How Many Streams Equal The Sale Of One Album? Who The Hell Cares, Write Music That Everyone Wants To Hear, But They Don't Know It Yet

How Many Streams Equal The Sale Of One Album?

Music is everywhere around us. Whether it be the rhythm of bull frogs chirping in unison on a warm summer night or a perfectly balanced and tuned engine, a syncopated noise is happening everywhere we go. What was once considered a high art form, has now just become a commodity as cheap as a bowl of Ramen noodles. 

This is not a sad state of affairs, but a natural evolution that creates a leveling of the playing field and one ripe for opportunity. Bands can now afford to record on their own and do it for a minimal budget. Be thankful for the opportunity as now you have the potential to create your own future and do it on your own terms. Where as only a few decades back, the struggle was to be heard on a national level and to be signed to a huge recording act. Now in a matter of hours a song could be crafted and uploaded to the masses.

The Big Lessons of Sturgill Simpson’s Success, From Saving Country Music

The Big Lessons of Sturgill Simpson’s Success, From Saving Country Music

Damn is it great to see Sturgill Simpson doing so well with all the accolades from his latest album. The bigger elements come from a few simple ingredients that he figured out how to mix up into a tasty stew. If you ever had the chance to see what he had cookin' in Sunday Valley, then you know the depths to which his catalog can traverse. Read more from the great write up on Saving Country Music below.

Sturgill Simpson Featured In The New York Times

Sturgill Simpson is a country music shaman

Read more articles over on the New York Times

"Sturgill Simpson is a top-notch miserablist, from the lyrics that pick at scabs to his defeated vocal tone, leaky even when he’s singing at full power. His second album, “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” (High Top Mountain), is a triumph of exhaustion, one of the most jolting country albums in recent memory, and one that achieves majesty with just the barest of parts.

“Time and time again, Lord, I’ve been going through the motions/It’s a means to an end but the ends don’t seem to meet,” Mr. Simpson sings resignedly at the top of “Living the Dream.” Even his quick yelp while singing “going” feels doomed, like a pounce on the gas pedal that still doesn’t start the car.

Eventually, he concludes, he’s got nothing to do except “sit around and wait to die.”

This desperation is both felt and a form of drag, rooted in Mr. Simpson’s deep affinity for and understanding of the tattered parts of country music’s past, be it Johnny Cash’s morbid ramblings or Waylon Jennings’s scratched-up heart.

But while plenty of practitioners of classic country see their work as duty, reflecting a need to protect a style that’s beset at every turn by modernization, Mr. Simpson doesn’t have the feel of a preservationist. He speaks the language because he was raised around it, but his dialect is wholly his own.

Similarly, this album — the title is a nod to Ray Charles’s pioneering 1962 album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music,” a watershed of country-soul crossover — doesn’t make an argument about the direction of the genre as a whole. Its relationship to mainstream country music’s increasingly urban core is tenuous at best, even as a response.

Instead, this is a hermetic work, an act of therapy as much as anything. Compared with his debut album, “High Top Mountain,” from last year, which was lonely and desolate, too, this one feels even more skeptical, and is richer musically with only a few extra brush strokes.

Lyrically, Mr. Simpson is deadpan and bruised. “She left my heart feeling taunted/And my memories all haunted/But it’s her I have to thank for all my songs,” he sings on “Life of Sin.” On “Voices,” his voice is sopping wet, low to the ground and bumpy. He sounds peaceful only on “A Little Light,” which is rich with the influence of Southern gospel and the rare burst of optimism on this album.



As a singer, Mr. Simpson is gifted but in an unflashy way, yanking his drawl into sharp shapes when it’s called for, but mostly content to let his dusty luster do the heavy work. The only places he feels vocally constrained at all — and only slightly at that — is on the pair of covers at the center of the album: Charlie Moore and Bill Napier’s trucker anthem “Long White Line,” and “The Promise,” by the new wave one-hit wonder When In Rome. Mr. Simpson’s respect for the originals seem to prevent him from fiddling too much with their structure. (“The Promise,” in particular, feels indebted to Johnny Cash’s late-in-life career turn remaking unlikely artists’ songs in his inimitable style, right down to Mr. Simpson’s pulpy murmur.)

Part of Mr. Simpson’s skill is that he picks his accompanists carefully. This album was produced by Dave Cobb and recorded live to tape with Mr. Simpson’s touring band: the guitarist Laur Joamets, the bassist Kevin Black and the drummer Miles Miller. Mr. Joamets, especially, is vicious, an ostentatious talent given to filling small holes with outsize filigree. He’s almost as able a narrator as Mr. Simpson, as on the opening of “It Ain’t All Flowers,” which flirts with ZZ Top-esque swamp-blues rock, or on “Long White Line,” which opens with four different guitar approaches in four consecutive passages.

Dissenters like Mr. Simpson have occasionally seeped into country’s center, or near it, in recent years. There was Jamey Johnson, with whom Mr. Simpson shares a black cloud overhead, though he doesn’t quite have the full breadth of Mr. Johnson’s dolor. They also share a predilection for mind-bending substances, as Mr. Simpson shares on “Turtles All the Way Down”: “Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT — they all changed the way I see/But love’s the only thing that ever saved my life.” (Or on “Life of Sin”: “The level of my medicating some might find intimidating.”)

And Mr. Simpson toys with the sort of core-values skepticism recently reintroduced to the country mainstream by Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe and others, singing, also on “Turtles,” about how “Every time I take a look inside that old and fabled book/I’m blinded and reminded of the pain caused by some old man in the sky.”

