Leave it to Steve Earle to let a good story get in the way of a song about Jesus. Still, he wrote a song about Jesus, and it made it onto his best record, Copperhead Road, in 1988, with the wonderful Maria McKee singing backup.
It's a good story he told, at this 2018-ish show. It sure explains a lot.
If you want to catch that moment in time, though, when our boy was both at the early peak of his fame -- MCA didn't know what to do with him -- and halfway dopesick before a one-year hitch at Cold Creek, you can see him do the same song here and here.
But as John writes in Chapter 1, verse 1: "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
And a long time ago, Steve wrote a song about The Living Word of God.
Blackberry Smoke played an intimate, acoustic show at MadLife Stage and Studios in Woodstock, Ga. Monday night. After frontman Charlie Starr told the story of meeting a legend at a Wisconsin music festival years ago, he said, "God bless Charlie Daniels." Then the band delivered a fitting tribute. ~Kevin Broughton
You need to suspend more than just disbelief, okay?
By Kevin Broughton
It’s complicated.
About three years ago, I started getting text messages from a friend back in Mississippi: “Have you watched Yellowstone?”
Well, of course I hadn’t. “Isn’t Kevin Costner the lead actor?” I asked. “You know, he’s not really known for his…well, acting.” My friend assured me that this didn’t matter. I remained unconvinced. A year went by.
My friend, who knows I write for this site, upped the ante. “You like Whiskey Myers, right? Bro, they’re all over the soundtrack.” My friend – we’ll call him “Johnny” -- knows me too well. Sure enough, just a few minutes into Season 1, episode 1, I was treated to Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey,” then this gem from the aforementioned Dallas rockers:
“Johnny” used excellent music like a 3/0 treble hook on my inner cheek, and I now I couldn’t shake loose from this soap opera if I wanted to. Indeed, it’s complicated.
Let’s get down to business, which is letting FTM readers know all they need to about Sunday’s premiere of Yellowstone, Season FOUR:
1. THE GREAT
Here are just some of the artists who have appeared on the soundtrack through the first three seasons:
Ryan Bingham (more on him in a moment:)
Uncle Lucius
Whitey Morgan and the 78s
Emmylou Harris
John Pardi
Kacey Musgraves
Blackberry Smoke:
Jason Isbell
Tyler Childers:
This list isn’t close to exhaustive. It is a fair sampling, though. The soundtrack is exquisite. Perfection.
2. THE VERY GOOD
Anyone who’s visited Big Sky Country knows what a wonderful backdrop any cinematographer will have to work with. Montana is ready-made cinematic beauty, and the guys behind the cameras on Yellowstone do not disappoint. Watch a few episodes, and you’ll want to visit Montana; I know it’s made me crave a return trip. It’s some of the best photography on television, period.
3. THE MERELY MEDIOCRE
Have you noticed that we’re a couple hundred words in and we haven’t discussed what Yellowstone is actually about? Things get dicey here.
The “Plot.” (Spoilers ahead)
Yellowstone is the name of the ranch owned by John Dutton, the unluckiest man alive. The plot? In each of the first three seasons, it’s this: SOMEONE IS TRYING TO TAKE JOHN DUTTON’S LAND!!!1!
In Season One, it’s the Injuns. Seriously. Not the scalping kind, but their honorable, suit-wearing and casino-owning descendants. Never mind that it’s 2018; forget the Bureau of Indian Affairs and gaming licenses. Heck, forget the civil court system. Those would get in the way of a classic cowboys-and-Indians narrative.
Seasons two and three feature corporate raiders and hedge-fund dudes who want to build an airport (two) and city (three)…ON JOHN DUTTON’S LAND!!!!
At first, they all offer John Dutton money; filthy lucre to make him wealthy beyond the dreams of all avarice. They also beat up his daughter and blow shit up. But so far, THEY HAVEN’T TAKEN JOHN DUTTON’S LAND.
4. THE BAD
Go ahead and pour a drink.
