Various Artists "BACKSTAGE AT THE GRAND OLE OPRY" (RCA, 1983)
Bill Anderson hosts this recreation of a typical Opry variety lineup, with interview segments and music, some of it (possibly) live and much of it obviously lifted from studio albums and overdubbed with prerecorded applause... It's totally fake and canned, but it's still kinda fun; an extended segment with Minnie Pearl is of particular historical value. Emcee Grant Turner turns the mic over to Anderson early in the show, and other old-timers like Roy Acuff, Jimmy C. Newman, Connie Smith, Hank Snow and Dottie West rub shoulders and chat with Whispering Bill. I guess the Opry elders shared the feeling that many fans had that not much was going on in contemporary country, as the new generation is represented by just one artist, John Conlee. He's a good choice, for sure, but it is kinda weird that no one else from his generation is included. Apparently this disc was meant to accompany an early TNN special of the same name...

Various Artists "BACKSTAGE AT THE GRAND OLE OPRY" (RCA, 2000)
In fact, the whole thing was so great, they did it again, two decades later, with newcomers like Diamond Rio, Alan Jackson, Martina McBride and Brad Paisley sharing the limelight with old-timers such as Roy Acuff, Hank Snow and Dottie West. Bill Anderson hosts again...

Various Artists "COUNTRY COMES TO CARNEGIE HALL" (ABC-Dot, 1977)
Four old-timers, each at different phases in their careers, share the stage at New York City's prestigious Carnegie Hall, providing a fascinating glimpse at live country musc during the peak of the countrypolitan scene. Honkytonk-swing legend Hank Thompson opens the show, moving through his seasoned stage routine -- boisterous, professional and full of pep, Thompson's star had long since fallen, yet like a true road warrior, he shows no signs of slowing down, and even if he's just going through the motions, he's still better that most. Between songs, he delivers an interesting aside about how his song "Wild Side Of Life" helped spark the career of Kitty Wells and, by extension, the careers of dozens of female country stars to follow. Ironically, he still refers to these woman as "girls," and takes the opportunity to make a crack about how "big" a star Dolly Parton is... Ah, me... how boys will be boys! Then there's Freddy Fender from Texas, whose career had kicked into high gear in '75 after longs years laboring in obscurity, and who was riding high at the top of the charts with hits like "Wasted Days And Wasted Nights" and "I'll Be There Before The Next Teardrop Falls." His career was about to level off soon after this concert, but here he's still at the top of his game, singing the hits as well as unapologetically dipping into his deep reservoir of Spanish-language Tex-Mex tunes. Hee-Haw host Roy Clark comes next, and lets loose with some dazzling, aggressive guitar work before sidling into a few gooey soft-pop countrypolitan vocals, and then wows the rubes with a fast, flurried version of the flamenco chestnut, "Malaguena." The superstar of the evening was crooner Don Williams, who was in the middle of a long, solid string of #1 hits and who gets the crowd singing along to his soulful, sentimental ballads, and laughing at his self-deprecating humor... One gets the sense that ABC Records might have done well to have included his full performance here, but hearing the other artists is nice from an historical perspective, and this is quite a nice album, when all is said and done. Recommended!

Various Artists "FIFTY YEARS OF COUNTRY MUSIC FROM MERCURY" (Mercury/Polygram, 1995)
A mighty fine 3-CD box set, badly in need of being brought back in print. The Mercury label was a bit of a latecomer in the industry, and always had an odd-man-out quality in relation to the other majors. Countrywise, Mercury had some major country stars signed at one time or another -- Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, George Jones and Faron Young, then later on folks like Tom T. Hall, Johnny Rodriguez and the Statler Brothers -- but it was the lesser-known also-rans that really make Mercury a cult favorite of country collectors. The brilliance of this box set is that it spends the first two discs profiling dozens of artists that practically no one remembers even vaguely anymore, folks such as The Carlisles, Connie Hall, Bill Nettles, Lonnie Glosson, James O'Gwynn and others. The tilt towards the obscure is due to writer Colin Escott running the show -- even while looking at the later records by celeb artists, he has a knack for picking weird selections, for example, Johnny Cash's apocalyptic 1990 religious number, "Goin' By The Book," or for drawing the connection between postwar hillbilly music and early rock'n'roll. It's the old stuff that's super cool here, though: skip Disc Three (the stuff from the '80s and '90s) and this set's a doozy. Great liner notes, too. It's definitely worth tracking down an old used copy.