But while big establishment systems discourage Mr. Simpson, his angst is almost wholly internal. And even though he’s fighting himself, he takes pleasure in the challenge. “Woke up today and decided to kill my ego/It never done me no good no how,” he sings on “Just Let Go,” and it sounds like a big old grin."

Sturgill Simpson featured in the New York Times

First Listen: Sturgill Simpson, 'Metamodern Sounds In Country Music'

Sturgill Simpson featured on NPR - First Listen for Metamodern Sounds In Country Music

Listen to the full streaming album on NPR

"There are so many "whoa, stop" moments in the first three minutes of Sturgill Simpson's second album. A few selected quotes, which Simpson delivers in a stretched-out Waylon croon: "I've seen Jesus play with flames ... met the devil in Seattle ... met Buddha yet another time," "Don't waste your time on nursery rhymes and fairy tales of blood and wine," "Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT, they all changed the way I see," and "There's a gateway in our mind that leads somewhere out there beyond this plane / where reptile aliens made of light cut you open and pull out all your pain." Wait, what?

In case you need a clue as to where Simpson is coming from, the title comes in handy: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music nods to the genre-expanding Ray Charles classic Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and tells you he's going to fold country's conventions over on themselves as if he's trying to create some kind of musical space-time portal. He shows up on the cover in a photo that looks as if it had been pulled out of a Civil War-era locket, with long hair and untrimmed mustache. The background, of course, is outer space. Here's a list of the jobs held by the eight people Simpson thanks in the album's credits: molecular biologist, psychonaut, science-fiction author, astronomer, theoretical physicist, psychopharmacologist and computer programmer. The way Simpson is gunning, he's going to freak some people out.

The funny thing is, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is absolutely country, from the roadhouse-ready "Life of Sin" to the lonesome-skyline blues of "Voices" to the revival-tent call-and-response stomp of "A Little Light." The two covers on the album are of Buford Abner's "Long White Line" (which appeared on both Charlie Moore & Bill Napier's Truckin' Favorites and Aaron Tippin's In Overdrive) and When in Rome's 1988 hit "The Promise," which appeared in the closing credits to Napoleon Dynamite. Both would sound at home at the Ryman.

Nothing on Metamodern sounds forced; Simpson has perfected the trick of distilling classic country from many eras and moving away from it at the same time. (Don't believe him in "Life of Sin," when he sings, "The boys and me still working on the sound.") That trick takes skill and affection for the history of the genre, as well as a willingness to stand alone. If nothing else, someone should give this guy a medal for coming up with the phrase, "You play with the devil, you know you're going to get the horns." But Simpson does things all over Metamodern Sounds in Country Music that seem familiar at first but blow your mind a little bit the second time you hear them."

Sturgill Simpson Is The Astral Explorer Of Country Music

Sturgill Simpson is the astral explorer of Country Music

Few bands plumb the depths of space and time in a way that challenges us the listeners to ask for me. Quite a few bands in metal tread these waters and it feels par for course due to the style of music and rebellious nature. Sturgill Simpson is asking folks on the country tip to go along for the ride and damn if it doesn't feel good to hear the fresh approach. Buy the ticket and take the ride.

Check it out on NPR

"Believe it or not: a country song can be about anything. People who seek out stories about Daddy's farm and fishing trips and Solo cups will easily find them, but the genre's most creative souls have long been interested in much more than sentimentality and a good old American time. Country and the rock that intertwines with it bears a rich legacy of artists asking The Big Questions in warm, relatable accents, from Willie Nelson and his friends at the World Armadillo Headquarters in the 1970s to the Drive-By Truckers and Jason Isbell today.

Sturgill Simpson is the latest to take on this challenge. The 35-year-old native Kentuckian, who played in the insurgent bluegrass band Sunday Valley before releasing last year's High Top Mountain, a dynamic (and fairly traditional hard country) solo album, didn't set out to blow minds with Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, to be released May 13. He just found himself in a new place, both musically and in terms of his fascinations.

That personal paradigm shift is represented in the album's first track, "Turtles All The Way Down," the video for which debuts here. "There's a gateway in our mind that leads somewhere out there beyond this plane," Simpsons sings in his outlaw baritone as his band lays down a gentle arrangement reminiscent of Merle Haggard's "Kern River".

The next lyric might make you jump: "Where reptile aliens made of light cut you open and pull out all your pain." Aliens? Simpson's having fun with a cosmic-scientific meme connected to an old myth that imagines the world perched upon an infinite stack of the green-shelled creatures. Simpson invokes the Turtle in connection to his own quest for meaning, which never does let up. The song's video, created using software artist Scott Draves's distributed computing project Electric Sheep, similarly blends a straightforward, intimate performance with synapse-stimulating, AI-generated effects.

After this detonation of the treasure chest of country stereotypes, Metamodern Sounds continues to flesh out a deep and unconventional relationship between traditionalism and new ways of thinking. The groove Simpson finds with his band is loose and immediate. At times the playing gets almost psychedelic. At other times players circle back on old styles like Southern gospel and do them right. At the center of it all is Simpson, a hot guitar player and mighty singer whose insistence on being complicated makes Metamodern Sounds far richer than most emerging artists' wrestling matches with tradition.

Simpson and I recently had a conversation via email about legacies worth resurrecting and making music that's "like life."

The new album isn't exactly what people might have expected from a guy often called a honky-tonker — though those classic elements are present, too. Where did you begin with these songs?
I just reached a point where the thought of writing and singing any more songs about heartache and drinking made me feel incredibly bored with music. It's just not a headspace I occupy much these days. Nighttime reading about theology, cosmology, and breakthroughs in modern physics and their relationship to a few personal experiences I've had led to most of the songs on the album.