The characters and “actors”
This is typically called “the cast” in show business, but it’s helpful to break them down. Getting back to my initial concern when my pal pitched me the show: Yes, Kevin Costner is the male lead, playing the eternally besieged John Dutton. Costner has a 40-plus year body of work to judge.
Here’s one of the most memorable scenes in the first three seasons of Yellowstone:
There you have it. Kevin Costner, ladies and gentlemen. Actually, that’s not quite fair. Costner had the role of a lifetime in The Big Chill. It’s an accomplishment that will stand out long after he’s shuffled off this mortal coil.
Dutton has three kids. Well, he had four, but the oldest son – whose name is unimportant – got ventilated in the series’ first episode. That poor actor really got hosed on residuals.
Here are the three remaining Dutton offspring:
Kayce (pronounced “Casey”) is the untamed free spirit. He’s a war hero because of course he is. (Navy SEAL, natch.) He’s so alienated from his dad that he hooks up with an Indian woman (would you believe she’s absolutely gorgeous?) makes a baby with her, and lives in a trailer on the reservation. In the very first episode, his hot Indian wife gets a job teaching college, which can only make Kayce feel even more inadequate. He’s actually considering going back overseas and they’re arguing about it in the truck, when a meth lab explodes right next to them. Just a typical day on Yellowstone.
Jamie is a stupid guy who does lots of stupid shit. He’s a lawyer – manages to get himself appointed Montana Attorney General a few episodes in – with a wide sociopathic streak, forever doing self-destructive things. He murders a lady reporter in Season One. In Season Three, we learn that he’s not really a Dutton after all. No, sir. You see, John Dutton may be a gruff man, fighting off all those who want to TAKE HIS LAND, but he has a heart of gold. Many years ago, he adopted Jamie, the welp of a white trash dad and addict mom, when the former beat the latter to death. When Jamie finds out, his reaction isn’t profound gratitude to John, but resentment. He finds his biological dad – living in filth – and decides to turn against the Dutton family.
Beth is John Dutton’s only daughter. She’s a corporate raider, and we get a taste of her ruthlessness in an early boardroom scene; she reduces titans of industry to sniveling wretches with her acid tongue. But her hyper-capitalist days are soon behind her. John Dutton has called her home to fight THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE HIS LAND. She deals with stress the way any woman in high finance would: By having a lot of casual sex with the ranch foreman. Beth can’t have children because when Jamie took her to get an abortion when she was 15, the doctors told him (but not her) that she would never be able to have kids if they do the procedure. Jamie being Jamie, he says “Fine by me.”
Rip is the ranch foreman. Another stray John Dutton picked up, he usually channels his anger into his work, or the occasional grudge-banging of Beth Dutton. Then again, he’s committed or been complicit in a half-dozen murders through three seasons. He’s the son John Dutton never had.
Jimmy goes from being a meth head in Season One episode one, to being duct-taped to the saddle to learn how to ride the next week, to a competent rodeo cowboy by the middle of the season.
Governor Lynelle Perry bears more than a passing resemblance to North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem in real life. On the show, she’s banging John Dutton, because of course she is. In Season Three, she sides with those TRYING TO TAKE JOHN DUTTON’S LAND.
Walker is a ranch hand we see a lot of in seasons one and three. Oh, and he’s played by Ryan Bingham, far and away the best actor on the show. Yes, I know that’s counterintuitive. Back when The Sopranos dominated the popular culture, I had an unpopular opinion: James Gandolfini was not a great actor. How hard can it be for a fat, Italian Yankee to play a fat, Italian Yankee? Yes, Ryan Bingham was an actual cowboy in real life. And he’s the only actor in the entire cast of Yellowstone who comes across authentically. That says less about Ryan Bingham than it does the casting director.
5. THE PUTRID
The sad thing is, Yellowstone doesn’t have to be awful. It’s a choice made by the showrunners.
All soap operas are essentially the same, whether the setting is an operating room or a roping pen.
