by Julian Spivey
Jim Gordon has died. He may have written the most beautiful piece of pop music ever. And then the voices in his head told him to murder his mother.

At 17, Gordon got his first professional music gig playing drums for the Everly Brothers in 1963. He passed on a music scholarship to UCLA for this opportunity.

It wasn’t long before he was one of the most sought-after session players in Los Angeles, the protégé of Hal Blaine of the famous “The Wrecking Crew” of session players.

In 1969-1970, Gordon toured as the drummer for Delaney & Bonnie, who at the time had Eric Clapton, already done with The Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith, playing guitar for them. Clapton embarked on a solo career in 1970, but he also took Delaney & Bonnie’s entire rhythm section – Gordon, Carl Radle on bass and Bobby Whitlock on keyboards – and formed Derek and the Dominos.  

Derek and the Dominos only recorded one studio album – the 1970 double album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – but that album contained one of the greatest tracks in rock and pop music history – “Layla.”

“Layla,” released as a single in March of 1971, was mostly written by Clapton (though arguably the two greatest pieces of music on the track were written by others). The song was inspired by a seventh-century love story in Arabia that later formed the basis of the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi’s The Story of Layla and Majnun. In the story, a young man falls hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, went crazy and because of this could not marry her. The story reminded Clapton of his secret love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and Beatles guitarist George Harrison.

Clapton, who penned the lyrics, originally envisioned the song as a ballad – which he would record it as famously for his MTV Unplugged appearance in 1992, which gave the song a second life on radio and in pop culture.

It would become a rocker when Allman Brothers Band guitarist Duane Allman showed up and created the song’s signature guitar riff. Clapton would collaborate with Allman on the rest of the track’s guitar pieces with Allman also contributing on slide guitar.

While in the studio, Clapton would overhear Gordon playing a piano piece he has composed separately. Clapton was greatly impressed by what he heard and talked Gordon into using the piece as part of the song – it became the coda for the song and what I’ve long considered the most beautiful piece of popular music I’ve ever heard. I think director Martin Scorsese might agree – he notably used the coda as the soundtrack to the final scene of his 1990 classic “Goodfellas.”

This is where the story turns dark, the kind of dark not even Scorsese could probably create.

Gordon may not have composed the coda to “Layla,” or at least may have had help.

In a 2011 interview with whereseric.com, Whitlock claimed: “Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the D&B days, I lived in John Garfield’s old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called ‘Time’ … her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones … Jim took the melody from Rita’s song and didn’t give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off.” Graham Nash would substantiate the rumor in his 2014 autobiography Wild Tales and Coolidge would, as well, in her 2016 autobiography Delta Lady: A Memoir. Only Clapton and Gordon would be credited on “Layla.”

The story gets even darker than potentially stealing your life’s greatest work from your girlfriend.

Following the disbanding of Derek and the Dominos after their one album, which despite the excellence of “Layla” was unsuccessful, Gordon played with Steely Dan, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and Tom Petty among others. But, Gordon, who had a history of mental health issues, would see his paranoia and erratic behavior progress as the ‘70s went on and it was complicated by alcohol and drug abuse. He also had a history of abusing his partners, including Coolidge and his future wife Renee Armand. Work began to dry up for Gordon after word got around about his issues.

Gordon had developed schizophrenia, which at the time went undiagnosed, and began hearing voices (including that of his mother). On June 3, 1983, Gordon attacked his 72-year-old mother Osa Marie Gordon, with a hammer before fatally stabbing her with a butcher knife. He would claim a voice told him to kill her. It was only after his arrest for his mom’s murder that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

At his trial, the court accepted that Gordon has schizophrenia, but he was not allowed to use an insanity defense because of changes made to California law due to the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. On July 10, 1984, Gordon was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. He was denied parole many times as he never attended a parole hearing.

Publicist Bob Merlis confirmed that Gordon died of natural causes on Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, Calif.  “after a long incarceration and lifelong battle with mental illness.” Gordon was 77.

I’ve always been haunted by the fact that the man who is at least credited with writing what I consider to be the most beautiful piece of pop music wound up brutally murdering his own mother before finishing out his life in prison. It doesn’t feel like someone capable of that kind of beauty could also be capable of such brutality and darkness.  

Jason Boland & the Stragglers brought their excellent brand of red dirt country music or “folk music” as Boland likes to say to The Revolution Room in Little Rock, Ark., one of the band’s usual Arkansas haunts, on Friday, March 10 for a unique evening of their music in a stripped down fashion they’re calling The Delectric Tour.

This is the sixth time in the last 10 years I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Boland and the Stragglers, the last being in February of 2020 just before live concerts basically shut down for a year-and-a-half due to COVID-19, but it was a new experience seeing the band do an entire show acoustically. In fact, in all of my years seeing live shows it’s the only one I’ve seen done completely acoustic.

The band has made a few changes since the last time I saw them – guitarist Cody Angel is no longer in the band with AJ Slaughter in as the new pedal steel and guitar player. Maybe more importantly, Nick Worley is no longer the band’s fiddle player with Nick Gedra taking the fiddle and mandolin slot in the band. Both Slaughter and Gedra were amazing on Friday night as steel guitar and especially fiddle play a huge role in the Stragglers’ music. It’s terrific how Boland can find new members just as good as those of the past. The rest of the band featured bassist Grant Tracy, the only other original member of The Stragglers besides Boland, playing an upright bass this time with Jake Lynn on drums and Andrew Blair on piano.

The stripped-down version of the band’s music allowed them to play many songs they don’t typically play in their more raucous, electric honky tonk shows. Four of the first five songs performed on Friday night were ones I’m almost certain I’d never seen the band do live in my five previous concert experiences with them, including the show opener “Hell or Bust,” off 2004’s Somewhere in the Middle. The others were “Spend All Your Time,” “No Reason Being Late” and “Predestined” with my favorite of the bunch being “No Reason Being Late” off 2008’s Comal County Blue. Boland mixed in the raucous truck stop song “Truckstop Diaries,” which I had heard before.

My favorite performance of these stripped-down ballads that don’t usually find a space in Boland’s sets was “Obsessed,” a love song ultimately about not being lonely which was on 2011’s Rancho Alto, which was my first experience with Boland as a songwriter and performer thanks to a local radio station that played red dirt country at the time and featured multiple tracks off the album, which was new at the time, on air.

Despite being a stripped-down, acoustic show, the band really can’t be tamed all that much – though I’m a bit surprised Boland managed to remain seated on his chair at center stage the entire time. He’s a guy who likes to move around and kind of do a honky tonk shuffle with his boots while performing. Deep down they’re a hardcore troubadour honky tonk band no matter if their instruments are plugged in or not.

Boland fit many of his usual crowd favorites into the set like “Pearl Snaps,” off the group’s 1999 debut of the same name, which I consider a modern country classic (and the damn thing doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page).” The group also played “Somewhere Down in Texas,” my favorite performance of the evening, and “Proud Souls,” which wasn’t on the setlist but they performed as a request from a couple in the front row celebrating their anniversary, from the debut.

The band played a surprising amount of songs that weren’t on their original setlist, which I could see taped to the stage from my spot right in front of Slaughter’s Emmons pedal steel guitar. This shows the loose style of performance Boland and the band has. Among the songs performed off the original set was the title track from their most recent album, 2021’s The Light Saw Me, “Down Here in the Hole” off Rancho Alto and “Fuck, Fight and Rodeo” off 2015’s Squelch.

Other highlights of the show included 2011’s “False Accuser’s Lament” and 2013’s “Dark and Dirty Mile,” two regulars in Boland’s sets.

Boland took the opportunity on Friday night to debut two new songs for us: “Take Me Back to Austin” and “Truest Colors,” which were both incredible and have me wanting the group to get their next album out ASAP. If you’re a fan of the band I think you’re really going to dig these songs.

