Showing posts with label Jason Eady. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jason Eady. Show all posts

Dec 21, 2021

Farce the Music's Top 26 Songs of 2021

Why 26? These are the 26 songs that felt most 'right' being on here.
~Trailer
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1. Jason Eady - French Summer Sun

2. James McMurtry - Canola Fields

3. Morgan Wade - Wilder Days


Dec 17, 2018

Broughton's Top 17 Albums of 2018


I'll be posting a few of our contributor ballots for our official Top 25 of 2018 over the next few days. Here's Kevin Broughton's top 17 albums of 2018.
There's a playlist of songs from each album below.
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1. Western Centuries, Songs From the Deluge
Great musicianship from the closest thing to a country super-group 2018 has seen. These guys are all heavily grounded in bluegrass, yet this album synthesizes all the best parts of American roots music. Come for the three-headed monster of vocals and songwriting, stay for the pedal steel. 


2. Ruston Kelly, Dying Star – One for the misfits, but who among us isn’t one. At times depressing, funny and hopeful, and with a dash of redemptive potential. And it’s oh, so very pleasing to the ear. Comparisons to Ryan Adams are inevitable. So far, though, Mr. Kelly doesn’t seem to be a full-of-himself douche. 


3. Handsome Jack, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
The best rock ‘n’ roll album of 2018, from a power trio in Buffalo, N.Y. The Robinson bros. might have killed the Black Crowes, but the spirit of the band breathes through these guys. 


4. Caleb Caudle, Crushed Coins
A fantastic Americana album, and the second on my list that will draw the inevitable Ryan Adams comparisons. (I’m reminded in particular of the last Whiskeytown record.) And that’s a good thing; quality songwriting understated instrumentation and great vocals.  


5. Donna The Buffalo, Dance in the Street
From way, way off the radar. A long-running band of upstate New Yorkers, steeped in old, traditional music – yet with a jam-band ethos. They teamed up with Rob Fraboni, who’s produced and/or engineered Dylan, The Band, Clapton, the Stones and the Beach Boys. The result is fine, and irresistible. If I’d heard this album sooner in the year, it’d be higher on the list. 


6. Dirty River Boys, Mesa Starlight
These Texans have me captivated with their Scots-Irish fire. They’re almost an American version of the Pogues, grabbing you at the beginning with “Wild of Her Eyes.” High energy and lots of fun.


7. Cody Jinks, Lifers
Cody is just taunting the Satanists running Nashville now, showing these soulless, undead beings what a country record could be on their radio stations. 


8. Blackberry Smoke, Find A Light
These guys are working hard. Consecutive years with top-flight albums, they retain their Southern rock identity without being chained to it. This is an all-American band.


9. Adam Hood, Somewhere in Between
Sweet songwriting and great arrangements from this Alabama transplant to Texas. An all-around feel-good record. As can be said about his brothers Cobb and Eady.


10. Brent Cobb, Providence Canyon
A great follow-up to 2016’s “Shine On Rainy Day.” The last three songs of that record were swampy and a little menacing, a thread woven through this album, particularly on “If I Don’t See Ya’” and “.30-06,” with their bad-boy Skynyrd feel. But when I hear “King of Alabama,” I’ll always remember the one time I got to see a then-fledgling musician, Wayne Mills. It was in Tuscaloosa in 2002, the night before heavy underdog Auburn beat Alabama 17-7. I was blown away then by the guy’s talent, and to this day I regret I never saw him again. No one that night or any other would ever dream of his fate: “It was a friend who took him from his family.” Cobb has done Mills fitting memorial, and made another great album. 


11. Jason Eady, I Travel On
As tough as it was, Eady has topped his self-titled album of 2017, with the help of some bluegrass ringers. He calls it “groove grass,” and it’s a perfect description of what he’s done on his best album yet. 


12. Great Peacock, Gran Pavo Real
These guys make great rock music that floats between ethereal and driving. I’ve been a “back-row Baptist.” But the guy with “stories to tell” is FTM’s Matthew Martin who got to review them…playing his wedding. SMH.


13. Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Years
The accolades were quick and many for this serious, feisty, brassy single mom and her backing band’s breakthrough album. And they were all well deserved. Bloodshot Records’ crown jewel for 2018.


Great country music that we as a country need more of. 


15. Nick Dittmeier & The Sawdusters, All Damn Day 
Hoosiers! Hoosiers at the door with country music that would fit perfect on country radio. If only…


16. Hawks And Doves, From A White Hotel 
The fact that this record got made, and the way it happened are a remarkable testament to the power of humility, grace and forgiveness. Kasey Anderson came out of prison and didn’t, well, just shrug it off. But he’s certainly made good on his vow to come back. This album gets better every time I listen to it. 


17. The Bottle Rockets, Bit Logic 
My boy Kasey put it best: Every few years, the Bottle Rockets crank out another reminder that they’re one of the most dependably great Americanalt.countryrock outfits of the last three decades and often, Ambel has been on board as producer and auxiliary Rocket. Their new album, Bit Logic, is just such a reminder — by turns acerbic, swaggering, and tender. 




Aug 16, 2018

Really Dumb Country Reviews: August '18


These are real reviews from a popular digital music service.
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Cody Jinks - Lifers

Kane Brown - Lose It


FGL - Simple
Huh? They were good before? ~Trailer



Kane Brown - Weekend

Keith Urban - graffiti u

Amanda Shires - To the Sunset

Dan + Shay

Jason Eady - I Travel On

Mitchell Tenpenny - EP



Aug 10, 2018

Traveling On: A Conversation With Jason Eady


By Kevin Broughton

Jason Eady is a country artist with a bluegrass soul. He cut his teeth with his stepfather in central Mississippi, going to picking parties and bluegrass jams, but his six solo albums to date have all been in a traditional country vein. But on the heels of his critically acclaimed self-titled 2017 record, Eady has gone fully unplugged and put his own unique, rocking stamp on the bluegrass ethos. With help from an A-list duo from the genre, he’s made his best album to date, I Travel On, released today on Old Guitar Records.

It’s a good-time record made by a man at peace with himself and the world. We chatted about being positive while staying authentic, clearing out a Croatian bar in Paris, and jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. And other stuff.

I Travel On is a distinct departure – in several ways -- from your self-titled 2017 album. That one made our top 10, but it was pretty understated and a little somber in places. Musically and thematically this record may be its polar opposite. What were your mindset and/or goals with regard to the musical approach this time?

Well, this record and the last one seem pretty different, but I think of the last record as a bridge to this one. Before the self-titled album, I’d been very electric, with lots of steel guitar – country music. Sonically, they were bigger productions – not huge, though – than the last album. On the last one we kind of pulled it back; it was more of an acoustic album. I Travel On is fully acoustic. So I think there’s a sonic thread running through to it.  And I had been wanting to move that direction.

About three years ago we played a show in Bozeman, Montana. And this room is fantastic; it’s one of those places everyone plays when they go to Montana. But it is small. I don’t know the actual capacity, but I would guess 30-40 people, and it’s wider than it is deep, so there are only about four rows of chairs. And we started bringing in all our gear, but the thought of cramming all those amps in just seemed weird to me. So we grabbed all our acoustic guitars, stripped down the drum kit and played the whole set that way. And it just sounded great. So I went into the last album with that idea, and toured that way as well.

The first thing I noticed on the opening cut, “I Lost My Mind in Carolina,” was that you brought in a stud on acoustic guitar. Got a ringer on Dobro, too. Who are these guys, and what was the recording process like?

Rob Ickes (dobro) and Trey Hensley (guitar) are the two guys. And my favorite thing about this record is that it’s real and organic. Our developed the sound by touring around and playing that way, where everybody did their own natural thing. And we came up with a sound that’s sort of bluegrass on the top end and a real groove on the bottom. While we were driving around the country we listened to these guys – they’re a duo, and they are absolute studs in the bluegrass world; their very first album got nominated for a Grammy in the bluegrass category. They’re just phenomenal.

