s fault, sinner; chances are you made your fair share of wrong turns along the way.

An infectious chorus and an arrangement that purrs like a fine-tuned engine make “The Road” a great candidate for a driver’s seat singalong, should you for some reason feel like replacing Watson’s Texas twang with your own voice. Religious without being preachy, possessing enough fiddle and pedal steel to please the purists and catchy enough to capture the attention of non-traditionalists, “The Road” can appeal to a wide swath of listeners. Longtime fans of Watson will almost certainly appreciate it, and newcomers might just see what all the fuss is about.

Listen: Aaron Watson – “The Road”

• Sell Outs: The first 20 shows of Garth Brooks‘ gig at the Wynn Las Vegas resort sold out in less than five hours and four of Taylor Swift’s 2010 tour dates sold out in two minutes on Friday.
• Next month marks 10 years since the passing of Doug Sahm. The folks at Texas Music Matters took the occasion to explore the life and music of the Texas iconoclast, including “Rollin’ Rollin’,” his first single at the age of 11 when he was known as Little Doug.
• Music Fog videos:
  • Charlie Robison – “Down Again”
  • Cross Canadian Ragweed – “To Find My Love”
  • The Lovell Sisters – In My Time of Dyin’
  • Tara Nevins with The Believers – “Temporary Misery”
• A former Dallas police officer accused of holding Steve Holy at gunpoint in December 2007 was found guilty of aggravated assault. (via NashvilleGab)
• Country Universe’s Kevin J. Coyne continued to countdown the worst singles of the decade with numbers 40 through 31.
• Aside from being a highly successful country music recording artist and songwriter, Toby Keith likes to coach middle school football. (via reader email)
• Big thanks/congrats to C.M. Wilcox for his first year of writing for The 9513. It’s been a pleasure.
• Luke Bryan, Marty Raybon and Full Circle, Aaron Watson, and Hot Club of Cowtown each earn three-and-a-half stars from Country Weekly’s Chris Neal for their most recent albums.
• Watch a brief interview and performance of “Circles Around Me” from Sam Bush.
• Peter Cooper focuses on the changes in songwriter Rich Fagan’s life since he slashed the wrist of Tom Oteri, his publisher, roommate, and best friend of 30 years.
  

  Rich Fagan has a new song.

  “I used to be a sinner/ ‘Til I went too far astray,” he sings. “And it’s only by God’s grace that I’m standing here today / ‘Cause one night, high on Jose Cuervo, I killed my best friend with a knife.”

  That’s not quite true. For one thing, it was Patron tequila, not Cuervo. And the death of Fagan’s best friend, Tom Oteri — which came in April 2008, after Fagan’s pocketknife slashed his wrist — was ruled a heart attack. Fagan was not charged with murder or manslaughter, and the aggravated assault charge was dropped.

• Kick start your Lyle Lovett collection with Craig Shelburne’s 14-song playlist.
• Gregg Geil spotlights the Wrinkle Neck Mules in the latest Americana Roots podcast.
• The New York Times‘ Ben Ratliff on Brad Paisley’s concert at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday:
  

  Mr. Paisley is a guitar geek posing as a dry wit. His pose is terrific; it just doesn’t adequately conceal the geek. Lots of us put on a blithe and blasé front to hide our inner compulsions, and for a good reason: not because they’re embarrassing, but because they’re dull. Over two hours, Mr. Paisley’s guitar playing — fast, fluid and voluminous — lost its flavor completely. There was just so much of it (mostly on the Telecaster; Mr. Paisley’s style is a monument to that instrument’s lean, percussive sound and country-music tradition) that it stole power from the lyrics.

• Not background music: Mickey Newbury’s “You’re Not My Same Sweet Baby.”
• This week in country music history, according to Country California:
  

  1999 – The Dixie Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces is certified for shipment of 8 million units. To put that number in perspective, if you stacked all the jewel cases, you’d end up with a pile over 49 miles high. And if you put Natalie Maines atop the pile, you’d barely be able to hear her shrill voice from ground level.

• Congrats to My Kind of Country for hitting the quarter of a million mark.
• It took Tom Russell four years to write the songs for his new album, Blood and Candle Smoke, which seems like a long time, but he told NPR’s Scott Simon, “I didn’t stop till I was 100 percent sure that I had 12 that I wanted to sing for the rest of my life.”
• Joe Nichols‘ new album Old Things New was released today. (Amazon)
• Robert Earl Keen talks comedy in a Q&A with CMT’s Chris Parton:
  

  Your songs have a lot of humor in them. Is that really important to you?

