I am loving this format today. I love its diversity. I love the quality of its song craftsmanship. I love its mix of youth and maturity. Country music rules. In celebration, I am crowning three Disc of the Day winners. The Group prize goes to Rascal Flatts for its chesty vow of steadfastness. The Male winner is Randy Montana, who has a sonic masterpiece to offer. The Female prize, and the surprise of the day, is Ashton Shepherd.
Happy New Year. What a great way to start 2011: There’s not a stinker in this stack of platters.
As we look back at 2010, we see that we have lost some enormous musical talents. Country Music Hall of Fame members Carl Smith and Jimmy Dean passed on, as did Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Hank Cochran. Our r&b community lost Bobby Hebb; our pop scene lost Owsley; and our jazz community lost Dennis Taylor. Studio instrumental greats Ben Keith and Fred Carter Jr. are gone, as are hit songwriters Ronny Scaife, George Richey and Linda Hargrove. Slim Bryant, the last living link to Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country Music, died at age 101. Here is a remembrance of some of those who passed away during 2010.
I dread this column every year. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. Far from it. It’s just that so much bad music gets recorded in its name. And, as usual, there is far more of it than I can hope to cover in a column.
The ladies rule the day. There were only two of them is this listening session, but they bested the fellows to take our top two awards. Meaghan Blanchard hails from Canada. This talented singer-songwriter with a songbird’s voice wins the DisCovery Award.
The moment this listening session began, the rest of the platters might as well have packed up and gone home.
As soon as I saw Brad Paisley’s “This Is Country Music” in the stack, I knew what the Disc of the Day was going to be. And it is.
This week the newsmakers come not from the ranks of our country stars, but from the members of Nashville’s ever expanding pop/rock community.
Before you dismiss this list as a pack of nobodies, check the fine print. Between them, these minor leaguers have ties to such major leaguers as The Bellamy Brothers, George Jones, Jason & The Scorchers, former Georgia Satellite Dan Baird, Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker and Charlie Daniels.
Nashville singer, songwriter and musician Barry Tashian is to be inducted into the Boston Music Awards Hall of Fame on December 5 because of his 1960s career in the rock band The Remains. As Boston college students, The Remains were signed to Epic Records in New York, but came to Nashville in 1965 and 1966 […]
The trend of the day is career transition. A number of name-brand stars are reinventing themselves by recording in varying shades of bluegrass.