Kristofferson Honored As BMI Icon; Live Video Stream of Underwood at Opry; Hough & Wicks Call It Quits
- Kris Kristofferson was named a BMI Icon at last night’s BMI Country Awards and Bobby Pinson took home the award for songwriter of the year. Visit The Tennessean for a full list of winners.
- In light of today’s holiday, revisit The 9513′s playlist “20 Top War and Soldier Songs.”
- George Strait‘s publicist confirmed that the singer will have a “very limited role” in the film A Pure Country Gift, which will star singer-songwriter Katrina Elam and is being billed as a “feature film sequel.”
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Below are a couple of new releases I missed in yesterday’s roundup:
- It’s time for another country day at Farce the Music, where album covers are parodied and no one is too sacred.
- San Antonio Express-News Hector Saldaña on the new, self-titled Jessie James record:
Country music’s been going in this direction for a long time, but it’s still a shock to hear hip-hop loops, samplers and triggers on these pop numbers, or to hear so little twang in James’ Avril Lavigne impression on I Look So Good (Without You). It’s no surprise to see that [Katy] Perry and Kara DioGuardi have hands in the songwriting.
- Charlie Robison performs brother Bruce’s song “My Brother and Me.”
- The CMT New Video Evaluation Team reviewed Darius Rucker‘s video for “History in the Making,” Randy Houser‘s “Whistlin’ Dixie,” Jason Aldean‘s “The Truth,” and Justin Moore‘s “Backwoods.”
- Eric Brace and Peter Cooper performed “Sheboygan” (drunk again, drunk again!) for the Music Fog crew.
- Must Read: A boy, who happens to have autism, meets his hero, Dierks Bentley. (via @galleywinter)
“Bud, look,” I said. “Who’s that?”
Bud glanced up, then turned his back to Dierks, stared down at the ground, and said “That’s Dierks.”
I looked back at Dierks, who motioned to me – Should I come out?
I shrugged and nodded (I don’t know; I think so.), and in a flash he was with us. “Hey, Bud! It’s nice to meet you!”
Bud kept his eyes down, but lifted his hand and said to the ground, “Hey, Dierks!” I wasn’t sure how to read him. Was this moving too fast? Did we need to slow down?
I put my head next to his and asked, “Hey, Bud, what do you think about this?”
He answered softly, but clearly: “I think it’s really cool.”
- Carrie Underwood‘s Opry performance this Saturday will stream live on MySpace, marking the first time an Opry performance has been offered as a live video stream.
- Julianne Hough and Chuck Wicks quit each other.
- Country Haiku:
Take a look at this
I have a hillbilly bone
Right here IN MY PANTS - Despite his comments last week, George Jones wants people to know that he isn’t against anyone, particularly not Carrie Underwood, who posed for pictures with Jones at a Dolly Parton CD/DVD release event on Monday.
- EW.com’s Chris Willman listed 25 country albums you need to hear.
- Free Download: Download a song from a CMA Award nominated artist for free courtesy of Amazon. Be sure to use the code before it expires on Nov. 22, and if you need some help choosing a song, The Raconteurs‘s “Old Enough,” featuring Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe, is well worth downloading. There’s also Miranda Lambert‘s “California,” which was available as a bonus track on Me and Charlie Talking, or Brooks & Dunn‘s take on the Merle Haggard standard “The Fightin’ Side Of Me.”
- Be sure to join Jim, Juli, Karlie and Pierce (with special guest appearances by…) starting at 7:30 pm EST for our CMA Awards Live Blog.
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Watch the new video for, and find out the inspiration behind, Caroline Herring‘s song “Tales of the Islander.”
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Ashley Monroe // Bobby Pinson // Caroline Herring // Carrie Underwood // Charlie Robison // Chet Atkins // Chuck Wicks // Darius Rucker // Dierks Bentley // Dolly Parton // Eric Brace // George Jones // George Strait // Jason Aldean // Jerry Lee Lewis // Josh Thompson // Julianne Hough // Justin Moore // Kara DioGuardi // Katrina Elam // Kris Kristofferson // Merle Haggard // Miranda Lambert // Peter Cooper // Randy Houser // Ricky Skaggs // Steve Wariner
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November 11, 2009 at 11:34 am
Tralier’s new batch of re-titled country albums is top shelf per usual. I’d have to say the Little Big Town album is my favorite this go round.
