Diplo (Two Step Inn)

One Liner: Electronic kingpin with generally uninteresting songs

Wikipedia Genre: EDM, pop, moombahton
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: small type (which is funny, in that he was on line 2 of the ACL poster!)
Sunday.

Thoughts: He was just at ACL this year, so I'm just going to give you that review:

Could have sworn that this guy had already graced us with his presence at a prior ACL fest, but it looks like he only came through with his Major Lazer project in 2014 and 2016.  (I was not in love with that project, I have a feeling my sentiments will be similar for this thing!).  His real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, and his list of collaborative groups is actually longer than I knew.  He's got Major Lazer, LSD with Sia and Labrinth, Jack U with Skrillex, and Silk City with Marc Ronson.

He got his start with M.I.A., after she hunted him down and asked him to work with her on some of her music.  He worked with her on "Paper Planes," which is bound to be her top hit. My kids even know it.  Since then, he's produced stuff for everyone from Madonna, Beyonce, and Gwen Stefani to Snoop Dogg, Beiber, Bruno Mars, and Bad Bunny.  More interestingly, just because an electronic guy with a one word name feels like it should be a German or Swedish dude or something, he is originally from Mississippi and lived for a long time in Florida.  He attended the University of Central Florida for a bit, and then graduated from Temple University.  Which is such an odd background for a massively popular electro DJ.

The weird thing about all of that is that it seems like he isn't even really making his own music, he's just collaborating with other people and producing their music.  I guess that means he just does a DJ set of his own tunes?  Like, on his Spotify page, none of the music just lists his name.  They all have other names listed in the artist slot.  I think I found two songs without other collaborators, plus most of the instrumental 2020 album MMXX (which has super low streams).  So, it is weird to provide his "songs," because they're gonna seem like someone else's songs.  Oh well.  Top streamer with almost a billion is "Where Are U Now," with Justin Beiber and Skrillex.  This is the Jack U project.  964.3 million streams.

Just sounds like a Beiber joint.  And a deeply boring one at that.  The freaky little flute sound, which is probably Beiber's voice with modified pitch or something, is the only thing interesting in there.  Also, that video has over 1.2 BILLION streams.  Sheesh.  So, but if he plays that song at the fest, is her pretty much just going to play the song off the album so that the singing part is in it?  How does that work?  The 2018 song "Electricity" is the second biggest streamer with 522.3 million.  It features both Marc Ronson and Dua Lipa (which I guess means this is a Silk City song?):

Meh.  Yeah, another massive pop song with an EDM beat.

I've sat through a bunch of this by now, and it's just fine.  If you've read my previews in the past, then you know EDM is never my thing, really.  Like, "On My Mind" is playing right now, and it's not a terrible song, but it just feels like nothing special.  A throbbing beat and a woman repeating herself over the top for 3 minutes.  But that is his 6th most popular track right now.

Let's just try digging into the newest album - 2022's Diplo.  He's got guest verses from Leon Bridges and Busta Rhymes, which is interesting.  On the other hand, every song has someone on it, and I haven't heard of most of them.  Amtrac, RY X, andhim, Kareen Lomax, to name a few.  The opener, with Miguel, is a deeply generic EDM track that repeatedly exhorts me to not forget his love.  The Leon Bridges one is likewise a very uninteresting song, no matter how lovely his voice is on top of it.  "Promises" 100% sounds like something that you could convince me is a song from 2000 that was popular in London but didn't make it to the States until now.  Just nothing there.  The interesting thing about the Busta collab is that it doesn't even seem like Busta is involved.  His voice is either a sample loop or he is just sitting in a booth repeating the same phrase 3,005 times over two and a half minutes.  "Let You Go" is annoying because it uses the first half of the call/response thing in DJ Rob Bass' "It Takes 2," but never gives the pleasure and release of the second half that is supposed to be there.  That drives me mad.  The top track is one with something called "SIDEPIECE," with 195.7 million streams.

The weird talking over the top in that video is not in the real song.  Just FYI.  There was a great Tweet the other day saying: "dance music in the 90’s was incredible, just a woman putting her entire soul into a beat that had every cell in your body vibrating… then here comes some jacked baldhead dude with a deep voice rapping the stupidest shit you’ve ever heard.  You’d be in a trance at the skating ring having this out of body experience and then “(comically deep voice) it’s night time and my love is hot, I dance, you dance, we dance a lot”"  Hilarious.  I almost wish that these songs at least had that to lean on.  Instead, they are just uninteresting beats and singers.  I need the bad rapping.

Sincerely doubt I'd watch this.

Niko Moon

One Liner: Trap beats and mega-generic good times lyrics with a tiny country flair

Wikipedia Genre: Country pop

Home: Nashville (but originally from Marietta, GA)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Oh no.  No, no, no.  This sucks so hard.  I'm sorry, I'm sure there are people out there who love this, but I absolutely abhor it.  Just the worst stuff that could possibly exist in the musical world.

What we have here is super generic drum machine beats with some slight angle towards country, like a banjo lick in the background or a steel guitar bit during the chorus, but it is really just trash pop/trap/R&B with deeply idiotic lyrics.  "Girl you got that top shelf" type lyrics.  "When the sun goes down we gonna keep it goin' all night" type lyrics.  I really can't handle it.  Here is the top song - "GOOD TIME," with an amazing 119.8 million streams.

"like a bobber on a wet line."  59 million views of that video!  I will never understand why people want to listen to this.  Of course, it's catchy as hell.  I get that this is going to stick in my head after I listen to this, and never want to leave, and later tonight my simian brain is going to tell me about passing a bottle around the campfire and I'm going to want to jump into that fire.

Nicholas Cowan has written songs for a bunch of other new country artists - Dierks Bentley, Zac Brown Band, Rascal Flatts, and Morgan Wallen.  He was originally from Tyler, Texas, but moved to Georgia when he was ten.  He first found success writing with the Zac Brown Band but split out and signed his own contract with RCA Nashville in 2019.  One album, 2021's Good Time.  "EASY TONIGHT" makes me think of the bassline from Big Boi's "The Way You Move."  Most of the streams for these tracks are much lower, like in the million neighborhood (which, yeah, is a million times better than anything I've ever done!) but it feels like a few of these were added to big playlists and became song of the summer for a certain brand of Alabama frat bro.  Second biggest tune is "PARADISE TO ME" with 35 million streams.

You can't help but sort of like the goofy bastard too.  His smile is amazing.  But those lyrics are so generic.  Feels like an AI made it when you asked it to put together the most generic set of images for a bro party.  cold one, pina colada, pine tree, whiskey and cola, Willie, ocean breeze, lake front, paradise.  Good job computer.

I will very much avoid this.  This feels like the wrong path that country needs to come back from.  I hope it is fun for anyone who ventures over there.

Tanya Tucker

One Liner: She's a classic country star, but I don't recognize much of this.

Wikipedia Genre: Country, outlaw country, country rock

Home:  Nashville (or maybe Malibu, CA now, but born in Texas!)

Poster Position: LARGE Type 

Saturday.

Thoughts:  So, Tucker was supposed to come to ACL in 2021, but ended up needing emergency surgery and had to back out of the Fest.  So, I'm just using my same review here that I created for her back then.  She's got one new single, that kind of sounds like a show tune, so I'll just stick with the discussion below.