The group finished their main set with a terrific performance of “Ponies,” from their debut album, that led directly into the tornado song “Blowing Through the Hills,” which appeared on the band’s terrific live album High in the Rockies in 2010, which is one of the most epic songs the band does live and it being done acoustic does not change that fact whatsoever.

The band finished the evening with a two-song encore of the raucous “When I’m Stoned,” the entire Rev Room crowd shouting alone, before finishing with the quiet, sincere and fitting for the evening “See You When I See You.”

If there was one slight disappointment to the evening it was not seeing “Outlaw Band,” my favorite performance at every show I’ve seen them do previously, which they always seemed to end their shows with. It’s the absolute show-ender, but for a stripped-down night of music “See You When I See You” was probably the right call thematically.

Thomas Csorba (pronounced with a “ch” sound), a country singer-songwriter from Texas who looks incredibly young, opened the show for Boland and the Stragglers and he’s a performer you’re going to need to pay attention to. He’s released two albums thus far: 2017’s From the Foxhole and 2020’s well-received self-titled album and he’s working on another one. Many of the songs from his set on Friday night were new, and thus I didn’t get song titles for them, but they’re impressive and make me anticipate the album greatly.

Csorba’s stage presence was a bit funny; he talks a lot between songs kind of in an uncomfortable, anxious rambling manner. I found it to be winsome, not sure if the majority of the audience who’d likely never heard his name before did or not. I did think talking about how he’s heard great things about the White Water Tavern, another local Little Rock venue, which he said he hoped to play one day and see us there while at The Rev Room was a bit of a faux pas, but he’s young and again seemed a nervous chatter.

The songs he performed that have appeared on his albums thus far were all terrific, including “Walking Sideways,” “Green Velvet,” “Goodbye to Goodbye” and “Plastic Jesus (Reborn),” a traditional song you may know from Paul Newman’s emotional performance in the movie “Cool Hand Luke,” which Csorba added more verses and a chorus to to great effect.

Definitely keep an eye on Csorba. I think he could be one of the next big things in singer-songwriter country music that borders on Americana.

​The Turnpike Troubadours brought their brand of red dirt country music to Simmons Bank Arena in Little Rock, Ark. on Friday, February 24 for their second concert of 2023 and their first in Arkansas since the band announced they were going on an indefinite hiatus in 2019.

The band returned to performing music in April of 2022 and performed 33 shows last year.

Friday night’s concert in Little Rock was a co-headlining show with The Avett Brothers, which struck me as a bit off when the pairing was announced. They aren’t too dissimilar to make it a really strange concert, but they are different enough with Turnpike being more honky tonk country music with Americana-style songwriting and Avett Bros. being more indie folk that it was a small head-scratcher. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the fan bases and I wasn’t sure what kind of crowd I’d be walking into on Friday night, but it didn’t take more than a few seconds into the first Turnpike song to realize it was primarily at Turnpike audience.

The Turnpike Troubadours wasted absolutely no time getting into the swing of things on Friday night. My wife, Aprille, and I had collaborated on a list of our favorite Turnpike songs for this website in anticipation of the show and the band played four of our top five songs within the first five songs of their set (“The Mercury,” No. 4 on our list, didn’t make the set for the show).

The band kicked off their set with “Every Girl,” a fitting choice as it’s the first track on their 2010 album Diamonds & Gasoline which saw the band initially take off in the independent and red dirt country music subgenres. They continued with two more tracks from that album, “7 & 7,” my personal favorite song of theirs, and “Shreveport.”

The band would then go into their nostalgic, story song “The Bird Hunters,” from their 2015 self-titled album, which truly shows off vocalist and main songwriter for the band Evan Felker’s skills at essentially placing short stories to music. “The Bird Hunters” is my wife’s personal favorite Turnpike song, so we might have been satisfied with those first four songs alone on Friday night. It would surprisingly be the only performance of the night from that terrific self-titled release.

But Friday night was a bit of a homecoming for us and I’m sure many other longtime fans of the band prayed and hoped and dreamed they would one day get back together. Hopefully, it was a baptism for the many fans whom no doubt came to find and love the band’s music during their hiatus, of which I’m sure there were many on Friday because this band wasn’t filling arenas before their hiatus.

The band would continue their set with “Good Lord Lorrie,” from 2012’s Goodbye Normal Street, which ranked No. 1 on the aforementioned list my wife and I published on Friday before the show – we both ranked it as our second favorite Turnpike song, so it averaged out in the top spot.  It was certainly one of our favorite performances of the evening, but really that whole first five songs may have been the greatest concert run I’d ever seen had I not just seen Bruce Springsteen & the E Street band do “Badlands,” “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” six nights before it in Kansas City. Sorry, country music fans, but nothing can top that foursome in a row by “The Boss.”

“Good Lord Lorrie” would be one of four songs from Goodbye Normal Street performed during the evening. The others were fantastic performances of “Gin, Smoke, Lies,” “Before the Devil Know We’re Dead” and “Morgan Street.”

Nearly half of the band’s set on Friday night came from their de facto debut Diamonds & Gasoline. The band released their debut Bossier City in 2007, which is out of print, and I only have a copy via a download the band offered in a bundle deal on their website when I believe the self-titled album was released.

Among the Diamonds & Gasoline tracks included the night’s first three songs, “Whole Damn Town” (a crowd favorite), “Kansas City Southern,” one of my favorites which was written by bassist R.C. Edwards, and the main set ending “Long Hot Summer Day,” a John Hartford-penned track that’s one of the few songs ever recorded by the band that they didn’t write.

The band’s most recent album was 2017’s A Long Way From Your Heart, which came out after I had last seen the band at The Revolution Room in Little Rock that same year (though they did perform three or so tracks from it that evening). “Pay No Rent,” a stand-out from that album, but it’s one of the songs they did that ’17 night at The Rev Room. So, my favorite cut from the album on Friday night turned out to be “A Tornado Warning,” which is my favorite track on the album with its supremely realistic telling of a beautiful day altered but not necessarily in a bad way by stormy weather. The group also did “The Winding Stair Mountain Blues” off the latest album, which I must admit was the song I knew the least on the evening – the only one I didn’t even act like I could fake my way through singing.

Something that band has always done that was nice to see continue on Friday was giving Felker a moment to shine on his own – this time with the title track from Diamonds & Gasoline, which is an absolutely lovely love song about a guy who’s not sure he’s good enough for his love but will give everything he has. Then the band gave Edwards a chance at the vocals on a nice cover of one of my favorite Dawes songs, “All Your Favorite Bands.” This typically would’ve been the time in the past for Edwards to perform one of his own writes but the choice of a song that features the lyric, “may all your favorite bands stay together” was too perfect for what was likely a reunion for the band and many of its fans.

The band performed a three-song encore of “The Housefire,” “Something to Hold On To” (both off the latest album) and then finished the evening with “1968,” from Diamonds & Gasoline. It was a serviceable encore for sure, but the truth is the band had pretty much done all of the fan favorites (or at least mine) already by that point.

This was my fifth time seeing the Turnpike Troubadours live with three of the previous times being at one of my favorite venues, the small club/honky tonk style The Rev Room. I must say the vibes were just different on Friday night in an arena. It’s terrific for the band that they’ve formed a fan base and interest so large that they must play larger venues these days, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it wasn’t as exciting and intimate as seeing them much closer (and much cheaper) in a smaller crowd of fanatics. Sharing the band with thousands of folks in an arena is awfully cool too, but the sound probably wasn’t as good as the smaller venues.

Ultimately, though, there wasn’t enough time to focus on the venue with all the wonderful nostalgia flying around and being thrilled one of our favorite bands was back together with Felker, Edwards, Kyle Nix on fiddle, Ryan Engleman on guitar, Gabe Pearson on drums and Hank Early on steel guitar and guitar all sounding like they hadn’t missed a day together.  

The Avett Brothers have never been an act that I’ve really gotten despite trying multiple times because they’re similar in genres to other bands and artists I really enjoy. I felt many of their songs and lyrics were a bit pretentious. I have to say after listening to some of their most played tracks leading up to the show and seeing them perform in person I get the appeal a bit more now. I still hate the song “Vanity” quite a bit, but songs like “Laundry Room,” “Murder in the City,” “Ain’t No Man” and “I and Love and You” (which initially grated on me a bit) are pretty cool.

