Americana 2

And another one that's been a long time comin'. Americana Vol. 1, as seen in the title, was always supposed to have a sequel, but in between the Bluegrass Chartbusters series and a couple of alt albums or One Album Wonders it always got pushed back, as I don't want this place to only become OBG's Americana corner. But after a year and a half, it seems about time to actually get to Volume No. 2. The idea is still the same: There is no specific idea, other than compiling 20 tracks from the Americana spectrum. Some refugees from the Bluegrass Chartbusters, who were either not Bluegrass or Chartbuster enough, have found a home here, plus the usual stray tracks I stumbled upon one way or the other. Some are relatively newcomers, other are vets. No real structuring principle either, other than flow and variety.  

Having said all that, the newcomers are clearly having the upper hand here, and there's a reason for that. A bunch of these, by such unheralded artists as Gene Gainey, Bryan Yurcan, Jung Bergo, Sean Whalshe or Madmans Moustache, are escapees from yet another project that will debut soon on One Buck Records, but were quote-unquote too country for that one, so they found the perfect new home right here. Also relatively newcomer-ish: Swedish Americana artist Magnus Hansson alias Maybe Canada, Melanoid, and Song Preservation Society. Lots of people to discover here that I'm sure most of you haven't heard of yet, but if these selections are any indication, deserve a closer look in the future. 

The vets brought in range from pioneers like cow-punk legend Jason Ringenberg to cult artists like Will Oldham a.k.a. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, to artists creeping into the vets camp with each passing year like Maren Morris, here still a teenager. There's also a young Kacey Musgraves with a wonderful take on Uncle Neil's "Heart Of Gold". Throw in the Counting Crows with a really neat live in studio performance of the Grateful Dead's "Friend Of The Devil" and Chris Stapleton's "Outlaw State Of Mind". And a word for Bill Miller, the rare Native American Americana/country rock artist, whoese 1982 debut Native Sons, from which "Two Places At Once" is taken, is an underappreciated early example of what we'd call Americana later on. 

And finally, a word (or three) on the special bonus track, which I designed as such, so if you have a strict 'No A.I. in my music' policy, you can just delete it without consequence: You might remember Jared Hutcherson as the AI-generated country singer with the changing voices, who was highly productive, until he got deep-sixed. R.I.P. Jared, we hardly knew ya! But we got one thing to remember you by. Of the half-dozen songs I sampled from 'Jared', one stood out. "Burning Horses" is done in the growly vet voice, for a dark Americana song with apocalyptic undertones. Maybe fitting that it's the A.I. that goes so dark: "This is a call for the burning horses, racing out through hell / they can find you anywhere, anywhere you dwell / flame and fury, teeth and bone / ain't no place to hide alone / burning horses know your name, and they're coming just the same." Whoa, A.I. on a dark death trip. It's a weird song, and I like that, and I really like the song, which is, well, weird. And, you know, "Burning Horses" sentiment of unstoppable, impending doomis  truly fitting considering the rapid-fire development - and not in a good way - in the A.I. department in the last months. Always remember, folks: A.I. knows your name, and it's coming just the same.

Spring Cleaning, Part.2: Hey, Remember These Chicks?

Ol' OBG continues his spring cleaning. And well, the Jimmy Eat World Bleed American project wasn't the only trilogy I never completed. When I initially posted Fly, the Thriller of mainstream country albums back in May 2024, the idea was that I'd post its two equally good follow-ups in the next weeks, maybe months. And then it took me ten months to post Home, and now it's been a year since I posted that one. What is this, James Cameron's Avatar movies? The album title turned out prophetically, Taking The Long Way indeed. But now that the spring cleaning crew (i.e. me) has found the Chicks' 2006 bounce back album, time to complete one of the best album trilogies by any artist or band, ever. 

"Forgive ? Sounds good. Forget? I'm not sure I could / they say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting..."

Of course, Taking The Long Way wasn't just an album, it was an event, for reasons both obvious and really, truly fucked up beyond repair. The backlash and blackballinng of the Chicks after Natalie Maines' off the cuff comments about George W. Bush at a London concert was some truly shameful shit. It looked already absolutely atrocious at the time, but it looks even worse in hindsight. Looking back on it, it's pretty clear that the outrage and outright banning of the Chicks Of course, Taking The Long Way wasn't just an album, it was an event, for reasins both obvious and really, truly fucked up beyond repair. The backlash and blackballinng of the Chicks after Natalie Maines' off the cuff comments about George W. Bush at a London concert was some truly shameful shit. It looked already absolutely atrocious at the time, but it looks even worse in hindsight Looking back on it, it's pretty clear that the outrage and outright banning of the Chicks had as much to do with misogyny as t did did with (fake, fabricated) ill-advised patriotism. The Chicks, but really mainly lead siner Natalie Maines was an opinionated youg woman. She had a mouth on her, something not everybody in the country music industry loved, but had to put up with considering the Chicks' drawing power for the five preceding years. So when there was an opportunity to shut Maines and her bandmates up and 'put these women into their place', boy, did they ever.

Well, let's talk about the music for a bit, shall we? Because while it's nice to become, somewhat against their own will, unlikely symbols of free speech, you still gotta have something to say. And the Chicks do.
This is their first album in which all three Chicks are credited on all songs, usually with a veteran quality songwriter to put these songs in shape: Semisonic's Dan Wilson, The Jayhawks' Gary Louris, Neil Finn, Mike Campbell, Sheryl Crow, and on the lasr track,  the previously issued charity single "I Hope" ,Keb' Mo. But it's clear tht the Chicks are in control pf this album - "six strong hands on the steering wheel' as Maines intones on the opener and title song.

That song, "Taking The Long Way" deliberately recalls (and references) Home's opener "Long Time Gone", functioning as a sort of sequel, thematizing the Chicks' choices along the way. "Wouldn't kiss all the asses they told me to / but I could never follow" after a quick breather with wonderful ballad "Easy Silence", Maines & Co. put the war paint on with "Not Ready To Make Nice", the single that details their ordeal and the defiant stance they took, or were forced to take. Wilson had come in with, as Maines recalls, "an idea that was some sort of concession, like a 'can't we all get along?' and I said nope, I can't say that, I can't do that". And so Wilson's idea, initially tentatively titled "United" became the Chicks' big, therapeutic fuck off to their detractors. You don't need to know the back story to feel the song's power, but it helps if you do.

