{"id":3837,"date":"2021-01-01T08:24:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T08:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=3837"},"modified":"2021-01-01T08:24:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T08:24:09","slug":"happy-new-year-new-music-new-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2021\/01\/01\/happy-new-year-new-music-new-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY NEW YEAR, NEW MUSIC, NEW FRIENDS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HAPPY NEW YEAR, NEW MUSIC, NEW FRIENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sites like Songfacts and, especially Paste on-line, remind me that there has been life after those old John Stewart songs I still sing, folk and country beyond Townes and that there are still kids out there who, to coin Guy Clark, prefer to play it on Picasso\u00b4s Mandolin. Journalists like Ellen Johnson and Geoffrey Himes always impress me with their wonderful articles. Ellen and the excellent staff writers at Paste on-line magazine recently posted their round up of the ten \u00b4best\u00b4country albums of the year at<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.pastemagazine.com\/music\/best-albums\/best-country-albums-2020\/?utm_source=PMNTNL&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201221<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like everything else in 2020, country music was full of unexpected moments\u2014many of them painful. Even before the coronavirus pandemic started spreading wide in the U.S. and forcing shutdowns, Nashville, Tennessee\u2014country music\u2019s epicentre\u2014was fighting its own share of battles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tornado tore through The Music City in the first week of March, causing severe damage to the East Nashville neighbourhood, where many country artists live and work. Even when engulfed by damage and sickness, the country community rallied. Even when they lost some of the greatest among them, like Kenny Rogers, John Prine, and Charley Pride, (commemorations by Sidetracks & Detours remain available in our archives) country musicians found the strength to stay engaged with fans (if only through live streams and zooms etc), fight for much-needed social change and share some truly stellar records in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After telling us all that, the writers at Paste opened their list by genererously shining a light on artists on the long-list they had whittled down, which included: Lori McKenna, Kathleen Edwards, Sam Hunt, Ashley Ray, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town, Lucinda Williams, Mickey Guyton, Margo Price, John Moreland, The Secret Sisters and so many other talented women and men who wrote and sung their hearts out, even when tours stopped and Nashville\u2019s lights went out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were also plenty of exceptional Americana and country-adjacent records that probably deserve a list of their own, like Lilly Hiatt\u2019s Walking Proof<\/em>, Waxahatchee\u2019s Saint Cloud<\/em>, Katie Pruitt\u2019s Expectations<\/em>, Courtney Marie Andrews\u2019 Old Flowers<\/em> … and the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This trimmed down list, though, embraced the ten \u00b4core country\u00b4 albums that stuck with Paste the most, and followed their writers around until they pleaded that we, too.  listen a little closer and you can hear Paste\u2019s Best Country Albums of 2020 playlist on Spotify <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below we repeat what Paste had to say about each album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cam: The Otherside<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cam<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We waited a long time for Cam to release The Otherside, the follow-up to her 2015 debut Untamed. The fiery singer\/songwriter first flashed on my radar with her 2017 single Diane, a tale of two infidelities that also appears on The Otherside. Diane is the descendant of Dixie Chicks fables and Shania Twain\u2019s girl power anthems, but it\u2019s also something entirely new, and I\u2019ve been eager to hear more ever since. Cam, ne\u00e9 Camaron Ochs, does not disappoint on The Otherside, a pop-country, radio-ready costume piece that is begging to be displayed live on stage. While we\u2019ll have to wait a bit longer for a Cam tour, there\u2019s plenty to keep us entertained in the meantime in the form of these eleven songs, some of which were co-written or produced by pop forces like Jack Antonoff, Harry Styles and Sam Smith. There\u2019s the heartfelt opener Redwood Tree, disco-infused title track and the risk-it-all love story set against a doomsday backdrop in Till There\u2019s Nothing Left. She\u2019s one half of a stylish couple on Classic and a somber counsel on Girl Like Me, where she details her personal journey to success in the crazed country eco-system. In all, The Otherside is further proof that the spunky Cam can do whatever she wants\u2014and it would do us well to pay attention. \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chicks: <\/strong>Gaslighter<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Chicks<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Chicks (hey, a band I\u00b4ve known for a long time)<\/em> have never tolerated liars, cheaters or scoundrels. They coaxed dirty secrets from their lovers\u2019 mouths on Let \u2018Er Rip, promising strength in the