So as it came time to make this record, I wanted it to be our live band, but I didn’t want there to be overdubs. I wanted the record to sound like we’re all sitting in a room. Our lead player can do all those things, but I didn’t want overdubs. So since we had been listening to them, and I just called Trey and said, “Would you guys want to do this?” He said yes. It came from a very real place; we didn’t just say, “Who are some studio badasses we can call?” We tracked 100 percent live from top to bottom, no overdubs. Our band would work them up the night before, but we had never played them with Rob and Trey before we recorded. Everything you hear on this record is what you would have heard if you had been standing in the room while we recorded.

Wow.

Yeah, I know!

There’s a real blues/bluegrass feel to the whole thing.

I would never in the world set out and try to make a pure bluegrass record, because I have way too much respect for the genre. To be in that world, you really have to live it your whole life. You can’t dabble in bluegrass. But yeah, it was a conscious thing we were going for; we’re calling it “groove grass.” We wanted to hint at bluegrass, and people will definitely hear that aspect of it, but with pure bluegrass you don’t have drums or a bass guitar. “Groove grass” sums it up, really.

I want to get into several specific songs in a minute, but something stands out on the album as a whole and I’d like to get your take on it. Brent Cobb told me a couple of years ago that it’s possible to write country or roots songs with authenticity and depth without their all being sad and depressing. I think that’s rare, but it certainly holds true for this album of yours – and to a large degree the last one. What do you think of that premise?  You seem to be a pretty happy guy.

I am. And I love Brent, by the way, I think he’s one of the best artists around today. Just incredible. But he’s right. And there’s that temptation when you’re writing songs that you want to be authentic or real; they can turn out depressing. But I wanted this album to feel good. There are some points on the record where if you want to listen to words and dig into meanings – and I worked hard on the words – there’s some depth to latch onto if you want to listen to it that way. But I also wanted this to be a record that you could just put on and play and enjoy.  I get that there’s a need for feel-good music, where you don’t have to just think all the time. There are plenty of examples of people – like John Prine and Paul Simon – who write great songs, but I don’t know what they mean half the time. They just feel really good. Just put it on. Move your feet. Move your head.

But Brent’s right; you have to pull yourself out of that box, because it seems like there are two extremes in country music right now. It’s either said and depressing, or it’s so fluffy, about drinking beer on the river on the weekend.

Speaking of being a “Happy Man,” there’s a song with that very title. Were you making a statement for the record with that one?

I definitely was. I just wanted to get that out there. God forbid if anything happened to me, anyone could listen to that song and know that I’m a happy person and have lived a good life, and these are the reasons why. Because when you boil it down, there’s really only a few things that make you happy: There’s friends, there’s family, there’s doing what you love and the experiences you have. Here, there are two verses with three things each that make me happy. And at the end of it, I couldn’t think of anything else. The simplicity of it was very intentional.

And the origin of it – I don’t want to drag this out but this is a funny story – was overseas last year. We went to Paris, France to play a festival and wound up in a Croatian bar right across from the Notre Dame Cathedral. We could hear music playing inside that was lively, so we went in. This was like a Tuesday night but there was a party going on, so we wandered in. The bartender asks Courtney and me what we were doing there and we told him we were musicians. He asks my name, and dials me up on Spotify, and just started playing my music randomly, however that works.  And it was just like three of my most depressing songs, one after another.

Ha!

Yeah, man. Cleared out the bar. Everyone went outside to smoke all at once. Killed the whole vibe of the room. I started getting depressed! And I thought, “Good gosh, if I heard this for the first time I’d think this fellow is depressed, too. This guy’s got problems.” So I wanted to get it out there, that it’s not the case. I’ve written plenty of sad songs, but that’s just something I like to do sometimes. And ironically, “Happy Man” is one of the slowest songs on the record.

About the only thing that comes close to a downer on this album is “She Had to Run,” about a woman getting out of a dangerous domestic situation. Is there a story behind that song?

