The Year in Review: Comeback Kids

In my mind, Porter Wagoner will forever epitomize country music in 2007.

Some may object to my hanging an entire year on the back of an artist who didn’t sniff the radio airplay chart, barely made the country album chart, did not receive a major award nomination and did not headline a major tour (or any tour at all). Country music scholars may well remember 2007 as the year that a seventeen-year old named Taylor Swift asserted herself, but I think that Wagoner’s contribution to the 2007 country music landscape is more important and distinctive. Porter led a class of veteran and even legendary artists that used 2007 to make surprising statements. Some artists mounted comebacks while others again proved their enduring artistry amidst the uprising of a younger generation. None of these statements rang more clearly than Wagoner’s own project, Wagonmaster.

In one sense, Wagonmaster was both Porter Wagoner’s first and last album. In producer Marty Stuart, Porter found a friend and visionary to help him rediscover a sound that Wagoner himself had perhaps given up for lost. Porter’s rebirth was literal in addition to musical; one year prior, he nearly succumbed to a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, a frequently fatal condition that nearly condemned his newly conceived project with Stuart. The project that emerged is quite different than what the many erroneous comparisons to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings would imply. Wagoner is as vital as he has ever sounded as he navigates a superb set that includes a few of his previous recordings and a remarkably excellent survey of original songs. The album was not recorded by a man living out his final days in a secluded wilderness home but by a legend who appeared weekly on the Grand Ole Opry and took his new material to late night television, Madison Square Garden, and an invitation from the President to light the national Christmas tree that was preempted only by his death.

Wagoner was perhaps the elder statesman of the veteran class of 2007, but he was far from the only artist to produce superb work. Several other artists who struggle to linger in the memory of radio and even fans made statements in 2007:

Trisha Yearwood: Of all the artists on this list, Trisha Yearwood has been most effective at maintaining a radio presence since her star was extinguished. Maintaining a radio presence didn’t require Yearwood to release Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love, one of the best album’s of her illustrious career, but she did it anyway. The album’s two 2007 single releases, “Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love” and “This is Me You’re Talking To” generate spins and elevate the artistry of country radio. Yearwood topped The 9513’s list of the best albums of 2007, and with good reason.

Pam Tillis: Many of the artists described in this article chose to stretch their wings in 2007. Tillis chose to return to her roots. The result was Rhinestoned, a remarkably consistent collection of traditional material that showcased not only Tillis’ singing but her songwriting as well. It’s the best album of Tillis’ career and it’s a shame that it was made only after the end of her commercial viability.

Dale Watson: He raised a ruckus early in the year by suggesting the formation of a new musical genre, “Ameripolitan,” to preserve traditional country music. From the Cradle to the Grave, Watson’s tribute to Johnny Cash, proves that, Ameripolitan be damned, this guy’s country.

LeAnn Rimes: Half of my readers just jumped down to the comment box to explain the absurdity of calling a 25-year old artist a “veteran.” Nonetheless, the truth is that LeAnn Rimes has been in the music business for twelve years and has taken more than wrong one turn along the way. Family completes the comeback that This Woman started. LeAnn finds her voice as a writer and as the most soulful female singer on country radio. She’s never sounded better.

Gene Watson: Give Gene Watson credit for doing what he does best: singing. I’ve taken a fair amount of criticism on this site for my dissatisfaction with In a Perfect World, a project that I maintain was ill-conceived, uncreative and quite unworthy of Watson’s talent. Whatever the problem with the album, it’s not Watson, for he sounds as good as ever.

Hal Ketchum: In the 1990s, Hal Ketchum was one of the guys that made country radio better. He wasn’t a superstar who drove the radio train, but he released quality singles that rounded out and ultimately improved radio playlists. I don’t suspect that he’ll grace the singles chart again, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not still producing good singles. “Alamo” and “One More Midnight,” from a European album tentatively scheduled for U.S. release in 2008, could have slipped seamlessly into the 90s playlist.

John Anderson: I would think that if the current radio climate of polished pop would be unfriendly to anyone that person would be John Anderson. “Polished” doesn’t describe anything that John Anderson has ever recorded; his material’s so country ripe that you can smell the manure. Easy Money doesn’t make any attempt to deviate from that practice. Just keep doing what you’re doing, John; us country fans appreciate it.

Mary Chapin Carpenter: Carpenter got a little too smart and melancholy for country radio in the late nineties, at the same time that radio was moving away from her. I doubt the two entities will meet again. Carpenter has become a singer-songwriter of the variety content to strum an acoustic guitar and sing something resembling coffeehouse soft folk rock. I no longer consider her a country artist, but The Calling proves that she’s still making music that somebody can be proud of.

Tracy Lawrence: 2007 was not Tracy Lawrence’s first comeback but his second: “Paint Me a Birmingham” hit the top five in 2004, long after most had deemed Lawrence to be out of the radio game. “Find Out Who Your Friends Are” is not as good as that single and was perhaps buoyed by two superstar cameos, but it did earn Lawrence his first CMA Award, an overdue honor for an under-appreciated artist.

Travis Tritt: I came away from a Travis Tritt concert in 2006 with the impression that the once hard-living outlaw had mellowed. A lot. Tritt seemed full of joy as he told stories of his wife and children and it’s not hard to discern where his heart is these days. Thus, The Storm, his bluesy collaboration with producer Randy Jackson is perhaps unsurprising. Tritt seems to have resigned himself to the fact that he’s too old for a major radio push, a fact that makes the moderate success of “You Never Take Me Dancing” all the more sweet.

Garth Brooks: It looked like the 2007 edition of the Garth Brooks “comeback” was going to be just another marketing ploy, a way for Garth to keep his names on the lips of country fans everywhere while making a little spending money for himself and his friends at Walmart. The result was surprisingly substantive, as Brooks notched a number one radio single, performed a series of sold-out shows in Kansas City and planned concerts in Los Angeles. However, Brooks still refuses to commit to a full concert tour, refuses to make his music available digitally, and released rather weak original music together with a greatest hits package. Brooks needed only take a few more steps and he would have become the country music story of the year instead of the marketing story of the year.