Whether the song is an acknowledgment of their new-found notoriety like "Everybody Knows" or a simple old-fashioned barn burner like "Lubbock Or Leave It",  the Chicks are in control throughout the 14 track album, which runs maybe two tracks too long, but is objectively the third killer album in a row. It won four Grammies in what was widely considered a political gesture, of the pop world embracing the Chicks after the country world burned them so badly. But it deserves those Grammies, including song of the year for "Not Ready To Make Nice", and I say that as someone who, like any real music fan, is highly suspicious of these folks and their decision-making.

Sadly, things wouldn't turn out okay, despite the brave faces the Chicks put on here. They couldn' get over it and they are still waiting on full healing. So the band went on hiatus for a decade. Maines especially was so disgusted by the way the country music scene had treated her that she made a rock'n' roll solo album far away from Nashville in 2013, otherwise raising her family. The remaining Chicks, sisters Emily and Marti meanwhile formed acoustic country-bluegrass  duo Court Yard Hounds. Gaslighter, the Chicks' 2020 comeback album, heavily influenced by Maines' bitter divorce from actor Adrian Pasdar, is a pretty good pop album, though not a patch on the Chicks' trilogy from 1998 to 2006. 

The real loss, one could argue, is to mainstream country music, which is a lot poorer without the Chicks in it. With Home they had pushed a stealth trad country/progressive bluegrass album over into the mainstream, and while that probably wasn't sustainable, it showed an interest in country roots that have been waxed  over by barely disguised stadium rock and soft pop with a steel guitar flourish, in a scene subsequently dominated by boorish country bros. The MAGA-fication of the Nashville country scene was a bit hesitant during the first term of Donny the Disgraceful, but - like its leader - has been less shameless in the last years. If my reaction at the time was 'Fuck the Nasgville music complex and their minions', I can't say that my opinion has changed positively in the meantime...

Writing about this album as another dubiously timed and even more dubiously planned US-started war rages reminds us how history can repeat itself, and how we'll always need people who are not ready to make nice - in the entertainment industry, and everywhere else., especially as a crackdown on dissident voices is in full effect. In the meantime, play Taking The Long Way, enjoy some top notch country rock and keep sane, everybody...

Welcome To Pink Floyd Country

And I mean that literally. Don't let it be said that I don't recognize the trace of a good idea if I stumble upon one. My use of alternate takes including pedal steel and violin when reconfiguring Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here tempted a reader (hi, Thames!) to declare it a country album, which - while not strictly accurate - does capture the different feel of that version. It also left me with a new idea: What about making a real, dyed-in-the-wool country album of Pink Floyd tunes. And here it is: Welcome To Pink Floyd Country? 

There were two problems with the plan: first of all, there were way less country covers of Pink Floyd songs than I imagined - maybe that match made in heaven wasn't as obvious as I made it out to be? And secondly, of those that existed, there was a rather uneven playing field: I could probably fill a compilation with covers of "Wish You Were Here" and "Time" alone, as these two are by far the most popular cover song choices, including some country & bluegrass artists. But I wanted a variety of songs, so no doubles, not counting the pedal steel version of "Wish You Were Here" of the band itself that was all over the OBG Edit of Wish You Were Here, and is here in all its unaltered, full glory. 

But I did find enough good stuff to complete This Is Pink Floyd Country. One thing that was interesting is that more than half of the tracks on here come from The Wall. I wouldn't have thought that at first, thinking that tracks from Dark Side Of The Moon would outnumber them, but that was definitely wrong - "Time" excluded. Though, to be fair, I took a full four tracks from a single band and album: Luther Wright & The Wrongs covered the entire Wall album in a bluegrass style, though I'm still not quite sure whether the whole thing is an elaborate piss-take on the album or an honest, if definitely idiosyncratic take on it. There is definitely a touch too much of country humour in Mr. Wright's voice, but I took the tracks that sound the most genuine, while definitely bringing the country instrumentation in spades.

I'm already on the record as declaring Cornbread Red's take on "Comfortably Numb" as my favorite take on the song - ever. But there are also great takes on "Mother" by main Dixie Chick Natalie Maines and a really nice run through "Run Like Hell" by multi-instrumentalist David West (he also adds a great take on "See Emily Play"). Wish You Were Here is represented by Cody Jinks' fantastic take on the title song, again led by a majestic pedal steel, showing how that song would have turned out if David Gilmour was a redneck (and I mean that in the best possible way), as well as prog bluegrass band Kitchen Dwellers' take on "Welcome To The Machine". Out of the "Time" covers I chose the one by Cash Dawson, who really brings a nicely atmospheric alt country/Americana vibe to it. And finally, there's Billy Strings with an awesome, extended take on "Fearless". 

So, cool cover, cool cover versions, here's This Is Pink Floyd Country for your delectation...

The Year Of The Desperado

The Year Of The Desperado, at least for the purposes of the One Buck Record of the day, started in early March 1973 and ended about thirteen months later. On March 10 1973 the Eagles took the stage of the Sporthal de Vliegermolen, a local gym in Voorburg in the Netherlands for a festival called Popgala 73. At that time the release of Desperado was two weeks away, which means that the Eagles premiered a whooping five numbers from the album that evening, plus J.D. Souther's "How Long" which would only find a place on an Eagles record 34 years later. Ten days later they gave a concert for the BBC that split the difference bewteen numbers from their succesful debut album and the upcoming Desperado. And then, a little less than a year later, on April 14 1974 the Eagles were invited to Don Kirshner's Rockconcert series, bringing with them friends like Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt. By that time, On The Border had come out, but a nuber of Desperado tracks remained in the line-up, including a show-stopping and show-concluding extended run through "Doolin-Dalton - Desperado (Reprise)".  

So here's the breakdown: the first eight tracks are from Popgala '73, the following four from the BBC cncert and then the last four from the Kirshner show. Most of these 15 tracks present Desperado songs, plus songs that fit the vibe or sound. The Popgala tracks are interesting, because while the soundboard mix is pretty clear, it also is an unusual mix. Don Henley's instruments are much higher in the mix than usual, giving these tracks a sound that goes off the beaten Eagles path. And for a band that was notorious for playing everything exactly as in the studio, that's is something. You can hear Henley's drumming or percussion work. This might not be surprising for the opening "Take It Easy" (after the traditional a capella rendering of the first verse of "Fair And Tender Ladies") which is acoustic and has Henley do percussion on the guitar on his lap. But it gives even an old warhorse like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" a slightly different feeling, Henley's pushed to the front drumming and the rather loose steel guitar from Leadon giving it a loping feel that the pretty, shiny studio version and most of its live apperance clones don't have. And you can hear every movement of Henley's hi-hat at the beginning of "Certain Kind Of Fool". 