Yeah, I won’t go into the details of it because it’s a very personal song, but one I needed to write. And I knew when I got ready to make this album that this song would be the outlier, but it was too important to me. I had to get that one on there. I just hope that maybe there’s one person who hears it and thinks about getting out of a situation like that.

I won’t pry into specifics, but let me ask: Does the person who inspired it know about the song?

She does. We haven’t talked about it a lot because it’s still too close, too fresh. She got out, but it was frighteningly close. It was so close that the next person who was with that guy didn’t get out.  


“Always a Woman” is intriguing. Tonally, it’s dark and in a minor key – by the way, is there another chord, or just C minor?

That’s it, the whole way through.

Lyrically, it’s kind of an ironic Valentine. “There’s only one thing between the devil and a good man” is really clever, because it can mean two very different things.

Yeah, exactly.

Unpack that song for me.

That’s the first song I wrote for this album, and the only one where I had a title set beforehand. Courtney and I were hanging out with a friend who was having a bad time and she asked what was the matter. He kind of shrugged it off and she said, “Is it a woman?” He said, “It’s always a woman.” I wrote that down, and I sat down with my guitar and just started droning on that C minor chord. And it’s a very specific fingerpicking pattern that never stops for four minutes; if you watch me play it my fingers [on the neck] never move.

And like we were just talking about, I didn’t want to write another sad song. So I had the first verse and thought, “This song has to turn. ‘Always a woman’ doesn’t have to mean good or bad.” So musically we used some dynamics to change things up, and I tried to change that phrase from a positive to a negative as well. And I think the whole theme of the record is finding the positive in things and moving forward. And that’s why we called the album “I Travel On.” It’s about moving forward. A lot of the songs are about physically traveling; this one does it in a mental space.

And the feedback/distortion thing is a nice backbone. Nothing electric there?

No! That’s the dobro player raking across the strings, and the fiddle player doing it in some spots, muting his strings. Everybody thinks there are electric instruments on that song and there aren’t. We had a videographer come in and shoot while we were recording that song; you’ll see it when it comes out.

And I guess you had to include at least a couple waltzes to preserve domestic bliss. I take it that’s your bride singing harmony on “Below The Waterline?”

Ha. Yeah, if you hear harmonies on this album there Courtney’s. I’ve always wanted to write a bluegrass power waltz. I love those, because they make the harmonies just scream. Courtney and I wrote that one together.

I was gonna ask if she got a co-write on that one.

She got two. We wrote that one, and “Now or Never,” the second track on the album.

This is kinda random but the key of C minor on “Always a Woman” made me wonder: Do you have a favorite key, or one that you end up doing the bulk of your songs in?

I write most of my songs in D and I don’t know why. And I had originally written that song in D minor, but when we got into the studio to record we got to that point in the chorus where you go up, and I couldn’t quite hit it. And when we lowered it, it kind of came alive, got darker.


Staying with random: You recently went skydiving with your mom and daughter. What possessed y’all, and would you do it again?

That was all my mom’s idea. She had originally wanted to do that thing in Vegas where you bungee-jump off of a tower on one of the tall buildings. And later we were together at Christmas and she said something about skydiving, and my daughter wanted to do it with her. So I bought it for my daughter, but every time they tried to go the weather was bad, then my daughter went off to college. She was home a few weeks ago and the weather was perfect. And on the drive over I thought, “When am I ever gonna get to do this again? All three generations are here. This is once in a lifetime.”

Tell me about the moment before you went out the door of the airplane.

It’s the most terrifying and exhilarating thing. On the way up it’s in your head what’s gonna happen, but it’s just indescribable, the way you feel standing in that door. If you’re not afraid looking out, you’re not human. There’s nothing about it that’s natural or normal. You have to try and get it out of your head, and trust the person who’s strapped to your back.

That was the worst moment, because we did a high jump. We were at 14,000 feet. I loved it. But there’s really no way in the world to use words to describe what it feels like.

Would you do it again?

