He is one of those artists whose music only gets better as he ages. “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” may be his best album to date, actually, even when it is absent of hooks and melodies that much of his earlier catalog is stock full of. I think he found his voice with “Pink Houses”, put together his first above-average album with “Scarecrow” (with a few brilliant cuts like “Minutes To Memories”, “Between A Laugh And A Tear”, “Rain On The Scarecrow”) then produced his first classic with “The Lonesome Jubilee”, and from there on through the 1990’s he had both some great albums (“Big Daddy”, “Human Wheels”) and some duds (“Whenever We Wanted”, “Dance Naked”).

By the 2000’s, though, everything he’s released has been solid. He’s working on a new album soon with T. Bone Burnett again, that will be recorded in historic hotels across America with vintage equipment.

Carrie Underwood has a total of ten #1 hits on all charts combined, but one of them is outside of country (“Inside Your Heaven”) and another two fell short of the top spot on the Billboard and Radio And Records charts (“Don’t Forget To Remember Me”, “I Told You So”) but reached #1 on MediaBase’s weekly airplay rolling chart.

Whatever way you look at it, that’s a most impressive feat, but she in most minds officially has seven #1 hits.

I heard a little about this at dinner Sunday night from Amanda Kowalski, who accompanied Abigail (Amanda’s an ex-Uncle Earl girl who’s mostly doing photography now; she was in town to take photos at the wedding of the Infamous Stringdusters’ Andy Hall to Janice Young) on the recent trip to Chengdu. She said that the devastation in the province was unbelievable. It’s quite a project, and you can learn more about it at http://www.abigailwashburn.com .

That said, I haven’t been too excited by anything of his since Jerusalem. This Townes tribute doesn’t add anything to the songs. Seems to me that he is just trying to do them like Townes. Why? I’ll just listen to Townes. I already have the Poet tribute to Townes, a Jonell Mosser tribute, Lyle Lovett doing some Townes songs plus various others including many doing White Freightliner Blues (including Steve Earle on a live compilation).

Yep! You have to give Randy Travis credit for helping push this old tune the final couple of miles to the finish line.
Now does this count as a #1 for him too?

Here’s a link to the latest mediabase chart:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/airplay-charts.htm#country
#1 & #2 will be reversed on Billboard but if Mediabase is good enough for Lon Helton then it’s good enough for me. LOL!