Showing posts with label Hayes Carll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hayes Carll. Show all posts
Sep 9, 2025
Aug 8, 2025
25 Favorite Songs of 2025 So Far
Beyond #1 & #2 I haven't ranked anything. Sue me.
1. Justin Wells - Til the Stars Won't Burn
2. Turnpike Troubadours - On the Red River
In no particular order:
Turnpike Troubadours - Heaven Passing Through
Vandoliers - Bible Belt
Patterson Hood - The Forks of Cypress
Noeline Hoffman - The Bullfighter
Jason Isbell - Gravelweed
Tobacco City - Mr. Wine
Jason Boland & The Stragglers - Truest Colors
Mark Morton ft. Charlie Starr & Jason Isbell - Come December
Jason Scott & The High Heat - Yardwork
Muscadine Bloodline - Ballad of the Blanton Brothers
Chaparelle - Bad Loving
Coltt Winter Lepley - Crack Cocaine
Ken Pomeroy - Flannel Cowboy
Cody Jinks - When Time Didn't Fly
Joe Stamm Band - Territory Town
Nikki Lane - Woodruff City Limit
James McMurtry - South Texas Lawman
Hailey Whitters - Casseroles
Hayes Carll - Progress of Man
Tanner Usrey - Smoke in the Air
Sunny Sweeney - Houston Belongs to Me
Ben Nichols - Fading Back Into the Night
Mar 5, 2025
Jan 11, 2024
Country Songs Illustrated by AI #3
See if you can figure them out. List of songs at the bottom.
Yeah I poorly added the gun in Photoshop because AI is no fun.
Sammy Kershaw "Queen of My Doublewide Trailer"
Mark Chesnutt "Bubba Shot the Jukebox"
George Jones "The King is Gone (So Are You)"
Hayes Carll "She Left Me for Jesus"
Sturgill Simpson "Turtles All the Way Down"
The (Dixie) Chicks "Goodbye Earl"
Travis Tritt "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)"
Oct 28, 2021
Oct 6, 2021
Sep 17, 2021
Jul 22, 2021
Sanford & Son Country Reaction Gifs 2
One of the few trucks that doesn't have a bro-country song about it
When she says she's leaving you if you don't stop making fun of her for being a Kane Brown fan
When you get filled with the gospel of Paul Cauthen
Luke Combs on his deathbed
♫ A bad liver and a broken heart ♫
Boy turn that channel off CMT before I put these across yo lips
When there's Upchurch fans in the neighborhood
Drew Kennedy after he sold out and started writing for mainstream country*
Describe the first time you heard a Florida-Georgia Line song
*I kid. You know I love ya DK.
Feb 12, 2021
Album Review / Mac Leaphart / Music City Joke
by Travis Erwin
I’ll start this review with a confession. I had never heard of Mac Leaphart when I took the assignment to write this review. I took the assignment and frankly put off diving in until he eleventh hour of my deadline. Three tracks in I regretted my procrastination because I could have first listened to this album weeks before I did.
Music City Joke is an album that is sneaky good with simply intelligence and honest observation at the heart of the writing and a traditional sound to the music. “El Paso Kid” is a classic storyteller song delivered in that tender space between spoken word and Folk ballad. There are hints of John Prince and Robert Earl Keen in this story of an abandoned baby which ushers in this album quite well. Leaphart’s vocals are not going to wow those looking for the shiny, but it will wrap around those who appreciate honest emotion.
Remind me of Jason Isbell singing an old Mac Davis track, “The Same Thing” is a nicely written unpretentious song from a songwriter who knows what he wants to say. The whiskey burn of a classic 70s Country song, and the smooth delivery of a songwriter’s intellect will quench your thirst on the track, “Blame On The Bottle.” The Honky-Tonk vibes give way to more a Hillbilly Rockabilly with a dash of Zydeco on “Honey, Shake!” This faster tempo track would be welcome on any dance floor come Saturday night, and while this track comes with a bit more vocal grit, it still feels like the kind of fun that you regret the next morning.
I tempted to describe “Ballad of Bob Yamaha or A Simple Plea in C Major” as Hayes Carll meets Blaze Foley, but the fact is Mac Leaphart sounds like so many different artists at once that you have no choice but to realize he is an artist all to his own. Sure, the influences are there but it is the overlapping, swirling whirls of these venerated influences that produces Mac Leaphart’s own voice and style. This is a track that will both make you smile and think, and in fact you can say the same for most of the songwriting on this album.
“Music City Joke” utilizes the power of honest observation and a genuine point of view to deliver words that talented writers make seem so simple but are in fact, ever-so-hard to distill down in a meaningful way. Leaphart does with ease through the album and here on the namesake track. “That Train” is the most commercial song on the album, but also my least favorite cut on the album. I think perhaps the metaphor and glory days of the train have been tackled in so many songs that it is a tough land for me personally, but for others this relatable metaphor will no doubt be their favorite as it is the most likely track to gain radio play.