Various Artists "THE HICKORY RECORDS STORY, v. 1" (Audium, 2001)
Nashville establishmentarian Roy Acuff started his independent Hickory label 'way back in the mid-'50s, but most of its output came in the late '60s and early '70s, when countrypolitan was in full swing. Most longtime record hunters probably think of Hickory as the label that sheltered crooners like Don Gibson after their major label careers faltered, and generally speaking, serious collectors don't prize those admittedly iffy albums. What might be surprising about this 18-song compilation, though, is how heavily Hickory's producers were into straight pop material, particulary bouncy, California-styled sunshine pop. Sure, nobody today remembers acts such as Kris Jensen or the Neon Philharmonic, but their marginality is in large part what makes this collection worth checking out. Also of interest is Bill Carlisle's jittery 1966 remake of "No Help Wanted," made at a time when Carlisle was jumping from label to label, trying to recapture the commercial success of his early '50s heyday... I sure wish some brilliant producer somewhere could track all this material down and compile it somewhere... in the meantime, check out Carlisle here, along with other searchers in the wilderness, such as Don Everly and Doug Kershaw, who were struggling along with their own solo careers around the same time... (For more info about Hickory, check out the Both Sides Now website...)

Various Artists "O MICKEY WHERE ART THOU? THE VOICES OF BLUEGRASS SING THE BEST OF DISNEY" (Walt Disney Records, 2003)
Bluegrass??? Collin Raye and Ronnie Milsap? Stonewall Jackson and Charlie Louvin? Sonya Isaacs? Robbie Fulks?? Uh, I don't think so. Well, aside from the cheesy opportunism of Disney trying to latch onto the O Brother Where Art Thou bandwagon, I guess this is an okay album. A lot of the more modern, crappy soundtrack themes ("You'll Be In My Heart," "Circle Of Life," etc.) are included, and an near-equal amount of oldies ("Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," et al) and while there are a couple of instrumentals (giving slight plausibility to the "bluegrass" claim), for the most part this is a fairly twangless album. I was happy to see the squeeky-voiced hillbilly filly Elizabeth Cook on here, even though her track doesnÕt highlight her strengths that well. Mostly this is a pretty iffy album.

Various Artists "PATRIOTIC COUNTRY" (BMG, 2004)
This is a pretty handy collection of flag-waving commercial country songs, gathering together a bunch of songs that can be appreciated either as sincere expressions of heart-stirring pride, or as jingoistic kitsch... Either way, it's a nice record of its time... There are some older, pre-9/11 songs, like David Ball's perfect, beautiful tearjerker, "Riding With Privte Malone," and Lee Greenwood's super-cheesy, nigh-unbearable "God Bless America," which originally came out in 1984, and has since been remixed so many times you'd think Greenwood owned stock options in the Cuisineart company... Even though this is a multi-label collection, there are also several significant omissions, including lame-o hits like Clint Black's "Iraq And Roll" and Toby Keith's numerous stupid propaganda songs; more importantly, it misses some of the good songs, like John Michael Montgomery's "Letters From Home" and Lonestar's "Somebody's Someone" (which are both current hits, and thus unavailable for repackaging), and Darryl Worley's "Do You Remember." And the most glaring omission is, of course, Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning?)," which is without doubt the single greatest artistic statement to have come out of Nashville after the 9/11 attacks... Even so, even without those songs, this album is still a good document of country music's patriotic resurgence. The one question I have, though -- and it's kind of depressing to even ask it -- is why this album is touted as a fundraiser that "will benefit the USO, our active-duty troops, and the families of fallen soldiers"? I mean, why is a benefit album even necessary? Shouldn't the government be doing that already?

Various Artists "REDNECK COUNTRY" (Time-Life, 2006)
See, the funny thing about Time-Life Records these days is that they actually put out some pretty good colelctions these days. This disc is a top-notch set of goofball celebrations of all that is big, beer-soaked, and Bubbadelic. There are a few more modern, faux-rowdy anthems (Sawyer Brown's "Some Girls Do", Alabama's "Down Home") and a song or two that seem out of place (Dwight Yoakam's cover of "Honky Tonk Man" is a great tune, but I wouldn't exactly tag it as a "redneck" song...), but the inclusion of outlaw-country oldies-but-goodies such as Vernon Oxford's "Redneck National Anthem," Johnny Russell's "Rednecks, White Socks And Blue Ribbon Beer" and "Longhaired Redneck" by David Allan Coe make this one tasty little record, particularly when surrounded by hits like Hank, Jr.'s "Rowdy Friends," Travis Tritt's "Country Club" as well as the old Moe & Joe stuff and the Dukes Of Hazzard theme. Dang, dude. Just sit back and pop open a few brews -- and keep your baseball cap pointed forwards, okay?