  I don’t know. It just kind of happens. … I’ll write a couple of songs and be pretty serious, and then for some reason, it’s just like the groom who can’t keep a straight face. I just have to write something stupid just to get back to some kind of reality.

  Another thing about the comedy, though, is that I played for a long time by myself — went to a lot of coffee houses — and if you’re just playing a standard love song, you don’t know if anybody hears it or pays any attention or not. You play a comedy song, and if it’s really funny, you’re gonna get a reaction. So a lot of that was, I kind of spoiled myself, like I needed the reaction. So I’d write these funny songs, and I kind of went that way until one day I went to some place … and it had “Robert Earl Keen: Comedian Songwriter.” And I went, “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not a comedian. I just write a few funny songs.” But, still to this day, I still write stuff just to amuse myself.

• Fox Business’ Elizabeth MacDonald says a general consensus if forming in the music industry: Country music is displacing rock ‘n roll as America’s most popular brand of music. (via That Nashville Sound)
• Follow us on Twitter for a chance to win a brand new iPod Shuffle, pre-loaded with Whitney Duncan music.

After just a few minutes of speaking with Eddie Montgomery, his passions are clear—his country and his music. Montgomery’s hardy, dry sense of humor seems like it was probably picked up in the small town Kentucky bar where his dad used to play guitar on Saturday nights.

It’s his 10th year as part of the duo Montgomery Gentry, and it’s been a successful one, to say the least. In May, the duo was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and, once again, Eddie and Troy are nominated for the CMA Vocal Duo of the Year Award.

In a decade, the duo has scored 14 Top 5 hits, sold millions of albums, and remains a major force on the road. But as Montgomery speaks about family, honky-tonks, growing up, and UK basketball—it’s hard to tell that he ever left Danville, Kentucky.

PEIRCE GREENBERG: Thursday night you guys did a show in Atlanta as part of a campaign to support the troops. What was that event like?

EDDIE MONTGOMERY: It was off the hook, man. First off, before we go any further, this is the greatest country in the world. We can dream as big as we want to in this great country and the reason why is all of the American heroes, past and present. I tell ya, if I can get on stage and just sing a little bit to give back for what they’re doing for all of us here in America, I’ll do it every chance I get.

We had a lot of service members that were there last night with their family, and that was great to see. Vault and Coca-Cola have not only helped the troops but all of their families and we just want to make sure that me and T get to do our part. Plus, Vault has all these postcards sent out that are pre-addressed and everything—you can pick them up at the Vault stand-ups in the store, which is us, and just write a small letter on it and we’ll make sure it gets to the heroes. I’ll tell you right now, especially with the holidays coming up, it’s great sometimes when you’re sitting in a foxhole for 24 hours a day and somebody brings you a postcard and they just tell you how much they appreciate it.

PG: What would you write on a postcard to the heroes?

EM: I’d definitely want to thank them for everything they’ve done for me, and also, they’re letting my kids dream as big as they want to dream, and I really appreciate that I know my kids can walk out and go to the store and not have to be subject to all the stuff that’s going on around the world. I would want to thank them and tell them how much we miss them over here. And we can’t wait. The bottom line is, when this war is done—and I wish it was done tomorrow—we’re going to throw a hell of a party for them when they come back home.

PG: Shifting gears a little bit, 2009 has been a big year for you and Troy, especially with the Opry Induction earlier this year. Were you guys expecting that at all?

EM: No. It was so unbelievable. It just freaked me out—what a surprise. You only dream that—that’s stuff you only hear about in fairy tales, man.

I was born and raised in a honky-tonk family. I make a joke about it all the time. Me and my brother—I call him John boy, most call him John Michael—we were born in a honky-tonk and we were raised in a honky-tonk. The joke was—my dad played guitar, my mom played drums, and the bartenders were our babysitters because honky-tonk musicians didn’t make a whole lot.

My dad believed in it so much—it was in his heart. As we were coming up, he’d listen to the Grand Ole Opry and I remember sitting out and listening to it as a kid on the radio on WSM. I remember he used to always talk about, whenever the awards show came on, no matter how many awards you get, you haven’t made it until you get to play in and become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. When that happens, then you know you’ve made it.

My dad’s hard work and his dream, it really paid off because it had me dreaming that whole time of playing the Opry and I never would have ever thought that I could be a member.