Speaking of that song, one of my favorites of the album, it's the only one on here that is present in two versions, because I thought the Popgala and BBC ones were sufficiently different and both worth keeping, while I picked the BBC versions of "(Whatever Happened To) Saturday Night" and "Out Of Control" because the former has a longer mandolin solo and the latter has cleaner sound. "Early Bird" from that BBC concert is an interesting case to make for the early Eagles being a band worth seeing and hearing in concert. From about mid-1974 onwards, their concerts became calcified and repetitive, no doubt responsible for the Rolling Stone infamously accusing them of "loitering on stage". But in the two years beforehand they occasionally deviated from the well-studied studio versions, such as on "Early Bird" whose running time gets more than doubled via a long jam section. 

I also kept the banter on the Popgala tracks, because it's interesting to see how the Eagles (d)evolved. Some of the interaction might be akward, especially when Glenn Frey takes the mic, but at least they try to communicate with the audience, when in later years they would pretty much leave it at "We're the Eagles from Los Angeles. It's also interesting to note who's doing the banter here. It's normal that you don't hear the terminally shy Randy Meisner, but there also is not a single peep from Henley, with Leadon and Frey - the band's two most outgoing characters, taking the mic (and sometimes sniping at each other, setting up a volatile relationship that would eventually become openly hostile). 

The Year Of The Desperado doesn't only make a case for the quality of the Desperado material but also for the quality of the early Eagles as a fine concert attraction, and it's a very fine way to spend an hour and change. So, here's the Eagles from Los Angeles with tales of outlaws and low lives or maybe low life rockstars. Let The Year Of The Desperado begin...

When The Eagles Turned Desperado...And Unveiled Their Masterpiece

"They've made a fuckin' cowboy album!" This was the less-than-enthusiastic reaction of Atlantic label boss Jerry Greenberg, whose lbel was distributing Assylum records at the time, upon hearing what the new golden boys of the Asylum label had been up to for about a month in London. He certainly didn't expect an entire album based on old West outlaws and their similarities to current rock stars. Asylum head honcho David Geffen was barely more impressed. Of course, one issue was coolness. Looking like hippies on their first album, he could sell this music to hippies and housewives alike, but now these guys were playing dress up on the cover material and singing about bank robbers in the 1880s? History almost proved Greenberg, who maintained that coboy records wouldn't sell, and Geffen right, at least at first, because Desperado didn't repeat the success of the Eagles' debut album. Both singles stiffed (more on that later) and the album took a year and a half to go gold. Was it a mistake to make that "fuckin' cowboy album"?  

I had a real 'two roads diverged in a yellow wood' moment when I picked up my first Eagles album. My record store (well, one of my record stores) had a 'cheaper and last items' section which I browsed through, as usual. This was at the beginning of my life as a student and thus at the beginning of me slowly building a classic rock collection. So I stumbled on two Eagles discs, probably thrown out to make way for the remasters that were coming up. One was The Long Run. The other one was, obviously, Desperado. I decided I could take one, but not both. On one hand we had the simple black album cover, on the other the old west outlaws. 

I'd like to think that my love for Westerns, instilled to me by my father's love for Westerns made me choose Desperado and its cowboy chic, but it's just as likely that I checked the back covers and the titles on The Long Run made me wonder. "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks"? "Teenage Jail"? "Those Shoes"? Yeah, no, I take the cowboys there, thank you very much. Needless to say, I made the good choice. I doubt I would have become an Eagles fan based on The Long Road, as a matter of fact. It's still the worst of all Eagles albums and probably the worst of all the big, heavily awaited releases ever. Yuck. Desperado, though? Hear me out on this, folks, because it just might be the Eagles' masterpiece. 

There's a persistent myth about the Eagles, often brought up in connection with Desperado and its artwork, that the Eagles weren't really country, that they were a bunch of fakers who would do this ridiculous dress-up but were, as Michael Murphy would say, "city slicker lickers, they gotta a lot of licks slicker than you and me". But that is, as a lot of things concerning the band, a mix of self-mythologizing gone wrong and a lot of half-assed assumptions by observers. "We're the Eagles from Los Angeles" might have been their slogan, but the Eagles came from everywhere in the U.S. 

Randall Herman Meisner was born the son of a sharecropper in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. You can't get any more country than that. Donald Hugh Henley grew up in a small town in northeast Texas. Sounds pretty country to me. Bernard Michael Leadon III was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, though he was the frst to adop California as his home state. The only real faker of the crew was, of course, Glenn Frey, who was born and grew up in Detroit and idolized local hero Bob Seger. Frey, notably, went into sensitive folk-rock, then country-rock, because he saw a career opportunity there. But yeah, I'd say two and a half cowboys out of four is pretty damn enough. 

Whether you agreed with the album's premise of likening 1970s rock stars to 1880 outlaws, or thought it was silly, you can not accuse the Eagles of not committing to it. I never realized until some Glenn Frey banter in a live show, how smartly they go about it. Take "A Certain Kind Of Fool" for example. Listening to it like that, with the Wild West artwork and everything, you would of course figure it's about a young guy buying a gun, becoming a gunfighter and "a wanted man" on the poster on a store front - but it never openly says that the object, "so shiny and new in his hand", was a gun - it might just as well be a guitar, and the poster is a concert poster.

This kind of double meaning applies to a whole number of songs: When Bernie Leadon sings in "Twenty-One" that "they say a man should have a stock and trade / but me I find another way", is he talking abut turning outlaw or turning rock'n'roll singer? The guys coming into town and causing havoc while getting a little "Out Of Control" could be cowhands raising hell after their payday, or a rock'n'roll band partying, right?! The old, short (and now replaced) Allmusic review complained that "none of the songs fit the storyline", but there was no storyline per se to follow - and they did almost entirely follow the thematic concept of the record.  

