Merle Haggard Returns to Stage Tonight After Layoff From Surgery

Regarding Hag’s comment: “He says it’ll also be the first time in his life in which he hasn’t loosened up with tobacco or marijuana.” Guess we know where the lung cancer came from…..

The plummeting sales of country music have a lot to do with how shallow and mediocre so much of Top 40 mainstream country music has become. If you took out Taylor Swift’s and Carrie Underwood’s sales in 2008 you get a better picture of how sales have fallen off the cliff. File sharing and CD copy burning have had a huge impact, but the lack of quality of so much of the music is at the core of the problem.

First Sunny Sweeney announced she was working with Dierk’s Bentley’s producer Brett Beavers and now she’s praising Carrie Underwood’s vocal gymnastics. All this time she’s been spending in Nashville has not been a good thing and I fear she is being seduced by the dark side of the force. If Sunny ever starts trying to sing like Carrie, its over…

Rick,

Spending time in Nashville alone isn’t gonna get you to be ‘pop country.’ There’s no way Sunny could sing like CU, she’s got that honky tonk style. She may go the Lee Ann Womack route, but we’ll see. As for praising Carrie Underwood, many people have praised her live performances of classic songs. Hell, if country were like it used to be 20 or so years ago, she’d probably have a really good twangy record (w/no oversinging).

Matt, Catherine Britt was a disciple of Hank Williams when she came to Nashville at 17 and wound up five years later with the Brett Beavers produced “Little Wildflower” album! Time spent in Nashville dealing with the tentacles of the Big Label Music Machine octopus will defile anyone! I hope this isn’t happeneing to Sunny Sweeney due to her ties to Big Machine. May Ashton Shepherd beware! (lol)

For anyone interested here is a new Aussie music video for the Angaleena Presley song “Knocked Up” that was also recorded by Heidi Newfield on her solo debut. I think the budget for this shoot was around $1,000 from the looks of it….

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXhWtTlLR6U&feature=related

Hey Rick,

Just because Sunny praises Carrie for HGTA doesn’t mean she wants to sing like her..LOL!

Sunny, please come back to Texas…we love you just the way you are!

Hey Rick,

Kirsty’s clip was actually done in one take and the low budget feel was intentional. We were going for a Joe Dirt feel which I’m sure you will agree was captured pretty well.

Neil

Rick: Thanks for those two videos.

I enjoyed the first one immensely, low-budget feel and all, but the second one… *shudder*

“I’ve never felt like this / I’m new to this”

Rhyming couplets in which the second half serves only to restate the first using different words are a particular pet peeve of mine. Combine that with repetition of *the same exact word* to close out both halves, and the fact that since it’s in the chorus I have to listen to it *three times* and you have the recipe for my very own auditory purgatory.

Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s something that I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d listened on any other day.

Rick:

Nope, I got my name independently from the TV series and books on which it was based. I began using it during my young adult emo phase, and I grew out of it too late… I’d already registered the domain name on the ten-year plan. :-p

I’ll watch the rest of those videos when I’m well rested (and thus perhaps more willing to overlook my pet peeves).

Regarding Taylor Swift versus Kaylah Anne, if the off-key live performances I’ve heard from Taylor are representative of her talent, I think it’s illustrative of the way that auto-tuning technology has changed the nature of the music industry.

I’d use this space to complain about the importance of “image” and “beauty” in Nashville today, because (let’s face it) Taylor Swift is very pretty, except that she’s also quite a *good* songwriter… which, given your comparison of the two, is why I went to town on the amateur writing of the Kaylah Anne single.

(Which isn’t to say that Taylor doesn’t have some bad cuts; I found her song “Tim McGraw” *far* too melodramatic for my tastes… I kept waiting for the verse where she’s standing outside his door with a shotgun and an ultimatum.)

Take the opening AABCCB rhyme of Taylor’s “Our Song”, for example. While the song isn’t perfect (”talk real slow” instead of the more difficult to enunciate “low” has been discussed to death), I’ll submit that these lines are pretty damned close:

I was riding shotgun / With my hair undone
In the front seat of his car
He’s got a one-hand feel / On the steering wheel
The other on my heart

Notice how the twisting of expectations – the other hand isn’t ’round her shoulders or holding her own hand – services the song’s meaning as well as its rhyme structure. By the time the rhyme ends, she has firmly established both the physical and emotional setting of the song.