face of the truth. In another case, the offender in question was such a scumbag they plotted his murder<\/a>. In 2006, on their most recent album Taking The Long Way, they still weren\u2019t ready to make nice<\/a>. While they\u2019re famous for romantic songs like Cowboy Take Me Away and hopeful ballads like Wide Open Spaces, Natalie Maines, Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Strayer have always been tough as nails. So it should come as no surprise that the band is consistently resilient on their relentless fifth LP  Gaslighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, Gaslighter is powerfully split between the band who were once the Dixie Chicks and who are now The Chicks. Old demons dance alongside new loves. Meanwhile, Natalie, Emily and Martie shout from the mountaintops their political opinions, cries for justice and messages of support on behalf of abused women everywhere, all to the tune of polished, country-pop gold (in part thanks to the production savvy of Jack Antonoff). \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandy Clark: Your Life Is a Record<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Brandy Clark<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Six-time Grammy nominee and widely-respected country songwriter Brandy Clark (make that two artists known to your reliable Sidetracks & Detours guide !)<\/em> is back with an album of her own stories. Clark has collaborated on songs for Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town and more throughout her career, but it\u2019s rare to hear her solo work.\u00a0Your Life is a Record\u00a0is Clark\u2019s third solo LP, following 2016\u2019s\u00a0Big Day in a Small Town\u00a0and 2013\u2019s\u00a012 Stories, one of\u00a0our favorite country albums of the decade<\/a>. It\u2019s mature and wise\u2014not the pickup truck anthems you might hear on the radio.\u00a0Your Life is a Record\u00a0is a moving collection of eleven songs sung and written by a woman who has lived a lot of life in her forty four years. The characters in these stories are empathetic (I\u2019ll Be The Sad Song), innovative (yet forlorn), on the brilliantly sad Pawn Shop and ever-evolving Who You Thought I Was. But they\u2019re far from perfect, which is what makes this\u00a0Record\u00a0so real and relatable.\u00a0\u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caylee Hammack: <\/strong>If It Wasn\u2019t For You<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Caylee Hammack\u2019s debut album begins with a good scolding. \u00b4You should\u2019ve never come over,\u00b4 she exclaims. \u00b4You should\u2019ve left early and kept your hands to yourself \/ You knew better \/ You should\u2019ve never promised me bliss if you couldn\u2019t keep it.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stand back\u2014she\u2019s breathing fire. But as the album opener, titled Just Friends, continues, it becomes clear that the issues in this relationship weren\u2019t entirely to blame on the handsy guy. Hammack continues, \u00b4I should\u2019ve listened to my mama \/ And not let you in my head \/ I should\u2019ve told ya that I loved ya \/ But not let you in my bed.\u00b4 Her predicament is a familiar one to anybody who hustled into a relationship with a friend too quickly. The 26-year-old Hammack wrote or co-wrote and produced all thirteen tracks on If It Wasn\u2019t For You, her debut album released earlier last month, and the Georgia native peels back the curtain on everything from failed friends-with-benefits arrangements and redhead stereotypes to existential woes and family issues (namely on Family Tree, which is akin to Kacey Musgraves\u2019 Family Is Family). \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: <\/strong>Reunions<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jason Isbell<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jason Isbell (that\u00b4s three names recognised now and we have even featured Jason in our Sidetracks & Detours pages in the past<\/em>) isn\u2019t the kind of guy you\u2019d think of as haunted, but he\u2019s surrounded by ghosts on his new album. Some of them are the literal shades of people he (or his narrators) once knew who are gone now. Others are figurative: past selves, maybe, lingering in the shadows that memory casts. Together, they\u2019re the spirits that constitute Reunions, Isbell\u2019s latest LP with his band The 400 Unit, and the follow-up to his 2017 release The Nashville Sound<\/a>. It\u2019s not surprising that Isbell would find himself in the company of ghosts. It\u2019s a function of getting older and realizing how much you, and the world around you, have changed over time, of discovering that parts of life that once loomed large in your mind aren\u2019t as big you seem to remember. Isbell turned 41 this year, young enough that his formative years still seem closer than they really are, and old enough for the Alabama-born singer to have discovered that taking the longer view helps ease the sting of all those hard-learned lessons that can pile up in early adulthood. That is, if you\u2019re lucky enough to come through it with your wits intact and with enough perspective to see the journey as something more than a bumpy ride over rough terrain. Isbell has both smarts and perspective, and each seems to increase a little bit more from one album to the next. He\u2019s always been an empathetic songwriter with a distinctive willingness to see the world from a point of view other than his own. Like any good storyteller, Isbell creates