The writer in me, fell hard for the imagery and metaphor of “Window From The Sky.” This is the kind of truth we all need to hear from time to time as we avoid flying after and into the wrong thing. The grind of daily life is a toll we all pay and “Every Day” is relatable because of that. The smooth progression and emotional turning of the wheels gives this track a pulse uplifting in its honest relevancy. The entire album has a Kristofferson kind of vibe and it is especially strong on this track. Even if you’ve never been to Nashville’s actual “Division Street,” you can appreciate this track about chasing your shiny dreams in a place where the sparkle is hard to find by the harsh glare of morning light. We all tend to fool ourselves that the underbelly of what we want is all too often a reality rather than a mere speed bump.
I do regret the weeks I could have been listening to this album and it is an early favorite here in 2021. I love hearing threads of influence from so many of my favorite artists, and I appreciate Mac Leaphart’s ability to tip his hat to them, without losing his own voice and style. This is an album I will listen to for years to come and that makes him far from a Music City Joke in my eyes.
Music City Joke is available everywhere today.
Nov 6, 2020
Dec 30, 2019
Scott Colvin's Top Ten (12) Albums of 2019
By Scott Colvin
I really expected to write a lot in 2019.
In fact, as the calendar moved from 2018 to 2019 I had a bunch of concerts already scheduled to review. Was going to do some record reviews (and I even mentioned to Trailer that I might do a couple interviews which I really don’t enjoy doing). Yup. I had every intention of being a super productive member of Farce The Music’s dysfunctional writing family. Then it happened in late February. Stroke. Really.
To say I’ve been adjusting physically and psychologically since that day is an understatement. After reluctantly cancelling a few concert reviews in March and April I decided I was ready in mid-May to give it a shot.
Cracker. A slam dunk. Right? Wrong. I could barely take notes and thus had a notebook full of song titles and chicken scratches which I never could decipher. And that’s before I sat in front of my laptop to type which was almost impossible. You see the left hand was good, the right hand, not so much (don’t even get me started about the time I picked up my acoustic guitar).
Have I also mentioned the doctors at this difficult time said “no more booze?” 2019 officially sucked.
Needless to say I had a lot of time to hear a lot of new music. Sober. And I did. But, whereas most years I find myself in December going through dozens of albums to bring “The List” down to a manageable top 50 before whittling it down, I really only found 11 records that I really enjoyed this year (even if my real No. 1 is only in spirit). Here goes!
Honorable Mentions: Tyler Childers, Shovels & Rope, Frank Turner, Whiskey Myers, Karly Driftwood, Erin Enderlin, Grace Potter, Alice Merton, Maggie Rogers and Meiko.
10. Jenny Lewis – On The Line It really is too bad that the “controversy” involving Ryan Adams (producer of much of the record) was going down as this album dropped because it’s one of Jenny Lewis’s finer moments (and that includes a mostly spectacular run with Rilo Kiley). Regardless of where you stand on the Adams thing, it cannot be denied that Lewis wrote a fantastic record that was also produced by Beck, who no one has a reason to dislike.
9. Hayes Carll – What It Is It certainly was nice to see a more easy going and light-hearted Hayes Carll emerge on this album after his previous effort.
8. Molly Tuttle – When You’re Ready There’s something very familiar about Molly Tuttle that I can’t put my finger on, but I know I like this. A lot.
7. Dori Freeman – Every Single Star Pretty much what I said about Molly Tuttle. I like this one a little bit more so it gets the higher spot.
6. Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury Sturgill Simpson is like a druggier Eric Church who I also seem to dig even more as he deviates from “his norm.”
5. Randy Rogers Band – Hellbent The Randy Rogers Band has been the stalwarts of the Texas country music scene for almost 20 years. Nothing flashy here, just consistently good. Like Shiner Bock.
4. Jade Bird – Jade Bird I’m pretty sure “Lottery” is the song that every alternative band in the 90s wished they wrote. And I say that as a compliment. The whole album is just wonderful ear candy that is ridiculously infectious.
3. Chris Shiflett – Hard Lessons Hard to believe that this would be the Dave Cobb produced album I latched onto in 2019 but so be it. The guy is a rock legend. Guitarist for punk greats No Use For A Name and Me First And The Gimme Gimmes (and this other band Fighters of Foo…or something like that) Shiflett released his fourth country album full of catchy So Cal country goodness.
2. Kelsey Waldon – White Noise/White Lines Kelsey Waldon is like Elizabeth Cook without the quirkiness.
1. Cody Jinks – After The Fire and The Wanting – Kudos to Cody Jinks. The man delivered two stellar albums which he released in consecutive weeks AND didn’t hide behind some lame premise like one album is my rockin’ side and the other is my sensitive side…Or in lame-ass Zac Brown Band terms my crappy pop country side and my really crappy pop side.