Dr. Rick Strassman's book The Spirit Molecule was extremely inspirational,as were a few recent highly visionary indie films and a lot of Terrence McKenna's audio lectures. The influences are all over the place but they culminated into a group of songs about love and the human experience, centered around the light and darkness within us all. There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a "social consciousness" concept album disguised as a country record.

"Turtles All the Way Down," is a shot across the barricades. And you've made a video that matches it. Tell me about how the video came about and how it relates to the song. Do you think CMT will play it?

I expected to be labeled the "acid country guy," but it's not something I dwell on. I would urge anyone that gets hung up on the song being about drugs to give another listen ... to me "Turtles" is about giving your heart to love and treating everyone with compassion and respect no matter what you do or don't believe. The cosmic turtle is from a much quoted story found in publications throughout modern physics and philosophy, even ancient theology, that now essentially serves as a comedic picture or expression of a much grander idea.

The video is a tightly budgeted attempt to capture or represent a visual simulation of that idea. After some correspondence with Dr. Strassman and Andrew Stone at www.cottonwoodresearch.org I was introduced to visionary software artist Scott Draves, creator of Electric Sheep. After a few emails and hearing the music, Scott was generous enough to offer his assistance with the project. A friend of mine, Dex Palmer, knew some pretty tech-savvy kids at Cineshot Productions that I enlisted for the chore of filming and editing this thing.

As for CMT playing the video, I honestly never gave it too much thought. What they do is great to a lot of people, and it creates jobs for a lot of people, but mainstream country avenues weren't really a goal for me with this album. I'm interested in exploring various forms of newer media that might allow those who otherwise don't listen to country to find and connect with my music.

The song's title invokes Ray Charles's classic album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music — which was a huge, loving and very successful challenge to the genre. This album poses challenges too, and not just the obvious ones. It's not slick like mainstream country, but it also has a more adventurous and looser spirit than a lot of Americana music. How do you think these categories need shaking up right now?

Part of me still feels like I've never had the opportunity to properly express all my earliest influences, so for now I find isolation to be my biggest influence. Somebody told me once it takes an Americana song five minutes to say what a country song says in three — so I try to write country songs. But really, all good music is just soul music.

You're working with a traditional sound but your music still has a roughness and immediacy to it that's very vital. How do you protect that?

I want to make records that feel like life. So in terms of recording, I am very much a live performer and I've learned to treat the studio as an extension of that only with a much broader sonic palette to paint with. I cant even use headphones. We just set up extremely tight in one room and set the levels ourselves naturally with dynamics. This is how all my favorite records were made.

You cover of a song called "The Promise" on the new album and it sounds like a classic country weeper. I thought it was a Mavericks song when I heard your version. But it's a 1988 electropop hit by the English band When in Rome! Tell me about taking a song that's so different stylistically and finding the country in it. 

I believe it's one of about three thousand brilliant compositions from the 80's that got lost in production. I always thought the lyrics to "The Promise" made for a very beautiful, sweet love song and decided I'd like to lay down a somewhat "Countrypolitan" version.

You also have a trucking song on the album: "Long White Lines," written by Buford Abner but better known from a version by '90s country star Aaron Tippin. Mainstream country is full of trucks, but never mentions trucking — trucks in songs today represent leisure, not work. You turn that around here.

CB radios were a big part of the early 80's. They sort of became an obsession after Smokey and the Bandit. My grandfather had one in his truck when I was a kid and I would play on it constantly, in the garage or going down the road, until truckers started telling dirty jokes and he'd make me turn it off. Since the album is a figurative trip, I figured it needed a road song. I became familiar with the tune years ago on an old Charlie Moore & Bill Napier bluegrass trucker album by the same title. We started working it up on the road last year and it just keeps getting looser and funkier every time we play it. At this point it's basically hip-hop.

There's nothing more traditional in country than invoking family, but nostalgic songs about childhood can be so very corny. You have one on this album, "Pan Bowl," that avoids cliché by employing what seems like real details from your life. And you grandfather "Dood" Fraley announces the title of the album at its very beginning. How do you manage to invoke family without getting too sentimental?

Yeah, I wrote that song a few years back and honestly it probably doesn't belong on this album. I just felt that by the end of the record most folks might need some sort of "return to innocence," so I added it as a hidden bonus track. Every word of that song is true. As for the album intro, really I just wanted my grandfather to emcee the album, almost entirely for sentimental reasons, and I thought it made for a nice juxtaposition.

There are points with the band where you almost get into jam-band territory on this album. Is this a reflection of where you're going live? It's a different kind of stretching out than what you did with your old band Sunday Valley.

There is still so much room for sonic exploration in country music. You always have to serve the songs and the songs have to serve the records. Someday, if I ever get to a point where I find that I am repeating myself, that's when I'll know I'm done."

Sturgill Simpson Featured Song On Paste Magazine

Sturgill Simposon feature post about new track on Paste Magazine

"Following his acclaimed 2013 debut, Sturgill Simpson has announced the release of his sophomore record, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Raised in Kentucky, Simpson’s authentic Americana sound has earned him comparisons to some of country music’s early stars. Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is set for release May 13 via High Top Mountain Records. Simpson’s longtime friend Jason Seiler, known for his illustration of Pope Francis XV1 for Time Magazine, was recruited for the album’s cover art.

Simpson’s tracks are reminiscent of 1970’s country music, and with tracks full of emotion—both sad and fierce—Sturgill creates nostalgia for country music of days gone by."