I wouldn’t call it (or anything she’s put out thus far) a legendary cut. I doubt people will discuss it in as much detail as I have thirty years from now. But the fact that she’s able to generate lyrics like that even on a semi-regular basis makes me hopeful that she someday will write a song or two that will stand the test of time.

And that’s all I have to say about Taylor Swift.

That’s also possible.

Holy crap, is that really you Sunny! YIKES! Looks like me and my big mouth has my foot firmly planted in it again. How embarrassing! I don’t expect the artists to read my assinine tirades here as I figure they have better things to do with their time. DOH!

As for Brett Beavers, I just vastly prefer Dierks Bentley’s pre-Brett Beavers sound on his debut “Don’t Leave Me In Love” album and I didn’t care for Catherine Britt’s “Little Wildflower” album that Brett produced. From my perspective I’d much rather see you working with Keith Stegall or Carl Jackson because I’d know the result would be real country.

Ummm, I better shut up before I dig myself a deeper hole here…..

Hey Jim, Brady, & Brody, do I score any 9513 Bonus Points for attracting Sunny Sweeney to post here even if it was only to rebuke my irreverence? Hmmm…

Sunny, If you ever book a gig in Los Angeles, I’ll be the first in line to purchase a ticket! (In fact anywhere within a 120 mile radius is cool , and that includes Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield). McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica would be a perfect venue as they’ve recently featured artists like Kasey Chambers, Carrie Rodriguez, and Slaid Cleaves, so you’d be perfect! All I ask is that you don’t cover any Carrie Underwood hits, while songs from Kitty Wells and Audrey Auld Mezera are highly desired….(lol)

I have to second Powell’s sentiment. The last thing I expected when I visited the site today was to read Sunny getting after Rick. That alone is enough to make me a fan of her (although the good music doesn’t hurt either). Awesome.

At last, somebody Rick will listen to.

That’s funny, I don’t feel so warm and fuzzy about my first direct Sunny encounter. Hmmm…

“Rick Smack” eh? I like it, but I have no idea what a neologism is? I hope its something good! (lol)

You might say it’s a warm, sunny feeling.

P.s. RICK, you had nothing to do with me coming to this site : )…. I’m on here all the time… i think yall do a great job and it’s very diverse with the news, etc.

Just thought you should know we all enjoy it so don’t stop what you’re doing!

Well, now I’m just jealous.

So can only Rick be “Rick Smacked,” or could the term apply to anyone whose critique is personally rebutted by the person it’s been made about?

I get Rick Smacked all the time, but I have to pay extra for that…are we talking about the same thing??

I love that song! I am glad Carrie took a risk and released a more traditional song, even though it is a cover song of Randy Travis’s original song. Some of her fans are a little dissapointed about the choice as they wanted a more upbeat son next after Just a Dream, but most are thrilled.

Carrie brought me to country music, and now I love it. I am now a fan of many more traditional country artists like Alan Jackson, Brad, Dolly, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Alabama, etc, all because Carrie exposed me to the genre.

I am thrilled to see her try something more traditional, even if it won’t be a huge success on radio or in sales, etc. Maybe it will surprise us though.

Vince Gill sings backup to Carrie on that song, and their voices blend amazing together. I love it!

“Rick Smack” actually goes both ways. Much of what I post here is trash talk “smack” and the end result is that offended parties come back at me and give me a smack as well. See, it all balances out in a cosmic karma sort of way! (lol)

Well I may not have attracted Sunny to The 9513 as it sounds like she’s a regular reader, BUT it was my snarky comments that motivated her to post something so I still deserve a 9513 Brownie Point!

PS – Caitlin Lynn responded to me? I don’t remember that one. Damned mad cow disease. Back around 2003 Allison Moorer’s then husband Butch would post on her fan forum and he took umbrage at a few of my comments. Made me glad Nashville and LA are so far apart geographically.

Ooops, I really am losing it. Sorry about the double post. (Hangs his head in shame, like Tom Dooley….)

Randy Travis didn’t cover it: he wrote it.

Whoa, Stormy, now don’t start trashin’ Randy Travis! If he’s not traditional…