The Avett Brothers song I find myself liking the most is “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” which really fills up a packed arena nicely.

The group is filled with immensely talented musicians as well, including stand-up bass playing by Bob Crawford that truly thumped against all of our chests in the building. Scott and Seth Avett do a good job switching out lead vocals and performing multiple instruments apiece with Scott on guitar, banjo and piano and Seth on guitar and piano.

I was perhaps more taken with the performance of The Wood Brothers, who performed for about half an hour before The Avett Bros. starting right at 6:50 p.m. before much of the arena was filled. The Wood Bros., a trio featuring Oliver Wood on vocals and guitar, his younger brother Chris on upright bass and Jano Rix on drums, were really energetic – especially Chris with his dance moves – performing their American roots rock with wonderful performances of “Postcards From Hell,” “Happiness Jones,” “The Muse” and my personal favorite of their set “Alabaster.” If you’re not familiar with The Wood Brothers please check them out.

by Aprille Hanson-Spivey & Julian Spivey

20. Bossier City
“Bossier City,” originally recorded on the group’s hard-to-find 2007 debut of the same name and re-recorded for 2015’s self-titled album, is a fun, harmonica-filled song about a man gambling and drinking his money and cares away. Because after all, “What Mama don’t know won’t hurt her.” This song has always been a fun one to sing along to at a bar scene concert. They’ve gotten too big for those venues now, which is great, but also a shame because songs like this are perfect in that environment. The lyrics are catchy, but it’s really the harmonica that makes the song. AHS

19. Down on Washington 
Turnpike Troubadours’ sophomore release (the first one they really hit with) Diamonds & Gasoline (2010) is such a pivotal album for us as Turnpike fans that we have eight of the album’s 12 tracks on this list. “Down on Washington,” the first of those eight on this list, tells the tale of a man falling for a woman he absolutely should not be falling for – my reading of the song is it’s a stripper – and he knows it. The chorus to the song is one of the many catchy and fun ones from this album to sing aloud at their live shows. JS

18. Long Hot Summer Day
This is one of Turnpike’s most popular songs and one of the very few that Evan Felker didn’t pen himself. It was originally written by John Hartford and released in 1976. It’s the first song I remember hearing from the group, on 2010’s Diamonds & Gasoline, so it holds a special place in my heart since they are my favorite band now. It’s about a barge worker on the Illinois river doing back-breaking work. It’s not a lyrically deep song – just describing the work, but it’s a fun melody, making it a favorite for fans. AHS

17. Time of Day
One of my favorite Turnpike songs, “Time of Day,” on their self-titled 2015 album, is just as sweet as honeysuckle. It’s a cute love song that’s as southern as the lyrics, “Hillbilly girl just as sweet as wine / Grew up in the thicket like a muscadine.” The man just wants a “minute of your time of day,” clearly out of her league. Evan Felker is truly southern, so the lyrics just hit beautifully with his drawl. My favorite lines: “Well I never go and fall in love too quick / Never have and never will now / Well that’s the kinda liquor that’ll make a man sick / You try to fool me into thinking that you’re so refined / But you’re the kind of liquor to make a man go stone blind.” AHS

16. Diamonds & Gasoline 
“Diamonds & Gasoline,” the title track of the group’s 2010 breakthrough album, is one of the sweetest, laid back and stripped-down songs ever written by Evan Felker. It tells of a love that’s pure, but the narrator doesn’t know if he’s good enough for the girl of his dreams but would do anything to make it work out if he could just get out of his own head. It’s pretty much just Felker with a guitar but it’s lovely in its simplicity. JS

15. Blue Star
This fast-paced song chronicles the joy loved ones feel about a man coming back from war and ending his military service. It must be hard to hang it up – though we don’t hear it from the military man himself in the song – but it’s clear from lyrics like “We all know just who you are / Put your saber on the shelf / And we’ll take down the ole blue star.” Military families often hang a blue star on their doors while a relative is serving. It’s a unique spin on a military song, one that’s a little more celebratory than sad. AHS

14. Easton & Main
On a song like “Easton & Main,” originally released on the band’s 2007 debut Bossier City and re-cut for their 2015 self-titled album, you want to hear that mournful fiddle. It’s about a man who has left his heart in Tulsa, on the Cain’s Ballroom floor where he met the love of his life. This country boy has high hopes to win her heart, but it’s never known if he actually does. It’s kind of a love letter to Cain’s Ballroom, a popular venue in Tulsa, Okla. AHS

13. Pay No Rent 
“Pay Not Rent,” off the band’s most recent album A Long Way from Your Heart (2017), is a tribute to Evan Felker’s aunt Lou Johnson, who ran the Rocky Road Tavern in Okemah, Okla., Felker’s hometown where he moved back to in 2012. The song, co-written with songwriter buddy John Fullbright, is a terrific gift to a woman who touched so many lives – Felker wrote it the night before her funeral to play at the ceremony. JS

12. Kansas City Southern
“Kansas City Southern,” off Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), is one of my absolute favorite Turnpike songs to hear live. The song, written by bassist R.C. Edwards, tells of all the girls who got away from the narrator in a really fun, propulsive way that demands you dance along to it. The song is one of my favorite Turnpike choruses and features terrific guitar playing from Ryan Engleman and fiddle from Kyle Nix. I’m a bit bummed it ranked so low on Aprille’s personal list that it couldn’t crack the top 10 – but I know she feels the same about my ranking of “The Bird Hunters.” JS

11. Whole Damn Town
It would really be hard to live in a small town with your ex. Brutal in every way, especially if that ex is popular, out and about in the same haunts you like to go. Evan Felker paints that picture in “Whole Damn Town,” on Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), particularly his heartbreaking almost kind of screech on the lyrics, “Well, your worn-out favorite pair of jeans / Oh, I remember everything.” It’s the only point of the song he kind of switches his tone and it’s done beautifully. AHS

10. Wrecked
“Wrecked,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is a fun heartbreak songs. It plays back the downfall of a relationship that blossomed as teenagers until life got in the way. It talks about how despite the “love or fight” nature of their love, the narrator was still “blindsided in plain sight.” It’s a song for anyone who has that heartbreak where one person screwed up and wrecked it all. AHS

9. The Funeral 
I think “The Funeral,” off Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), might be the Turnpike Troubadours’ best story song – which is saying an awful lot. It’s a perfect short story set to music and expertly crafted by Evan Felker and Mike McClure (who produced the album) with excellent symbolism and scenery. It tells the story of a family black sheep who returns to his hometown for his daddy’s funeral. Personally, I think it’s a top-three song for Turnpike – but my better half doesn’t seem to dig it as much as I do, hence it barely cracking the top 10. JS

8. A Tornado Warning
“A Tornado Warning,” off A Long Way from Your Heart (2017), is my favorite track off the group’s most recent album. Not to sound like a broken record, but the vivid imagery in Evan Felker’s songwriting is the true highlight here with lines like: “you ran out to roll your window up/light rain falling on your hair/your tan legs checkered from a folding chair.” It’s such a common thing, but the kind you rarely see captured in song. The guitar solo by Ryan Engleman and the fiddle playing by Kyle Nix are among the best from both throughout their tenure in the band. 