You know, when I first did it I said there was no way – I was glad I did it but wouldn’t do it again. But there are times I find myself thinking about it. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to, but if somebody said, “You wanna go do this,” I think I probably would.

Y’all are doing something kinda neat, a sightseeing, musical bus tour of Switzerland with 40 fans. I’m familiar with musical cruises; is this something y’all came up with, or have others done it?

Courtney and I have gone to Switzerland five years in a row, I think. We have a promoter over there and we love it there. And you can drive from one corner of the country to the other in five hours. But we did something like this last year, with Reckless Kelly and toured Ireland. We were their guests And Courtney and I decided we had to do this in Switzerland. So it’s seven nights and five shows, and we’re personally putting it together, where we’re gonna stay and eat and the venues we’ll play. The response has been great. We’re really excited about it.
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I Travel On is out today.



Feb 27, 2018

Courtney Patton: The Farce the Music Interview



By Kevin Broughton

Courtney Patton was in a good place, a really good one. And she had been for a little while, having settled into a marriage with her songwriting soul mate, the kind and humble Jason Eady. Having received critical acclaim for her 2015 album So This Is Life, followed up by the husband-and-wife collection of duets Something Together, Patton was finally happy and content as she set about to write, record and produce her own record for the first time.

But happy ain’t country. Fortunately, though, like the scorpion catching a ride from the frog, Patton’s nature prevails on an album full of truth, three chords at a time on What It’s Like To Fly Alone. Collaborating with heavy-hitting songwriters like Micky Braun and Larry Hooper (who along with Eady helped pen “Barabbas” on Eady’s self-titled album), she captures heartbreak, hope and a dash of redemption throughout. Her vocals combine the boldness of Kim Richey and the sweet, quavering vulnerability of Kelly Willis, while telling stories of characters both real and familiar.

Patton, with her self-effacing, hearty laugh and genuine humility, is a woman comfortable in her own skin. Her gregarious wit stands in contrast to the darkness of her songs’ characters, but the common thread is a genuineness that pervades. This is a compelling album by a woman serious about her craft.

She’s between Dallas and Houston when we connect to talk about hawks, snakes, rats, cigarette smoke and Botox.

A few years back on Jack Ingram’s Songwriters Series, you said, “I think sad songs, the way they’re produced and written, are the fabric of real country music.” It seems like you’ve really put your money where your mouth is on this album. We’ll get into some specific tracks in a minute, but how did this album come about thematically?

If I’m being 100 percent truthful, I was in a rut. I was in a writer’s rut, because I was happy for the first time in a really long time. And it’s hard to be the kind of songwriter I am when you’re happy. Happy songs are so hard for me, because you’ve really got to know how to do it without being cheesy.

And I had never co-written before, so I had made a goal after So This Is Life came out in 2015 that I was going to co-write with some of my friends and really get better at it. So I’m really proud that seven out of the 12 songs on this record are co-writes.

That being said, I couldn’t go about it this time with a theme. Every other time I’ve said, “Okay, the theme for this record is this.” This album, I just wanted to write songs and have a big pot of them to choose from. But when it came down to it and I started singing these songs, I realized they all kind of centered on the idea that we have to make ourselves happy. At the end of the day, we have to choose the person we’re with; we have to choose to get over addiction. Or whatever it is. We have to decide to make the best of what we have.

What about the title track?

I was driving home from Austin, where I’d had a really bad gig. A couple of fans had gotten up and left during the first song – and asked for their money back -- because they had driven in from out of town to see someone else -- who happened to be my husband. Jason was supposed to be there but wasn't, so Josh Grider was filling in for him. It had nothing to do with me, but it threw me off. I started forgetting lyrics and doubting myself.

I was crying the whole way home. I called Jason and told him I was going to quit: “I’m gonna go back to college and get my master’s, and teach public speaking in college. That’s what I’m want to do!” He said, “Get home, go to bed and wake up tomorrow. It’ll all be okay.”

