“Down Louisiana way”, song by George Strait from the album “Lead On”, recorded almost 25 years to the day. It was the 15th studio album by George, and was published in november of 1994.
The songs on this superb country recording showcase the artist's smooth Texas baritone along with the expected honky tonk fiddle cries in the hand of Stuart Duncan and steel guitar twangs by Buddy Emmons and Paul Franklin. Though Lead On doesn't have an enormous runaway hit in its tracks, many of the songs written by extraordinary songwriters such as Aaron Barker, Jim Lauderdale, Dean Dillon, or Don Schultz, found their way onto the music charts, such as "You can’t make a heart love somebody", "Lead On," and "Adalida", to name a few.
Aaron Barker, the co-writer of this beautiful “Down Louisiana Way”, with which we opened today’s show, has written a few number one songs for George, such as “Baby Blue”, song that George sang and dedicated to his daughter Jennifer, who died at 13 in an automobile accident in San Marcos, Texas in the 80s, “Love without End, Amen”, or “Easy Come, Easy Go”, among others. Some three years ago, Aaron Barker was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
But to be honest, Aaron Barker is not the only important tunesmith in the work by George Strait. As I said before, other important names come together, such as Jim Lauderdale, who as written beautiful and unforgettable songs for Mr. Strait, such as “The King of Broken Hearts”, “Where the sidewalk ends”, “Don’t make me come over there and love you”, or more recently, “Twang”. From this album we are visiting today, we’ll listen to the song “What am I waiting for”, which didn’t make the charts itself but is worth listening to.
Jim Lauderdale’s music often walks a line between past and present as his talent takes him from bluegrass to contemporary sounds. We’ve just listened to the 8th track of his last album “Time Flyes”, the 31st in his 18 years of recording Americana music, called “Wild on me fast”. His talent helped lay out the blueprint for the Americana movement of the 1990s, releasing albums that spanned hard countrty, rootsy rock & roll, blues, and bluegrass.
In this last album Jim shows tremendous talent with a series of elements put together: his superb vocals on each and every tune, his cunning and down-to-earth songwriting, and a flawless performance. He is such a prolific musician that he has been able to put 31 albums in some 18 years, as I said before, and so it comes as no surprise to me that there was another album published in 2018 by Jim Lauderdale, but this time next to Roland White. The thing is that there’s a catch to this album, because even though I said that Jim Lauderdale’s official discography begins with his 1991 album Planet of Love, there was a Long Play album recorded in 1979 that had gone lost.
The story says that in 1979, Jim decided to pay a visit to one of his musical heroes, madolin picker Roland White, who had played with a couple of bluegrass band called The Kentucky Colonels, and the Nashville Grass. Mr. White fell in love with Jim’s talent and became his mentor at the age of 22, and so he arranged to cut an album with him in Earl Scruggs’ home studio with a band which included such talents as Marty Stuart on guitar, Gene Wooten on Dobro, Johnny Warren on Fiddle, and of course Roland White on the mandolin. And so just 6 months ago finally Jim’s first ever album saw the light.
We’ll say goodbye to Jim’s album “Time Flyes” listening to the song “If the world’s still here tomorrow”, and a short pick of “Six White Horses” from his first album ever recorded.
Recorded between 2015 and 2017 in California and Honolulu, Peter Rowan has played this “My Blue Hula Girl”, from his 2017 album “My Aloha!”.
For those not in the know, Peter Rowan has been one of AMerica’s masters of acoustic music since the 60s, and it should not be surprising that he a soft spot for vintage Hawaiian music, due to the fact that Traditional Hawaiian style enjoyed a burst of popularity in the 1920s, around the same time that artists like the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, considered the fathers of our favorite music style, were bringing country music to a mass audience for the first time, and they were the first to record tuens inspired by the sounds of the islands.
This “My Aloha!” Album as created with a handful of Honolulu musicians, intended to reflect the cultural crosstalk between American rural music and the native sounds of the Hawaiian islands. As it can be seen throughout this piece of work, the country and especially its bluegrass side is overwhelmed by the Hawaiian influences, which have been put front. This isn’t an album for a beach celebration, to tell you the truth, but in case you were looking for a listening as you watch the sun set on the seaside, this should fit like a glove for that endevor. We’ll say goodbye to Peter Rowan’s excellent album with the song “Uncle Jimmy”, with Kilin Reece at the slack key guitar, and Douglas Po’oloa Tolentino at the Ukelele.