In “Cowboys and Dreamers,” (Season Three, episode five) Kayce (newly installed Livestock Commissioner) breaks several laws to do the “right” thing. Some poor cowboy has killed himself – there’s actually blood and brain matter on the foreclosure notice. Kayce, with the acquiescence of the sheriff, sells the string of ponies and delivers the cash to the grieving widow. “Cowboys and dreamers,” she says, with wistful regret. “That’s all I’ve ever fallen for.” Ugh. But it gets worse when Kayce chats with the dead cowpoke’s son.
“Are you a cowboy?” asks the urchin.
“Yep.”
“My daddy was a cowboy. I’m gonna be a cowboy, too!”
Really?
The Need for Extreme Suspension of Disbelief
Look, I get it: It’s television. Make-believe. Fiction. Not real stuff.
All narratives in TV and movies require the suspension of disbelief to some degree. But it’s towhatdegree that tells the tale. NWA wrestling in the 1980s was fake, and everybody knew it, but with its blue-collar/redneck sensibility, the NWA was still slightly plausible. But along comes the WWF, completely tipping the gaff with its ready-made backgrounds for each wrestler. The message: “Not only is this wrestling totally fake, we’re gonna turn the ‘sport’ into a cartoon for six-year-olds.”
Justified was six seasons of great television. Let’s stipulate that it strains credulity that a Deputy U.S. Marshall in Kentucky kills someone every single week. Yeah, that’s just a little much. What made such an outlandish concept digestible, week after week? Well, actors and writers (see above.)
Timothy Olyphant, Nick Searcy, Walt Goggins and others in that stellar cast distracted from the absurdity with their on-screen skills. And the writers used perfectly timed humor to highlight the stupidity of some real shit-for-brains criminals like Dewey Crowe.
Either Costner is doing all the writing, or the writers’ room is staffed with room-temperature IQ dullards. Here are some of the things we’re asked to accept.
Remember Jimmy, the meth head-turned-saddle-bronc-rodeo guy? Well, he hooks up with a really hot barrel racer (because of course.) So, it’s only natural that when she (played by Josh Brolin’s daughter) goes for a roll in the bunkhouse hay, her similarly hot, 20-something friend decides to knock boots with 60-something Lloyd, another ranch hand. It’s totally plausible.
Kayce, the war-hero SEAL, at another point when he’s considering joining back up, says, “Yeah, I’ve been talking to my sergeant about it.” Hey, dullards in the writers’ room: There are no sergeants in the Navy.
You think the bunkhouse romance between meth head Jimmy and the smokin’ hot barrel racer was a stretch? Hold on to your Resistol, Cowboy. I’ll see that and raise you a tale of true love between Colby – the one black dude on the show – and Teeter, a snuff-dipping, pink-haired skanky white girl.
Then there’s just the sheer amount of mayhem that takes place in this corner of Montana. Multiple murders, explosions, countless acts of eco-terrorism, and corrupt law-enforcement officials everywhere you look? Big Sky Country would be crawling with FBI, and maybe a couple of infantry brigades. But no. This is just the way things are, when someone is TRYING TO TAKE JOHN DUTTON’S LAND.
It’s not just disbelief you have to suspend. It’s also taste, and a chunk of your self-respect.
Season Four promises to be even dumber, if this “meet the new cast members” video is any indication.
An animal-rights activist (Montana is fertile ground for them, after all,) a lady with a New England Brahmin accent (who’s trying to TAKE JOHN DUTTON’S LAND,) and some new kid (“Everyone just calls me ‘boy,’” because of course they do) will doubtless combine to add all the authenticity one expects from a Costner-led cast.
In the Season Three finale, the people who are TRYING TO TAKE JOHN DUTTON’S LAND really ratcheted up the pressure. Beth’s office in downtown Helena is bombed. If the external shot of the explosion into the street is any indication, a pink, misty substance should be the only thing left of her. Other gunmen attack Kayce in his law enforcement office. We see him upend his desk for cover and draw his sidearm. John Dutton, having helped a lady change the tire on her minivan, gets turned into swiss cheese by a couple of dudes with MP5s. Rip frantically calls Jamie: “I can’t get anybody on the phone,” he says. “Rip, you probably shouldn’t call me anymore,” replies the sociopathic doofus.