Desperado was also the big coming out party for Don Henley and a harbinger for things to come, with all that implies. On the debut he was hardly noticable, as a singer or songwriter. He had half a song credit to his name, even if - another harbnger to come - it was on hit sngle "Witchy Woman" that he also sung. But for his second slated lead vocal they had to wheel out a Jackson Browne tune, as if Henley couldn't write a second quality tune. Well, that would change, quickly. Henley is credited on eight of the eleven songs on Desperado, and sings lead on four of them - most of all Eagles in both cases. And while the Henley-Frey combo might not be as renowned as Lennon-McCartney or Richards-Jagger, that writing team was born here, and there is no denying its efficacity. Unsurprisingy, the two big songs that everyone knows off this album were both Henley-Frey compositions. Tellingly, these weren't the two singles off the album, because "Desperado" was never issued as such. 

More proof that, despite "Witchy Woman", the Eagles were at this time seen as a band with a clear lead singer in Glenn Frey, so Asylum would ty to mirror the band's debut album and issue a Frey-sung uptempo tune à la "Take It Easy" ("Outlaw Man") and a Frey-sung ballad à la "Peaceful, Easy Feeling" ("Tequila Sunrise"). Also: check out the album cover, on which the two most prominent guys are Leadon and Meisner, with Frey half-blocked out by Meisner and Henley having half of his face hidden by the shadow of his cowboy hat. This would obviously be the last time that Henley would be obscured on something Eagles-related. Henley seemingly had the greatest affinity for the cowboy material, yet it's still quite a leap to go from a single co-credit on the debut to co-writing two-thirds of an album. Naturally, Henley profited from this, as his songwriting credits, number of lead vocals and influence on the group's fortune grew massively, almost as a direct result from Desperado. 

On the nine original tracks (not couting the two "Doolin-Dalton" reprise songs), I don't see a single duffer. The weakest is probably "Out Of Control", and even that one hints at the harder rock direction the band would soon afterwards veer into. Despite Glyn Johns' excellent work on Desperado the band - well, mainly Glenn Frey and Don Henley - were growing tired of Johns and his rules (no drugs in the studio! how dare he?) and production (deemed too soft by the two), but the switch to Bill Szymchyk halfway through follow-up On The Border didn't yield an album as satisfying as Desperado. As a matter of fact, none of them did. Sure, they got bigger and ridiculously successful, but for me they never bettered Desperado, even on Hotel California which comes closest. 

Desperado deserves a listen from those who never gave a fuck about the Eagles, or a second listen from those who have written off the Eagles due to the played-to-death-radio-hits. It will also be the first of a series of albums about America in the 19th Century that I plan to post. And be back tomorrow for a Desperado-themed bonus...

Wanted: Clyde "Skip" Battin, Classic Country Rock Band Killer

I know, that's a little mean, but is it entirely unwarranted? If you are a classic country rock band in the 70s, and you're thinking of giving Skip Battin a call to join your group of merry men...well, I got some bad news for you...your band is in creative decline, and it's probably terminal. Battin, by all accounts a jovial, easy-going guy that would fit easily into your band was also, unwillingly and accidentally no doubt, a harbinger of doom for the bands that hired him.  

Think about it: He joined The Byrds, and while he actually held up the most stable, and longest-lasting line-up in the volatile history of that band, the Battin years are usually considered a long, at the end drastic decline. Those of you who have followed my Byrds retrospective via alternate albums know that I have a special love for the twilight Byrds, but there is no denying that Battin contributed some of the all-time worst songs the band ever put to tape, and well...those Byrds were goners. After the demise of the CBS Byrds, a new country rock band came calling - The New Riders Of The Purple Sage. They had just come off one of their most popular and by most accounts best albums, The Adventures Of Panama Red, a year before and after a stop gap live album set out to work on their new studio album, Brujo. Result, largely helped by four (including three back-toback!) novelty songs of the infamous Kim Fowley-Skip Battin combo: arguably the worst album to date by the band and an ongoing quality decline through the last years of recording for Columbia. 

Jump to 1976: The re-formed Flying Burrito Brothers have made a respectable, better than expected 'comeback' album. The reviews are scathing, though (mainly based on the impression of usurping and sullying the band name, despite the group having two original members, just not the right ones), and band founder Chris Ethridge quits in disgust. And who is that wondering through the door to replace him? Why, it's ol' Skip Battin, to rejoin old comrade Gene Parsons (who would only stay for that one common album). Result: The following album Airborne was anything but and took a huge nosedive, quality-wise, compared to its predecessor. At least Battin had no songs on that album. 

Anyway, enough of that, even though the point is hard to argue. As a steady hand, Battin's presence was appreciated by those bands, with problems coming up as soon as he mentioned that he and Kim had written a couple of songs to look at...But, for a brief moent in between band adventures, Battin was also for the briefest time a solo artist. Right after being fired by McGuinn in 1972, he issued his solo album Skip for Columbia, and invited his old Byrds band members to play on it. Most mischieviously, he had Roger McGuinn add his typical 12-string Rickenbacher sound to "Captain Video", the standout track, which was also a really funny send up of McGuinn, who was very likely oblivious to that very fact: "They call me Captain Soul, but I'm Captain Video!"

And yet, that sole album from 1972, later joined by two solo discs in the early and mid-80s that were issued in Italy only, had a real follow-up, to come out less than a year after Skip. An ambitious plan foresaw a huge country rock revue touring the U.S. in the fall of 1973, including both ex-Byrds Parsons (Gram and Gene), Battin, fellow ex-Byrd Clarence White and bluegrass group Country Gazette (whose members were part of the last Hilllan-led Flying Burrito Brother line-up). Every one of the participants was to bring out an album to tour behind. Now, that huge country rock tour - a sort of 'Rolling Thunder Revue' od Byrds alumni and associates - never took place, for reasons not everyone agrees on, though various mayors voting against the presence of hippie longhairs in their repsectable towns might have played a role in it. A huge damper on things was of course Clarence White's senseless death in July 1973, when he was hit and killed by a dunk driver. White was working on his own solo album that was never to be, and was also scheduled to go into the studio mere days later to support old comrade Battin on his second studio album. 

Despite everyone being shocked and in giried by the sudden loss of White, the session stook place, with members of  Country Gazette, the aforementioned Chris Ethridge, Clarence's brother Roland, Herb Petersen and, replacing White, Al Perkins, then from the Souther-Hillman-Fury Band. An L.A. country rock all-star band that convened to cut a number of bluegrass standards as well as a number of typically skewed Battin-Fowley originals, before the project was finally abandoned. No tour, no album...thus Battin joining the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. For almost forty years that abandoned second album by Battin existed only in the memory of the players, before finally being issued by Byrds-associated act specialist Sierra. Topanga Skyline finally saw the light of day in 2012. 

