Comments on: February ‘08 Album Review Wrap-Up

By: Stormy

Stormy — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:57:46 +0000

Ben–You may want to rethink buying that Tift Merritt album as I would rate it as the best of her career and the best of her career and the best of the year to date. Far from being “self pitying poetry” its basically one long anthem of finding hope in hardship, from “The song I love the best’s the one my father taught to me,
The kindness of a stranger is dust from an unseen wing” to “Sometimes you fall up these stairs, but it’s a long time ‘fore you know, No matter where my heart is now, there’s a long, long way to go.” I guess I can’t figure out how an album whose lead single contains the lines “and you don’t understand what is broken falls back into place out of kindness” is especially “self pitying.”

By: ccf

ccf — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:11:43 +0000

Thanks for the review of Arty Hill, I checked him out and got the cd.

By: John

John — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:56:18 +0000

With all due respect, I have to scratch my noggin’ about the reviewer’s opinion that Arty Hill’s CD sounds like Commander Cody. I get the feeling that he must have been on a 3 day Commander Cody kick wherin Doc Severinson would probably remind him of the Commander. I’ve listened to alot of CC and the Airmen and it just ain’t here folks!! Also, even though there is a rockin’ aspect to this disc, Little Richard also fails to make his presence felt. I can, however, see the Porter comparison. I highly recommend this one to fans of shuffle beat country.

By: Jeremy Potts

Jeremy Potts — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:48:45 +0000

I agree totally with the review of ‘Honey Songs’. Jim Lauderdale epitomizes to me everything that’s great about country music and he manages to pump a seemingly never ending stream of great material that’s both intrinsically his and interpretable by other great artists (Gary Allan, George Strait, George Jones, etc.) as their own.
His performance of ‘Honeysuckle Honey Pie’ on Conan a few weeks back was pretty sensational too.

By: Colt

Colt — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:09:03 +0000

You guys are tough graders.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:48:25 +0000

I think Tift’s new album is really good! And brilliantly written. *shrug*

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:33:45 +0000

Brady, it was released February 26.

By: Brady Vercher

Brady Vercher — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:31:30 +0000

Rick, is the Tift album just being put on the shelves at your Best Buy today? I believe it came out at the end of February.

I’m not sure about the Blue Highway album since I didn’t get to give it a close listen, but I get the impression that they didn’t try to over produce this one. So, while it might only be a little better than average, I don’t know that it suffers from being too slick.

The Allison Moorer album sounds like it has some Earle inspired arrangements that I didn’t particularly care for.

I gave a few songs on the Arty Hill album a listen and was excited to find that they were pretty dang good, so I’m looking forward to checking the whole thing out.

By: Hollerin' Ben

Hollerin' Ben — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:02:10 +0000

Rick my friend, instead of just saving $8 by not buying the Tift Merrit cd, you should consider using that $8 to buy one of the other cd’s we reviewed that sound more to your liking.

just a thought.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:20:21 +0000

Brady, Thanks for saving me $ 8 and the drive to Best Buy to pick up Tift’s CD which is being released today. I really like the new song “Broken” but it sounds like that cut is a fluke. Tift’s debut “Bramble Rose” also suffered from the “every cut kinda sounds like every other cut” syndrome, so history is repeating itself here. If Tift wasn’t so darn cute and endowed with an ample bosom she never would have made it as far as she has…..

I have Blue Highway’s classic “Still Climbimg Mountains” CD but its just too darn slick production wise. Technical perfection gets boring after awhile and bluegrass needs a bit of grit for authenticity..

I used to be a huge Allison Moorer fan in her early days but lost interest after hr 3rd CD “Miss Fortune”. At that time she came out of the closet politically and was supporting Al Gore in ‘04 and touting the wisdom of Michael Moore’s “Hey Dude, Where’s My Country”. Her first husband Doyle “Butch” Primm (the bearded bloke inside the house of Alison Krauss’ video for “New Favorite”) co-wote on many of her best songs. Personally I like the songs Butch co-wrote better than the stuff with her new hubby Steve Earle.

Trent Willmon’s heart is a lot bigger than his talent pool and I agree that his trying to become a new “Lite” version of Chris LeDoux would suit him perfectly. He’s more than good enough for a drunken rodeo crowd…