Aug 28, 2021
Archives: Exclusive Brantley Gilbert Album Track Listing
ORIGINALLY POSTED JUL 26, 2013
FTM has exclusively received the track-listing for BG's forthcoming album! The title and cover have not yet been revealed, but this should give anxious Brantley fans a little something to chew on for a while!
1. I Wish a City Slicker Would
2. She's Easy After a Few
3. Jagered Up Down South
4. One Hell of an Amen
5. Country SOB (And You're Not)
6. Talk to the Fist
7. Tap It on a Tailgate
8. How Much You Bench?
9. Fix Me a Sandwich
10. Drunk Butthole
11. Punch You in the Face
12. Read Me My Rights
Aug 27, 2021
Summer Dean’s Bad Romantic Scores Big
Summer Dean makes music rooted in Telecaster twang, Southern storytelling, and the rugged resilience of the American West. It's the sound of a lifelong Texan whose songs evoke her tough, independent spirit. Her full-length debut album Bad Romantic, out today, struts out of the speakers, but also finds moments of tenderness and vulnerability. The album stakes a claim for Dean in the same genre that first captivated her attention as a girl in rural Texas. Her grandfather raised cattle and her father worked in land conservation. Dean developed a connection not only to the soil she stood on, but also to the music that sound tracked her small-town experience, steadily building the foundation for the traditionally minded sound that would fill her songs.
After sharing bills with likeminded artists including Mike and the Moonpies, Asleep at the Wheel, Marty Stuart, Colter Wall and Nikki Lane, Dean’s album seems like somewhat of a victory lap for a self-made artist who's earned her spot in country music's hip inner circle. On Bad Romantic, Wall for the first time co-writes and duets with another musician, creating the album’s waltzing, pedal steel-filled centerpiece "You're Lucky She's Lonely” with Dean.
Whitney Rose and Bonnie Montgomery sing harmonies, and Robert Ellis plays piano on "Dear Caroline," a song about the Dust Bowl and the dangers of overworking the land. Songs like "Picket Fence" and "Blue Jean Country Queen" are proud declarations of uniqueness, anchored by barroom arrangements worthy of some long-lost Merle Haggard record.
"When I released my first EP, I was feeling a little sorry for myself,” Summer admits. "But now, it's more of a pride thing. This is who I am, and I like it.” Elsewhere, she sings the praises of long horizons and longer drives on "A Thousand Miles Away," a love letter to the road co-written with Matt Hillyer of Eleven Hundred Springs.
A handful of songs written by Brennen Leigh and Simon Flory showcase her strength as an interpreter, but Bad Romantic always feels like Dean. This is traditional country music for the modern world — for sawdust-covered dance floors, worn out blue jeans, and long solo drives where the most honest conversations are with yourself — performed with tenderness one minute and tenacity the next.
Bad Romantic was recorded at Niles City Sound, notable Fort Worth-area analog studio. Encouraged by the reception of 2016's Unladylike — a critically-acclaimed EP that introduced her mix of vintage influences and modern muscle — Dean recorded the album to tape and made a conscious decision to fully invest herself in country music.
"I taught elementary school for 10 years," she says. "That’s what small-town Texas girls do. We teach school, work at the bank, or at the courthouse. Then we get married and have babies and a few dogs and die happy, buried next to our husbands. But here I am, age 40, quitting my stable job, cashing in the wedding money my momma put aside for me, and making this album.”
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Bad Romantic is available wherever you purchase fine music.
Album Review / Grayson Jenkins / Turning Tides
A fast-learning late-bloomer, Grayson Jenkins wrote his first song at 21 and now 7-8 years later is releasing Turning Tides, his third full album. Its writing was completed before the pandemic and recording took place just a few months in but Jenkins decided to hold off on releasing it, leaving him on hold, mentally and career-wise. He considered hanging it up more than once in 2020, but thankfully he did not.
If you’re a first timer like myself, Grayson Jenkins has a warm, reedy voice that welcomes you right in. His bio mentions Eric Church and Keith Whitley as descriptors, but I’m hearing more Bruce Robison. None of those are comparisons he’d turn his nose up at, I’m guessing. The music is much the same - enveloping and hospitable, a chilled out honky-tonk experience.
There’s a lot of what I’d call ‘soothing darkness’ sonically on this record. - a low key, soft approach, that while far from sparse musically, gives Jenkins a lot of room vocally. What he does with that space is croon to us of lonely nights, anxiety, hard work, and glimmers of hope.
The title cut is a main example of that sound of soothing darkness. Lyrically, though, it’s a ray of sun through drawn curtains, seeing hope after a hard time. Though written before these “crazy times,” one wouldn’t be wrong to apply the song to our current state.
“Low Down Lady” is a shuffling bar room toe-tapper that seems custom made for a Texas dancehall. It never gets around to explaining why she’s a “bad low-down lady,” but you know he’s crazy for somebody he ought not be, and it really doesn’t matter with a song this damn fun. Piano, steel, and a guitar solo fill this one out to perfection.
One of the highlights of the album for me, “Picket Fences” was co-written with Nicholas Jamerson (he of much independent country affection and also half the duo Sundy Best). It’s a fiddle-heavy look at the life of a musician compared to that of the average thirty-something. “I’ll take my rambling, keep your picket fence,” sings Jenkins, more than satisfied with the path he picked.
Turning Tides is yet another entry in the seemingly endless parade of excellent albums out of the Bluegrass State. At this point I’m surprised burgeoning musicians don’t move to Kentucky to get a dose of whatever’s in that water. Anyway, this record, it’s a good one and with it, you can still get in relatively early on another artist who’s gonna be a stalwart in the scene for years to come.
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Turning Tides is available today everywhere you get music, but especially right here.
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