Could this be the end for John Dutton? Will the people TRYING TO TAKE HIS LAND finally TAKE HIS LAND?
Tune in Sunday night on Paramount, for the craptacular Season Four premiere!
Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it’s downright bad television, save the music and scenery.
And yes, I’ll watch Season Four with every bit of self-loathing I deserve.
Damn you, “Johnny.” Damn you, Andrea von Foerster, brilliant music supervisor that you are. Without your stellar – nay, flawless – musical taste, I wouldn’t have written this misanthropic screed.
And I guess part of it’s my own fault for loving Whiskey Myers, et. al. so much.
I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes.
When Jeremy Pinnell released OH/KY in the summer of 2015 to stunned acclaim, it felt like an entire career compressed into one knockout album. Hailed as a “Mind-blowingly good” (GregVandy/KEXP) and a ”tutorial on classic country music” (Popmatters), Pinnell’s debut immediately differentiated as authentic and unflinching.
Dogged touring through Europe and the States and celebrated radio sessions followed, cementing Pinnell’s position as a no-fuss master of his craft. His 2017 album, Ties of Blood and Affection, presented a canny lateral move. Instead of doubling down on the stark themes and values of his debut, the sophomore album saw Pinnell finding comfort in his own skin, achieving the redemption only hinted at in his previous batch of haunting songs.
If the third time’s a charm, Pinnell is all shine and sparkle on the Goodbye L.A.Produced by noted QAnon adherent and Texan Jonathan Tyler, the tunes buff the wax and polish the chrome on country music’s deeper roots. Rooted in his steady acoustic guitar, Pinnell’s songs are shot through with honest and classic elements. The rhythm section, all snap and shuffle, finds purpose in well-worn paths. The pedal steel and Telecaster stingers arrive perfectly on cue, winking at JP’s world-wise couplets. Here slippery organ insinuates gospel into the conversation. You can feel the room breathe and get a sense of these musicians eyeballing each other as their performances are committed to tape. And through it all comes this oaken identity, the centerpiece of his work. Honest and careworn, Jeremy’s voice can touch on wry, jubilant, and debauched -- all in a single line. At his best, Pinnell chronicles the joy and sorrow of being human, which is the best that anyone could do. Goodbye L.A., nearly two years in the making, is a triumph.
It was a pleasure to visit with Pinnell to talk songwriting, touring, sobriety and…mixed martial arts.
This album has been in the can a while. Y’all recorded in February 2020, played a few gigs, and then the bottom fell out. What was the long layoff like, and did you use some of that time to tweak the mix or anything like that?
Yeah, we recorded it and got it done just under the wire. This is probably a made-up story, but this is the way I remember it, anyway. We recorded the record and came home, and a week later I flew down to see Jonathan again and we recorded the vocals. I came back that Saturday, and I think the next Monday they started telling people to stay home. But as terrible as this thing’s been for the last – almost two years now – we did have a little free time to do everything right, you know?
Your producer said of you, before going into the studio, “He’s just out there grinding, playing three or four shows a week, driving from town to town. Jeremy’s really putting in the hard work, and his band has gotten so tight.” How long have you and this version of your band been together?
We’ve been going at it about two and a half, almost three years with this group of guys. Junior Tutwiler is on guitar and Charles Alley is on drums. And we switch out a bass player…kind of like the drummer for…
Spinal Tap?
…(Laughs) Yeah, Spinal Tap! Except in our case it’s the bass player, so you never know who you’ll end up with. But yeah, Junior – obviously, Kevin, if you’ve heard the record – you can hear how talented he is. And Charles on drums, he’s so good and has a real knack for just finding the pocket, you know?
This is such a country album to me, and I guess that’s a tautology. But it reminds me of some of the “neo-traditionalists” of the mid 1980s like Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakum and Lyle Lovett, just in its authenticity. Who are some of the artists who’ve impacted you the most?