Read Paste Magazine

Sturgill Simpson Tours The UK And Gives A Dose Of Real Country Music

Country legend in the making, Sturgill Simpson

Link to The Upcoming UK

"Country music is not for everyone. As a European, usually, you love or you hate it. Unless you’re into the history of the south of the United States, or unless you’re into the genre tout court, you won’t find hipsters listening to it. It may be the last genre that is still pure and not contaminated by modes and cheap fashion trends. Many don’t know how important and influential country music has been for folk and rock music. That’s why, yesterday in Portobello at Rough Trade West, the average age of the audience attending the show was more then 45, but the quality of the gig was ageless.

Sturgill Simpson is from Kentucky and has spent his last week in the UK, traveling to present his new record High Top Mountain, a compendium of how country music should sound and should be written. Classic references, classic instrumentation (mostly a steel guitar) and a classic topoi in the lyrics of the songs (love, hate, betrayal and that leitmotif of a man belonging to a territory, typical of country music). “My Great Grandfather spent his days in a coal mine and his nights on the porch in a chair. Now he’s in heaven and down here in hell the rivers run muddy and the mountains are bare”, he sang in the superb Old King Coal. With a guitar and with a powerful, deep voice, Simpson played just six songs from his last record, but the intensity of the execution and the undeniable talent of this man made the experience very touching indeed.

“I’m trying to pay homage to my family and where I’m from”, said Simpson in a recent interview, and considering the remarkable songs played at the venue, we trust him. Songs full of stories and traditions – both in the ballads (Water In a Well, Hero) and in the richer songs (Railway of Sin, Poor Rambler) – engaged the audience in a religious-like and respectful silence. High Top Mountain is a record about defeated people and injustice (“Born on a summer day in some dark holler, way back in the hills of Perry County. Well he grew up poor and he never saw a dollar, but a dollar ain’t no good in a coal camp anyway”) but thank goodness, as he very well proved, Simpson is not defeated."

Sturgill Simpson live review from the United Kingdom

Sturgill Simpson On Playing The Grand Ole Opry, From Saving Country Music

I feel as if I was part of rare treat being able to see Sturgill Simpson a few years back in his older project Sunday Valley. Had never heard of the band but a few folks said to stick around and check them out. This was down in Texas during SXSW of 2011 and happened at a showcase put on by Keith of Hillgrass Bluebilly and Trigger of Saving Country Music. As soon as hit those first notes on the guitar and let loose a signature sound I was hooked. 

Now Sturgill has gone solo and stripped back on the guitar shredding and focused more on the craft of songwriting and is truly upping the ante. I sure as hell hope that he doesn't leave his amazing style of guitar picking in the dust as it is a breath of fresh air and a shot in the arm that brings country rock into a new light.

Check out the article on Saving Country Music

Sturgill Simpson, one of underground country music's best kept secrets

"But Sturgill’s Opry debut may have an even greater personal significance. To explain, here is Sturgill Simpson on his Opry debut, in his own words.
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I credit my 82 yr. old Grandfather Dood Fraley more than anyone on Earth for, among many other things, my musical education. He’s the greatest man I’ve ever known…Period. 

He used to sit me on the couch next to him when I was a child and make me watch Hee-Haw and TNN and tell me which performers were good and which ones were a joke or just holding the guitar as a prop. He spent his entire childhood growing up in Eastern Kentucky so poor it can’t be put into words. They had one radio in the coal camp that every one would gather around every Saturday night and listen to The Grand Ole Opry. He always talked about how The Opry was like magic coming out of that box. I know what it feels like hearing Bill Monroe for the first time on a cd player but it’s tough to imagine what it must have been like hearing that voice blast out of a radio in the 40′s as a nine year old boy. Anyway, he’s been really sick lately so when I got the news he was the first person I called…his words summed it up better than I ever could. 

 

He told me, “That’s it bud..that’s the biggest honor in Country music..that’s what you’ve been working so hard for all these years whether you knew it or not. If you never sing or record another note, you ain’t gotta prove nothing else to nobody after that. Don’t worry about what they’re doing now, just go do it your way and I’ll be right there with ya."

I made my album for him and no one else and it got me “here”…It aint much but “here” is a place I can go to sleep at night feeling pretty ok with. There is really nothing I can say that captures how proud I feel knowing he lived to see this and that he’ll be standing backstage watching his grandson step into that circle just like every single damn one of the heroes he raised me on has before me. There’s not a whole hell of a lot in this world I take seriously, least of all myself. But this I do,..The Opry is a living testament to the heritage of American Country Music and that’s about as serious as anything can be.

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You can listen to Sturgill Simpson’s Opry debut on WSM Online between 7 PM and 9:15 PM Central Friday (8-23).

Purchase Sturgill’s latest album High Top Mountain.

UPDATE (8/23): Sturgill played “Water I A Well” and “Life Ain’t Fair & The World Is Mean” on the Opry. For those that missed it, it will be archived in about a week or so here: 

http://www.wsmonline.com/watch-listen/opry/

Here’s a few pictures:

Picture from backstage:

Sturgill Simpson Tour Dates:

Sept. 1 – Rosemary Beach – Rosemary Beach, FL
Sept. 4 – The Altamont – Asheville, NC
Sept. 5 – Scenic City Roots – Chattanooga, TN
Sept. 6 – The New Vintage – Louisville
Sept. 7 – Barley’s Tap Room – Knoxville, TN
Sept. 8 – Eddie’s Attic – Atlanta
Sept. 9 – Georgia Theatre, Rooftop Series – Athens, GA
Sept. 11 – The Evening Muse – Charlotte
Sept. 12 – The Pour House Music Hall – Raleigh, NC
Sept. 19 – Americana Music Festival – Nashville
Sept. 21 – The Groove – Nashville
Sept. 26 – Red Dirt Dance Hall – Tulsa, OK
Sept. 27 – Wormy Dog Saloon – Oklahoma City
Sept. 28 – The Foundry – Dallas
Oct. 1 – The Western – Scottsdale, AZ
Oct. 3 – The Griffin – San Diego
Oct. 3 – The Hotel Cafe – Los Angeles
Oct. 5 – Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival – San Francisco
Oct. 30 – Music City Roots – Nashville

Five Worthy Artists Finding Success In 2013, From Saving Country Music

Link to original post on Saving Country Music

"You know how you may root for a hometown sports team for years even though they’re terrible, and then out of the blue when they start to get good you don’t know how to behave because you’ve identified with losing for so long? Well that is what is happening in 2013 with many of the artists Saving Country Music and so many loyal fans have been following for years. Acts that we got in a habit of using as evidence of how the industry was woefully neglecting legitimate talent are now finally starting to find success, reshaping our theories on music’s downward spiral.