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In Thursday’s review of Trent Tomlinson’s new single “Angels Like Her,” we learned that although the song is set to appear on his upcoming sophomore album A Guy Like Me, it originally appeared on his debut album Country Is My Rock.

Commenter Jordan Stacey noticed this is the latest song in a string of singles to pull that trick:

I’m also a fan of the song from the original album, but I’m getting tired of releasing songs from previous albums, it seems like everybody’s doing it. “Eight Second Ride” – Jake Owen, Kellie Pickler’s “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”, Brad Paisley – “Waitin’ On A Woman”, Keith Urban’s “You Look Good In My Shirt”, etc.

To Jodan’s comment, Jim Malec and Waynoe both replied:

Jim: I also attribute it to the fact that great songs are now commonly passed over for songs that test well at a given point in time and within a given demographic. “Waitin’ on a Woman,” “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You” and “Angels Like Her” were all among the top two or three strongest songs on their respective albums. Not releasing them as singles the first go-round was criminal. There has to be some residual pressure there, when looking at potential material for the next project.

Wayneo: Jim, A good observation. The “testing” of songs is the driving force. It more used to be that the songs could cut or create the path in the wilderness; now the path is already cut due to demographics and other criteria and it’s simply finding a song to fit the already prescribed mold.

What do you think of releasing songs from previous albums as singles, even though they didn’t “cut it” the first go-round? Are you glad deserving songs get their chances at radio airplay, or do you think artists should promote current material?

With the halcyon days of multi-platinum records and even diamond records (for 10 million copies of an album sold), the music industry has run into economic struggles. Sales of CDs are down, music piracy is continuing to take its toll, and the industry’s seemingly reluctant embrace of digital music hasn’t done much to stop the bleeding. According to a recent Rolling Stone article, album sales are down 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to last year. Total sales are down 13.9 percent from 2008, which was down 14 percent from 2007.

In spite of the gloom and doom elsewhere, things are fairly optimistic at the Americana Music Association. The group’s annual Americana Music Festival in Nashville just drew around 11,000 people, plus an additional 4,000 attending non-sponsored but related events. Jed Hilly, the AMA’s executive director, states that the Americana music genre is the new model and has been for some time.

“The secret to the music business today is, if you don’t have the gumption to get in a van and drive from town to town, don’t get in the business,” he says. The typical Americana act, he says, is in the business for the long haul.

“They are not the artists who are waiting to see if they’re going to get a Top 20 hit before their album is released, which happens quite often, too often, to artists on Music Row,” he says. “Being a flash in the pan is not something that they’re looking for. A career making music is something that they think about. They’re not writing songs to fill Madison Square Garden, they’re writing songs that mean something to them, and I believe those are the songs that are going to remain with us.”

Prior to joining the AMA in 2007, Hilly had a long career with Sony Records in New York, helping to break artists like Pearl Jam and Oasis. While acknowledging the struggles of the music industry, he points to several bright spots in the Americana world, including the prevalence of the genre at major festivals and official recognition of the genre by the GRAMMY Awards.

What is Americana anyway?

As the executive director of the AMA, Hilly’s definition of Americana music carries some weight.

“Americana music is contemporary music that honors and/or derives from American roots music,” he says. While the statement is simple enough on paper, in practice it’s broad enough to include a huge variety of music. He likens it to jazz, which features diverse artists like Harry Connick Jr. to Miles Davis to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

“Americana is similar that way. From Solomon Burke to Mike Farris to Lyle Lovett to John Fogerty,” Hilly says. “There is a certain thread that weaves through the varying music that we call Americana that honors American roots music.”

Existing somewhere between country and rock, but with dashes of blues and other types of music thrown in for good measure, Americana music defies easy categorization, and it requires some alternative marketing to survive in a cookie-cutter music world. However, Hilly says that cookie-cutter status of the music industry has led to its current struggles.

“We’re so boxed in as a society, where it’s got to be this, or it’s got to be that,” he says. “We follow more of a model of ‘it’s got to sound great.’”

Hilly and the AMA try to rise the bar for the genre as a whole and raise awareness for this music, and Americana has enjoyed some mainstream recognition. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand album broke into the mainstream, thanks to Plant’s Led Zeppelin background and the album’s five GRAMMY Awards at this year’s show. Many of the major music festivals in the country, including Bonnaroo and South by Southwest, have Americana music at their foundation as well. Part of Hilly’s job is to give that music a home.