characters, and he has a storyteller\u2019s ability to bring them to life by infusing them with enough of his own experiences, be it sobriety or fatherhood, to make their struggles and small triumphs resonate. \u2014Eric R. Danton<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruston Kelly: <\/strong>Shape & Destroy<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ruston Kelly<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Shape & Destroy is not the first time Ruston Kelly\u2019s journey has been captured in song. His debut\u20142018\u2019s Dying Star\u2014showcased his considerable melodic gifts and fearless honesty as it explored Kelly\u2019s trip to and from rock bottom. It\u2019s an album that\u2019s equal parts harrowing and heartening, and it pointed the way for Kelly to deliver on his enormous promise as an artist. Shape & Destroy finds him on the right path, but not yet out of the woods. Nowhere is this more clear than in two back-to-back songs\u2014Alive and Changes\u2014that examine Kelly\u2019s journey from two very different perspectives. \u00b4Looking at the flowers coming up from the ground through all of the rubble of everything that I tore down,\u00b4 he sings in Alive, a slow-burning love song to life (and a supportive partner). One track later, however, he kicks off the strummy, upbeat Changes buried in the rubble. \u00b4What the hell am I doing down here?\u00b4 Kelly sings. \u00b4I thought that I was finally in the clear. All it takes is once to make your demons reappear.\u00b4 What a difference a couple of years, hard work, personal reflection and loving, supportive relationships make. Where Dying Star offered only glimmers of hope that Kelly\u2019s garden would someday flourish, Shape & Destroy is a modestly verdant landscape as far as the eye can see\u2014maybe not \u00b4tall and purposed\u00b4 quite yet, but healthy, happy and headed that way. \u2014Ben Salmon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley McBryde: Never Will<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ashley McBride<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ashley McBryde has\u2014and has had for a long time\u2014the makings of a huge country star. That couldn\u2019t be more clear on Never Will, her latest album, which has something for every type of country fan. First Thing I Reach For is an honest honky-tonk ode to vices that spares no details. On album closer Styrofoam she dedicates three minutes of spoken-word sweet nothings to the creators of the impossible-to-decompose material that was miraculously chilling liquids of all varieties well before Yetis were on the market. The mandolin takes centre stage on the bluegrass-indebted Voodoo Doll, which is one of the most impressive songs on the album, if only for its light flirtation with pure, unadulterated black magic. Martha Divine, another single that earned McBryde a place on several \u201cmost anticipated releases of 2020\u00b4\u00b4  lists, is the album\u2019s other highlight and the eternal damnation of a serial home-wrecker. If radio execs and DJs have any sense at all, they\u2019ll play Ashley McBryde until we\u2019re beggin\u2019 them to stop. Few are as deserving of mainstream genre stardom as her, and Never Will is all the proof we need. \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sturgill Simpson: Cuttin\u2019 Grass, Vols. 1 & 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sturgill Simpson<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What do you get when you cross one of country music\u2019s finest storytellers, a crack team of bluegrass\u2019 best players and a lawnmower? The best dang hootenanny of the whole dang year, that\u2019s what. Modern-day outlaw Sturgill Simpson is owner to a discography of idiosyncratic country tunes, from his breakout, psychedelic-inspired Metamodern Sounds in Country Music to 2016\u2019s soft spoken roots record A Sailor\u2019s Guide to Earth to last year\u2019s aggressive country-rock\/anime package SOUND & FURY. He\u2019s been breaking rules and yet remained beloved for nearly a decade now, but who knew that he\u2019d make some of his best work recreating songs he\u2019d already recorded? Simpson recruited a cast of star bluegrass musicians like Tim O\u2019Brien and Sierra Hull to re-record songs from throughout his career in a series of sessions at Butcher Shoppe Recording Studio. The result is the cleverly titled Cutting Grass Vol. 1 and, as of just a few weeks ago, Vol. 2. These records have been two of the year\u2019s greatest surprises. Containing bluegrass recreations of some of Simpson\u2019s best songs like Breaker\u2019s Roar, Turtles All The Way Down and All The Pretty Colours, the Cuttin\u2019 Grass records provide something so rare and entertaining: an artist covering his own songs. It\u2019s the perfect soundtrack for a lonely 2020 day: unabrasive, uncomplicated\u2014but never sleepy\u2014folk music, sung by its creator and his fiddlin\u2019 friends. Simpson probably could\u2019ve cut the track lists in half, but who is he if not dedicated? Don\u2019t fight the sheer volume of these records: just throw \u2018em on, maybe pour a drink or two and sail away on Sturgill Simpson\u2019s lawnmower. \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Stapleton: Starting Over<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Country rockstar Chris Stapleton (left) <\/strong>has written tons of songs for pop singers like Kelly Clarkson and Justin Timberlake, (all three names deliver music I love<\/em>) and he