There is still much to do, but in 2013 we can find signs hope in the success of these artists.

Hellbound Glory

When Saving Country Music named Hellbound Glory’s Old Highs & New Lows its 2010 Album of the Year, we were hoping someday the Reno, NV-based band might find the bigger audience they deserved, but who knew that only a few years later they would be playing to sold out arenas as an opening act on a Kid Rock tour. Hellbound Glory’s road was winding, and with the strength of front man Leroy Virgil’s songs they could still grow from here, but 2013 is the year we will point back on as the time they finally got their boot in the door.

Caitlin Rose

With all the talk of 2013 being the “Year of the Woman” in country music, Caitlin Rose’s name has been appearing right beside names like Ashley Monroe and Kacey Musgraves as evidence that country’s new crop of women are the ones restoring substance to the genre. Once thought of as the UK’s best kept independent country secret, Caitlin’s scope is now coast to coast here across the pond as the songs from her critic’s favorite The Stand-In speak to a wide audience with both accessibility and smarts. Working with the Dave Matthews-backed ATO Records, Caitlin’s voice is finally starting to find an audience, and with a voice like hers, the sky is the limit.

Austin Lucas

There is nobody in roots music who has worked harder, toured more, come so close to finally getting his break so many times, and deserves the sweet rewards of success more than Austin Lucas. Though Austin had received some fortunate breaks in the past touring on Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour and the Country Throwdown Tour, a year ago after seeing Austin Lucas deliver an inspiring show at Austin, TX’s Mowhawk club, he confided in me he was concerned if his music would ever stick, and how he was growing older by the day. The very next show Austin played resulted in him eventually being signed to New West Records, who is scheduled to release his latest album Stay Reckless on August 27th. Austin Lucas is a positive example of why you never give up, and how the power of the song can still override the concerns of the traditionally shallow music industry.

Sturgill Simpson

If there is one artist symbolizing hope for real country music in 2013, it is Sturgill Simpson. Like all of these artists, he’s put the hard work in as well, but the biggest lesson to take away from Sturgill’s success is to never settle for second best, and to believe in yourself. By allowing his music and personality to remain more of an enigma than a known quantity, Sturgill was able to make sure he wasn’t boxed in to any scene or subtext so when the time was right he could present his music to the world on his terms. Working with Thirty Tigers, and having been out on tour with folks like Dwight Yoakam and Junior Brown, Strugill is building a formidable career in country music.

Valerie June

Valerie June received the mother of all opportunities in 2013 when she was asked to appear in front of a national audience as part of an intimate duet with Eric Church at this years ACM Awards. But that might just be the beginning for Valerie, whose highly-anticipated album Pushing Against A Stone set to be released on August 13th is already receiving buzz from big media outlets like Billboard and NPR. Like Ashley Monroe and Caitlin Rose, Valerie June is primed to join the class of inspiring up-and-coming country women taking shape in 2013."

Want To Hear And Support Real Country Music? Read On...

Check out original post on Saving Country Music

There’s been much talk so far this year about how the women of country are outpacing the men when it comes to the quality of music, and we’ve talked about possible reasons why that is. But we haven’t talked about some of the men that if simply given a chance, could shoot an immediate injection of substance into the country music format. They just need similar chances to their female counterparts.

It’s not that the men of country have any less talent. One of the problems is that many talented country men are making their way to Americana, tired of beating their heads against Music Row’s walls, and not wanting to be lumped in with the laundry list arena rock or country rap currently plaguing the mainstream male country ranks. If country music can’t facilitate the rise of their careers, country will lose their talent to other avenues.

A lack of talent has never been country music’s problem, it’s been recognizing that talent and allowing it to thrive by expressing its originality and creativity. Here are seven men that right now could enter into prominent positions in the country format and immediately make it better.

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Sturgill Simpson

If you wanted one name, one man to watch in country music in 2013, that name would be Sturgill Simpson. Poised to take the country music world by storm (or at least the independent side of things), Sturgill’s debut solo album High Top Mountain is going to blow the doors off of country music when it’s released on June 11th. Sturg is already making waves out there on the road opening for Dwight Yoakam, and has one of the best management and booking teams behind him. Everything is in place. The next question is, will country music pay attention?

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Will Hoge

The truth is you’re already hearing Will Hoge on mainstream country radio, you’re just hearing his songs being sung by others. Hoge is one of those songwriters that has been right on the brink of breaking through for 15 years, but has always just been one important puzzle piece away. Eli Young Band had a #1 hit last year with Will’s song “Even If It Breaks Your Heart,” and at the time the songwriter didn’t even have a publishing deal. Recently Lady Antebellum recorded his song “Better Off Now.”