I guess Chuck Wicks wasn’t too keen on becoming a Mormon after all. Maybe he should have spent more time watching “Big Love” DVDs while on the tour bus. Hmm…
It’s nice to read that Katrina Elam is starring in the sort-of sequel to “Pure Country” after being off the radar for the last couple of years. Since her second album “Turn Me Up” never saw the light of day, the new film’s soundtrack will have to take its place.
That EW album list covers a good bit of musical territory but bluegrass and western swing get the bum’s rush. They have a hard core Gram Parsons fan contributing to the creation of that list and some of the Americana picks seem a bit out there, but overall it highlights some worthy albums. Having Shania Twain’s “Come On Over” followed by Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town” was quite a contrast. I do thank them for not including any Garth Brooks!
November 11, 2009 at 11:37 am
…stealing cinderella – returning cinderella. make up your mind, chuck!
November 11, 2009 at 11:49 am
And now Wicks can return to obscurity, where he belongs…I respect Chris Willman, but some of his “25 albums you need to hear” are headscratchers. He says that there’s never been a more well-rounded country artist than Brad Paisley. As Seth and Amy would say, “Really?” Forget the likes of Parton or Kristofferson, I wouldn’t even say that Paisley is the most-rounded artist of THIS MINUTE — Keith Urban equals or surpasses him on all criteria.
November 11, 2009 at 11:58 am
you got my hopes up! I thought Hough and Wicks quit country music. Darn!
November 11, 2009 at 12:00 pm
yeah, this list would be fine (save for the couple of headscratchers), but he seems to always insist on throwing in the “for even non-country fans” angle. This list is startlingly similar to the list he published (and was linked to here) that was under the title of “Top Country Albums for People that Hate Country”, or something like that…geez dude, if someone “hates country”, I dont think Hank Sr, Buck, Dolly, Hag and Emmylou are gonna do it for them, as they are very country, and not really a “gateway” into country…
November 11, 2009 at 1:40 pm
While I am not a fan of all of Dirkes’ music he ranks up there with Ricky Skaggs as far as accessability to the fans. Even going so far as recording a “thank you” greating on my phone for my B-I-L when he was stationed in Iraq.
November 11, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I’m sorry, am I the only one in the world that just threw up in her mouth after Taylor Swift won Enterainer of the Year? OMG…..the child can’t sing, can’t dance and has a hard time walking and talking at the same time! I am dissapointed in the country music industry and feel that they have certaily sunk to a new low.
George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams that is country!!!!
November 12, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Wow, EW.com is re-running that “25 albums…” list of mine again? I wouldn’t even have known, if I hadn’t seen it here. For the record, I got laid off by EW a year ago today (who could forget getting whacked by phone in Nashville after staying up all night to write about the CMAs?). But that doesn’t mean they won’t put up a few of my old lists on an annual basis. (Coming this Christmas, I’m sure: my list of the 100 greatest depressing Christmas songs. Watch for it!) I always feel a little apologetic when this one comes up, as it has since I wrote it two or three years ago. It was by request of some also-long-since-departed webmaster, who wanted something about recommendations for “people who think they hate country.” And as one commenter commented, yeah, some of them are so country they might not make a good gateway drug, and others so crossover they would seem to dillute some kind of purity. (But I’ll still stand by loving the first Big & Rich album, even if they’ve spent most of their intervening recordings making me and their other defenders second-guess that.) In any case, one of those things where you try to meet the assignment and please yourself and fail at both, though I kind of stand behind it. Thank God it wasn’t done recently enough for me to include Taylor’s first album and really sacrifice all cred, right? Try as I constantly might.
November 12, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I really like Chris Willman.
Interestingly, the traditional stuff was the gateway for Bill (my husband) to give country music a chance. The pop stuff made him think country music was lame, but the traditional music caught his attention.
I’m only a little ashamed to say that I still think the first Big And Rich album was really good.
November 12, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The first Big & Rich album was really good, and I don’t think anyone should be ashamed of admitting that. It’s not surprising that the music that came after deteriorated when the relationship between the two became less about art and more about commodity.
November 12, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I’m very proud to say that I’ve never liked Big & Rich.
November 12, 2009 at 2:17 pm
You are right Jim, that first record was good. Then John Rich wanted to be the voice of country and forgot about the work that it takes in writing and producing a record.
November 12, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Chris, that clears things up for me (not that it matters :-) Sorry to hear about being laid-off. As I said earlier, it really is a solid-list, sorry for presuming that it was you that insisted upon putting that list up again…