The AMA has been involved in its own festival, the Americana Music Festival and Conference, held this September in Nashville. The event has continued to grow over the years, with more and more events selling out. This year, the kick-off event was held at the Nashville Symphony and drew a sell-out crowd of 1,700 people. The event, “An Evening of Classical Americana,” paired Americana artists like Buddy Miller, Sam Bush, Alison Brown, Abigail Washburn and Jerry Douglas with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. The rest of the festival included performances by Marty Stuart, John Prine, Fogerty, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and dozens more, most of whom came and played for a whopping $150 honorarium.

“The breadth of artistry that came to our event this year was really impressive, and what makes it even more impressive is that they come for the love of the music and the community. I’m humbled by it,” he says.

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It’s that time of year again, folks: the World Series is right around the corner. Maybe you’re a diehard baseball fan, maybe you cheer for anyone but the Yankees, maybe you don’t care at all. Whatever your thoughts on America’s game, check out these baseball songs.

Honorable Mentions: Punch Brothers – “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”; Kenny Rogers – “The Greatest”; Wilco – “Joe Dimaggio Done it Again.”

• 5. “Cheap Seats” – Alabama
  “Cheap Seats,” the title track from a 1993 Alabama record is all about the joys of watching Triple A ball. Randy sings the praises of flat beer and dogs with mustard and relish, noting “We don’t worry about the pennant much/We just like to see the boys hit it deep/There’s nothing like the view from the cheap seats.”

• 4. “715 (For Hank Aaron)” – Peter Cooper

  Cooper looks at racism through the lens of America’s Pastime with this song about Aaron, a man who faced hate mail and death threats, but spoke “with his bat and not his mouth.” Remember when athletes did that?

• 3. “America’s Favorite Pastime” – Todd Snider
  On this bluesy track from The Excitement Plan, Snider relates the story of the late Dock Ellis, a Pirates pitcher who threw a no-hitter while allegedly on LSD. After he retired, Ellis became a drug counselor, interestingly enough.
• 2. “Iron and Diamonds” – The Gibson Brothers
  Upstate New Yorkers Eric and Leigh wrote this song about the region’s iron miners, who found some respite from their hardscrabble lives in baseball: “Sons followed steps down to the mines/Behind dads they never knew/They came alive between the foul lines/With pride and dignity/In the bleachers and the batter’s box/A miner could be free.”
• 1. “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” – Steve Goodman
  My beloved Fightin’ Phils may be the losingest team in professional sports, but there’s a whole different kind of masochism involved in root, root, rooting for the Cubbies, a team who hasn’t won a World Series in over a century. The “City of New Orleans” scribe sings all about the heartache associated with the ballclub and “their ivy-covered burial ground” in this 1983 song.

• Garth Brooks talks business in Chet Flippo’s newest Nashville Skyline column:
  

  “I’m not a record label fan, but on this one, I have to stand up for the record labels and say that they can’t afford development anymore. Because if you think you can live on 99 cents a single, I can guarantee you one of two things: You’re wrong, or you’re working for Apple.”

  [...]

  He continued, “What I find myself doing with these record label heads is they’re going, ‘Hey, we’re doing great!’ And the truth is, they’re doing great with what they’ve got to work with. But the truth is, they’re making one-twentieth of what they should be making. The people that are running Taylor Swift’s place? Those people, even though they’re the most successful, I betcha in the ’90s, they would’ve made 10 times more — without piracy and without having to sell everything at 99 cents. If that young lady, if for every single she sold, she sold an album, those people could have money for artist development again and for taking chances.”

• Farce the Music presents the top ten rejected names for John Rich’s forthcoming son.
• Starting Tuesday (Oct. 27), Drew Kennedy’s new album An Audio Guide to Cross Country Travel will be digitally available through his website and anyone who purchases it will automatically be entered into a drawing for a free house concert.
• The recent Keith Urban-hosted “We’re All for the Hall” benefit concert raised upwards of $500,000 for the County Music Hall of Fame.
• That Nashville Sound dubbed Jason Eady’s new album, When the Money’s All Gone, a four-and-a-half star effort and described the singer-songwriter as “a Hal Ketchum like storyteller with a Joe Nichols voice — all drenched in a country-tinged Cajun blues.”
• 11 Questions with Carrie Underwood
• Twenty-two years after releasing her self-titled debut, Rosie Flores is still making music and continues to improve. In fact, The Austin Chronicle’s Audra Schroeder says her new album, Girl of the Century, just might be her best. The album, due out Tuesday (Oct. 27), is her Bloodshot debut.
• Download “Memphis” from Owen Temple’s latest album, Dollars and Dimes, for free.
• In a Q&A with Nashville Scene’s Paul McCoy, Ralph Stanley talks about his new book, The Stanley Brothers sound, and his desire to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
  

  You write in the book, “Seems like country people are most happy when they hear sad songs.” Why do you think that is?