But it was an album presentation  that was not entirely successful or well-thought out: To bolster the skimpy running time of a little more than half an hour - feasible in 1973, but unreasonable for the CD age - Sierra Records added the two most country-ish tracks from Skip's real second solo album, 1981's Navigator (featuring other Flying Burrito Brothers founding member Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel). Two different takes on the standard "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms" were unceremoniously glued together. And a snatch of "Old Mountain Dew" showed up as a hidden bonus track, glued to an ill-fitting partner. There is good work and some very fine music on this album, but the presented form just missed the mark. 

Enter the One Buck Guy. Here is Topanga Skyline in the way it could have come out in 1973. No bonus tracks from a decade later, only songs recorded in 1973. A more balanced sequencing. And a rightful place for "Old Mountain Dew" and that second, rather loose take on "Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms". These two tracks, taken from a demo/jam session are believed to be the very last rceordings of Clarence White before his untimely death. So while technically, they might not be as good as the rest of the album, they have their place as a reminder of what everyone lost when Clarence died, and a tribute to White. 

As for the music: The playing of some of the finest that the L.A. country rock scene has to offer is the highlight here, while Battin's idiosyncratic songs and lead vocals are spirited, but definitely a bit of an acquired taste. If you liked Battin in The Byrds, Burritos or New Riders Of The Purple Sage, you'll like this, and if you like bluegrass and country rock, or any of the bands mentioned thus far, then you'll probably like this as well. The obvious highlight here is a truly inspired reworking of bubblegum hit single "Hully Gully", that just stomps out the original. That one is almost worth the price of admission alone, though Battin also delivers some fine ballads with the beautiful "Relax With Me" and "Wintergreen", and holds up his end of the bargain when plowing through "Foggy Mountain Top" or "Salty Dog Blues". 

Woof, that write-up got a little long there, whoops. So, let's cut the chit-chat and join Battin in a bluegrass-flavored trip to that Topanga Skyline...

 

Waylon & Willie - The Outlaws Ride...

Not only are the days of summer slowly coming to an end, but also the days of summer holidays for the kids. Which is not a totally bad thing, because for now they are eating away at the adults' time, rarely being in bed before 10.30. Which means there's no time left for the adults to really invest in putting on a movie, or what not, so these days often we just hang out in front of the news or some easy going, not terribly long show. So testerday I stumbled on this documentary on Robert De Niro, which - while having nothing particularly new to teach me - reminded me of what a spectacular run De Niro had in the 70s and early 80s. THen the documentary was followed by one on Dolly Parton, someone I'm a lot less familiar with. Really interesting stuff, and even the wife was happy to have seen it and to have learned a ton about Parton. Great lady with a ton of humor. And by now it was definitely time to hit the bed, but that Parton documentary then segued into...a 1990 concert of the Highwaymen. Which means by this very long intro I will finally segue into the record of the day, which as you can see above is *not* the Highwaymen, but the two outlaw members of the group...

The Highwaymen period isn't seen by anyone as a highlight of the career of the four men involved. As a matter of fact, the group ws put together when the career of these wily country veterans had all begun to slow down considerably, so they wisely through themselves together. The adventure smacked a bit of n oldies package tour, and the concert we saw yesterday didn't entirely dispell that notion, but man, getting to see four legends (well, three and a half, with no disrespect to Kristoffer Kristian Ktistofferson) in one fell swoop retrospectively looks like a pretty great deal. In concert, these guys didn't bother too much with songs from the record they di in 1985 or the brand new record they were promoting in 1990, but rather ran through the greatest hits of each men. A toe-tappin' good ol' time was had by all - including OBG and his wife - which means we really, really went to bed later than we should. 

So here I was anyway, contemplating what to post next on this here lil' blog that could, and so the outlaws pushed themselves all the way to the front of the line. What I have here for you is one of the very first homebrewed compilations I ever did, about fourteen years ago. I had borrowed four vinyls from my dad - the Waylon & Willie album that lends its cover artwork, the Wanted: The Outlaws compilation from 1976, Willie's Red Headed Stranger and Waylon's I've Always Been Crazy - transferred them from vinyl to digital and compiled my favorites from these four albums involving Waylon & Willie. Seven of the generous 29 track selections are duets by Willie & Waylon, the rest alternates between both of them trading songs. 

There are of course their two famous duets, "Good-Herated Woman" and "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", plus a couple of lesser-known duet tunes like "Don't Cuss The Fiddle" (with its "Good Hearted Woman" reprise). Waylon's songs include highlights like the hilarious recounting of a New York Police drug bust in "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand?", "A Long Time Ago" and "Girl I Can Tell", while Willie favorites other than the story-songs from Red Headed Stranger include "A Couple More Years" and "If You Can Touch Her At All", plus his classic "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain".  

So, what's more to say? A ton of classic songs from the heydays of the outlaw movement and two of its best representatives. I have been grooving to this album, whenever I get the need for some honky tonkin', wheelin' and dealin', shufflin' and hufflin' outlaw country, for fourteen years, so maybe ut's time you get to do that, too...

...To Son: It's Shooter! (...and OBG helps with a little the aim...)

The eagle-eyed among you have seen that the title to tuesday's post was a bit odd, but that was of course to set up part two of Jennings week here at One Buck Records. After daddy Waylon (the only one who'll walk the line) here's son Shooter, carrying the coutry rock outlaw torch into the 21st Century. Or so I thought. I picked up The Wolf for a couple of bucks mainly on the strength of the cover art. Seriously, that is a bad ass cover right there, indicating that there is some bad ass music within. Take a look at the back cover picture (below): four rowdy-looking dudes, ready to cause a ruckus. Men, lock away your daughters (and wives?!) when these bad motherfuckers come to town. And cover your ears, for there is surely some bad ass  countryfied rock'n'roll in here. 

Or so I thought. And it starts out that way, with opener "This Ol' Wheel", where Shooter raps over a countryrock beat like he is a more authentic Kid Rock. Things slow down a little for the breezy "Tangled Up Roses", then there's a really cool cover of "Walk Of Life" which happens to be my favorite Dire Straits song. So far, so good. But then the album ran in trouble. Other than "Slow Train", a lovely and lively number featuring The Oak Ridge Boys, the next four numbers were all slow numbers, bringing the groove of the album to a grinding halt. And after another slightly more lively section, the album goes out on another stretch of slow-ish or too poppish numbers. In other words, The Wolf needed some help. 