You know what is fascinating?  When I hear the name Tanya Tucker, I'm immediately like "yeah, okay, sure.  Tanya Tucker.  Classic star for sure.  She's like Reba or, uh, like, uh, Wynona?  Right?"  And then if I try to name a single song that the woman sings, my brain looks like a goldfish struggling for air after it just jumped out of the fishbowl.  I have absolutely heard her name for years, but have I ever heard a song she sings?

Here's the deal though, until college, about as far into country as I ever strayed was Willie, Robert Earl, and Jerry Jeff.  And in college I pretty much just added George Strait, Pat Green, Ray Wylie, David Allan Coe, and a few random tracks from pop-country weirdos like Brooks & Dunn.  Oh, and I loved Alison Krauss because of camp.  But the deep cut world of real country that is depicted here?  I never waded that deep.  I dabbled in the Texas stuff and the outlaw stuff, and just enough to keep me relevant when trying to dance at the one bar in my tiny college town, but knowing what Travis Tritt or Tanya Tucker sang was way outside of my lane.  It was way later when I dug deeper and learned about the goods available with folks like Don Williams, Chris LeDoux, or Waylon Jennings.  And accepted that Garth Brooks and Clint Black and Dolly Parton were actually fun.  But Tucker never came onto my radar before right this minute.

Her most popular song - "Delta Dawn" - doesn't even sound like country music.  Sounds more like something Janis Joplin would have sung in the 60's.  I've certainly never heard it before now.  Then the second-most popular track - "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane" - sounds like some easy listening-ass shit.  I have literally never heard either of these songs.  Oh, I've heard "Texas (When I Die)," but I don't think I knew it was her singing it.  4.3 million streams.

Shooting up those longhorns!  Also, her voice is so rough and rugged in comparison to her look.  Look at those waiters walking through the crowd with mugs of beer on a tray!  Awesome.  I'd pay at least a nickel to have that happen at ACL while me and a bunch of cool kids clapped along to this song for 5 minutes.  Her dancing is freaking cracking me up.  She looks very uncomfortable trying to move, like a straight-up mom trying to dance along with the newest dance craze.  That video is amazing.

Oh wait, I've heard "Strong Enough to Bend" before.  That's a good tune.

Digging into her history now, and that first hit with "Delta Dawn" came when she was freaking 13 years old, in 1972.  So no wonder it doesn't ring a bell, I wasn't even alive.  But I have to say, it's pretty amazing to listen to that song right now and imagine it being sung by a child.  I never would have suspected.  Most streamed at 26.1 million listens.

She was born in Seminole, Texas, which is the county seat of Gaines County, way out in the western panhandle up against New Mexico.  But she then moved all about the west and lived in Nashville after becoming famous, so she's "from" all over.  Wikipedia also says she hooked up with Merle Haggard, Don Johnson, and Andy Gibb, so she's into all sorts of dudes.  She performed the half time of Super Bowl 28!  That's pretty crazy, that was in 1994!  I probably watched that Super Bowl - Cowboys over Bills.

Sounds like she was highly popular back in the 70's, but then fell off the radar a little in the late 70's and early 80's.  In 1988, her family got her into Betty Ford and she got some things straightened out.  By the late 1980's, she was back into the Top 40 with a bunch of songs I don't know, but also "Strong Enough to Bend."  1.4 million streams.  She is apparently not much of a streaming artist!

Freaking amazing that the top video on YouTube of that song is some bootleg ass version recorded onto VHS from CMT and then uploaded.  Really?  We can't get the actual video uploaded?  Why does the world work like that sometimes?  But, that is an enjoyable song.

"Love Me Like You Used To" is pretty great.  Some classic country gold right there.  "Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone)" is one I recognize, but only because that is by David Allan Coe and has also been covered by Willie and Johnny Cash.  "It's a Little Too Late (to do the Right Thing Now)" also sounds familiar.  She covers/mashes "I'm on Fire" and "Ring of Fire" in the same song on a live album and it's pretty great.  "San Antonio Stroll" is entirely new to me, but I dig it.  She definitely sounds like a child here.  More footage from that sweet ass concert!

Wait, that intro sounded like the intro to Austin City Limits?  Weird.  Anyway, I dig that oompah ass backbeat going on there, and now I'm planning to annoy my family to death the next time we go walking in San Antonio by loudly singing this song over and over.

She's got some other Texas-centric tunes to make sure to cash in on this whole thing - "The Pecos Promenade" is one of those that just name-checks a bunch of locations in Texas.  I'm expecting that she does this for big effect at a show to get the Amarillo nerds to try to out-holler the dorks from Corpus.

A good bit of this sounds more like easy listening than anything else.  "Soon" just came on as I was writing the above, and it made me think that I don't love alot of this music.  A good bit of it is enjoyable, classic country stuff.  But then the schmaltz kicks in and I'm turned off.  Also in that zone is the breathy ass "Your Love Amazes Me."  Blech.  Like, "Rainbow Rider" has some of the cool pieces of "Amarillo by Morning" or "Hooked on an Eight Second Ride," about being a real-deal cowboy chasing his dreams, but then its like also super lame at the same time.  [as an aside, Rainbow Rider is also the name of a public transit system in part of Minnesota.  Which is very funny and weird.  The term is also, per Urban Dictionary, slang for a guy who hooks up with a dude but maintains he is straight.]

Twenty Five total albums, spread out over a million years.  The new one (While I'm Livin') is actually really pretty good, even if her voice is worn in a way it didn't used to be.  She covers one of the Highwomen covers, called "Wheels of Laredo," and opens it up in a really nice way.  I think the Highwomen might be the background singers on there in fact.  Probably so, because this album was co-produced by Brandi Carlile.  And she won the Best Country Album Grammy with this disc.

Yeah, I might go watch this.  I'm not on fire about it, but it seems like she'd be a pretty lively show.  I hope she wears that thing from the Orlando shows above and dances like Elaine some more.

Charles Wesley Godwin

One Liner: Zach Bryan's wingman making coal dust country

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Morgantown, WV

Poster Position: small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts: Absolutely have never heard of this one.  But it looks like he is in cahoots with Zach Bryan - the top single listed on his Spotify page is a Bryan tune that this dude appears on, called "Jamie."  And that song is cool - they work together with similar sounds and a sparse arrangement that sounds classic.

Godwin is from West Virginia, he has the sound of a roughneck coal worker who happened to get good at guitar and made some tunes about what he knew.  He started doing some music when he was attending West Virginia University, and claims to have been inspired by a perfect list of inspirations - Kristoferson, Willie, Prine, Chris Knight (totally underrated and awesome), and Ryan Bingham.  The others he reminds me of is Slaid Cleaves and Steve Earle.

Two albums - 2019's Seneca and 2021's How The Mighty Fall.  The debut album has three of his top songs including the top streamer, called "Hardwood Floors."  5.3 million streams.

High energy and rockin'.  With that fiddle and those guitars, this tune is going to whip people into a frenzy.  His sound actually seems to work like that - a chill folky tune and then a barn burner with rock and roll guitars.  Many of his tunes sound more like the Zach Bryan thing of a quiet story told over a lovely guitar line, but then right when you think that is the sound, he throws "Blood Feud" with an "Ain't Going Down Til the Sun Comes Up"-style rave-up your way.  "Sorry For The Wait" almost has an Irish lilt to it.

The new disc is really good - I've just been diving back in to it a few times the past two days.  "Strong" has a guitar solo that sounds like something Jason Isbell might have cooked up and an uptempo beat.  "Lyin' low" makes me think of the Tyler Childers song "Whitehouse Road."  "How the Mighty Fall" has a John Mayer guitar sound in there.  I actually really enjoy this album.  The top track is that "Lyin' low" one, see if you heard the "Whitehouse Road" comparison.  Just over 2 million streams.