7. Gin, Smoke, Lies
The cheating song is pretty much the quintessential country song. Bonus points if the artist can make it lyrically unique. It’s honestly a tough task. But “Gin, Smoke & Lies,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), meets that high bar with the narrator singing about how all he smells is cheap perfume “and gin and smoke and lies.” He’s pretty much done, but wants to know the truth, so the angry pleading in the chorus of “Well if you’ve been true / You better look me in the eyes” captures it well. Not going to lie – the Evan Felker/Miranda Lambert affair kind of makes the song a bit awkward now. But not every song has to be biographical, so I’ll still love it for what it is, ignoring that reality. AHS

6. Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead 
“Before the Devil Knows Your We’re Dead,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is one of my favorite Turnpike Troubadours songs to see the band perform live. It’s one of their most raucous recordings and the “devil may care live life to its fullest” theme really hits hard, especially in a smaller venue among like-minded music lovers before the group rightfully blew up following their hiatus. JS

5. The Bird Hunters
"The Bird Hunters,” the lead track off the band’s 2015 self-titled album, is my personal favorite Turnpike Troubadours song. And it proves how much of a writing genius Evan Felker is because the song is on the surface about hunting and I’ve never been hunting – nor do I care to go. At a deeper level, the song is about performing the task at hand when your mind is absolutely in another place. In this story, it’s the narrator and his childhood friend Danny on a hunting trip, his friend’s way of helping him get over his breakup. Felker does such a good job setting a scene and diving right into the human condition with lines like, “With my hands around a Belgian made Browning / My mind on the lines of her face.” There’s lost love, loss of self with a shot of hope at the end – literally. Shooting the bird at the moment where he remembers his ex will be home on the Fourth of July, betting they’ll dance together. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking song. AHS

4. The Mercury
“The Mercury,” off the band’s self-titled 2015 album, takes place in a dingy bar, with the familiar character Lorrie who captured the attention and admiration of both the narrator and a man named Jimmy. Lead singer Evan Felker is pure genius when it comes to descriptive lyrics. We know exactly who these characters are with lines like, “Lorrie laughs like she just don’t care / Got a red bandana in her raven hair” and Jimmy, “Hayseed dressed up like James Dean.” As for the narrator, he’s in it to win Lorrie’s heart. The song plays out with the intensity of a bar scene with lyrics like “Her kind of loving is a little like a fist fight” and “Well it’s throwback punks and daytime drunks / And PBR’s and stouts.” In the end, it seems the narrator wins her heart. The song is sexy, it’s gritty and it’s a lyrical tapestry of a dive bar. AHS

3. Every Girl
There’s a good chance the first Turnpike Troubadours song you ever heard was “Every Girl,” the first track of their 2010 release Diamonds & Gasoline, which while it wasn’t the band’s first album was the first to really see traction and set them out on a path to become perhaps the gold standard of red dirt country music acts. Co-written by Evan Felker and John Fullbright, who spent a short amount of time in the band at its inception before setting out on a Grammy-nominated career of his own, the song is beautiful in its descriptions of all the things the narrator’s love interest reminds him of. JS

2. 7 & 7
“7&7,” from Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), is my personal favorite Turnpike Troubadours song – it averages out at No. 2 overall on the list. “7&7” just puts me in a nostalgic state of mind where I may not have lived the life Evan Felker’s narrator does in the song, but I still identify with the “I had no clue I’d be the boy who your mama warned you about” lyric. I love the imagery of bumping into your old flame at a grocery store and seeing how much they’ve changed and you feeling like the same old kid you used to be. It’s a devastating story but also somehow life-affirming in the end as if he’s ultimately saying, “no regrets.” JS

1. Good Lord Lorrie
“Good Lord Lorrie,” off Goodbye Normal Street (2012), is our No. 1 Turnpike Troubadours song. Both Aprille and I had it ranked as No. 2 on our individual lists, which allowed it to average out into the No. 1 spot overall. I think in many of Evan Felker’s best songs there’s this fast-burning, ill-fated romance at the center of them and “Good Lord Lorrie” is perhaps the best example of this theme. Lorrie and our narrator feel like a perfect fit amidst all the reasons that say they shouldn’t be together and ultimately will see that they don’t wind up together. I love the vivid description of the lyrics like how “De Queen is dry so I bought us both a bottle in downtown Broken Bow.” Images like this show how Felker could’ve been a great novelist had he not been a songwriter. The simplistic chorus of “Good lord Lorrie, I love you, could it go more wrong” repeated is one you can’t help but shout at the top of your lungs when seeing the band live in concert. JS

by Julian Spivey
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band brought the greatest show in rock ‘n’ roll to the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo. on Saturday, February 18 for nearly three hours’ worth of musical bliss.
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Kansas City was the eighth stop on the Rock Hall of Fame group’s 2023 tour, which has found itself rocking audiences throughout the southern states while dealing with COVID-19 working its way through the band. The full band hasn’t performed since the February 7 show in Hollywood, Fla. with guitarist Steven Van Zandt, multi-instrumentalist Soozie Tyrell, guitarist Nils Lofgren and saxophonist Jake Clemons all missing shows. Patti Scialfa, guitarist and Springsteen’s wife, hasn’t performed with the band since the Hollywood show and kind of feels like a part-time member of the E Street Band right now.

Clemons was out for the Kansas City show, his second show missed due to COVID-19. Springsteen joked that he was back at the hotel “eating cheeseburgers and watching pornographic films” before leading the packed crowd in a “Fuck COVID” chant mimicking the old Country Joe McDonald and The Fish “FUCK” chant from Woodstock.

Eddie “Kingfish” Manion, usually a member of the band’s horn section, stepped in admirably to fill Clemons’ shoes at the saxophone. Springsteen told the crowd that Manion had been in the backline of the stage for 40 years with the band before now getting his chance to shine. Shine he did indeed. Saxophone is such an integral part of the E Street Sound, thanks to the legend that was Clarence Clemons (Jake’s uncle), and Manion killed it all night long.

The band kicked off the evening with a terrific performance of “No Surrender,” from 1984’s Born in the U.S.A., which includes one of many favorite Springsteen lyrics: “Well, we busted out of class/Had to get away from those fools/We learned more from a three-minute record, baby/Than we ever learned in school.”

I know there are times I feel like I’ve learned more from three-minute records than I ever did in school. Saturday night was one of those nights. 

Next up the band would play “Ghosts,” one of four tracks they would play during the night off their latest album 2020’s Letter to You. Technically, the entire band would play two songs off that record while Springsteen would perform the other two solo acoustically – one of which was “Last Man Standing,” with a touching story before it about how it was inspired by him being the final living member of his very first band The Castiles in the ‘60s.

The great thing about a Springsteen & the E Street Band show is they’re going to spread classics from most of their biggest records throughout their show. On Saturday night this included memorable performances of “Out in the Street” from The River (notably the only song off that double album probably because their previous tour in 2016 featured it in its entirety), “Wrecking Ball” from the album of the same name and “The Rising” from the album of the same name. Springsteen and the band would also perform a jazzy, electric version of “Johnny 99” from Nebraska.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Springsteen’s first two albums – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle. Because of this, it’s somewhat surprising and disappointing the group didn’t perform a single track from ‘Greetings’ (they haven’t all tour), despite it celebrating its 50th anniversary in January. The group did, however, perform three tracks off ‘E Street Shuffle’ including fantastic versions of “Kitty’s Back” and “The E Street Shuffle.”

In late 2021, Springsteen released Only the Strong Survive, a solo effort that sees him covering his favorite R&B and Soul tracks (the second covers album of his career after 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions). On Saturday night, the band played my personal favorite track from that album “Nightshift,” a Commodores song from 1985 paying tribute to legends Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.

Among my favorite performances of the main set included “The Promised Land,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which includes another of my favorite Springsteen lyrics: “The dogs on Main Street howl/’Cause they understand/If I could take one moment into my hands/Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in a promised land.” I also loved “Because the Night” with Lofgren absolutely shredding on guitar complete with his patented spins. A special moment for me, personally, was the performance of “Backstreets,” from Born to Run, a song I hadn’t seen in either of the two previous times I’d seen Springsteen & the E Street Band – Kansas City in 2012 and Oklahoma City in 2016 and holds nostalgic feelings for me. The opening piano solo on “Backstreets” is probably my favorite Roy Bittan moment in the entire E Street Band repertoire. It’s absolutely cinematic.

