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I’ve long been a fan of The Jayhawks, discovering their music through a recommendation, then discovering to my disappointment that they’d split up years before.
So, my ears pricked up today when I heard that Gary Louris and Mark Olson, the brains behind The Jayhawks have come together to release a new album, Ready For The Flood. It even sounds like a Jayhawks type of title, doesn’t it?
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I picked up the Jayhawks‘ 2000 album Smile a couple of years ago. If you’ve never listened to the Jayhawks before, I suggest you check them out.
The popular term for their music is alt-country or something like that. The title track to Smile is a really sweet song - and one I wanted to share with you guys today.
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Before today you’d have been forgiven for thinking the only thing Jessica Simpson and Dolly Parton had in common was ginormous breasts. But that’s not the case. You see, our Jessica’s itching to become a country star.
I smell a commercially-driven cross-genre jump. Do you?
The reason is because Ms Simpson is now claiming that she’s all country and “always wanted to make a country album”. In the Billboard article linked to above, she goes on a charm offensive, citing big name female country stars as ‘inspiration’ and suddenly declaring her undying love for Nashville:
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I want to share this song with you, because I’m a massive fan of the Australian band The Waifs.
London Still was a single from their 2003 album Up All Night, which remains to this day an unsung classic acoustic folk/blues/country album.
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Check out this new video from Soulsavers. We were listening to it this morning and Lisa asked me “Why are you listening to Johnny Cash?”
And if you didn’t know better, you’d swear that this was straight from the Man in Black himself. The singer is a guy called Mark Lanegan who definitely has the same cracked, husky voice that we associate with Cash.
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Ah, the ‘Jovi, they used to rock. But since 1992, each successive album has seen their hard rockin’ style watered away. 2007 sees us with either a more mature sounding group or an American country pub band.
If you didn’t know it was Bon Jovi, the Lost Highway single is a passable enough song. Radio-friendly, inoffensive, but ultimately forgettable.
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The Dixie Chicks have been off my radar since 1998’s single There’s Your Trouble. They never really established themselves in the UK after that, unfortunately. Off course, a couple of years ago they hit the headlines worldwide when singer Natalie Maines openly criticised George Bush with the now infamous statement:
We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.
The Long Way Around is the lead track from their latest album after those remarks, and a number of the songs address that issue.
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Lisa and I watched Walk The Line a few months ago, and afterwards I sought out Johnny Cash’s The Man Comes Around album which features the track, Hurt. If you’ve ever listened to Johnny Cash, the album itself is an essential part of Cash’s discography.
Hurt, in particular, has the potential to break your heart. Johnny’s voice is heavy and frail throughout, and the slow pounding piano grows and becomes more insistent as the song reaches its end.
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