And right as I’m wiping my tears away, this hawk shoots out and flies almost into my car. It shocked me out of my stupor and forced me to say, “Okay, focus, you’re almost home.” And it was 2:00 in the morning and I got home and wrote the whole song. And the whole point of it is at the end of the day, that hawk’s out to find a snake or a rat or whatever he can to survive, and he’s gotta do it by himself. I’m out here playing songs, singing songs that come from deep inside of me, and I’ve gotta do it by myself. I have to choose; when those two couples walk out, I have to be able to say, “I’m good enough. My songs are good enough. I can do this.” I made the choice to do this; I’ve gotta play that show and not let it affect me. I’m doing what I love, and I don’t want to go back to college right now. 

You’re a big fan of waltzes. Why? (And I have a follow-up question.)

So…I don’t know why, but all my life I’ve liked slow, sadder songs. I’ve listened to Counting Crows and Carole King and they’ve been huge influences on me. Willie Nelson…I love Merle Haggard. I just love slow songs. People have told me, “You’re in a waltz rut,” and I just can’t help it. The way that I write poetry it phrases itself in a waltz meter without my trying.

That was another challenge because I thought I was gonna end up with another slew of waltzes – and again, I’m not apologizing – but some people think it’s too much.

I asked Jason this last year, and I’m curious about your take. How does one go about writing a waltz? I mean, do you have lyrics ahead of time and bend them into a One-two-three cadence? Do you write the words with a ¾ time in your head? Or is it something else entirely?

Man, for me it just really comes out that way, in a waltz meter. I’ll have a phrase in mind and I’ll write the phrase out and as the words start coming, I realize that’s just the way it’s going to be. I really don’t try, “This is a melody, let’s write a song to it,” I never do that. I guess my heart beats in the rhythm of a waltz.

On the surface one would think, you know, you & Jason have been married for going on 4 years now, and y’all are perfect for each other – you should be in a really good place in life. But so many of these songs are dark and sad. How much of this album is autobiographical? I mean, obviously “Fourteen Years” is about the sister you lost…

Yes…

…but, for instance, “Round Mountain,”



Completely fictional.

Oh it is? Good!

Yeah! This was one of the first challenges I gave myself. I drove between two towns -- I wanna say Johnson City and Fredericksburg – maybe just past Johnson City, and it was literally just a sign: “Round Mountain.” And I looked into the history and around 1900 there was a church there, and so people started settling there. And when the church closed they all went back to Johnson City.

So I just made up a fictional story of a character named Emily, and she had an affair. And I don’t know if that kind of stuff happened back then, but I kind of wanted to go for a Chris Knight-type of song. I saw a head stone that said something like “Fare the well, Emily Bell,” and just made up a story about her, and her not wanting anybody to know she’d had a bastard baby.” I’m sure she doesn’t appreciate that, if she can hear me. (Laughs)

And she had died young, I should mention that, probably of dysentery or smallpox or something that actually happened back then. I just made it way darker. (Laughs)

Yes. Dark. And fictional.

You know, I got a Face Book message from a fan who said, “I’m kind of concerned, are you and Jason okay? The title of your album concerns me, and I don’t see any pictures of y’all together.” And I said, “You know it’s actually nice to have a private life where we don’t have to share everything we’re doing! But we’re sitting here having dinner, laughing at the absurdity of your concern. It’s a song about the music business. Calm down.” (Laughs)

You mentioned dealing with addiction; speaking from any kind of experience there?

Uh, not necessarily, but I have a grandfather who struggled with alcoholism and a brother who just celebrated two years of sobriety. But it’s hard for all of us, watching him struggle with that and not knowing what to do to help. But it’s not me; there’s nothing in me that says “I’ve gotta have that,” and then I’ve gotta have it more. I can have a drink, and I can not have a drink for three months and not think about it. Luckily it wasn’t something that was passed on to me. I just think everybody struggles with their own thing.

You’re on your way to a house show to help finance this record, and as best I can tell, your albums have all been self-released. Was this a business decision on your part to forsake getting a label and do it all on your own?

