Good things happen even when you’re not the top winner of a TV talent competition. Kate and Kacey Coppola, who gained national attention on CMT’s Can You Duet, have signed a deal with Big Machine Records. The Nashville-based indie company is the label home of Trisha Yearwood, Jack Ingram and a young singer-songwriter named Taylor Swift, among others.
All this talk about Blake Shelton’s No. 1 hit “Home” has conjured up my not-so-vivid memory of the first time we met.
It was a couple years ago, and I had gone down to Nashville for the CMT Music Awards. The morning after the show, I reluctantly packed my bags and took my Xanax for the flight home. I went down to the lobby of the very barebones Holiday Inn to wait for my airport shuttle, and my anti-anxiety drugs were starting to kick in. So when I saw the elevator doors open, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw a guy who looked just like Blake Shelton get off.
I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve spent at home with a bottle of red wine and a Patty Griffin album. Back in the day, that was my favorite way to cope with all the angst. Thank goodness I’m out of the woods now, but I thought about those rougher times last night when I was at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Calif., where she was performing at their small amphitheater. If you love her like I do, you’ll be overjoyed to know that she’s got a handful of new songs - and she said she’s been listening to a lot of country music these days, including George Strait, Tom T. Hall and Lefty Frizzell.
For someone like me, who thinks the sun rises and sets with Garth Brooks, I long assumed he was the only artist to record “Dixie Chicken.” Until a friend heard it and told me that was an old Little Feat song. Who? I have to admit, I’d never heard of them at the time, but I came to realize that they were — and are — an influence on a lot of the country artists. In fact, Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley, Emmylou Harris and others have joined the current group for the new album Little Feat and Friends: Join the Band. On it, Gill sings that “Dixie Chicken” song I love so much, and I’m sure his take will sound just as good as the cuts that came before his.
CMT.com’s Craig Shelburne wrote a wonderful story about a Jessica Simpson concert out in California. Sounds like she nailed the performance and that the crowd really loved her. But the part of his story I can’t get out of my head? Her admission onstage that she passes gas in bed. I don’t know if that grosses me out or if it makes her seem more real. Probably the latter. Country artists, especially the women, tend to do better when fans realize they’re just normal people who do normal things.
“Stay Gone” has always been one of my favorite Jimmy Wayne songs and I especially enjoy this acoustic version with Johnny Richardson providing percussion on the cajon. He also performs his latest, “Do You Believe Me Now” and a couple of new songs in his recent Unplugged at Studio 330 performance. He has indeed had a troubled beginning, which he discusses in his exclusive 330 interviews, but he’s refused to let this stifle his future. He’s managed to overcome an unfortunate past and put the heartache and pain to use through song. He doesn’t whine or complain, but he does make it known that he didn’t always have it easy. Perhaps someone in his familiar shoes can look to him for hope that they too may prevail. This session is definitely one worth checking out. When Wayne sings, I believe it. I can feel it. And I think you will, too.
Chris Knight achieved some national recognition for co-writing the Montgomery Gentry hit “She Couldn’t Change Me.” Now his brand of small-town songwriting takes center stage on Heart of Stone, to be released on Sept. 2. This stark recording follows the 2007 release of The Trailer Tapes (a collection of demos recorded in 1996), and shows once again that Knight will not talk around the issues. By keeping those issues personal, the questions he raises stay direct and relatable. The ideas in his songs are familiar ones — money, women, family — but his lyrics are open-ended in a way that you can apply each one to your own life.
As a two-dimensional photo, the cover of the limited edition version of Rascal Flatts’ upcoming greatest hits album appears a little plain, but maybe if you think hard enough, you can envision what the actual packaging will look like. So imagine, if you will, the band’s logo embossed in raised silver foil and some sort of a neon ink process on the blue background to create a glowing effect. The black border is lowered with a matte coating that will enhance the other features of the packaging. Oh, and it’s described as an eight-panel, two-CD digipak with two booklets — one for each CD.
This is the day I’ve been waiting for. American Idol has finally added a fourth judge to their panel of … um … esteemed experts, and I know she’ll bring a lot to that little one-sided conference table. Her name is Kara DioGuardi, and her ties to Nashville give her the right to voice her opinion. In my opinion, anyway.
He’s sold millions of records and made more money than he’ll probably ever spend. But Kenny Rogers admits he can’t compete with Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban. On a recent Fox Business show, Rogers talked about his particular place in the country world, and adds, “Honestly, I think they’re too young to do what I do, so it’s a nice niche I have.” So what is his moneymaking niche? “If you give me a song that touches me, I think I can make it touch you,” he said.
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