For this record, I found myself listening to a lot of ZZ Top, like that “Legs” stuff…and there’s a Waylon record, Never Could Toe the Mark with that song “The Entertainer,” from the mid 1980s. There are lots of great songs on there like “Sparkling Brown Eyes,” and I just wanted a feel-good record. So many of those 80s albums were just fun records; people just wanted to have fun. And I wanted to try to bring that back.
Normally I wouldn’t broach this, but the first sentence of the liner notes reads, “Jeremy Pinnell tried dying once.” Your past struggles with addiction are also mentioned. So, would you mind fleshing that out a little? How has your journey to sobriety affected your craft?
Yeah, so…I didn’t play music for a couple of years. There was a time when I…Kevin, I normally don’t talk about it much, but I don’t mind talking about it a little bit. Yeah, there was a time when I was broke and homeless, really with nowhere to go, just going from detox to detox, to homeless shelter. It’s funny, while we were recording with Jonathan, he mentioned being on Jimmy Kimmell’s show in 2010, and I laughed and said, “I was in a homeless shelter in 2010!”
But for a guy like me, sobriety has been really good; a lot better than I’ve been to sobriety. It’s been a positive thing.
Tell me about the guy in “Never Thought of No One.” Is he taking the first look in the mirror for a long time?
The way I wrote that song, I just imagined this character – I had the chorus and a piece of the verse – but I tried to picture a character who just couldn’t turn the corner. Because we’ve all been there, and felt like we can’t find our part for a given situation. Or we’ve known someone like that, who could turn the corner if they could just see their own part. It’s about being in denial without knowing you’re in it. Maybe I’m getting too far off track; but it’s about not being able to see your own faults. Somebody with just a blind spot, really.
In the title cut, there’s an ear-catching line – “Hello L.A., you got some pretty ladies, but they don’t want babies and I do” – that makes me wonder if you ever spent time in Southern California.
(Laughs) Yeah, so we were in L.A. and had just played a concert and were loading in the van. Just me and my buddies hanging out, and there are beautiful women everywhere. And I made the remark – or our drummer made the remark – that, “yeah, but they don’t want to have babies.” Sort of the most ridiculous thing, right? But I thought, “Maybe the girls back in Kentucky will want to have babies.” And I thought about it and, yeah, I’m gonna use that, because it just struck me as hilarious. And it’s kinda cool, so that’s how I came up with it.
Tell me about recording under the conspiratorial eye of Jonathan Tyler….
(Laughs) I love it!
…I’ll grudgingly acknowledge that he seems to have done some good work here.
Yeah, working with Jon is such a positive, just being able to take his direction. And he has such an eye – or ear, I guess – for music, you know? It was really nice to be in the studio…you know, we came in with the songs, and he would listen and say, “Why don’t we try it this way?” It was just a positive atmosphere. If you know Jon, you know you’re gonna have fun.
I’ve interviewed one artist who’s a Thai boxer, but I’m pretty sure you’re the first jiu-jitsu practitioner. How long has that been a thing for you?
It started at the beginning of the pandemic. I didn’t have anything to do, and the government was giving me money, and I always wanted to know how to fight. You know, you grow up getting beaten up, or maybe get in the random bar fight here or there, but that’s different than understanding your own body and how to interact with another human being.
But yeah, I started at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s been about a year and a half. And I wish I had started at a younger age; I had no idea of the power of martial arts. It’s been amazing. I wish I could do it all the time, but I’ve got a six-year-old. You can kinda get carried away with it. There are a lot of times where I’d rather be in the gym training than playing music.
Do you follow the UFC? Care to give a pick for Volkonovski-Ortega this weekend?
I am a big fan, and I like Ortega a lot just because of his jiu-jitsu.* I’m really excited about the Nick Diaz fight.
Yeah, that one ought to be good. It’s been such a long layoff for him.
Two hundred and nine months or something like that.
Looks like you’ll be touring pretty solid for the next couple months. Will you be back out on the road in 2022?
Yeah, man. I was doing nothing but playing music up until the pandemic, and then went home. My wife and I have bills to pay, so I’m really looking forward to getting back out on the road as soon as we can.