I mean, come on.  He's singing about living up the holler over the top of banjo and fiddle.  This is like a theme song for one of the minor bad guys in Justified.

I'd absolutely go check this out.  Loving it.

Travis Tritt

One Liner: "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" is an amazing tune, plus a bunch of rockin' originals.

Wikipedia Genre: Country, country rock, Southern rock, blues, gospel

Home: Nashville (but originally from Marietta, GA)

Poster Position: LARGE Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  One of my favorite country songs ever is covered by Travis Tritt, and I had no clue.  "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" was written by Darrell Scott and released in 1997, and that song was on constant rotation on KHYI radio station in Dallas right around the time I moved there, after college.  Tritt covered it and released the track in 2000, reaching #2 on the Hot Country Singles chart.  Pat Green and Cory Morrow had also done a version in 2001, which is honestly not as good as the original or Tritt's version.  But until just now, pulling up Tritt's Spotify and see this as his top song, I could not have told you that Tritt had anything to do with the tune.  169.8 million streams.

It's just such a good, happy, enjoy-what-you-have tune.  But also, it is good and right sometimes to think about the simple things in your life and reflect that even a normal day can be one that you recognize as a wonderful thing.  His hair is freaking badass.

James Travis Tritt has a lot of big singles that I immediately recognize as well.  Seven platinum albums, including one that is triple-platinum.  40 songs on the Hot Country Songs Billboard chart, including five number ones.  Grand Ole Opry member since 1992.  Two Grammys.  Four CMA awards.  Some of the articles I have read say that he added more southern rock into his sound than some of his contemporaries, which set him apart from them.

He started playing when he was eight, playing at school for his class and at church.  He got serious in high school when he started to write his own songs.  While still working other jobs - air conditioner repairman, furniture store, supermarket clerk - he began to record some demos with the help of a record exec, and was signed in 1987 when he was 24.  Wikipedia's description of his contract makes it sound kind of messed up.  He was obligated to give them six songs, three of which would be released as singles.  He would not be signed on for a full album unless one of those singles became a hit.  How stressful!  That first single was "Country Club," released in 1989, and it spent 26 weeks on the Hot Country Singles chart.  17.1 million streams.

Definite classic country thing, and a good play on words on the meaning of Country Club.  I like it.  After that debut album, he continued to release well-regarded new stuff.  "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" is one of those that brings out all of the crazy dancing couples who can do flips and spins and wild stuff on the floor.  His cover of "Take It Easy," that was on the Common Thread album that I wore out in my latter college days, is fantastic.  "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" sounds really familiar, like I know it from someone else.  I like that one, although I also realized that it reminds me of Bad Company's "Shooting Star."

Funny story that relates to Travis Tritt.  I have mentioned before that I really didn't know his music or know much about who he was, right?  But I have a very strong memory of one of his songs anyway.  When I was in college, I joined a fraternity.  It was a good choice, I had a lot of fun with those guys and valued that time in the end.  But pledgeship was not fun.  

I went to a tiny college with no national fraternities, and so there was little to no oversight over the hazing that went on for the pledges.  And so that led to some painful and unpleasant nights of semi-torture from the guys who had been my friends only weeks before.  This is not a story of physical torture, but one of cringeworthy mental hell.  Each active fraternity member was allotted one assignment that they could hand down to the pledges.  Some were cool and made it something like "play two hours of Madden with me in my dorm room" or "go out to dinner."  Others were less cool with like "do my laundry for a week" or "walk my dog every afternoon."  But one dude created the cringiest situation possible and stuck me and my pedge-brother Ernie right in the thick of it.  This older active was dating a freshman girl who was in my circle of friends.  His assignment to us was to show up at his apartment one evening, where he was cooking a dinner for his girlfriend.  And as he lit candles and served up whatever jenky ass dinner he had prepared, the two of us had to sing (I'm literally cracking up right now while writing this, it was soooo awkward) a song right to the girl as she sat there and waited for her dinner.  IT WAS BRUTAL.  Just me standing in Jamie's living room and singing an a cappella version of "Wonderful Tonight" to Crystal as the spaghetti sauce congealed on her plate.  And when I was done, Ernie fired up Travis Tritt's "Drift Off to Dream."

His hair should have its own Twitter account.  Just three minutes and forty-four seconds of the Ern-Dog slowly singing this song right to Crystal while I stood there and stared at the wall.  This one has 4.2 million streams and was on that same debut album with "Country Club."  I hope that Crystal has heard that song since, and involuntarily shivered before crying out in fear.

Tritt has also been in movies and TV shows, stuff like The Cowboy Way (with Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland!), Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, or Fire Down Below (Steven Seagal!).  He's a staunch Republican and defender of gun rights, which kind of makes sense for his audience.

His second biggest song is a good old kiss off tune, from 1991's It's All About to Change, this is "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" with 61.3 million streams.

Woah, he just used the word "sordid" in a country song.  Has the word "sordid" ever been used before in a country song?  Fine SAT word, Travis.  I bet you broke some redneck brains with that one.  Honestly, a freaking great tune.  A fun thing to do is to go into the YouTube comments for a song like that where the commenters are VERY hot about the fact that this is REAL CONTRY not like the JUNK they play on the RADIO todAY!  Tritt apparently wrote this song the night that he received his divorce papers from his second wife.

I gotta say, I've enjoyed listening to this guy.  It is always curious to me to wonder why this guy flew under the radar a little bit for a non-country fan like myself, while other guys like Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks crossed over into the mainstream in a big way.  I know he nailed a bunch of platinum albums onto his wall, but I just wonder what it is that gets Garth into the upper echelons of pop culture and this guy relegated to playing state fairs.  One article I read said that Nashville was reluctant to embrace him because he didn't wear a cowboy hat and his songs had too much rock in them.  Either way, this is pretty good.  Depending on the schedule, I'd go watch him.

David Lee Murphy

One Liner: The "Dust on the Bottle" guy.

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Herrin, Illinois)

Poster Position: small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Hell yeah, I love that song!  Would never have been able to tell you, before just now, that someone named David Lee Murphy is the one who sang "Dust on the Bottle," but that song rules.  153.7 million streams, and by far his biggest tune.

Love it.  I also enjoy that he is asking for love advice from the hermit down the road who makes bathtub wine.  My man's hair is freaking awful.  Reminds me of Sally Field's hairdo in Steel Magnolias, except with sideburns added in.  A cousin to the mullet, but with way too much body and side presence.  

This is from his debut album, 1994's Out With a Bang.  But other than that one song, nothing in this entire catalog sounds familiar to me.  Which is a little odd, so far these different artists have had more than one that rings a bell.  "Party Crowd," from this same album, has 22.5 million streams, but I don't remember it.  

David Lee Murphy is from Illinois, but he moved to Nashville at 24 to seek a country music career.  He was spotted by a producer at a club, and got some writing work, but he wasn't signed to an actual record deal until he was 34.  He has co-written for lots of big name people - Reba McIntire, Doug Stone, Jason Aldean, Aaron Tippin, Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Keith Anderson, Blackberry Smoke, and others - and his first single ended up on the soundtrack for 8 Seconds before he ever put out an album.