Will is now signed to BMG Nashville as a songwriter, and has been signed as a performer to Atlantic Records and Rykodisc in the past. Though Will has struggled to find the exact right opportunity to take his music to the next level, he is a battle-tested performer, a proven songwriter with commercially-viable material, and an artist the industry is familiar with that could immediately step in amongst country music’s mainstream men and bring more substance to the format, open up new themes, and hopefully challenge other male performers and writers to release more formidable material.

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Whitey Morgan

Whitey Morgan and his band The 78′s are the authentic, modern-day extension of country music’s true Outlaw country movement. It doesn’t get more hard country and honky tonk than this. Music Row’s batch of fake Outlaws will only be able to go so far before the American public wakes up to the fact they’ve been sold a bill of goods. Whitey Morgan is country music’s “new Outlaw” for the long haul.

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Evan Felker & the Turnpike Troubadours

With Evan Felker and the Turnpike Troubadours, the question is not if, but when. You may not be able to find a better example of a songwriter that can bring true country substance yet still find appeal with the masses. Like Hootie taking Old Crow’s “Wagon Wheel” to #1, Felker songs like “Every Girl” “7 & 7″ and “Good Lord, Lorrie” are just screaming to be cut by a bigger name, letting the rest of the world know what a treasure the Texoma region has in this young and exciting band. The hardest thing for a Red Dirt / Texas country band to do is make that transition from regional stars to national recognition, and to do it without streaking their hair with highlights or releasing songs with obviously aims at radio success. The next couple of years are very critical for this band, but if Nashville had any sense, they’d hop on the Turnpike Troubadours bandwagon now.

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John Fullbright

A former Turnpike Troubadour himself, and a former member of the Mike McClure band, John Fullbright became a serious force in the music world when he released his critically-acclaimed From The Ground Up album last year that rose all the way to winning the young man from Bearden, Oklahoma a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album. Isn’t it just like Americana to snatch up all of country’s promising male talent? But with the strength of his songs, John Fullbright could find a home in both country and Americana if he wished. At only 25-years-old (it’s his birthday today), the sky’s the limit for this emerging talent.

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Leroy Virgil & Hellbound Glory

Leroy and Hellbound Glory on the Rebel Soul Tour with Kid Rock

If you’re wondering where our generation’s Keith Whitley or Chris Ledoux is, look no further. Though Leroy will probably never play Nashville’s game, he’s got country music’s most formidable song catalog just waiting to be cherry picked and matched up with top-tier talent. In the meantime, Leroy and his band Hellbound Glory could be playing sold-out big club/theater shows and headlining grassroots festivals.

Virgil and Hellbound Glory are fresh off opening for Kid Rock on a nationwide arena tour and signing with the prestigious Agency Group for booking. It may be only a matter of months before we stop complaining of why Hellbound Glory isn’t bigger, and start proclaiming that they’ve made it. Time may be running out to get on board with Leroy Virgil at the ground level and enjoy the rise.

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Dirty River Boys

If country music was looking for its rough equivalent of Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and other acoustic string bands that are all the rage right now, look no further than El Paso, TX’s Dirty River Boys. Way more than just Americana’s version of a boy band, The Dirty River Boys have a grit and authenticity to them many of these other bands so woefully lack. Yet the Dirty River Boys can still can engage large crowds in sincere singalongs that tap into that sense of camaraderie that many music fans are looking for these days.

Why Underground Country Music Is Dying (A Treatise), Repost From Saving Country Music

Eric Church may sing about a country music Jesus coming to save us all, but what Triggerman speaks on in the article below, is tangible salvation of the music scene, we all enjoy. The underground country, roots rock and americana underbelly, is a vast and whole heartedly opinionated group of individuals, who get passionate, when asked about what defines the genre(s) as a whole. The mere notion of creating one true definition is a tough pill to swallow. As a group it's an amalgamation of all these disparate music tribes, which make the perfect gumbo stew. 

There is a not a music genre alive, that has not had similar growing pains from punk to metal to even hip hop. Read on with the great write up below and add your thoughts to the discussion thread on Saving Country Music.

Link to original post on Saving Country Music

"On Saturday November 17th, two of the most important acts in underground country played what very well could be their final shows. Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers, a band that was there at the very beginning of underground country and the revitalization of the lower Broadway in Nashville announced they are calling it quits after 16 years, at least for now, playing their final show at Nashville’s Mercy Lounge. Meanwhile in Covington, Kentucky, Unknown Hinson, one of underground country’s greatest ambassadors from his work on Cartoon Network’s Squidbillies, played his final show as a touring act after 17 years, saying he was done, “Period.”

Both these acts had their specific reasons for calling it quits, and certainly the door is open for them to return. And for JD Wilkes, the long-time front man of The Shack Shakers, he still has his Dirt Daubers routine which has apparently retooled to a more electric sound. But you add these huge, high-profile, highly-important artists leaving on top of bands like .357 String Band dissolving, Sunday Valley re-aligning, and Leroy Virgil losing all his original players in Hellbound Glory, and all of a sudden underground country feels like it’s fighting a war of attrition, and losing.



I have been struggling to write this article for almost two years, but have been putting it off because there’s some hard things to say, and I didn’t want to “talk down” a movement that was already trying to deal with pretty alarming trends. But I think that especially now, zooming out and trying to be honest and critical in a constructive way is important, because there is positively no doubt that underground country is dying, and has been for years.
Why? Here are some ideas.

An aging fan base and aging artists

There are exceptions of course, but if you look at who comprises the underground country movement, it is predominantly people in their 30′s, and people from lower incomes. And what do people do in their 30′s? They settle down, they get married and have kids, they get better and more stable jobs, they buy houses. This gives them less time to spend partying, hanging out on the internet talking about music, going to shows on weeknights. In your 30′s, instead of being able to hit every underground country show rolling through town, you have to pick that one show a month you want to attend and pay a babysitter.