  I don’t know, I just think this old-time sound just gets with them and helps them forget their troubles and so forth. Even though some of them are tragic songs, I think they like the melodies. I think they pay more attention to the melody than they do the words.

• Twangville posted a couple of free downloads from artists like Sons of Bill and Those Darlins.
• The 2010 Merlfest lineup has been announced.
• If you’re a fan of Scott H. Biram, A Truer Sound urges you to check out Seasick Steve, who he says is to Biram “what The Flying Burrito Brothers were to The Eagles….that is, a purer form of the same art.”
• Band of Heathen’s Gordy Quist talks about five records that inspire him with Sounds Country.
• While recording Speed of Life, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s biggest reference point was its 1970 album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy. “They wanted us to circle back to what we were doing in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” Hanna said. “They wanted us to make ‘a hippy record,’ is the way they put it.”
• The Austin Chronicle’s Jim Caligiuri on Lyle Lovett’s new record: “Natural Forces sits comfortably next to early Lovett efforts like Pontiac – jovial, artful, and packed with deep Texas roots.”
• Tim McGraw announced dates for his Southern Voice Tour.
• Cowboy & Indians‘ Joe Leydon and songwriter Dean Dillon attribute George Strait’s longevity to his song-selecting savvy:
  

  Quite simply, he knows what he likes and what other folks will like as well. “And that,” says veteran Music Row tunesmith Dean Dillon, “is one of the things that has made him the King of Country. He has that innate ability to look at a song, listen to a song, get inside that song — and deliver it the way it was written in a way that you can relate to.”

  Dillon goes on to recount his first encounter with Strait and the article ends with two interviews; one with George about ranching and the other with Bubba Strait about songwriting.

Say what you will about Toby Keith, but he’s nothing if not a hard worker. It’s been less than a year since That Don’t Make Me A Bad Guy was released (hell, the gold record probably isn’t even hung up in the Show Dog Nashville office) and here he is with another album, one that’s already added another single to his long list of #1s.

Keith wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs on American Ride (mostly joined by longtime collaborator Bobby Pinson), and while there aren’t any particularly masterful lyrics, they get the job done and are halfway catchy to boot. The only song Keith didn’t have a hand in writing is the title track, and maybe that’s a good thing; “American Ride” is the weakest song on the album, with Keith shouting his way through an asinine chorus and lyrics referencing “the YouTube.” If you’re looking for humorous commentary on modern society, Jason Boland & The Stragglers cover the same ground a little more deftly in their song “Pearl Snaps.”

Though he’s known for his chest-thumping (and let’s face it: there are few, if any, commercial country artists who can do it better), the best songs on American Ride are the ones in which Keith drops the swagger and the shouting and just sings. The result is a sound similar to the 1990s material that initially catapulted him into country superstardom. “Gypsy Driftin’” is a toe-tapper about life on the road while the slow burning “Are You Feelin’ Me” would sound right at home among the ballads of Dream Walkin’. “Cryin’ for Me (Wayman’s Song)” is a touching tribute to jazz musician/basketball player Wayman Tisdale (the album is also dedicated to Tisdale); it’s also some of the best songwriting Toby Keith’s done to date, featuring an opening lyric that’s like a punch to the gut for anyone who’s experienced a similar loss: “Got the news on Friday morning/But a tear I couldn’t find/You showed me how I’m supposed to live/Now you showed me how to die.” Keith’s singing here really shows what he’s capable of as an artist, especially as he stretches his own musical boundaries a bit by enlisting the help of Dave Koz, who contributed some lite jazz saxophone to the song, Arthur Thompson, and Marcus Miller.

Now, just because he’s dropping the swagger doesn’t mean the guy can’t be funny. After all, this is the fella who wrote “You Ain’t Much Fun.” One of the album’s standout songs, “You Can’t Read My Mind” finds Toby at his most charming as he desperately tries to avoid screwing up a chance at love, singing “Baby I can’t tell you what I’m thinking/I’ve had way too much to drink tonight/This is where I usually say something out of line/Just be glad that right now you can’t read my mind.”. Trying for funny and missing the mark is the admittedly catchy “Every Dog Has Its Day,” whose infectious hook is offset by an unfortunate stanza that may have been cribbed from Go Dog Go.