Sophomore album Gettin' Out the Good Stuff was released in 1996, but none of the songs have much in the way of streaming numbers.  Similar story for 1997's We Can't All Be Angels and 2004's Tryin' To Get There.  2018's comeback - No Zip Code - has a track with Kenny Chesney that popped - 82.1 million streams for that one.  "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" is a bad song.

Gone is the pure sounds of a guy and his guitar making country music, replaced with generically terrible drum machines and terrible lyrics.  Which is probably what the label told him he needed to do to find popularity again, but it also kind of sucks to hear that milquetoast BS right after you hear "Dust on the Bottle."  

Hopefully he sticks to the classics next Spring, although I'd readily say that his back catalog doesn't grab me the same way that some of these other folks on the poster did.  Not terrible, just formula stuff plodding along.

Charlie Robison

One Liner: An old favorite, back from the dead, for more boozy fun

Wikipedia Genre: Country is what Wikipedia says, but he's more Texas County and Red Dirt.

Home: Bandera, Texas

Poster Position: small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  There was a time when I would have put Charlie up there in my top ten of artists that I wanted to hear on any given day.  The Life of the Party album landed right around the time I graduated from college, and that was right about the time that my interest in country music was at its apex.

After college, I moved to Dallas right when KHYI started broadcasting with a great mix of classic country and newer Texas-centric artists who were picking up the torch from Jerry Jeff and Robert Earl.  I don't know if they were the first to try that sort of programming move, but they were certainly the first that I heard.  I immediately got in to Bruce Robison ("Wrapped" should have been the first dance at my wedding, but I wasn't thinking straight), his brother Charlie Robison, Slaid Cleaves ("Broke Down" is a classic, with "Lydia" one of my favorites), and Chris Knight, and then started going back to some classics from Cash, LeDoux, Steve Earle, and Waylon Jennings.  It was an eye-opening time for me to realize the depth of great song-writing available in the country genre if you had a well-curated playlist provided to you.

And the classic, untouchable tune from that 1998 album is still classic and untouchable, an amazing lyrical tale of a slacker who isn't going very far but is pretty well okay with that.  "My Hometown," his biggest streamer at 30.1 million streams.

Even that video is classic.  Haha - they changed the lyrics!  Says they spent all their money on "shots" instead of "pot."  That is lame.

Not long after that album came out, I was at a music festival of sorts that was being held in the mansion from the TV show Dallas called Southfork Ranch.  KHYI put on a little music festival inside of the Southfork.  I have no recollection of who was there, and I'm certain that the Dixie Chicks were not playing, but I am certain that Charlie Robison was one of the headliners.  Well, Charlie was married to Emily Robison, the extremely attractive guitar and banjo player from the Dixie Chicks, and one of the guys I was with had the balls to go ask Emily to dance (the show was in a big ballroom with a dance floor included), during her husband's set, and she actually said yes and danced with him.  Legend.  

Charlie and Bruce are from Bandera, Texas, and are both badass songwriters in their own respective right.  Bruce has been covered by the Chicks, George Strait, and Faith Hill & Tim McGraw.  I thought that more people have covered Charlie songs, but it looks like those were songs that I thought Charlie wrote, but I just knew his version before someone else (like Kenny Chesney) then covered.  Like, also from that 1998 album, "Loving County" is a brutally perfect story of murder and consequences.  Just excellent songwriting.  "Barlight" is a little cheesy, but a good singalong anyway.  "Indianola" and "Sunset Boulevard" are good tunes.  The whole album is great, really.

2001's Step Right Up has a few other really good songs on it as well.  Personally, I love "The Wedding Song," a duet with Natalie Maines of The Chicks, because it is all about a wedding in suburban Seguin, and I was likewise married just outside of Seguin, Texas on the Guadalupe River.  Luckily no one played Bachman Turner Overdrive or served hot dogs at my wedding, but we were in that wheelhouse for sure.  "Desperate Times" is great, "John O'Reilly" is good, "Life of the Party" is solid.  I had kind of forgotten about some of these songs.  I will definitely say that the album opener, "Right Man for the Job," gets under my skin because of the droning quality of the chorus.  This has Kelly Willis instead of Natalie, and is live, but a great version of this tune.  

So cutting and rude, but still kind of cute.  "The freshman fifteen killed all your dates" is brutal.  Damn I love Kelly Willis' voice.  I wish she was on this poster!  His Wikipedia says that he really did play football at Texas State, which was derailed by a knee injury, and then moved to Austin and joined up with a handful of bands over the years before striking out on his own.

One more tune, this is his second-biggest streamer, which I suspect is because of people's holiday playlists.  From the album Good Times, from 2004, you get "New Years Day."  Just over 29 million streams.

Part of what makes this appealing is just the shambling, drunken, looseness of the whole sound.  Really sounds like he's your college buddy who is still just stumbling around trying to find a good time and make bad decisions along the way.  The last time I saw him was when I was living in Corpus Christi for a summer with my friend Tate.  We got tickets to see him in the little stage off to the side of the Executive Surf Club, which is an awesome venue, and Robison seemed drunk and belligerent throughout the show, which made it even more entertaining.  This is the kind of music that you can have a great time singing along to.

Several years ago, Charlie announced that he was permanently unable to sing.  Apparently, he had surgery, and because of resulting complications, he said that he was permanently unable to sing.  But now, four years later, he was apparently able to perform at a private party in June of this year, and has booked three shows in Seguin, near Tyler, and Dallas for the end of November.  I think I might actually be in Seguin on November 23.  Screw it, I just bought two tickets.  Let's gooooooo!

(and yes, I'd obviously go watch him play at this festival as well...)

Calder Allen

One Liner: Solid singer-songwriter type with chill tunes and a good pedigree

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but I'll go with Americana
Home: Austin

Poster Position: small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  This dude came to ACL in 2021, and as you can tell from the post that I wrote back then, he was not on anyone's radar at the time:

"We've reached the part of the poster where the band doesn't even have Spotify.  Not a good sign.  There is something called Calder the Band, but that doesn't seem anything like Calder Allen.  On YouTube, a search for Calder Allen brings up a dude who looks like he might still be in high school.  His two uploaded videos are a Spanish project and a video about Slope and Direct Variation, that must have been for a math class that I long ago forgot about.  Calder caught a nice fish one time.  I tried "Calder Allen musician," and got this video of two children singing in a church?

Not bad!  But nothing else on YouTube appears to reflect the sounds that this artist plans to make for us at ACL.  The internet tells me only this: "Calder Allen, who comes from a talented family: he's the grandson of Terry & Jo Harvey Allen, son of Bale Creek Allen, and nephew of Bukka Allen."  Okey doke!  Seems like, if he were so damn talented, that he'd have his music available on the Internet for people to hear!"

The Chronicle wrote about his debut at ACL, and it was obvious then that he had a musically famous family that other unknown ACL artists do not.  "Calder Allen debuted at last fall’s ACL Fest with an all-star band that included Charlie Sexton [Arc Angels, his own solo stuff], Martie Maguire [The Chicks!], Glenn Fukunaga [apparently Austin's premier bassist for 50 years], and his uncle Bukka Allen [has played with Terry Allen, Ian Moore, Joe Ely, Robert Earl Keen, Jack Ingram, Ryan Bingham, The Bodeans, Courtyard Hounds and Joe Walsh]."  I mean, his dad wrote "Amarillo Highway," so this dude is set up for success.