Various Artists "REMEMBERING PATSY CLINE" (MCA-Nashville, 2003)
Patsy Cline's a hard act to follow, that's for sure. But I don't doubt for a second that every singer on here felt they owed her a debt as a pioneering foremother of popular song. Mixing real rural roots with an explosively bluesy delivery and sweet, swank sophistication, Cline helped revolutionize not only Country, but Pop music as a whole... In the R&B world, her closest match was probably Dinah Washington, who also combined heartfelt emotion with glorious technical precision, and moved from a rough and wild style into a torch singing, orchestral smoothness. Okay, so fast forward to forty-plus years after Patsy's untimely demise, and we have two (or three) generations worth of show biz gals coming in her wake, approaching the same big production values, but with a much narrower artistic vision. Scanning the list of artists -- Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Martina McBride, et al -- I expected sheer disaster. I was surprised, though, to find how restrained the singing was in general -- no crazed modern soul vocalese, no endless parade of "money notes," little in the way of swooping, lavish production. But also little to get stirred up about either. Norah Jones delivers another fine country-cover one-off (check her previous duets with Willie Nelson... I hope she does a full country album soon...) Michelle Branch belts out a surprisingly lively, yet restrained version of "Strange"; Patty Griffin does alright on "Faded Love..." Perhaps the biggest surprise comes from vanilla gospel icon Amy Grant, who delivers an understated, effective rendition of "Back In Baby's Arms..." certainly the highlight of this album. On the whole, this album falls flat, but it doesn't completely fall apart, and there are some nice tunes. Ya can't beat Patsy, though... why even try?

Emmylou Harris/Various Artists "SINGIN' WITH EMMYLOU, v.1" (Raven, 2000)
Music writer John Morthland, in a rare lapse of judgement, once dissed Emmylou Harris as nothing but a glorified harmony singer, but I'm sure any of the artists who have worked with her in that role have considered themselves to be pretty lucky. This disc is a mixed bag from Australia's grooviest reissue label, which had already given us a fab Gram Parsons collection a few years back. This set of Emmylou duets and guest appearances has plenty of gems, but also a lot of real drek. The sappier stuff -- her work with folks such as Glen Campbell, Dan Fogelberg and Vince Gill -- is pretty goddawful, but when she's paired up with the likes of Waylon Jennings, George Jones and Guy Clark, it's pretty hard to beat. I suppose that's what they make programmable CD players for.

Emmylou Harris/Various Artists "SINGIN' WITH EMMYLOU, v.2" (Raven, 2003)
This second volume of duets is much more delicious than the first, with tasty performances by Emmylou and the likes of Johnny Cash, Billy Joe Shaver, Barry & Holly Tashian, Jim & Jesse, and even old Bill Monroe. Well selected, with gems such as "Greenville" by Lucinda Williams and a rare vocal number by dobro whiz Mike Auldridge, and oddities like an English-German with Tom Astor ("Geh Nicht Allein"). There are some sappy numbers (Mary Black, T. Graham Brown -- ugh.) but for the most part this is a great collection, gathering a lot of rare or widely-separated material. Well worth picking up!

Various Artists "THE SONGS OF HANK WILLIAMS, JR: A BOCEPHUS CELEBRATION" (Warner, 2003)
For more years than anyone cares to remember, Hank, Jr. couldn't get no respect in and outside of Nashville. His tepid early albums, made in the depths of the late '60s folk/countrypolitan days, were okay, but you had to work at appreciating them. Later, in the 1970s, when he re-emerged as a rockin', rowdy good old boy, things got better, but then that inevitably led to his stick-figure rightwing redneck image, the messy-bearded, Monday Night Football theme-singin,' know-nothing Bubba we've all come to know, and, well... not quite love. These days, it seems Hank, Jr.'s back in fashion, as evidenced by these rowdy, rockin tributes by the likes of Blake Shelton, Montgomery Gentry, Chad Brock, and other would-be good ole boys. Some of these songs are pretty good, but the uptempo tracks by the likes of Trick Pony and Aaron Tippin are a little embarrassing... Hank II did 'em better the first time around, and more often than not these new versions simply echo the least worthy parts of his work. Still, compared with the N'Sync-ish pablum that's coming out of Nashville these days, this disc almost seems like a slab of hard country heaven.

Hick Music Index