Springsteen would end the main set with “Badlands,” off Darkness on the Edge of Town, which would kick off the absolute greatest four-song run of any live show I’ve ever attended, and I don’t think it could possibly ever be beaten. It’s so much fun screaming lyrics like “Poor man wanna be rich/Rich man wanna be kind/and a king ain’t satisfied ‘till he rules everything” in unison with Springsteen and an entire arena filled with people experiencing the same euphoria.

The encore began with my all-time favorite song (not just my favorite Springsteen song, but any song ever recorded), “Thunder Road,” which is the opening track to Springsteen & the E Street Band’s magnum opus Born to Run from 1975. The harmonica opening, the sax solo at the end performed perfectly by Manion, maybe my all-time favorite lyric: “it’s a town full of losers and we’re pulling out of here to win.” It was epic. Maybe my all-time favorite concert moment, but then again that could also be the first time I ever heard the band perform it in 2016.

Following “Thunder Road,” Springsteen went directly into “Born to Run,” my second favorite song of his – and probably his most famous and beloved track. It was a moment of bliss for the entire audience, which you could see rocking their butts off because the great thing about an E Street Band encore is the entire arena’s lights come on letting us all see our brethren sharing moments of ecstasy together.

After “Born to Run,” was the seven-minute epic “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, which about near killed me. I’m only 35, but at this point in the greatest four-song grouping of any concert I’ve ever attended, I had almost rocked myself to death. Springsteen is 73 years old, and all of his long-time bandmates are in their 70s and they looked like they could’ve gone on all night. It’s truly amazing, almost unfathomable how this group can wring this much energy out of their shows at their age – and they’ve been playing three shows at almost three hours weekly.

This was only the halfway point of the encore – a Springsteen encore is basically another entire hour of music, not a piddly one-song or two-to-three-song encore done by most bands.

The band continued on with “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark,” from Born in the U.S.A. I noticed this was the first time I’ve seen Springsteen in which he didn’t pull a woman out from the crowd to dance with during “Dancing in the Dark.” I wonder if that’s a casualty of post-pandemic (but disease still swirling) life?

As has become custom at Springsteen shows, the penultimate song of the night – the final one with the E Street Band – was “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” which has basically become the E Street theme as it tells the origin story if you will of the group and features a moment of tribute to fallen band members Clarence Clemons (who died in 2011) and Danny Federici (who died in 2008).

It's time to shout out the “heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E Street Band,” as Springsteen likes to introduce them. Van Zandt (72) and Lofgren (71) on guitar, along with Springsteen, is a three-headed monster that really propels the entire show. Max Weinberg (71) on drums keeps the beat going all night long with such rapidity that it’s amazing his arms haven’t yet fallen off. Bittan, who is lovingly referred to as “The Professor,” brings beauty and grace to the group on keys. Garry Tallent (73) on bass is the coolest cat of the entire outfit equipped with his dark glasses and stoic stance that looks statuesque amidst the chaos surrounding him. Such a bassist move. Tyrell, the newest full-time member of the group and the youngster at just 65 years old, is a terrific multi-instrumentalist who adds a fourth (rhythm) guitar to the stage for much of the show while occasionally showing off on violin. These are the best in the business and on this night joined by Manion on sax they were perfect.

Saturday night was more than just a rock show for me – like every Springsteen & the E Street Band show it was damn near a spiritual moment. And it was a moment I didn’t know if I’d ever get the chance to experience again making it so much sweeter. The band hadn’t toured together since 2016 due to Springsteen embarking on his award-winning and highly successful one-man Broadway show and then the obvious pandemic that shut down live music for close to two years for most acts. Plus, with artists in their 70s and aging, you never know when the last time is going to be.

Saturday night might be the last time. This might be their last tour (something I don’t think Springsteen would ever announce). If it was the last time for me personally I’m eternally grateful for everything this band has given me and will continue to give me with their 50-plus years now of life-changing music.

Springsteen finished his K.C. show with a solo acoustic performance of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” the final track on Letter to You. Performed in a slow, almost spoken-sung manner you could tell Springsteen got as much from us in the audience as we were getting from him – everything. It was his letter to us. An “I hope to catch you again down the line, but if not … I’ll see you in my dreams” moment. It was beautiful.

by Julian Spivey
Conservative pundits flooded their Twitter timelines late Sunday night and into Monday with cries about how Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of their Grammy-winning “Unholy” about midway through the 2023 Grammy Awards telecast was evil, satanism and satanic ritual.

Smith, Petras and a crew of dancers performed the song dressed in blood-red outfits and Smith even had devil horns adorning the hat they wore during the performance of lust and debauchery.
This led to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeting “This is … evil. Don’t fight the culture wars, they say. Meanwhile, demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan. I could throw up.”

As of the time of this writing, it has not been confirmed whether or not Cruz actually vomited.

Conservative blogger and podcaster Matt Walsh accused Smith of performing a “satanic ritual” during the performance. He said: “It’s not surprising to see a satanic ritual at the Grammy’s. Satanism is the worship of the self. Much of modern pop music is satanic in this sense. Leftism is satanism. The only change is that now they’re being more explicit about it.”

Many people, including politician and former music video director Robby Starbuck, remarked about the appearance of a Pfizer commercial airing directly following the performance as a further sign of Satan’s involvement in the proceedings. After all, Pfizer is one of the companies shooting Americans up with “Covid vaccines” in an effort to turn all of us gay.

Normally, we here at The Word, wouldn’t make too big of a deal about what politicians and political pundits had to say about music performances on an award show.
But, for once we agree with those crazy motherfuckers.

There seems to be irrefutable proof that Smith’s satanic ritual opened up some sort of portal at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday night during their performance of “Unholy.” How else can you explain these things?

Bonnie Raitt, a blues singer, wound up winning Song of the Year for her ballad “Just Like That,” despite the fact that nobody even knew she existed before the performance. She claims to have been around since 1971, but if fans of Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Adele, Lizzo and Harry Styles have never heard of her how could that possibly be true? Blues singer, you say? Didn’t the first one of those sell his soul to the devil for the gift of playing guitar? They’re all devil worshippers.

And that’s not the only thing. Everybody knew Beyonce was going to win Album of the Year for her pop culture-changing Renaissance album. The other nine nominees were simply there for show. And yet when Grammy’s host Trevor Noah opened up the envelope to reveal the winner as Harry Styles for Harry’s House it was a complete shock to the system. Nobody ever awards white males with major honors and yet here he was accepting the night’s biggest one instead of the single greatest performing artist in the history of the world.

Then as soon as Styles finished his speech the telecast ended with a star-studded rap performance (one of two genres beloved by Satanists everywhere – the other one, of course, being heavy metal) that featured Jay-Z rapping about how God turned him from a drug dealer into a billionaire while sitting at a table mocking the last supper. Does Jay-Z think he’s Jesus now? Everybody knows that’s Ye’s thing.

But if it weren’t for all that there was one last thing I saw following the Grammys that made me believe with absolute certainty Smith had brought the darkness to the Grammys … a photo of Ben Affleck smiling.

If you missed Sam Smith & Kim Petras' performance of "Unholy" on Sunday night check it out below and feel tinglings you've never felt before. 

The Grammy Awards are billed as “music’s biggest night” but the 65th annual ceremony on Sunday, February 5 felt a bit small.
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I was growing weary as the telecast crawled toward the finish because I knew it was running long and it hadn’t felt as fun as in recent years – believe it or not the pandemic year two years ago is one of my favorites Grammy telecasts.

And when the night’s biggest honor – Album of the Year – was presented by host Trevor Noah to Harry Styles and his producers for Harry’s House my first thought wasn’t of shock or bewilderment or anger, but “will the Grammy’s still be a thing tomorrow?” Will the Grammys even exist next year?

And, the answer is, of course, they will still exist. But are they ever going to matter again? That’s to be seen, but it feels like the Recording Academy had to right a perceived wrong tonight by giving Album of the Year to Beyonce for Renaissance, especially after the shocking loss to Beck’s Morning Phase in 2015 and losing again to Adele’s 25 in 2017. I don’t mean to be submissive to Styles, Adele and Beck. It isn’t my opinion the Grammy Awards have mistreated Beyonce – after all this very night she became the winningest artist in the history of the awards. The Grammys love Beyonce, but she tends to win genre honors with smaller voting bodies than general field categories with much bigger voting bodies.