Well, now he has some music on Spotify for the world to hear.  All of it was released in 2022: Stone EP, Shine EP, Show Me The Way EP, and then the sole album The Game.  All of the songs that were on the EPs are also on the album, so I guess this was just a slow roll out of the singles.  And strangely, the top song sounds familiar.  Feels like something I hear on a TV show.  "Good Times" has 376k streams.

He's like an ad for Austin with his multiple Howler Brothers hats and shirts and Yeti gear and Continental Club shots.  He is literally wearing two Howler Brothers shirts at the same time in one of those shots.  I mean, I'd take the sponsorship money too!  His album makes me think of Ryan Bingham - low key musically and a solid, if unremarkable, voice.  Actually, I guess it is in the same vein as headliner Zach Bryan as well.  The second-most streamed tune is "Show Me The Way," with 158k streams.

I called his voice unremarkable up there, and that is probably true, but I also want to take it back.  It's a really nice voice - has a little bit of rough edge to it, while still sounding smooth and comforting.  After listening through all of his tunes today, I really enjoy it.  This guy is solid.

Midland

One Liner: Modern, good-looking purveyors of the sound of the rest of this poster

Wikipedia Genre: Neotraditional country, Texas country

Home: Dripping Springs, Texas

Poster Position: LARGE Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  This is weird.  They are a modern band, like their first album was in 2017, but it really feels like these could be Brooks & Dunn albums that I never heard back in 1995.  And because I don't think I've ever heard an entire Brooks & Dunn album before, that situation could be very plausible.  Mildly rockin', lots of harmonies, cheesy lyrics - it hits all of the notes that I would expect from the old Nashville style country of the 90's.  Like, I'm thinking late career George Strait, and all of the guys who were trying to copy him to launch theur careers.  The song titles - "Drinkin' Problem," "Longneck Way To Go," "Cheatin' Songs," etc., and the very intentionally kitschy album covers go right there as well.

Of interest to likely no one, Wikipedia lists 20 states as having a Midland.  Midland, Texas is half of the oil patch of Midland/Odessa that has gone boom and bust many times over the years, and was depicted in Friday Night Lights.  This band has nothing to do with that place (that I can discern), but the members claim it was named after a Dwight Yoakum song.  Instead, the group claims Dripping Springs, right outside of Austin, as home.  The guys actually met originally in L.A., where some of them were already in other bands.  Two of the members formed a band and the third left town, but then they hooked back up in Jackson Hole for the bass player's wedding.  They jammed for a week and decided to try writing some songs, and went to a studio in El Paso.  After that clicked, the other two moved their families to the Dirty Drip.  

Of interest to many, probably, is that the lead singer has also been an actor and a model for Dior and other major brands.  I have never heard of any of the things he acted in except for one of the CSI shows.  His wife founded the clothing company Outdoor Voices.  The bassist directed several of Bruno Mars' music videos (?!?!).

Four albums - 2017's On the Rocks, 2019's Let It Roll, 2021's The Sonic Ranch, and 2022's The Last Resort: Greetings From.  Which is a weird album title?  You can hear an actual progression through the albums, which I think is kind of fun.  The first two, which boast the majority of their most popular songs, are the ones that sound like what I have described up above.  But then Sonic Ranch (which is named after the studio in El Paso where they first made music together) has a more Texas country/Americana vibe to it.  And that new album comes with a different sound as well.  Still generally the same, but it angles more towards conventional rock now as well.  Like, "King of Saturday Night" sounds like they were listening to "Takin' Care of Business" and started a jam session.  "Paycheck to Paycheck" has a Skynryd-lite feel.  I think Sonic Ranch is my favorite of the bunch, even though none of those songs make their top ten most popular tunes.

Let's get some tunes going.  Their most popular, by a large margin, is "Drinkin' Problem" from the debut album.  169.6 million streams.

Maybe someone out there really knows what Brooks & Dunn sounds like, but this really feels like the same thing I think of when I think of them.  Harmonies, soft-focus lite rock, some piano, a hard rim shot to keep the two-steppin' time, and lyrics about being broken hearted.  It is almost yacht rock, or the Eagles, just with more steel guitar.  Their second- and third-most streamed tracks are also from that debut album.  From the second disc, the top track is "Cheatin' Songs," with 27.5 million streams.

Maybe someone out there really knows what Brooks & Dunn sounds like, but this really feels like the same thing I think of when I think of them.  Harmonies, soft-focus lite rock, some piano, a hard rim shot to keep the two-steppin' time, and lyrics about being broken hearted.  One interesting thing to me about this band is that they are listed on the poster as the second artists on Saturday, so they are ostensibly a big act.  I don't know them at all, and their streaming numbers aren't that big.  They must have a cult following or something...

Their top song from Sonic Ranch is "Cowgirl Blues," with only 3.3 million streams.

Yeah, that is definitely my favorite of these four albums.  Which is kind of funny, but also makes sense, that I would like the least popular one.  Oh wow.  The end of that video shows a massive crowd for them.  Yeah, they must have a cult that thinks they're the stuff.  The top track from the new album is "Sunrise Tells the Story," with 16.7 million streams.

He looks like Christian Bale in that military uniform.  And also, that tune being the popular one shot a hole in my claim that this new album is less country and more rock, as that song is pretty classically just like those older tunes.

I'm not in love with the majority of this, but I'm not sure a modern take on cheesy country is really aimed at me.  From reading another article about them, it sounds like they (like so many other young bands) got derailed by COVID and the lockdowns.  The first two albums had been big successes, they were opening for bigger acts on tour, got some Grammy nods, some late-night shows, magazine covers, etc.  They were touring Europe at the time of the lockdowns, and had to rush home to avoid getting stuck over there.  So, an inopportune shutdown, but now is finally their moment.  If the schedule shook out the right way, I'd go see it just to see what the hype is all about.

Disko Cowboy

One Liner: DJ with a western flair, I suppose.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia.
Home: Austin!

Small Type 

Saturday

Thoughts:  This thing has come to ACL for a few years now, and so I'm just re-purposing my review from that.  

"Well, crap.  I just spent all day listening to Disco Cowboy on Spotify, and only now do I realize that the spelling matters.  Which is annoying because when I searched (with the "k") on Spotify, it brought me to the one with the "c," and even shows her as part of the ACL lineup in the upcoming shows section.  WHICH IS A LIE!

But, I'll admit, that I kinda like Disco Cowboy.  Kind of a Soccer Mommy vibe going on there, if a little less exciting.

Instead, this is something else that is maybe called vinyl ranch and maybe called Disko Cowboy, and either way, they do not have original music to listen to on Spotify.  If you go to their Spotify profile, it is just playlists of other people's tunes, like SEX AND THE COUNTRY, with The Pointer Sisters followed by Bobby Gentry and Deana Carter.  So, I guess this is just going to be a DJ set of kitschy music.

There is a photo on this website if you want to see a man in weird cowboy garb.  https://www.diskocowboy.com/

Good luck and godspeed."

T-Pain

One Liner: The King of Auto-Tune

Wikipedia Genre: hip hop, R&B, pop rap

Home: Tallahassee

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Fascinating decision here to add in T-Pain in the midst of this lineup of classic 90's Nashville country and a few newer country/Americana artists.  I know that there is some large level of cross-over between country fans and rap fans, but of all the rappers that could have been included on this poster, it is T-Pain?  Wouldn't Bubba Sparxxx or that big ass dude from Big & Rich make more sense?  Cowboy Troy!  I guess most of the rappers who have appeared in major crossover hits are too big for this festival - they're not bringing in Lil Nas X, or Nelly, or Ludacris.  Just an odd juxtaposition for an otherwise pretty streamlined festival lineup.

