Taking country music back to its roots
Country music fans have been wishing for fresh music but rooted in tradition and delivered with passion and authenticity. Many people have had enough of the type of country music that has been on the Top 40 for way too long now.
Two weeks ago I suggested Joshua Hedley as a new singer to discover and this week I have another suggestion.
It might not be the music you will hear on the radio but this is the music you should buy in order to get exactly what you want and bypass the Top 40. Jason Boland has been taking the music that inspires him and took it further and made it personal.
Jason Boland has spent the better part of the last 15 years establishing himself in his native state of Oklahoma and adopted home in Texas and while spreading his musical branches to cover a remarkable amount of territory, he never lost touch with those roots in the first place.
In 1998, singer-songwriter Jason Boland, bassist Grant Tracy and drummer Brad Rice planted the seeds of a robust country band deep in the fertile red dirt music scene of Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Twenty years later, Jason Boland & The Stragglers have grown into solid ambassadors for old-school, no frills country music, and their ninth and newest album, Hard Times Are Relative via Thirty Tigers, just might be the most country of them all.
Everyone will greet the impressive, authentic country sound that Jason Boland and the Stragglers have perfected over almost 20 years. They have been selling out venues and commanding stages across the USA.
Since coming together in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Boland and his closely connected crew have sold more than half a million albums independently (even if we haven’t heard much about him in Canada) and earned a devoted following that’s extended far beyond the band’s circuit.
The band made its new album at yellow DOG Studios in Wimberley, Texas, co-producing with Dave Percefull and Adam Odor. The Stragglers recorded the new collection of songs live to tape, which has become a hallmark of their authentic country sound.
A ballad that is as skillfully written as it is lovingly phrased, ‘I Don’t Deserve You’ opens the album Hard Times Are Relative in a heartfelt fashion, with the collaboration of good-looking guest vocals from Texas, songstress Sunny Sweeney.
The raucous ‘Tattoo of a Bruise’ colorfully paints a musical portrait of people who peaked in high school reliving their old memories, while the title track not only provides a great slogan but also spins a vivid tale of two siblings struggling for survival.
The tuneful baseball metaphor ‘Going, Going, Gone,’ which Jason Boland co-wrote with fellow Stoney Larue, is one of the few songs on the new collection that weren’t written in the three years since the band’s previous release, 2015’s ‘Squelch.’
‘Searching for You’ is definitely a tongue-in-cheek, goofy song about somebody losing their mind obsessing over searching for someone.
Although the band is based in Texas, Boland, who hails from Harrah, and The Stragglers, Tracy, Rice, Nick Worley (fiddle) and Cody Angel (lead guitar, pedal steel and dobro), often get back to Oklahoma.
They offer entertainment and a musical genre that people have been looking for, for quite a while. Their brand and style of country music is magical as it takes us back to something people loved but they are no copy of the past. They stand tall on their own, with a reverence for the artists and the music that was before them.
New album for Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson has released Last Man Standing, his new studio album, and the 11th for the label (Legacy Recordings). The new album came out just in time for Nelson’s 85th birthday.
The first single from the project is the title track from the album ‘Last Man Standing’ and Nelson shared a music video capturing the making of the track. Last Man Standing, offers all newlypenned songs by Willie Nelson and longtime collaborator and producer Buddy Cannon.
The new album is the worthy successor to Nelson’s God’s Problem Child, which showcased seven Nelson-cannon compositions and debuted at #1 on the Country charts.
With Last Man Standing, Nelson has added 11 essential new songs to his classic catalog. Last Man Standing is one of the Red Headed singer most personal and introspective albums to-date. It reveals the emotional range of Nelson’s concerns, from the deeply reflective ‘Something You Get Through,’ to the rollicking and playful ‘Me and You,’ and ‘Ready to Roar.’
This is an album that acknowledges how time flies by so fast while he marvels at the joy and beauty the world has to offer. Last Man Standing finds Willie Nelson still at the peak of his artistry. He will never cease to amaze everyone. He is a living legend!