One was a re-sequencing that would spread out the slower numbers more evenly and try to get a better, sustainable flow. I also decided to ditch a couple of numbers, then looked for replacements. I checked Missed The Boat: Demos And Rarities for some more bad ass tunes that could take their place. The demos for The Wolf numbers didn't match their album equivalents, but I found two outakes from around the time frame of the album, then decided to turn these into the new opening numbers of side one and two of The Wolf. The first, "A Rejected Television Theme Song", sees Shooter and the boys be more of the bad motherfuckers I imagined when buying the album. And "A Classic Television Theme Song" is exactly that, and one you'll be very familiar with. 

The rest was figuring every number's place, while I also wanted to leave the sections that worked relatively intact. Thus, "Tangled Up Roses", "Walk Of Life" and "Slow Train" stayed more or less in place, and the second half trio of "Higher", "Blood From A Stone" and "Last Time I Let You Down" got shuffled a bit, but stayed more or less in place. The new opening let me push ""This Ol' Wheel" to the beginning of the second side to lively it up. And while I'm not a huge fan of mariachi instrumentation, I'll let that slide for "Old Friend", 'cause the song is nice, it was just misplaced on the original album, and as the new album closer I can let it ride out on that mariachi groove. 

So, uh, that was probably once more a lot more info on my whole alternate album machinations than you needed or wanted, but there you go. The end result is, I think, a real improvement on the original album.  So, fire up The Wolf and see what kind of ruckus Shooter Jennings & The Three Fifty Sevens can comeup with...

From Father...: It's Good Ol' Waylon

Folks around here know that I am a fiend of all things country rock of the 70s, as well as the Alt Country movement of the 90s onwards that most recently was featured on the Americana disc I compiled. But of course I also like some of the genre forefathers, like rockabilly-turned-outlaw country star Waylon Jennings. Out of the famous Outlaw movement I have a clear favorite, and it's ol' Waylon. Willie is fine, has some very fine songs, but he also has a voice that can become a bit grating at times. Waylon's mighty, booming baritone, however? I'll take that all day every day. Well, maybe not quite as often, but you catch my drift. 

The One Buck record of the day is a live recording from 1984, recorded for the Silver Eagle radio program (though I added out the Silver Eagle commercial break announcements and such). It's a pretty good set list and a pretty good performance, especially considering that by 1984 Waylon was entering his purple phase as a performer. I am fond of Waylon's last album from his classic era I've Always Been Crazy, which my dad had on vinyl, together with Waylon & Willie from the same year, Willie's classic Red Headed Stranger and the Wanted! The Outlaws album from a couple of years earlier. For years my Outlaw country was a comp I made out of those albums, and I still have that and listen to it from time to time. 

The set list has a number of my favorites, not only classics like the Willie-and-Waylon warhorses "Good Hearted Woman" and "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", but also Crazy's "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit Has Done Got Out Of Hand", a story-song about his run-ins with the law in the mid-to late 70s: "Someone called us outlaws in some old magazine / New York sent a posse down like I ain't never seen..."

And speaking of outlaws: It also has my very first brush with Waylon Jennings, the "Theme From The Dukes Of Hazzard", which was a show that I first saw years after it came out when the magic of private television brought us kids all the low-brow tv shows the state-owned channels wouldn't touch: The A-Team, Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard, among others. Other highlights here: the classics "I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way". The band is steadily ticking along behind ol' Waylon and gives these songs the raw, muscular sound that originally separated Waylon from the (Nashville) pack and started the whole Outlaw thing in the first place.

So, 15 fine tracks from the finest of the old school country outlaws...so, folks, are you ready for some country with the only daddy that'll walk the line..?

Get your Rowans in a row...and let that sweet 70s music flow...

Sometimes a well-meant compliment can be more poisonous than a barely disguised insult. Jerry Garcia meant well when he compared Chris and Lorin, two of the three Rowan Brothers, to The Beatles, but well...comparing these two young guys to the most popular and in many ways most inventive group in pop music history...thanks, Jerr. So, the Rowans' debut started with probably too high expectations, with debut The Rowan Brothers' amiable country/folk rock not being up to the standards of the Beatles, or even the best of the genre. It has its moments, including the sprightly "Hickory Day" and the chugging, heavy "Thunder On The Mountain", though having a minute long intro of Tibetan horns was, while certainly an artistic choice, also an acquired taste. So was the idea of having the track run seven minute long, that's why I created a single edit, despite the song never having been released as a single. 

When big brother Peter joined The Rowan Brothers and they became The Rowans, he was easily the most established entity, having worked in Earth Opera, with Seatrain and Muleskinner and then of course bluegrass supergroup Old & In The Way, which - while shortlived - was highly influential in turning young college crowds on to bluegrass music. Peter was always more country than his brothers, so he brought that influence to the band. But he was always more Jimmie Rodgers than Gram Parsons, so his idea of country was really old school, often story songs with historical figures. And, like Jimmie, he wasn't above the occasional yodel. He also brought two of his best known Old & In The Way numbers with him, doing a lovely update of "Midnight - Moonlight" for The Rowans and playing "Land Of The Navajo" in concert.

The first album as a trio, simply entitled The Rowans (1975) is probably their most balanced and coherent effort. Sibling Rivalry (1976) has a number of their best songs like "Soldiers Of The Cross". But it also shows the Rowans going into a number of directions at once, not always succcessfully or coherently. And Jubilation from a year later sees them fully in the thrall of the production trends of the time, seeing disco orchestration and soft rock work hand in hand for an album that is not very satisfying. Which brings us directly to the raison d'être for today's One Buck Record.   

The Rowans are the kind of group where a well-chosen compilation is probably all you need from them. As described above, all of them have a moment here and there - their first two moreso than the last two - but none of them hold together particularly well. Thus, the Brothers' Keepers, because these twenty tracks are really that and you don't need much, if anything more, from Lorin, Chris and Peter. I added a couple of live tracks from a 1976 Winterland concert that give a slightly tougher edge to a Jubilation track like "Calle Music", has the aforementioned "Land Of The Navajo" and "I Do Believe" which I do believe is an otherwise unavailable track they never recorded in the studio. 