And also, I don't know squat about T-Pain.  Like at all.  He's more of a punch line to me, just anytime someone has their Auto-Tune cranked to a million, then it's a T-Pain thing.  Which is sort of too bad, because he seems like a nice dude who is kind of funny.  Like, check out his Tiny Desk show!

Wonderful voice - why does he always shaft it up with the effects???  But I could not name you a single song.  I remember his parts on other people's songs, like Lonely Island's "I'm on a Boat!" but just not any of his own.  And now that I actually listen to him for a while, it dawns on me that he's actually not really a rapper.  He's just an auto-tuned R&B singer.  Even weirder that he's on this lineup.

Faheem Rashad Najm is originally from Tallahassee, Florida.  He first popped off in 2005 with his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanga.  Since then he has released five more albums, but his main source of fame and success has been as a feature on others' songs.  FloRida's "Low" has been certified diamond.  Grammy Awards for Kanye's "Good Life" and Jamie Foxx's "Blame It."  Wikipedia says that for a time in 2007, he was featured on four of the top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  Impressive.  His stage name is short for Tallahassee Pain, and he apparently chose that because of his hard upbringing in that town.  He was raised in a Muslim household, but apparently didn't care much about religion.  For a short while he was in the group Nappy Headz, but by the time of his first album he was back to being solo.

He has a TON more streams than most of the Nashville folks I have been listening to so far.  Like, Doug Stone's most streamed tune had 12 million, this guy crushes that.  His top two songs are from 2007's Epiphany - "Buy U a Drank" (496.4 million) and "Bartender" (258.4 million).  Here is that top track, featuring Yung Joc.

Really weird.  I 100% don't think I have ever heard that song before in my life.  His face looks as Auto-tuned as his voice.  Nothing special to me, but as I have established in the past, I am not an R&B guy.  

He has been married to his wife since 2003, and they have three kids, named: Lyriq, Muziq, and Kaydnz Kodah.  He is a big gamer, and I've seen some of his most popular stuff from Twitch streams on YouTube, and they are pretty funny.

And his hot ones episode is cracking me up too.

Not his second-most streamed, but I want to give you this other one because the name rules.  "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" features Mike Jones and has 144.3 million streams.

Kinda funny, but just really not a good song.  "get her over to my crib and do the night thing."  Haha, Mike Jones and his dumb phone number thing.  That is a weak verse.

Yeah, not really my thing!  After a while of just hearing purely Auto-Tune squawking, it really gets painful.  I spent most of today listening to that guy, and I just had to pull the plug and move on.  I hope that loads of people go see this, and he is up against my favorite thing, and I can just go watch that other show by myself while everyone else gets blasted with AutoTune.

Doug Stone

One Liner: Mr. Sensitive!

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Marietta, GA)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Definitely haven't heard of this one.  The "I'd Be Better Off (in a Pine Box)" song sounds a little familiar, but I definitely don't know it.  I searched for "Why Didn't I Think of That," because my brain tells me that George Strait sang that song.  Apparently not, but I want for you to know what Wikipedia says about this song: "The song's narrator is a man who did not treat his lady right, so he watches another man treat his lady right."  That stilted delivery makes me laugh.

Douglas Jackson Brooks is 66 years old, and has two platinum albums, twenty-six charted singles (including eight number 1's), and is apparently known for his frequent recording of ballads.  His mom was also a country singer, and he got to open for Loretta Lynn at age 7.  He was discovered while singing at a VFW hall, and he chose to record under the name Doug Stone to avoid any confusion with Garth Brooks.  Another good nugget from Wikipedia: "Zell Miller, author of They Heard Georgia Singing, wrote that Stone has "established himself as a mellow country crooner who is known as 'Mr. Sensitive'" and "the Dean Martin of country music because of his unique flair for communicating the fragility of a broken heart with his delicate baritone voice and laid-back style." "

11 albums, but it sure looks like the hot stuff was back in 1990 - 1992, and then he's been meandering around in the wilderness ever since.  Spotify is fun with his music, in that the first two albums listen in his discography are Greatest Hits and Super Hits.  he already had a pile of his before his first album!  But his top streamers are from his eponymous album from 1990, and then his 1992 third album From the Heart.  After that, he never gets any sort of major stream count at all.  Let's hear a few tunes from Mr. Sensitive!  "Why Didn't I Think Of That" with 12 million streams.

I know that most of the artists on this poster could easily be called formulaic, but that is exactly what comes to my mind as I listen to this guy.  Definitely feels like a dude with a really nice voice was handed some lyrics and a backing band and told to make magic.  He's very soft in these, it's bordering on some yacht rock, that just happens to have steel guitar and fiddles.  "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)" with 8.7 million streams.

That really is a good song, as far as sad sack songs of depression go.  I appreciate that he's actually from Georgia, when he is singing about going back to Georgia.  Way to ruin your ex's freaking wedding day too!  Jerk!  But that is a very good song.  I like it.

This is not a show that I would prioritize during my Saturday afternoon.  I like some of it, but his overall schtick isn't as appealing, and I have zero nostalgia points for this either.

Nikki Lane

One Liner: "First Lady of Outlaw Country"

Wikipedia Genre: Outlaw country, Americana

Home: Nashville (but originally from Greenville, SC)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Lane came to ACL in 2014, and I actually wrote a review of her back then, among some of my first ever reviews on this blog.  I'll let you read that gem before we look at some more recent things:

"You know what, actually pretty damn good.  Does for old school country women what Amy Winehouse did for old school soul.  Reverb-heavy rockabilly with a slightly modified singing voice.  Most popular song on Spotify is "Gone Gone Gone."  

Love the way the ACL lineups can hide a solid gem 23 lines down in the poster.  Never heard of this girl at all, and yet she is awesome.  That song above was from her first album, but she just released a new one in 2014 that was produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.  It is an awesome sound - kind of like a Neko Case meets Loretta Lynn thing going on.  Check her out on Spotify and enjoy."

Man, I used to be a man of few words in these reviews!  Her top track on Spotify these days is actually a Lana Del Rey song that she appears on.  Her third most popular track is a Dropkick Murphys tune.  She kind of sounds like a singer on one of the songs from a soundtrack.  Natural Born Killers?  Pulp Fiction?  Her top song is actually from that 2014 album that I mentioned above, All Or Nothin', which was produced by Dan Auerbach.  This is "Right Time," with 10.9 million streams.

That abusive boyfriend kinda looks like Ben Burgess, who is also on this poster.  But yeah, a good little rockabilly kind of tune with her raspy voice leading the way.

She was born in South Carolina, and dropped out of high school before moving to LA and then New York City.  She was apparently doing some fashion design, but then a country musician broke up with her, and that experience inspired her to write.  She moved to Nashville and started churning out the jams.  The comparison discussed on Wikipedia is to Wanda Jackson (and I have to admit she's not on my radar) and she has been referred to as the First Lady of Outlaw Country.  Tight!

2017's Highway Queen has two tunes with more than 5 million streams.  "Send the Sun" tops out at 6.2 million.

There is the one that sounds like the Pulp Fiction song.  What was that song?  There it is - Maria McKee singing "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)."  After that album, nothing until this year when Nikki released 2022's Denim & Diamonds.  In my mind, I figured that I had not heard any of these tunes, but to the contrary, the top track is a Black Key-esque burner they've been playing on the radio recently.  "First High" with just over a million streams.