But there is the perception of a large crowd of Grammy viewers and music fans that the Recording Academy has disrespected Beyonce. There’s also the perception – and this one probably holds more water – that the voting body doesn’t honor enough people of color in Album of the Year. I know full well Jon Batiste won the award last year and Bruno Mars won in 2018, but when artists like Beyonce and virtually any and every hip-hop artist are being passed over for the night’s top honor it will at least have the appearance that something may be off about the voting body. It’s been almost two decades since a hip hop group won Album of the Year (OutKast in 2004 for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) and there hasn’t been an African-American female take the top honor since before the new millennium (Lauryn Hill in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill). The Lauryn Hill and OutKast albums are the only two hip-hop albums to ever win Album of the Year.

Beyonce’s fan-base, which is one of the biggest and most protective of their favorite artist, of any in popular music would’ve been pissed no matter who won the honor instead of Beyonce, but I believe much of the anger and disappointment in the Album of the Year winner would’ve tampered down had Lizzo won for Special or, especially, had Kendrick Lamar (another artist often seen as snubbed for this award) had won for Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Even if Bad Bunny had won for Un Verano Sin Ti it may have come off to many like, “well, at least it’s not another white person.”

I don’t want quotas for music awards or any other artistic awards. I don’t believe those angered that Beyonce or another person of color failed to win Album of the Year want them either. We just want there to seemingly be more proof of fairness and diversity within the voting body of the Recording Academy. ​

The biggest shock of the Grammy’s telecast on Sunday night was clearly Bonnie Raitt winning Song of the Year for “Just Like That.” I remarked on social media as soon as she won that the fan bases of Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, Lizzo and Harry Styles were going to completely burn down Twitter. It seems things indeed got heated, but I’ve tried to ignore most of that.
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Raitt was as shocked as anyone else when her name was read by First Lady Jill Biden as the winner. I was shocked too. Just earlier in the day on this website’s Facebook page, I told a fan of the song who was hoping it would win the honor that: “this is one of those cases where the nomination is the win.” But I knew deep down that the Grammy’s voting body does love its aging legendary performers – it’s why I predicted Willie Nelson to win multiple country genre awards over much younger competition and he did. We’ve seen it before for decades with artists like Steely Dan and Ray Charles and Robert Plant and Herbie Hancock winning Album of the Year decades after their main relevance in popular culture. We’ve seen it less in Song of the Year, but for anyone who pays a lot of attention to trends within these awards and this voting body, it shouldn’t be too much of a shock. But it comes off as a shock to fans, especially younger fans, because they don’t know Raitt. She’s not played on modern-day radio. She’s not going to be on popular curated Spotify playlists. You’re unlikely to hear her music become a trend on TikTok. And, thus to many people, she doesn’t exist. So, when she wins a major honor that beloved artists like Swift, Beyonce and Adele were perceived to be favorites for it instantly becomes a controversy. It instantly has people crying foul or rigged or paid off.

Some things that it may really mean:

A. It’s a great song. And it is. Just because it’s not flying up the Billboard Hot 100 or leading to TikTok dances doesn’t mean it’s not as qualified to win the honor as “As It Was,” or “About Damn Time” or “All Too Well” or “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” 

B. You know what all of those songs I just mentioned have in common? They’re all by major pop stars that came out during the same eligibility period and likely all have fans in the voting body unable to choose between those five songs. So, essentially this may have been a case of vote splitting. All five of those young pop star songs are terrific, but how do you pick which one is actually the best? I would’ve voted for Swift’s “All Too Well,” personally, but I can see why others would want “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” This leads to the possibility of a non-pop song garnering a large number of votes from the remaining segment of the voting body. And you know who fans of rock, country, Americana, folk, blues are all likely to vote for – Bonnie Raitt. Why? Because she’s a rock, country, Americana, folk, blues legend. 

C. This is where some minor criticism of the Recording Academy voting body might come in. Maybe the voting body is too old? I’ve seen articles stating that the Recording Academy has been working to up its percentage of voters under the age of 40 since 2018 but haven’t found exact numbers on the average age of voters. The Recording Academy has also been trying to up its number of female and diverse voters since 2018 when only 21 percent of its voters were female and only 28 percent of its voters were people of color. Even with the Recording Academy focusing on these numbers it’s unlikely they’ve caught up considerably in five years. Older, white male voters are going to like Raitt more than any of those other nominees – it’s to borrow Raitt’s winning title - just like that. 

Star Power
In my lede, I remarked about how music’s biggest night felt a bit small. The faces in the crowd certainly weren’t – the camera panned to Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Adele often. Music stars don’t get any bigger than those three. Kendrick Lamar was also out there somewhere – though the camera doesn’t seem to want to find him as much as those others. Beyonce, Adele and Lamar were all among the most nominated artists of the year and Swift was nominated for one of the night’s biggest honors Song of the Year.
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None of those artists performed on the telecast. It led to an unfortunate lack of star power for a show that ran too long despite feeling like it had fewer performances than usual.

Who’s to blame though? I know for a fact the Recording Academy and producers involved in the CBS telecast asked both Adele and Swift to perform and both declined. I would have to assume the same offers were given to Beyonce and Lamar.

I’m not sure what more can be done than asking.

So, I have to put this on those artists. If you’re among the most nominated performances of the year you should feel obligated to perform for your fans and to keep us from looking like Ben Affleck ran out of his Dunkin’ coffee too soon and has to sit through one of his wife’s work events. Side note: That’s freakin’ Stevie Wonder rocking his ass off on that stage. How about not looking like you’re being tortured, Mr. Affleck? 

Telecast
How did this telecast that seems to be on the button every year go almost 30 minutes over its supposed runtime? It’s especially confusing when it seems like there were fewer performances than in a typical year. Maybe it’s that lack of star power that made the show drag? There were decisions the producers made this year that I didn’t realize were so wrong for the show at the beginning – like the roundtable of fans debating why their favorite artist should win Album of the Year – but when it’s 10:20 p.m. (central time) and I’m seeing a woman explain why Coldplay should win Album of the Year it’s occurred to me that it was a bad idea. Honestly, if I’d been having more fun with the performances (or if they had done more and fewer awards) I probably wouldn’t have worried about the runtime of the telecast so much.
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One issue I continue to have with the Grammys is their disrespect toward the rock and country genres. Not counting the in memoriam tributes performances to Loretta Lynn and Christine McVie there was one rock performance and one country performance during the entire show. The rock performance was Brandi Carlile (whom some would debate as a rock artist, but screw that) performing her Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance winning (both awarded before the broadcast) “Broken Horses” toward the very beginning of the show (second performance) and the one country performance was Luke Combs, who was nominated for multiple honors but failed to win any, performing “Going, Going, Gone” very late in the show. Were winners Willie Nelson and Ozzy Osbourne even invited? Or do we just give awards to the oldies and not actual performance slots? Also, not having a single rock genre award in the primetime telecast is so wrong. Carlile, Osbourne and Wet Leg all won multiple honors – but the producers didn’t feel they were television worthy – which seems ridiculous seeing as how Carlile has now performed on three of the last five telecasts and blown viewers away each and every time.

Favorite Performances: 
I usually rank all of the Grammy Awards performances from best to worst, in my opinion. But I don’t really think that’s fair this year, especially given Bad Bunny opening the show with “El Apagon” and “Despues de la Playa.” I think it’s great that Bad Bunny got the chance to open the show and showcase Spanish-language music on the big stage, but as a non-Spanish-speaking viewer/listener, I don’t think I can properly rank his performance compared to others.
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Also, I don’t think there was a bad performance of the 16 that appeared on the telecast. Harry Styles’ performance of “As It Was” was surprisingly lackluster – he didn’t seem completely there all night (some online debated whether he was sick or high) – but I still like the song and it wasn’t horrible, just not his usual energy.