What else would you like the folks to know about Goodbye L.A.?
Yeah, we’re just really excited about it. We spent about a year writing and then rehearsing these songs at sound check. Then we recorded a few demos for Jonathan, and finally we got into the studio and made the record. And Sofa Burn records offered to put it out, and there was no one knocking on the door during the pandemic, know what I mean? So I was really grateful for their generosity in helping us get this record out.
So, we’re really excited for people to hear it. It’s the culmination of a lot of long nights away from home, making hardly any money. Yeah. It’s time.
__________
Goodbye LA is available today everywhere you stream and purchase music.
*While Mr. Pinnell has made one of the best country albums of the year, this doesn’t necessarily carry over to UFC predictions.
A few weeks before I turned 12, Mom said, “Grandmama wants to know what you want for your birthday. They’re coming down.” Because “Beast of Burden” had been all over the pop stations in Orlando, I said, “A Rolling Stones album!” On the happy day, I greedily went for the flat, album-shaped object first, shredding the decorative paper.
“Thank you, Grandmama and Grandaddy!” Scanning the back cover, though, I may have looked perplexed. There was no “Beast of Burden,” or even “Satisfaction.” And who was this weird, jumpy guy on the front?
I didn’t know who Mick was referring to before “Honky Tonk Women” when he said, “Charlie’s good tonight, innit?” It would be many years before I appreciated the greatness of that live album, recorded over several nights in New York and Baltimore in 1969, before the release of Let It Bleed. I’d be in college before I realized how sublime the Mick Taylor years were.
But listening to some of these raw, menacing cuts – “Stray Cat Blues,” a nine-minute “Midnight Rambler,” “Sympathy” – it was all over, man. At 12, I was a Stones guy for life. (Beatles guys were, and remain, pansies. Sorry.) Three years and change after that birthday, I'd see The Stones on the Tattoo You tour at what was then called the Tangerine Bowl. The opening act, Van Halen, showed me spandex style. Then I lived substance with the greatest rock band ever.
But that image of a joyous, goofy, leaping Charlie Watts – flanked by a donkey – that’s the icon I’ll always associate with the beginning of my rock ‘n’ roll education.
He was a jazz drummer in a blues band. He took no shit from Mick. One night on tour, the up-late, partying front man rang Charlie’s room. “Where’s my drummer?” he demanded, laughing. Charlie got out of bed, changed into a suit and tie, knocked on Jagger’s door and punched him square in the mouth when it opened. “Don’t you ever call me ‘your drummer’ again,” he said. “You’re my singer!” And then went back to bed.
Charlie Watts (and Ringo, for that matter) would be overshadowed by a couple of game-changing contemporaries, Keith Moon and Ginger Baker. But if you ask any great drummer today to name the masters, Charlie’s name (and Ringo’s) will inevitably come up. To find out how unique and vital Watts was to the Stones’ sound, ask his mates.
“Most bands follow the drummer as he sets the band,” Bill Wyman said. “In our band, Charlie follows Keith.” And it’s so true. Keef, a/k/a The Human Riff, would kick off “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” or “Street Fighting Man,” with a signature hook. Charlie jumped in, Wyman filled in the pocket, and it was just magic. It also has this weird vibe that a song might go off the rails any minute.
Yet they sometimes followed him. Who but a jazz master could kick off “Paint It, Black” and maintain that manic tempo? What sets the table on “Sympathy?” A seductive, hypnotic groove that still raises the hair on your neck as you think of it right this minute.
“Everybody,” Keef said, “thinks Mick and Keith are the Rolling Stones. If Charlie wasn’t doing what he’s doing on drums, that wouldn’t be true at all. You’d find out that Charlie Watts is the Stones.”
He was. I’ve cried plenty today, and I’m not done. This one hurts, and Mick & Keith should shut it down now. Thank you, Charlie, for being the backbone of my favorite band. Thank you, Grandmama, for setting the table.
And thank you, Martin Scorsese, for this precious footage from 2006. The perfect sendoff.