THE REAL No. 1 ALTHOUGH THIS ONE IS NOT OFFICIALLY ON MY LIST Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go In all reality I probably listened to this album the most. Inventive, shocking and unabashedly cool. While people in my generation were crucifying her for not knowing who Van Halen was, I was laughing because I might be able to name more of her songs than “original Van Halen” songs (despite being a huge rock/metal fan I always thought VH was kinda lame).
May 15, 2019
Album Review / Hayes Carll / What It Is
by Travis Erwin
Hayes Carll has a newish album out, but before we dive deep to discover What It Is, actually is, let me address you potential rabble-rousers.
Yeah, I am a writing up a review for an album that dropped a few months back. That’s why I wrote “newish,” my friends. But here’s the deal, no artist has perfected the art of being a “Slacker Genius” better than Hayes Carll, and while I can’t lay claim to the genius half of that equation, I can say I’m a topnotch slacker.
Besides, I wouldn’t exactly be embracing Carll’s lackadaisical vibe, if I just threw out a half-assed review after one or two listens. No, I had to wait and grow my hair out, don a flannel shirt and listen to What It Is three or four dozen times, because to write about Hayes Carll, you gotta be Hayes Carll.
Bullshit you say? Yeah, Rolling Stone didn’t buy it when I pitched that angle to them either.
All BS aside, I consider Hayes Carll a friend of mine. Not because we’ve ever sat down over beers, chased drunken Mona Lisa’s together, or so much as spoken a word, but rather because, for over a decade now, his writing and voice have kept me company through good times and bad.
Carll writes songs that often as not feel like a casual conversation. Couple this songwriting tendency, with a voice that cracks, breaks, and is usually delivered with a calm chillness, and it’s easy to come away with the impression that Hayes somehow stumbled his way to brilliance. This assumption would be wrong. At this juncture in his career, it’s obvious his talent is no accident, and What It Is proves, Carll is far from slacking off.
“None’ya” kicks the album off with a sound any Carll fan will be familiar with. The give and take banter of a couple at a crossroads feels lighthearted, but for our beleaguered Romeo, that “None’ya” is anything but. At first listen this opening track seems like an outlier to the songs that follow, but as in music and life, things tend to circle back around.
The Shut-Up-and-Sing crowd might take offense to the lyrics of “Times Like These,” but they will do so while jitterbugging across the dance floor to a lively beat. Speaking of “Things You Don’t Wanna Know,” track three infuses some Motown rhythm to go along with Carll’s vocals while holding to a developing theme that carries through the first half of the album.
Riding a thumping rockabilly beat that harkens to Johnny Cash, “If I May Be So Bold” joins the two previous tracks to draw a line in the sand. The statements continue to come in “Jesus and Elvis,” as Carll lays out the emotional impact of political decisions. This is not to say the album is preachy in any way. No, like the two influential men in the title of track five, Carll delivers his thoughts in a manner that suggest better ways, rather than demanding them.
Music is most often digested in bite-sized chunks these days, so the art of album construction is rarely on full display. But the first half of this album closes with “American Dream,” which shines a light on the thoughts that went into overall song placement. This track is the perfect closure to a grouping of songs that makes it clear Carll has something to say about the state of the American Dream.
The back half of the album ushers in a section of three relationship songs. That is the extent of commonality within the trio. Slow, melodic chords accompany the anxious despair of knowing a relationship won’t last in “Be There,” while “Beautiful Thing” rides a piano-charged romp about the euphoria of newfound love and lust. The album’s namesake, “What It Is,” brings a bluegrass sound to the collection and leaves us with many things to ponder.
Unlike the political tones earlier in the album, the next couple of songs are more about universal human rights, than they are about political divide. Exploring the tendencies of human nature, Carll deploys a sharp taunting melody, and pointed lyrics within “Fragile Men,” to slice through chauvinistic ideals. Taken alone that track could come across as judgmental, but when followed by “Wild Pointy Finger” it seems like Carll is looking at himself as well. This next to last track sounds a suspicious lot like “I Got a Gig” from his 2008 release and when you listen to both tunes you can only assume this was intentional, as a way to highlight the change in his own ideas and ideals over the last decade. Both in society and in himself.
The album closes with “I Will Stay,” bringing the twelve songs full circle. The first track gives us a lover walking out the door, while this last track offers a beautiful ballad of perseverance. And no, that is no accident.
—————
Travis Erwin is Texas boy now living the life of a free-spirited writer in sunny Southern California. A long time music blogger and sports writer, Travis is the author of a comedic memoir titled, THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES, a pair of novels, TWiSTED ROADS and WAITING ON THE RIVER, and his latest release is a joint, short story/EP collective with songwriter Dan Johnson, titled HEMINGWAY.
Mar 8, 2019
Feb 18, 2019
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