Here are my favorite performances of the evening: 

1. “Broken Horses” by Brandi Carlile
This might be the third year out of the last five that Brandi Carlile has had my favorite performance of the telecast. I am a fan of hers – finally got to see her for the first time in Dallas last summer – so as long as she gives her usual 110 percent and sounds as terrific as she always does there’s a good chance she’s going to be near the top of my list.

And … that’s the only modern song you’re going to see on this list. Sorry. I’m a sucker for classics and tributes.

2. “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder & Chris Stapleton
I knew Chris Stapleton, one of the greatest modern country musicians, would be performing with Stevie Wonder, one of the greatest anything, anywhere, anytime, ever musicians, on the telecast. However, I was somewhat surprised when that song turned out to be “Higher Ground,” from Wonder’s 1973 album Innervisions. It’s both the 50th anniversary of that classic and this was part of a longer tribute to Berry Gordy whose Motown/Tamla labels recorded Wonder. This performance was absolute fire with Wonder on keys and Stapleton on guitar and the two swapping incredible vocals.

3. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn
For my money, Loretta Lynn may be the greatest female performer in the history of country music and her death last year was properly used as the kickoff for the telecast’s in memoriam segment with Kacey Musgraves performing her most famous hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Musgraves performed using Lynn’s famous guitar with her name on the fretboard and was perfect on the number.

4. 50 Years of Hip Hop
I’m not a huge hip-hop fan, but ever since I heard Questlove of The Roots – who has to be one of the smartest guys in music – was curating a 50th anniversary of hip-hop segment for the show I knew it would be hot. The segment included a ton of legends from the genre with The Roots playing behind them including LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, Lil Wayne, Salt ‘N’ Peppa, Big Boi, Nelly, an absolute fire spitting Busta Rhymes, and many more performing snippets of their hits for probably 10-15 minutes. The only reason it’s not higher on this list is I’m just not a huge fan of medleys, but to properly do this you’d need an entire evening of a show – which LL Cool J may have alluded to coming in the future – and I couldn’t help but feeling “what if Jay-Z performed (he’s in the building), what if Kendrick Lamar performed (he’s in the building), what if Dr. Dre performed (he’s in the building), what if Eminem performed, what if Drake performed (he’s pretty much boycotting the Grammys for the reasons we led this piece off with), what if Snoop Dogg performed?”

5. “Songbird” by Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt & Mick Fleetwood
​The one time I teared up during the telecast was at the very end of Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Mick Fleetwood performing “Songbird” in tribute to late Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie. I think it was because it was on top of the Loretta Lynn tribute and Quavo paying tribute to his own nephew Takeoff who was murdered last year and was part of their hip-hop group Migos. It was a lovely performance by Crow and Raitt on the vocals of a beautiful song. 

by Julian Spivey
Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen’s debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. So, it’s pretty much a holiday for a Springsteen fanatic like me. Though reviewed very well by critics at the time the album didn’t sell very well and didn’t spawn any hits. It would eventually be found by many fans after the star-making release of 1975’s Born to Run or even when kids of the ‘80s fell in love with 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. Rolling Stone magazine would rank it as the No. 379th greatest album of all-time in their initial 2003 list and it will often be found among the five favorite albums of Springsteen fans. At the time, many believed Springsteen could be the next Bob Dylan, but ultimately it marked the beginning of a legendary rock musician and singer-songwriter of his own right.

Here's my track-by-track look at Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. …
 
Blinded by the Light

If you were to pop on the vinyl of Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ on January 5, 1973 (which based on sales at the time not a whole lot of people did) the very first song you would’ve heard was “Blinded by the Light,” a wordy, Dylan-esque folk-rock number that sounds like it was written by going through a rhyming dictionary (and it actually was!). “Blinded by the Light,” was one of two songs (the other being “Spirit in the Night”) specifically written after the rest of the album when Columbia Records president Clive Davis felt the album lacked a potential single. Springsteen’s single wouldn’t do much, but it would become his first and only No. 1 single as a songwriter when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band spiced it up a bit with a more progressive rock sound in 1976. Even though it’s likely the wordiest song Springsteen ever wrote it’s still a helluva lot of fun to sing.

Growin’ Up

“Growin’ Up,” the second track on Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a sign of things to come later for Springsteen, in my opinion, in its adolescent rebelliousness. Springsteen was 22 when he wrote the song in 1971 and it has all the gusto and bravado of one ready to break out of his own little world into something bigger with a bang. David Sancious, who was only 18 at the time, gives the album its first great E Street Band flourish with his piano solo. Like the first track on the record “Blinded by the Light,” “Growin’ Up” is wordy, but with more of a storyline and point to hit home.

Mary Queen of Arkansas

I must admit “Mary Queen of Arkansas,” the album’s third track, is one of two tracks on this album that I will frequently skip over when listening to the record. It hasn’t to this point in my adult life ever really spoken to me all that much, even though I’m Julian Citizen of Arkansas. That’s not all too uncommon. It was one of three songs initially played by Springsteen to Columbia Records’ John H. Hammond, and the one Hammond was least impressed with. Played with acoustic guitar and a faint harmonica in the background, it’s a slow and quiet love ballad. It wasn’t until a May 2014 concert in Pittsburgh that Springsteen revealed the song is about a man who’s fallen in love with a drag queen.

Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?

“Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street,” track number four, is loosely based on a bus ride Springsteen once took to visit a girlfriend in uptown Manhattan, essentially set in Spanish Harlem, according to Rob Kirkpatrick’s The Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen. It may just be a sketch of what Springsteen saw on this bus ride, but it’s a ton of fun in its fast-paced beat with no chorus. I love the flow of lyrics like: “wizard imps and sweat sock pimps/interstellar mongrel nymphs” and “Mary Lou, she found out how to cope/she rides to heaven on a gyroscope.” Who the hell knows what they really mean, but they’re a blast to sing!

Lost in the Flood

“Lost in the Flood,” the final track on side one of Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., might be the most Springsteen-esque song on the track, meaning it’s the song that most resembles what The Boss’s music would come to sound like on later records. It’s Springsteen’s first foray into writing about veterans returning from the war in Vietnam and the toll it’s taken on him. The sparse basic piano-only (likely Springsteen himself) performance works terrifically for the track’s first verse and a half until the epic entrance on the second verse about the stock car racer when Springsteen sings “Jimmy the Saint.” In one of Springsteen’s most cinematic tracks, the song comes to a full-on violent finale in the final verse when a New York City gang gunfight involves the cops. You’d see this Springsteen more beginning with 1975’s Born to Run.  

The Angel

I can say with complete certainty that “The Angel,” the side two opener of Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., is the track on the album I’ve listened to the least. Honestly, I haven’t ever given it much of a shot. It’s the slowest, most droning song on the album, and I guess it never spoke enough to me in its performance to pay a lot of attention to what it says. One of his first car songs, he said in a 1974 interview he considered it “one of the most sophisticated things I’ve written.” I wonder if he still believes that. It’s an unusual way to begin a side of the record, but at least it’s side two and not the initial track you hear from Springsteen.

For You

In his 2019 book Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs writer Brian Hiatt says “[‘For You’] feels inappropriately frantic on the album, but I must disagree with that summation. After all, what’s more frantic than young love ending in suicide? The franticness in the performance – both the barely time to breath vocal from Springsteen and the fast-paced drums by Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez and organ playing by David Sancious, gives the song a yearning that feels realistic for a 22-year old who’s heart has been broken. If you prefer a slower version there are more solo piano-driven live versions out there for you. Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir Born to Run of the heartbreaker who inspired the song as a “drug-taking, hell-raising wild child … so alive, so funny and broken … She stirred up my Catholic school-bred messianic complex.”