The same goes for the artists making underground country music. As they age, their motivations to keep working at music that doesn’t seem to want to stick commercially begin to fade. Health concerns begin to become an issue, and not being able to afford health insurance is a real concern. This was one of the primary issues facing the Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers. Yearning for more stability is a recurring theme in the attrition underground country is facing in its talent roster, from banjo player Joe Huber of the .357 String Band, to drummer Chico from Hellbound Glory.

Something else worth noting is the large sect of sober people who make up underground country, in both the artist and fan ranks. Over time, some people must move away from the music and party scenes to find their sobriety, and others may just not identify any more with music that tends to have foundations in a party lifestyle.



Meanwhile the infusion of youth into underground country is anemic. There are some exceptions. The Boomswagglers from Texas and The Slaughter Daughters are promising, young bands, and artists like Lucky Tubb and Wayne Hancock have been integrating side musicians into the scene for some time. But they rarely stick, partly because of a general lack of support. Any younger musician if they’re smart doesn’t attempt to start their rise in underground country, which seems to be trending down and never had much long-term infrastructure to begin with. They look towards Americana, or the Texas/Red Dirt scene, or bluegrass, where the support is much easier to count on.

A Lack of Leadership

Since the beginning of underground country, if you looked at the top of the pyramid you saw Hank Williams III, and that is still the case in regards to records sales and concert tickets sold in any given year. But in 2008, Hank3 took over a year off from the road, and shortly after he started touring again, he stopped carrying opening bands. Then he put out a succession of albums of questionable quality, and all of a sudden a career on the rise has been stagnant for going on 5 years, and same goes for the the scene that revolves around it.



It was not Saving Country Music or Free Hank III, or even MySpace that comprised the first information portal about underground country. It was Hank3′s “Cussin’ Board” forum. And people didn’t go there just for Hank3 news, but news about all the underground country bands, with artists like JB Beverley and Rachel Brooke participating in the discussions regularly. These days, the “Cussin’ Board” feels like a ghost town compared to its vibrant past.

Shooter Jennings has stepped up in the last two years to attempt to fill the leadership vacuum left by Hank3, and has done some positive things and had some marginal success. But his polarization has kept him from completing the task of becoming a solid leader everyone can look up to. Similarly, where Hank3 was once the most unifying factor in underground country, his obvious step back from the “scene” has now made him a polarizing figure as well, questionably capable of taking back the reigns of underground country even if he was motivated to, and which he’s shown positively no signs of wanting to do. I can’t blame Hank3 for wanting to take a step back, because there were so many people wanting to take from him, believing his name was their stepping stone to success.

Leadership must come from the artists, and it must come from the music first, and that is Shooter Jennings’ inherent problem. This was illustrated when he cut the “Drinking Side of Country” duet with Bucky Covington, or on his industrial rock album Black Ribbons. Whether you like these Shooter projects or not, they illustrate his lack of consistency that has lead to his ineptness as a leader of underground country, and his acute polarization that reaches as far as Eric Church fans, and fans of his father. Hank3 never professed himself a leader. He led by example, and used causes like Reinstate Hank to lead the charge of taking country music back.

The Scene Has Replaced The Movement

Causes

One of the reasons an underground of country music was founded was from a wide ranging dissent about the direction of country music. This dissent is where the varying range of musical styles united, taking the country punk of Hank3, the neo-traditional approach of Wayne Hancock, the Texas/Outlaw country of Dale Watson, the bluegrass of the .357 String Band, the blues of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers, and the Gothic country of Those Poor Bastards and piling them all together in the overall underground country movement. It was united by issues, like the reinstatement of Hank Williams to the Grand Ole Opry, the opening and extension of the Williams Family Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame, the fight for creative freedom of artists from record labels, and the fight against the infiltration of pop on country radio.



Now these issues that defined, united, and energized the country music underground are seen as tired, if not counter-productive or annoying to many in the underground population. When issues arose with the sale of the Grand Ole Opry to Marriott International, or the changing of Billboard’s chart rules, the underground met them with apathy, if not anger at them being offered up as relevant to their music world. Issues are what made outreach possible for underground country, and now exclusivity seems to be what is yearned for by the majority of underground country fans. The “we have our music, screw the masses” attitude is what prevails, taking away one of the primary promotional tools for independent-minded underground ideals to reach out to other country music fans who also might be feeling disenfranchised with the mainstream.

Scenes and Cliques

Image and exclusivity seem to be the important dynamics in today’s country music underground, dragging on the commercial viability of the music, and making it hard for outsiders to integrate with the underground country culture. Though some on the outside looking in may enjoy the music, they may not understand the verbiage, anecdotes, and style that seem to be important with “fitting in” to the underground. So as long-time underground country fans taper off because of age, no new blood is there to take their place.

Facebook has also narrowed the perspectives of underground country fans, making them feel like how you present yourself is more important than what you do. An unhealthy culture of cloistered, inbred cross-promotion prevails through underground country, where small cliques of fans and bands have formed around labels, blogs, and podcasts, catering content to a select few.



These cliques promote each other within the clique, and at times may branch out farther to the “scene,” but rarely reach new blood because they are based on narrow perspectives and anecdotal experiences. It’s an “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” culture where quality and creativity are lightly regarded compared to political importance in the scene. And if you don’t participate in this culture of narrow, ineffective promotion of the other people in the scene or clique, you risk being ostracized. Intention is measured over effectiveness. These cliques and their differences have also given rise to eternal conflict, with the bigger overall “Shooter fans vs. Hank3 fans” splitting underground country squarely in half.