frequently finds himself flirting with soul styles and the blues. That\u2019s quite a few genres crammed into one little sentence, but Stapleton is comfortable with them all. It\u2019s the first two (country and rock), though, where he spends the most time on his new album Starting Over, which, as the name might imply, is a record of fresh starts. The Kentucky-born, Nashville-based roots musician made waves with his 2015 southern rock opus Traveller and again in 2017 with the double album From A Room. Now, he\u2019s winding it down with Starting Over\u2019s country-folk lullabies, like the tender cover of Joy Of My Life by John Fogerty, (a writer of my generation<\/em>) and the even-more-tender original Maggie\u2019s Song, a tribute to a bygone beloved four-legged family member that will definitely make you cry. Stapleton also reckons with the devil on his shoulder in the stony Devil Always Made Me Think Twice (which another country artist on this list, Hailey Whitters, covers on her own 2020 album) and welcomes the day with a brown bottle in hand on Whiskey Sunrise. He even makes a rare reference to the mass shooting at a 2017 country festival in Las Vegas on the foreboding Watch You Burn. Stapleton is unafraid to sing about issues that might make country fans uncomfortable, but he\u2019s also right at home on familiar slow-burning roots tunes and southern rock staples. Starting Over is a choose-your-own-adventure country journey. \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hailey Whitters: <\/strong>The Dream<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hailey Whitters<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Iowa-raised, Nashville-based singer\/songwriter Hailey Whitters released Ten Year Town, a number about something country artists have been moaning about for the entirety of the genre\u2019s existence: small towns, how they trap us and how they\u2019re always there waiting, even if you\u2019re lucky enough to make it out. But Ten Year Town, now the opener on Whitters\u2019 new album The Dream, which she fully funded herself with money she earned waiting tables and plucked from her savings, doesn\u2019t feel sorry for itself, or bemoan a geographical situation. Her outlook remains overwhelmingly positive. \u00b4Dreams come true and I think mine will,\u00b4 Whitters sings. With this album, she graduates from Dream<\/em>-er to do-er. But the real dream, for many, that is, is \u00b4a paycheck at the end of the week,\u00b4 an indulgent cigarette, the miracle of the earth\u2019s rotation and some people to accompany you on the long ride. \u00b4We\u2019re all just livin\u2019 the dream,\u00b4 Whitters sings on the record\u2019s final song. The Dream cherishes working-class triumphs and even failures, as country music always has. You won\u2019t find a radical change where that content is concerned. But Hailey Whitters\u2019 heartfelt manner of describing those ups and downs is what makes her<\/em> dream so damn charming. \u2014Ellen Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ellen Johnson, journalist<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ellen Johnson, by the way,  is a former Paste music editor and forever pop culture enthusiast. Presently, she\u2019s a copy editor, freelance writer and aspiring marathoner. You can find her tweeting about all the things on Twitter  @ellen_a_johnson<\/a> and re-watching Little Women on Letterboxd<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She seems to me a writer of rare insight, incisive wit and innate charm. The creative talents on this list of recordings could not be in better hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ben Salmon\u00b4s piece (right)<\/strong> is good enough and strong enough to send me swimming upstream to acquire the music he describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Eric Danton (left) ably and helpfully chronicles and contextualises the works he writes about and, like his colleagues he guides us on or journey by pointing out the new whilst reminding us of the familiar which seems to me to be not only the purpose of a journalistic tour guide, but also the reason for art itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of course, just because these journalists, and their colleague Geoffrey Himes (right)<\/strong> who posts regular lengthy features for Paste on-line, and has also written for Jazz Times, all write like a dream doesn\u00b4t necessarily mean you will share their taste nor even agree with their assessments. The albums above, though, have been bravely collated so that you can tracks from all of them and make up your own minds. Any songs, of course, that can inspire the kind of writers listed were always pretty damned likely to earn the Sidetracks & Detours seal of approval,\u2026.and indeed, they did so on first hearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to <\/em>Paste\u2019s Best Country Albums of 2020 playlist on Spotify <\/em>here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even when they lost some of the greatest among them, like Kenny Rogers, John Prine, and Charley Pride, (commemorations by Sidetracks & Detours remain available in our archives) country musicians found the strength to stay engaged with fans (if only through live streams and zooms etc), fight for much-needed social change and share some truly stellar records in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3855,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions\/3855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}