So, everyone ready for some sweet sweet Seventies music, Calle or otherwise? Thought so, then let's roll...

 

 

One Album Wonders: Try Some Cayenne, It's Good Stuff...

It's been a while since we've been in the world of the one album wonders, time to get back and do it in the way old school One Buck Heads like C in Cali know me with my rootsy proclivities to go: the country rock route, obviously!

Cayenne were a country rock group from the Bay area, gigging and occasionally recording throghout the early 70s, mainly between 1973 and 1795. They finally took up a residency in McGowan's Wharf Tavern on San Fancisco's Fisherman's Wharf and finally self-released (via their label Bucksnort records) their eponymous and unfortunately only record. 

One of the issues was timing. The time it took for Cayenne to lay down these ten sides - noted on the sleeve as being a 'demo' rather than a 'master' recording, but sounding perfectly fin eand professionally recorded and engineered - the country rock boom was over. In 1973 the Eagles' eponymous debut came out, but by 1975 , when Cayenne finally came out, Henley & Co. were openly courting the disco crowd with "One Of These Nights" and had otherwise tried to move to a rock sound. Other presumably country rock outfits like Firefall were openly moving into soft rock. So, really, the fine but unassuming country rock of Cayenne didn't stand much of a chance of making a local, much less national splash. 

Cayenne follows the country rock model of having several songwriters and singers in its ranks: both guitar players John Salz and Clair Louis Hinton (who also adds banjo and harmonica)  as well as drummer Ajay Avery. Salz is the most active with half of the tracks here, while Avery has my favorite track with the bluegrass-styled "2 Months In Red Bluff". The sound reminds you of Poco or The Pure Prairie League or latter day Moby Grape on closing cut "Things Get Better". 

Before relistening to this for prepping the write-up I had also forgotten how crunchy the lead guitar can be, as on opener "Make Your Move". The track list had a tiny soft spot in the middle, so I did some resequencing for a better flow of Cayenne. 

This album won't change your life, and it isn't a hidden classic like George Law's selftitled album or Luke Gibson's Perfect Day But it is a damn fine album with all of country rock's hall marks like the close vocal harmonies that you associate with the genre. It sure as hell deserved better than selling a couple of copies via Jim's Used Record Store in San Fran and obviously not enough people sent their five bucks to Bucksnort Records to make Cayenne a continuing thing. 

But thankfully the internet never forgets, so let's pretend to go to Fisherman's Wharf in the early 70s and being attracted by some fine country rock coming out of one of its bars...

The Dangerous Duo Of Bluegrass or The Ballad Of Doug And Geno

Some really old school One Buck Heads might remember my long write-up for my alt version of Mannassas' second album, which also doubled as a reflection on how many early counytry rock/Americana acts followed up a classic debut album with a disappointing follow-up. And for no act is this probably more true than Dillard & Clark, whose short but sweet debut The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard And Clark was an instant classic, then followed up one year later with Through The Morning, Through The Night, which has three Clark classics ("Kanssa City Southern", "Polly", "Through The Morning, Through The Night"), but is otherwise a misshapen dog's breakfast of an album also including what is probably the worst original song Gene Clark ever wrote ("Corner Street Bar") with an awful vaudeville vocal from Clark, a dreadful version of "Rocky Top" sung by Donna Washburn who is decidely neither Dillard nor Clark, a weak lead vocal exercise from Doug and a ton of cover songs instead of the band profiting from having one of the best songwriters of their time among its midst. 

And yet it had started out so promisingly, at least musically. Gene had signed with A&M Records while fronting The Gene Clark-Laramy Smith Group, but that group had only yielded a couple of demos and then petered out. Dillard, having the infamous 'creative differences' with brother Rodney had quit The Dillards, and with nothing else going on, the two hooked up to form Dillard & Clark. The connection between the two was instantanous, musically and unfortunately also in how they spent their leasure time. Both were into fast motorbikes - sporting some slightly Village People-ish leather motorbike gear on some of the pictures for The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard And Clark. The other hobby they had in common: heavy drinking, unfortunately. 

When the dangerous duo of bluegrass played, it was heaven. When they got to drinking, it could be hell. None more so then their disastrous debut concert at the famed Troubadour, when Dillard & Clark had topped off an afternoon of drining Martinis with a side dish of Acid. The concert started with Gene sitting on an amp facing the wall instead of the audience and, after two songs, a shit-faced Dillard voluntarily jumping on his fiddle and breaking it into bits, prompting mandolin player Don Beck to walk off stage, never to return! Clark spent most of the concert with his back to the audience, and then the band called off the rest of the gig halfway through.  

Drug-related activities aside, musically, for one album at least, it was a match made in heaven. The instant cameraderie of Dillard, Clark and running mate Bernie Leadon is obvious in these recordings. If The Fantastic Expedition had a flaw, it was that at a mere nine tracks and a running time of 29 minutes it was a decidedly skimpy proposition. 

The infamous Troubadour concert...everything looks a-okay here, right?!

The quality loss in between albums is best explained by the fundamental change in band dynamics. The arrival of Donna Washburn, the band's own Yoko Ono, brought a third harmony vocal to the band that could be magnificent, as on "Why Not Your Baby", but it also pushed Leadon out of the band. Not only a loss in terms of his guitar playing, but as a creative contributor : Leadon co-wrote six of the first album's eight original songs. With Donna pushing for more attention for her Dougie, Clark now had to compete for lead vocals, but what really changed the dynamics was that Dillard also realized that with master fiddler Byron Berline now on board, The Expedition could be a fast-paced electric bluegrass band  - a discipline for which Clark, the master of moody melancholia and slow to midtempo rhythms - had little use or natural affection for. So Clark as a songwriter was starting to get sidelined by his own band, with his natural style of songwriting not fitting with the 2.0 version of the band. 

Thus, a stunning seven out of eleven tracks on Through The Morning, Through The Night were covers, with Gene relegated to a mere four songs, including the awful "Corner Street Bar". Most of the covers faild to impress, though their reading of The Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down" was a certified highlight, notably the only non-bluegrass cover on the album. To make things worse, A&M still went by the old 'singles are singles and albums are albums' credo, when "Lyin' Down The Middle" and "Why Not Your Baby" could have boosted the album after a failed run as as singles releases and most certainly upgraded the quality of Through The Morning, Through The Night by replacing, say, "Rocky Top" and "Corner Street Bar".  