Tight groove in there - I dig it.  And you can almost see boobs!  Woohoo!  Although, now that I read about the album, this was not a Dan Auerbach joint, but was instead produced by Josh Homme of the Queens of the Stone Age.  Who I also think rules!  Nikki has some great taste in collaborators!  "Born Tough" has a drum track that sounds like some recent QOTSA.  I've heard it a few more times - Sun Radio is playing it in Austin - and it makes me want to wreck shit.  Good stuff!

I'd absolutely check her show out.  I would actually just listen to this music, without this festival leading me here.  I'm going to keep her new album in my queue.  Feels like more of a rock show than a traditional country show, which will always appeal to me!

Alana Springsteen

One Liner: Rising star with pop-forward "country" tunes that remind me of Taylor Swift.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but Pop Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Virginia Beach, VA)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  I mean, the name is what brings immediate attention, right?  She is not actually related to the Boss, but one story I read about her showed that she has used that suspected connection as part of her branding.  "When she was 14, a sign reading “SPRINGSTEEN CONCERT” was put in front of the Baptist church where her grandfather was senior pastor. Sure, it might’ve given off the wrong impression, but as Pastor Les Smith put it in a 2015 Inside Business article about his granddaughter, “of course you want people to come.” "  THAT IS CALLED LYING, PASTOR SMITH, AND GOD DOES NOT LIKE LYING!  Unbelievable.  Sinner.

She was discovered through singing the National Anthem at progressively larger sporting events, culminating in a performance at Wrigley Field that got her noticed by the right folks, and a family move to Nashville soon thereafter.  By 14, she had performed/written with something called Sugarland and had been close on some network music deals.  Since then, she has been a rising star, and just recently got to make her Grand Ol' Opry debut on her 22nd birthday, October 18.

I'd be hard pressed to call this stuff country music.  Very much pop forward more than straight country.  Like, the fourth song in her top ten is just an Auto-tuned pop duet with someone named Roman Alexander.  I guess as Taylor Swift continues to blur the lines between country and pop it is only natural for others to follow along.  And actually, that is what I hear on some of these tunes - "Always Gonna Love You" very much sounds like some older TayTay.  "Trust Issues" as well, as least before the chorus.  And that song is much better than some of these other spots.  Other tunes throw in some steel guitar, or banjo, but at their core these songs do not make me think of country music.  They make me think of pop.  But she has a good voice, and I overall don't hate it.

Two albums - 2021's History of Breaking Up (Part One), and the shockingly named History of Breaking Up (Part Two) from 2022.  Her top streamer overall is the 2019 single I mentioned earlier, "Always Gonna Love You."  11 million streams.

TayTay, right?  C'mon.  Ew, why is that piano full of a white and milky substance?  I know I should drop it, but one thing that is never mentioned in these articles is what her real name is or was.  She admits that she isn't kin to Bruce, but is her real last name Smith like her grandad and the new surname is solely to grab interest?  I've run through many articles by now and no one will say.  I don't believe this is her real last name.

The second most-popular track is thankfully not "Zero Trucks," which is a play on the curse word that rhymes with Trucks, and is instead a different playfully titled tune, "Me Myself and Why," with 9.9 million streams.

I guess this is also the Maren Morris sound as well, where very little about her top songs sounds like a traditional country sound and is more like lite rock with confessional lyrics.  Catchy tune though, I can definitely see her rising up the ranks of country folks now that she's getting her shot post-pandemic.  I'm going to continue being annoyed that no reporter is asking her the hard questions about her fake name and lying grandpa, but I could see this being a fun show.

Jo Dee Messina

One Liner: "I'm Alright is a really nice song."  I wish I had more to say about her?

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Holliston, Massachusetts)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  This one missed me entirely back in the day.  Now that I've listened to it, a few songs sound familiar, but this was definitely never something that I followed or bought.  

Her real name is even Jo Dee Marie Messina.  I like it.  She's currently 52, and popped in 1996 with a single from her self-titled debut album.  Since then, she's been nominated for Grammys, charted six number one singles on the Billboard country charts, and been certified gold and platinum multiple times.  At one time, she was the first female country artist with three multiple-week number-one songs from the same album.  That was probably her second album.  But that first single is still her most popular and most streamed, "Heads Carolina, Tails California."  66.1 million streams, and I don't remember it at all.

Very wholesome image there, the world switched things up later when the lady country singers were all sexy and shoved into skin-tight clothes.  And also, a pretty good song!  Nothing wrong with a good old "let's get outta here" tune.

By age 16, she was performing in clubs with her brother and sister playing in the band.  But after a while, she realized that Nashville was the place to make it, and moved down at age 19.  She won a talent show, which translated to a radio show gig, which caught the attention of a producer who helped her make a demo.  Through some contacts, Tim McGraw helped her get signed to his label.

Her second album from 1998 appears to be the big one, with four songs on there among her most streamed tunes.  The title song, "I'm Alright," definitely sounded familiar, that chorus is pretty memorable and so I know I've heard it before.  50.8 million streams.

There are those tight leather pants and form fitting clothes I expected in the first video.  The sunglasses in that video are amazingly awful.  But again, a pretty good song!  Nothing wrong with a good old "life is good and I'm okay!" song.  "Bye-Bye" has a little N'Sync flavor to it.  Her cover of "Silver Thunderbird" is good.

After that, we've got a 2000 album with a popular Tim McGraw track on it, a 2002 Christmas album, a greatest hits, a 2005 album without any major hits (and a cover that is making me think of, like Jessica Simpson or some other mediocre pop starlet), a 2010 album without any stream counts over a million, another 2010 album with a 5.9 million streamer on it but nothing else, and then her most recent album.  I gave her most recent album, 2014's Me, a good shot here, and I can't say I much care for it.  She funded it through Kickstarter, of all things.  It is mostly fine, just generic stuff.  "Peace Sign" is a bad song with lyrics such as: "one finger shy of a peaace siiign!" and "you put the f u in fun."  That is jenky.

One other factoid, non-musical division, is that she was featured on the fourth season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

But, despite an apparent waning popularity in recent years, those old school songs are pure fun.  Feels like the kind of good times music to add to a playlist for exclusive use in a convertible on nice days.

Clay Walker

One Liner: Probably my favorite of the 90's rockin' Nashville stars on this poster

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Vidor!)

Poster Position: Large Type 
Sunday.

Thoughts:  A good chunk of this will actually have nothing at all to do with Clay Walker, but that is just how it is going to be for you.  If you just want to know the general stats about the guy, then you can scroll past the random black and white photograph below, and just find the parts about his successful songs and faded career.  But for a long time, Clay Walker has meant more to me than just the hits.

Not long after my 18th birthday, I moved to Sherman, Texas and the Baker dormitory on the campus of Austin College (Land of Knowledge).  I lived with my childhood best friend, Cary.  His dad was my dad's big brother in their fraternity, back in the 60's, also at Austin College.  Cary had already moved into the dorm room, as he was a soccer player and their intense practice schedule had already kicked in over the summer.  I showed up alone, my bright red Ford Ranger stuffed to the top of the bed with everything I thought would be important for college.  Cary was bald, his head shaved by the upper-classmen for some low-key hazing.