Rounding out the record is “Ballad of Balad,” a grunt’s-eye-view tale about military life that begins with some iffy recruiting methods down at the Winn-Dixie and ends with a rowdy singalong courtesy of The Hogliners. Accented by banjo, “Ballad” is free of the jingoism Keith’s detractors often accuse him of, though his use of the unwieldy phrase “all them son of a bitches” puts the Big Dog Daddy, as banjo picker Steve Martin might sing, in the grammar slammer.

There’s nothing inherently unlistenable about American Ride except perhaps the title track. There is, however, too much unmemorable filler in between the quality songs. Maybe it’s time for some fresh blood in the Show Dog kennel.

Hall & Oates may have been at the 9:30 Club on Wednesday night to perform Jimmy Wayne’s smash “Sara Smile,” but the best show in town featured co-headliners Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider, and Bruce Robison. The three men sold out Alexandria’s Birchmere on the inaugural stop of their Barstool Tour, something that seems to have come about so that they could all hang out together and get paid for it. It was clearly a formal occasion, as evidenced by Todd Snider actually wearing shoes—the equivalent of any other artist sporting black tie, I imagine.

Each singer performed a 20 minute solo set to start the evening, interspersing their songs with dry humor and witty asides that were nearly as interesting as the music itself. Robert Earl Keen tested out some new material from The Rose Hotel, starting his set with “10,000 Chinese Walk Into A Bar,” but the song that got the biggest crowd response in the form of slurred singalong was “Merry Christmas From The Family,” a song that Keen states he performs from Labor Day to Easter, unless, of course, he forgets to pick up a new Day-Timer.

He was followed by Bruce Robison, who introduced “Travelin’ Soldier,” a song he wrote around the time of the Persian Gulf War, by referring to it as the “fastest descending Number One” in the history of the Billboard charts (the Dixie Chicks’ version was #1 when Natalie Maines made her infamous comments about then-President Bush in 2003). For Robison, his set was a family affair; after discussing that hit from his “sister-in-law’s band,” he segued into “My Brother and Me.” Robert Earl Keen may have been the initial draw, but after Bruce’s set, everyone in the room was a fan, even if, as I heard some concertgoers profess in the parking lot, they’d never heard of “those other guys.”

After Robison’s four songs, Todd Snider took the stage with his trademark sense of humor, identifying “Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number Ten)” a song he began writing only to round out The Excitement Plan, but realized halfway through, “shit, you’ve sunk to the bottom, brother: that’s how they make country music.” But Snider’s nothing if not a country singer and master songwriter as the rest of his material, including “Sideshow Blues,” “D.B. Cooper,” and “Beer Run” proved.

After a brief intermission, the three returned and spent the next hour trading songs and cracking each other—and the audience—up. The music was great, but the real treat was watching Keen, Robison, and Snider interact. They obviously have the utmost respect for each other’s music, but they genuinely seem to be fans of one another, as Todd Snider sang along to “Angry All the Time,” bursting into applause after the first verse and Bruce Robison laughed right along with the audience at Keen’s “Village Inn,” a song whose lyrics were allegedly stolen from a hotel’s marquis: “The Village Inn Hotel is so affordable…free WiFi…HBO.” I got the feeling that they’d probably be doing the same things (drinking beer, swapping songs, telling stories) even if they weren’t on tour.

One of the evening’s highlights was Robert and Todd collaborating on Keen’s “Corpus Christi Bay” (which Snider covered on The Excitement Plan, but the biggest crowd pleaser of the night was “The Road Goes on Forever,” a perfect song with which to end the set. However, I must admit that I wish they played it earlier, if only to shut up the loaded frat boy who shouted “‘Road Goes on Forever,’ man!” after every single Keen song. They encored with a trio of songs, officially ending with Keen’s version of the Townes Van Zandt song “Snowin’ on Raton,” which he covered back in 2001 on Gravitational Forces.

At $50, tickets may be a little pricey, but it sure felt like everyone got their money’s worth. Come to think of it, it might be worth $50 just to hear Bruce Robison describe his methods of courtship, which involve a mixture of “stalking and sexual harassment.” As for the story about George Strait’s manager and his Big Gulp cup filled with scotch…well, you had to be there.