I’ve never looked for one, and I’ve never had anybody approach me. So I guess it’s mutual. I enjoy having creative control over my material and I think I’d be very disheartened if anyone told me I couldn’t do it the way I wanted to. I just think we’re very fortunate to live in Texas where you can make a living touring and driving around playing guitar. I don’t even play with a band. And I make more money doing this than I did at my day job…which wasn’t much, you know, but it’s a pride thing. At the end of the day I look at my guitar and say, “Me and you: we did that.”
And nobody told me, you know, that I had to shoot Botox in my lips…

Ha!

…or lose 40 pounds. I mean, I think of all the things – I hear horror stories from my friends in Nashville…these girls in their twenties who are gorgeous, but with these ridiculously plump lips and no wrinkles on their foreheads. And that’s just not country music! Country music is supposed to have wrinkles. And cigarette smoke and beer.

And that’s just not – I would not want anything put on me that way, because it’s frightening to me. I think they’d take one look at me – I’m a curvy girl – and say, “You don’t belong here.” So it’s never anything that’s come into the realm of the possible with me. And I’m okay with that.

Drew Kennedy produced the last album, and you did this one yourself. What was the recording process like? Did y’all lay everything down live?

I was nervous about it. But I’ve been missing a lot over the last few years. I’m a mom – going to basketball games and soccer games. But I had the opportunity to make and album in my hometown and I’ve never done that before, so I jumped on it.  So two of the guys who tour with Jason – Jerry Abrams on bass and Giovanni Carnuccio on drums – we went in the studio and tracked it live. I was in the control room and they were in the main room, and what you hear is what we did. There are no overdubs on that part.

Now when you hear Lloyd Maines, he did that from home. But the basic tracks – guitar, bass drums and vocals – we did that live, in about two and a half days. But I’m just so fortunate to have Lloyd and a bunch of other friends and people I trust who helped out. I just sent them my songs. And the thing is, they – and especially Lloyd – they listen to words, and they play things that match. A lot of musicians don’t do that. But Lloyd can hear me take a deep breath, and you can hear it correspond on the steel – inhaling.

It’s just cool things like that; I don’t think I could have asked for better people to play on it. But I was very excited to try and do it myself, and it’s been a very proud moment for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again, but I loved it.  

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What It's Like to Fly Alone is available through Courtney's site, on Amazon, etc.


Dec 22, 2017

Ten Best Songs of 2017: Another Perspective



The Best Songs of 2017 

By Kevin Broughton

Trailer’s list was okay, but just. It demands a response, so here are the ten best songs of 2017.

Good talk.

Come for the 1½-minute intro of standup bass, brushes & organ. 
Stay for the good-time rock, sassy-ass blues & rockabilly.


Sure, “White House Road” gets all the hype. For straight-up poignance, though, give me this as the best cut on the smash debut album Purgatory. Well, this one or “Lady May.”


The opening track on what I voted the No. 1 album of the year. The richness of this full-grown folk singer’s baritone speaks for itself and nearly defies substantive description. It simply is. PS, he’s 22 years old. I think we’re done here.


The best voice in all of country music.


On an album full of gems from some of the best musicians in Texas, here’s a real treat: an acoustic version of “Superstition,” featuring virtuoso pianist Daniel Creamer on vocals. It’s sublime.


Two years ago these guys had our album of the year, and Trailer in his autocratic grace declared, rightly, “The Bird Hunters” our top song. Which makes it so shocking he would put “Pay No Rent” (respectfully, maybe the third-best cut on FTM’s #2 Album of the Year) so high, to the exclusion of the clearly superior “The House Fire.” A disturbing lapse in judgment at best; one hopes there’s not a deeper character flaw in play.

“I heard the judge ask the jury, ‘which one’s the one to go?’ Then I heard them say my name, and why I’ll never know.” A song of guilt, forgiveness and redemption, from the point of view of the criminal pardoned while the Savior bought ours.  

Carve out some of that kindling. There’s plenty of wood around.

Pure, country authenticity. It tastes like honey.

“We could steal some Keystone Beer from an A-rab liquor store.”






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