AC was a tiny school.  Still is.  About half the size of my high school.  So, when my friends who had ended up at Texas or A&M were talking about the complicated enrollment process to navigate to sign up for their classes, the Austin College experience was much more old school.  After discussing classes with a faculty advisor, we went to the gym, in person, to scurry around to the different tables situated around the edges of the shiny, wooden basketball court to snag class spots.  A mass of confused freshman, nervously glancing around the room for too-small signage, hoping to get all of the classes they needed for their freshly chosen majors.

Having my best friend around meant that I hadn't met many of the other folks at the school yet, we had the luxury of spending that first weekend together without any awkward attempts at new friends.  But a handful of the guys from Baker dorm ended up walking over to the sign-up festival together, and I got to chatting with a few of the guys who were going to live on my hall.  One of them was named Tate Gorman.  After only a few moments of introductory small talk, we discovered that we had both actually grown up on the same street.  Well, he lived there part time with his father, and then part time with his mother in Harker Heights, Texas, but nonetheless I had driven by his house thousands of times going between home and church.  We knew some of the same people, had eaten at the same restaurants, been to many of the same places.  And from that small slice of connection, a great friendship arose.  

There was very little to do in Sherman, Texas in 1994.  I expect that statement still holds true today, but I couldn't honestly say.  We had lots of time on our hands, but Tate had a desktop computer.  This fact will not sound interesting or novel to anyone reading this who is younger than me, but at the time, he was kind of big time.  And on that computer, he had a super jenky ass game called Betrayal at Krondor.  I lovingly call it "jenky ass," just because my recollection of the graphics and gameplay mechanics is that it left much to be desired, even at that time.  But, the cool thing that it had in spades was a series of slightly complicated puzzles that had to be solved in order to open treasure chests.  I love little puzzles like that, and so Tate offered to let me play one time, and then that became a sort of post-lunch ritual.  He would pack in a massive dip of snuff and sit off to the side of me, and I would fire up Krondor to play for a while.  Tate would help with the puzzles and then just kind of generally goof on the game as I otherwise played.  And our soundtrack to those times was, to my recollection, almost exclusively Clay Walker's 1993 album Clay Walker and George Strait's 1992 soundtrack for the movie Pure Country.

I don't know if your brain works this way, but there are a number of songs that absolutely, positively yank me right back to the place and time and activity that I was doing when they became embedded in my brain.  The songs from Fables of the Reconstruction take me to my great-grandmother's back bedroom, my discman connected to garbage, tinny speakers, as I sweated and read stacks of library books.  Living Colour's Time's Up brings me back to my childhood bedroom, playing The Legend of Zelda for hours after I finally got a long-awaited Nintendo.  Doggystyle makes me think of driving a certain section of South Lamar in high school.  August and Everything After takes me to a lacrosse trip to San Francisco.  Many songs bring me back to summer camp with such immediacy and clarity that it usually makes me sad.  But just the opening guitar riff of "Dreaming With My Eyes Wide Open" is all it takes to transport me back to the second floor of Baker dorm, at Tate's desk, enjoying some afternoon down time with my good friend.

For years after that, we'd shift into other music.  I'll probably mention Tate when I write about Charlie Robison.  When I lived with Tate in Corpus Christi for a summer we listened to a lot of Pete Yorn.  He'd make fun of my love for Bjork or rap or anything heavier in the rock vein than grunge.  Any sort of hard music and he'd throw up devil horns and squawk a goofy note to make fun of me for liking it.  I came to college with very little knowledge of country music, other than a burgeoning appreciation for the things that got heavy play at summer camp - Robert Earl, Jerry Jeff, Alison Kraus, George Strait, Bob Wills - but after a few years of Country Music 101 with Tate I had learned a much deeper appreciation for several strands of the country music thread.  But both of us always knew that we could get the other one pumped up and singing along if we played some classic Clay Walker.

We did a ton together after college.  A few trips to Mexico. The Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  A family trip to New Mexico. Couples' trips to the beach, the lake, or Fredericksburg.  Lots of weddings and baby showers and homecomings.  He was a fiercely protective friend at times, and a selfish bastard at other times.  We didn't keep in as close of touch as I would have liked sometimes, but such is the world of marriages and careers and kids and all of the above.

Unfortunately for the world, Tate died this year.  Cancer in his lymph nodes.  Freaking awful, leaving behind a wife, three kids, and his parents.  But while he was hoping that he was improving on yet another experimental treatment, bits and pieces of him started to give out and he had to go to hospice.  Just before he did, Tate got the bad news and sent a text that I should call him as soon as I could.  He didn't answer when I called, so I just ditched work and hauled ass for Dallas right then.  Seeing him, in all honesty, sucked.  He looked like crap and was in constant pain.  I hated it.  Back in the day, one of the hallmarks of a night out with Tate would always be the bruises on your bicep where he had repeatedly socked you in the arm.  You'd wake up the day after a wedding or something, feel your arm, and go "oh, yeah, Tate."  I so wanted for him to be able to get up, go get a bite to eat, and sock me in the arm while he said something politically incorrect.  But instead, we talked about generally benign things for a few hours, he finally got the heavy-duty pain meds he needed, I gave him an awkward side hug, and then I never saw him again.

But you're here for actual Clay Walker takes, aren't you?  My bad.  A maudlin trip down my memory lane probably wasn't you expected today!  But if you went down that road with me for a bit, I'll just give you a heartfelt PSA to check in on the folks you love and give them some time when you can.  Anyway, let's talk about my main man Ernest.  

Ernest Clayton Walker is 53, and was born in Vidor, Texas.  Like Tracy Byrd!  That is weird.  All four of his first four albums reached platinum status, and he's had six number one singles.  This snippet from Wikipedia is awesome: "After leaving his shift as nighttime desk clerk at a Super 8 Motel, he stopped at a local radio station to deliver a tape of a song that he had written. Although the morning disc jockey told him that the station's policies prohibited playing self-submitted tapes, he played Walker's song and said that it was "too good to pass up.""

And for good reason, because that first album rules.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  I fully understand that some of the lyrics on this are godawful stuff.  "What's that?  I hear angels singin', tellin' me to make my move.  Listen to it, their voice is ringin' baby, if you feel it, get in the groove!"  That is from the most streamed song on his debut album, "What's It To You," and I know every dumb word.  GET IN THE GROOVE!  YEEHAW!  And yet, because of my history with this guy and these songs, I'll still belt those dumb ass words out with everyone else.  Off of that first album, it is the same with "Live Until I Die," "Next Step in Love," "Where Do I Fit in the Picture," and "Dreaming With My Eyes Open."  Also funny, the way that I know the words to these songs although I probably haven't listened to them in years.  Here is that most-streamed tune from this album, "What's It To You."  18.4 million streams.

Cringe factor is on 11 right there, but I give zero damns about it.  When he growls out the word "riiiiiide" it still makes me grin every time.  Tate and I both sang in the choir in high school, something we would both laugh about in college, and so he would find great pleasure in being proper as he sang these songs.

After that debut album, his next top song in my mind is the title song from If I Could Make a Living, with 43.9 million streams.

Again, the lyrics are not going to compete with a John Prine song or anything, but if you're looking for some catchy-as-hell pop country with a nice set of fiddles and steel guitar, you're getting it right here.  Somewhat surprisingly though, his top track is one I've never heard of.  "She Won't Be Lonely Long," the title track to a 2010 album, that has over 70 million streams.

That one is new to me, but it pretty much sounds just like the old ones.  Semi-formulaic and lightly rockin'.  Not too interesting there.

Without a doubt, I'd go watch his show.  Rest in Peace to the Big Lug.