Saving Country Music, and I specifically have at times enhanced or enabled unnecessary “scene” drama, and this has potentially affected the fate of underground country adversely. There are lot’s of entities in underground country and roots who attempt to promote music that seem to get lost in promoting their branding and merch first, and the music second. There are many general reasons underground country is dying, but the specific one is lack of money. Underground country is funded by the $40 hoodie, and this creates a paradox for the music that is supposed to be the focus.

Though there is lots of talk about shared responsibility for keeping underground music alive, and there’s many folks who re-post bulletins on Facebook, take pictures and videos of shows, run podcasts, or boutique “labels” attempting to make a difference in the music, the effect is confined to cliques and micro-scenes, and is more catered to serving the few and propagating image and branding.

For example the Pickathon Festival in Portland that caters to a wide variety of independent roots movements, including underground country, boasts over 300 volunteers annually. The Muddy Roots Festival, which almost exclusively caters to underground country and roots had roughly a dozen volunteers this last year, with multiple people who signed up to volunteer to get discounted or free tickets either not working their shifts, walking off their shifts, or generally being unhelpful. Pickathon’s issues with people sneaking onto the site are marginal. Muddy Roots’ issues of people sneaking on site without paying are major. The most helpful volunteers at the 2012 Muddy Roots were a representative from a hair gel sponsor, and the Voodoo Kings Car Club who have very few ties to the music.



There seems to be little understanding that if bands, labels, and festivals are going to continue to exist, there must be a shared sacrifice from the fans. And not just symbolic sacrifice, but substantive efforts to offer real support to the entities making the music happen. Without any corporate funding, that’s how an underground music movement works.

A Lack of Creativity

Underground country was founded on creativity. The creativity found on albums such as Hank3′s Straight to Hell, Wayne Hancock’s Thunderstorms & Neon Signs, Dale Watson’s Live in London, and Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers’ Cockadoodledon’t is what caused a country music underground to form in the first place. In the mid 2000′s, you could confidently say that the creativity in underground country outlasted that of the mainstream per capita. These days underground country is mired in trying to recapture that creativity, in a practice that lends to the aping of styles and the rehashing of themes. Capturing a “punk gone country,” “honky tonk Outlaw”, or “old-time” aesthetic seems more important than carving out a new creative niche like the originators of underground country did.
Meanwhile any true creativity existing in underground country quickly evolves beyond it to greener pastures in Texas country or Americana, like Justin Townes Earle did. The lack of infrastructure, the presence of scenesters, and the general disorganization of the underground dissuades talented artist from associating themselves with it. Americana, Red Dirt, Texas, and West Coast circuits offer much more hospitable and palatable scenes, while underground country generally discourages cross-pollination with these kindred, independent-minded movements, misunderstanding them as either mainstream, or too high-minded for the music they like.

The Positives

Europe

A step removed from the influence of the scene, Europe continues to thrive and grow their support for underground country. There seems to be more general thankfulness that underground country music exists in Europe, and a stronger focus on the music itself instead of the scene that surrounds it. There’s more support, more of a volunteering attitude, and more of a willingness to help make the music happen by the fans. Europe continues to be the most commercially-viable place for many underground country bands to tour and sell albums, and that support is continuing to grow.

A Few Breakout Bands

Bands like Larry & His Flask, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, and The Goddamn Gallows have found some decent success over the past few years playing on some bigger tours like The Warped Tour and opening for The Reverend Horton Heat. Bob Wayne has found traction in Europe and domestically being singed with label Century Media. Justin Townes Earle is now a big concert draw, and Scott Biram is getting his music played on television shows.

But many of these artists are moving on from the traditional underground country infrastructure to find their success, and others like Leroy Virgil and Sturgill Simpson still seem to be one step behind where their creative potential should be taking them commercially.

Festival & Touring Infrastructure

This is something underground country was lacking for years, and now has a healthy dose of. Unfortunately rising gas prices and dwindling crowds sometimes means it’s too little too late for some bands. The reason Unknown Hinson says he quit touring was because it was costing him too much money.

There are more festivals in all shapes and sizes catering to underground country and roots than ever before. But again, with a dwindling fan base, these different festivals are competing with each other for the same anemic and contracting population.

The Deep Blues

The Deep Blues seems to be on a more sustainable path, and also seems to be able to divest itself from the drama that is confounding underground country. However since it shares much of the same infrastructure as underground country, the issues in underground country can bleed over to the deep blues as well. There is better sustainability in Deep Blues, but the growth is still marginal. In many ways, the Deep Blues is the only thing keeping underground country alive, and that could hinder Deep Blues from moving forward as it drags underground country along.

What Can Be Done To Save Underground Country

To save underground country there must be a renewed interest in finding and developing younger bands, attracting younger fans, and focusing on talent and creativity over forming exclusive scenes. “Young” should not be mistaken for the same connotations it carries in mainstream country. Talent and creativity should still remain key, as well as trying to reach the folks that “get it.” But if underground country wants to continue to remain a viable part of the overall country music landscape, it must recruit new bands and new listeners to replace the natural contraction within its population.

Underground country must quit being so reactionary about the outside world. It must diversify. It must find common ground, common struggle, and common tastes with Americana, Red Dirt, and Texas music, and promote its best and brightest talent to those worlds and then reciprocate. It must stick to its founding principles of preserving the roots of the music and fighting for creative control for artists, and seize on the opportunities current events create to promote those principles to the rest of the music world, promoting the music of underground country by proxy.

It needs leadership, big bands, breakout albums and songs that breathe new fervor into the movement.

It needs and end to the “I got mine” mentality.

And it needs it now, before it ends up like Communism: a great idea whose devil is in the application."