TRAVIS TRITT has dominated the charts for a decade performing the kind of country music that “men identify with and females swoon over.” In this Soundstage concert,published in 2018 in the form of a CD and a DVD by the Public Broadcasting System, or PBS he wows the audience performing favorites such as “Here’s a Quarter Call Someone who cares”, "I’m gonna be somebody," and "T-r-o-u-b-l-e."
This lengendary new traditionalist American singer songwriter and actor charted more than 40 times on the Hot Country Song charts, including 5 number ones with 15 additional top ten singles. He’s earned two grammy awards and has been a member of the grand ole opry since 1992.
Tritt did a video some years back called “Any more”. In that video Tritt plays a disabled veteran. He shot the video in an actual patients or Veteran’s Hospital where many of the people in the video were actual patients or staff members at the hospital. He says that’s when he got involved in the Disabled American Veterans Association and he says it’s something that he’s still passionate about to this day.
Many have been the occasions when a singer has been asked in an interview about the events that happened in the shooting spree in Vegas. When he was asked about the shootings at that country concert in 2017, Tritt says he refuses to let that stand in the way of his music and his band.
He says he does about 135 shows a year, and the majority of them are with his band but his performance in Eastern Idaho Saturday night, he was solo with just him and his guitar playing an accoustic show.
We’ll say goodbye to Mr. Tritt listening to the song that opens the concert listening to his classic “Put some drive in your country”, and we’ll go back to the year 1990, 19 years ago, when he released his debut album and his most iconic song “Country Club”, giving name to the unforgettable album of this singer from Marietta, in the state of Georgia.
With three albums released, and a peek to his forthcoming one this 2019, this talented singer natural from the state of Florida called Easton Corbin just came over to sing “Somebody’s Gotta Be Country”, his new single.
Easton remembered wanting to be a country singer as early as three years old. He spent a great deal of time at his grandparents farm after his parents divorced, where he could watch various Opry television shows which aired on Saturday nights. He began to take guitar lessons at age 15, and soon started his own band. He won his spot as a solo act in a festival and soon started opening concerts for Mel McDaniel.
He married and moved to Nashville in 2006, and after 3 years he managed to get a record company interested and so his debut song “A little more country than that” was released. Let’s listen to his the debut song of this great future talent for the industry.
"Paint Me a Birmingham" is a song written by Buck Moore and Gary Duffy. It was concurrently released by American country music artists Ken Mellons and Tracy Lawrence, whose versions entered the country charts within one week of each other, and that is the reason why we played them half and half. Lawrence's was the more successful of the two, reaching #4 in May 2004 and becoming his first Top 5 country hit since "Lessons Learned" in April 2000.
Anyway, this version is not the one included in his 2004 album “Strong”, but the one re-recorded in his duets album “Good Ole Days” from 2017, where he re-records his classic tunes with such contemporary artists as Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw, Luke Combs, Chris Young, Kellie Pickler, or our previous artist, Easton Corbin. This is precisely the singer who accompanied Tracy Lawrence in his “Paint me a Birmingham”, where The narrator describes an encounter on the beach with an artist who is painting ocean scenes. The singer then asks the painter to paint a picture of the plans the man and his lost lover had actually made. Just for the record, a Birmingham is a style of home construction very typical in the south of the united states.
Tracy Lawrence is one of country music’s biggest starts of the 90s, and throughout this lovely work he puts a fresh spin on his best-known songs. We’ll finish this revision of this album from Tracy listening to two of his all-time classics: “Stars over Texas” from his timeless album “Time marches on” from 1996 accompanied with the beautiful voice of the Tennessian Kellie Pickler, and “If the World had a front porch”, with the voice of Luke Combs, who’s not a stranger to our podcast, song included in his must-have album “I see it now”, which is celebrating its 25 anniversary this very 2019.
So well listen to Tracy with Luke Combs in “If the world had a front porch”, and with Kellie Pickler signing “Stars over texas”.
What a way to finish the show, listening to the debut song by Kellie Pickler back in 2006, “Small town Girl” giving name to the album.
In 2005, Kellie Pickler landed a spot in the 5th season of American Idol, and even though she finished 6th, the former waitress and Miss North Carolina contestant was able to conquer the hearts of the audiences with her Southern twang, resulting in a contract to yield her debut album. This reminds me of other two famous country artists who also reached mainstream attention in country music through these kinds of shows: Carrie Underwood, and Kacey Musgraves.
Just to finish the show, we’ll pay tribute to Kasey Musgraves, artist who was interviewed by this show in early 2007 after the release of her first important album, and who just last weekend earned her first grammy award. So we’ll listen to her song “Rainbow”, new single from 2019, included in her forthcoming album “Rainbow”. Congratulations, Kacey!
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