The Dillard &Clark Experience 2.0 - why is Gene with The Beverly Hillbillies? 

Seeing how his role in the band had been reduced and the cameraderie changed, Clark left the band in late 1969. Dillard tried to keep the band going as The Doug Dillard Experience, though the band only ever released a single song, "Runaway Country" from the 1971 soundtrack to car-racing cult classic in waiting Vanishing Point. While running the Experience, Dillard also decided to cut a solo album in the winter of 1969, with The Banjo Album being released in 1970. Dillard brought in Clark to guest on harmonica on his own composition "With Care From Someone". Later in 1971 The Doug Dillard Experience cut a demo tape, mostly of bluegrass standards in hopes of finding a record deal, but when that failed to materialize, Dillard finally called it quits on the band. He released another solo album in 1974, then rejoined The Dillards. 

Woof, quite a bit of history to get through before reaching at our One Buck Record of the day which I proudly call The Complete Expedition Of Dillard & Clark. Because it pretty much is. This set features every track Dillard & Clark ever issued on albums or singles, plus the bonus tracks that came out on re-issues of the band, plus the one released song by The Doug Dillard Experience. But that's not all folks! It also includes almost all of Dillard's The Banjo Album - which, seeing how it was cut simultaneously to Dillard's time in the band seems a fitting inclusion - and finally most of the demos the The Doug Dillard Experience cut in 1971. That's a whooping 46 tracks for the dedicated bluegrass and country rock lover! 

Dangerous Liaisons!

But since not everyone might be that dedicated, that's where my sequencing of the collection comes in. If you just want the highlights of Dillard & Clark, and notably Gene Clark's best work, then Disc 1 is for you, as it's programmed as a sort of 'Best Of' for Dillard & Clark, collecting all the best moments from their two albums and two non-album singles, plus the Doug Dillard Experience song and two Dillard instrumentals. Just rename the folder and the half Complete Edition becomes a full Best Of! It's genius! 

Disc 2 is then for the serious Bluegrass or Dillard & Clark lover, collecting the weaker moments from Dillard & Clark, including two outtakes from Through The Morning, Through The Night, the fun but slight b-side Elvis cover "Don't Be Cruel", the lead vocal contributions of Donna & Dougie, as well as the 1971 Experience demos and the rest of Dillard's solo Banjo Album tracks. So, Disc 1 is for beginners, Disc 2 is for advanced students of the matter and if you want the whole shebang - well, good on you! And as a free bonus for nuts like me who burn things to disc, you even get CD artwork! 

Oh boy, this sure is getting long, so I'll leave you with some of the finest country and bluegrass picking the burgeoning L.A. country rock scene had to offer in 68 and 69. Get a hold of The Complete Expedition of Dillard & Clark...

                                                                                                                                  

Goshdarnit! Myrtle, it's them All Pearls No Swines down here on our farm!

Kudos, if you recognized that it's a redneck farmer introducing our newest edition of All Pearls, No Swine. Why would a redneck farmer do such a thing you ask? Well, because he welcomes you to the very first themed edition of All Pearls, No Swine. Quick pop quiz: Do you like a.) country music b.) country rock c.) AOR with country influences .) all of the above or e.) none of the above? 

If your answer is anything but e.), you're in luck, as this edition of All Pearls, No Swine might be for you! (If, however, you voted e.), sorry buddy, better luck next time, see ya in a bit!). And that is because All Pearls No Swine Vol. 19 is an all-country and adjacent genre edition of our series. This came about out of necessity. I had a couple of country tracks that I tried to place on previous editions of APNS, but they never seemed to quite fit. A trad country song like Herb Pedersen's "Easy Ride" is a very fine piece of work, but it never jelled with the other tracks of previous 80s-themed editions of the series, so consequently it got kicked out of the line-up several times. 

"Myrtle, some of them there country songs are quite cromulent..."

So I realized that the problem was the environment, but in a backwards way. Instead of trying to fit in this real country stuff with the rock, pop and folk sound of the other tracks, maybe I should create a more friendly environment for tracks like this by surrounding them with all like-minded tracks? So I did. It just so happened that at the very same time I stumbled upon a batch of rarities and forgotten songs that fit the bill. Some tweaking here, some tweaking there, and voilà - the "howdy y'all" very first all-country edition of All Pearls, No Swine. 

Sideman deluxe Pedersen is probably one of the bigger names around here, though the biggest is probably John Denver. "Dance Little Jean" is of course known as a hit for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but at the time he wrote it, Jimmy Ibbotson wasn't part of what was then known as the Dirt Band. When he had written "Dance Little Jean" he proudly presented it to his estranged wife, hoping it might move her to take him back. Her reaction? She assured him it would be a hit, which means he could finally make his child support payments! Ouch! So, Ibbotson's old and new band got the hit, but it could have been Denver, whose attractive version is augmented by Irish tin whistle.

"We want YOU...to be the main ingredient of our country stew. Nope, we're not freaky-lookin' at all, no sir." 

The previously featured Burrito Brothers put in an appearance, and so does Dan Fogelberg with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it opener. And then it's off to the usual group of unknown or little-remembered folks. Some would be more known for other things than their musical accomplihments. Lloyd Maines, of The Maines Brothers, whose sped-up version of Terry Allen's immortal "Amarillo Highway" is my favorite version of that song, is the father of future Dixie Chick Natalie. The group is better than the above image would suggest...

If nothing else, All Pearls No Swine Vol. 19 shows the elasticity of the genre. Canuck Wray Ellis with "Where's That Woman" is pure mainstream, country verging on country pop whereas Whitewater with "Daughter of the Devil" is essentially harder edged Southern rock with a dash of country in it. Jack Alves' "Indian Friend" is only slide guitar, whereas Jim Robertson's "Whitehorse" has some slight psych elements to it. Cimarron Creek's "Ridin' For Revenge" is country rock, whereas Dakota's "The Captain And The Outlaw" is about as traditional as it gets. Lonestar Cattle Company's "Easy Driver" is country-influenced AOR rock that sounds for all the world like something Randy Meisner could have recorded in the early 80s. Speaking of Mr. Meisner: He is present here as part of the miniature supergroup Black Tie with Jimmy Griffin and Billy Swan. 

Sometimes a white horse is...just a white horse

But enough with the chit chat. If you have any love for the genre, I'm sure you'll find a thing or two to like here. And if you don't, One Buck Records will be back with some good old-fashioned rock'n'roll...probably...