Spirit in the Night

“Spirit in the Night,” the penultimate track on Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., is the quintessential early E Street Band sound for me – the more R&B, soulful, even jazz-tinged performing with Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez on drums, David Sancious on organ and piano (although it’s apparently Harold Wheeler credited on piano on this track) to go along with guys who would last past the first two albums in saxophonist Clarence Clemons and bassist Garry Tallent. The song, one of two written and tacked onto the album late in the recording process when Columbia Records president Clive Davis didn’t hear single material, is so infectiously fun and loose. The song tells the tale of a wild band of teenagers who drive out to a nearby lake and just screw around and there’s so much young, dumb, rebellious awesomeness in the whole performance. I wish I could bottle up the “Spirit in the Night” sound and wear it as cologne.

It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City

“It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” the final track on the album, is a fantastic way to end Bruce Springsteen’s debut. Few songs have ever had as much swagger as this song. Just check out the coolness of lines like: “I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra/I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova/I could walk like Brando right into the sun/then dance just like a Casanova.” That’s just the beginning too. It pretty much keeps up that badassery for just over three minutes.

by Julian Spivey

50. "Happy Hour" by Hayes Carll 
Hayes Carll is one of my favorite songwriters of the last two decades and on “Happy Hour,” a bonus track for the deluxe edition of his You Get It All album, he’s collaborated with Drake White on a song about why happy only gets to last an hour. “Happy Hour” is a ton of fun and sees Carll pondering the mysteries of life like “why can’t dogs have conversations,” “why don’t payday come on time,” and “what would Willie do?” 

49. "Love to Spare" by Nicki Bluhm feat. A.J. Croce 
The smooth soulfulness of Nicki Bluhm’s vocal on “Love to Spare,” off her newest album Avondale Drive, instantly stuck with me. It’s a throwback R&B sound that will immediately have you singing along with its chorus before you even finish listening to it for the first time. Bluhm co-wrote and collaborated on the song with A.J. Croce (son of Jim) as a take on middle-aged dating, she would tell The Bluegrass Station, as she was a recent divorcee and he a widower. 

48. "Hill Country Saturday Night" by Aaron McDonnell 
I was introduced to the music of Aaron McDonnell this year (he’s not new, just to me) and I absolutely love his baritone voice. That mixed with a Texas country two-stepper like “Hill Country Saturday Night” is everything you’ll want from country music. This one will make you want to twirl the one you love around a hardwood floor on a small-town weekend. 

47. "When It's My Time" by Brent Cobb 
There was a more high-profile country gospel album this year (and yes, one of those tracks made my “best of the rest” segment of this list), but my favorite country gospel release this year was Brent Cobb’s And Now, Let’s Turn to Page …, which combined traditional hymns with the original tune “When It’s My Time,” co-written by Cobb, his wife Layne and Mike Harmeier of Mike and the Moonpies. Combining gospel, country and blues it’s a song that shows Cobb is comfortable with where he believes he’ll be spending the afterlife and when it’s his time to go bring it on. 

46. "Distance" by John Craigie 
Singer-songwriter John Craigie’s “Distance,” off his latest album Mermaid Salt, is a sweet piano ballad of all the ways he might lose the woman he loves, but the worst of them all would simply be “the distance.” I assume he means distance growing between the two of them due to years together and how horrible it would be for something so beautiful to be torn apart simply by passing time. 

45. "Songs About You" by Brett Eldredge
“Songs About You,” the title track off Brett Eldredge’s latest album, is a theme we’ve seen before – a heartbreak is remembered via songs that either remind the narrator of a past love or moments shared together. In “Songs About You,” co-written by Eldredge with Jessie Jo Dillon and Ben West, songs like Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark,” Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” are the classics that bring up these memories. Yes, it’s a tried and true theme, but I love those references and Eldredge sells it with his vocal. 

44. "Stealing Dark from the Night Sky" by Arlo McKinley 
One of the coolest sounding tracks of the year that just makes me want to kick back and watch the stars is Arlo McKinley’s “Stealing Dark from the Night Sky,” from his latest album This Mess We’re In. Rarely does heartbreak sound this lovely, but there’s something about the gracefulness of the music, especially the elegant fiddle playing, that has you swaying throughout. NPR’s Joe Kendrick put it beautifully when he wrote: “There is a poetic tension between the darkness at the center of the song and the burning light from which its broken-hearted lovers recoil.” 

43. "Table Manners" by Bri Bagwell 
Texas country singer-songwriter Bri Bagwell truly kicks ass with “Table Manners” off her fifth studio album Corazón y Cabeza where she just lets her man have it verbally for being a worthless lazy mess dragging her down with him. There’s a nice little punk feeling to this track that will have you thrashing your head the entire time. 

42. "Wise River" by Kitchen Dwellers 
I love the mix of bluegrass and folk sounds on “Wise River,” the title track off the latest album by Kitchen Dwellers. “Wise River,” features great picking of banjo, mandolin and guitar, is the band remembering a once prosperous place in their home state of Montana. Songwriter Shawn Swain told Live for Live Music: “The town of Wise River is basically a forgotten spot on the map. It used to be a thriving place with many prosperous mines, but now it’s practically dried up. There’s a hell of a lot of melancholy. In our mind, it symbolizes the overall feeling of being in slowed-down Montana life.” 

41. "San Francisco Blues" by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway feat. Dan Tyminski 
Molly Tuttle grew up loving bluegrass thanks to her father and banjo-playing grandfather passing it down to her. She knew she had to do a bluegrass album with her band Golden Highway and thus came the incredible Crooked Tree, which features many great collaborations with artists like Billy Strings, Old Crow Medicine Show and Gillian Welch. My favorite collaboration on the album is “San Francisco Blues” with Dan Tyminski, a long-time member of Union Station. The song pays tribute to her hometown, but it’s also a sorrowful waltz about how much the Bay Area has changed. She writes on her website: “It’s about how the Bay Area used to be such a thriving artistic scene, but now it’s become almost impossible for musicians, or really most people at all, to afford to live there.” 

40. "Turning Onto You" by First Aid Kit
I talk a lot about nostalgic vibes on the list this year and another example of that for me is First Aid Kid’s sweet single “Turning Onto You” off their latest release Palomino (not to be confused with Miranda Lambert’s album also released this year of the same name). First Aid Kit is the Swedish sister duo of Klara and Johanna Söderberg, but this is pure Americana. The band says they were going for a “country soul” sound, but it’s more reminiscent of Christine McVie’s Fleetwood Mac output or Joni Mitchell to me – and that’s definitely no complaint.

39. "Broken Families" by Lola Kirke 
Heartbreak sounds better in retro vibes. “Broken Families,” the lead track off Lola Kirk’s Lady For Sale, tells of a couple that dearly loves each other but have both come from troubled upbringings making it hard for them to truly trust one another. Kirke told The Line of Best Fit: “It’s about wanting to change and stay the same, being hopeful when you’re feeling hopeless. If that’s not country, I don’t know what is.” Kirk harmonizes beautifully with Courtney Marie Andrews on the song’s chorus. 

38. "Middle of a Heart" by Adeem the Artist
Adeem the Artist has been hailed as one of today’s best songwriters by musicians like Brandi Carlile and B.J. Barham of American Aquarium, who frequently appear on this list, and you can see why with a song like “Middle of a Heart” off their latest album White Trash Revelry. “Middle of a Heart” is a gut-punch song about a man raised from an early age in gun and Southern culture and the importance of serving one’s country. In the end, he succumbs to PTSD. 

37. "Wild Child" by The Black Keys 
Sure, The Black Keys are a rock & roll band, but there’s enough of a blues-rock sound, and the fact that the duo of Dan Auerbach (vocals/guitar) and Patrick Carney (drums) live in Nashville makes it close enough to Americana for me. “Wild Child” is a simple song about wanting to get with a woman and its infectious groove will keep your head bobbing throughout. 

36. "Lafayette" by Orville Peck
“Lafayette” by Orville Peck, off Bronco, is such an interesting-sounding song. You’ve got Peck’s sort of Elvis Presley-styled vocal, a surf-rock type psychedelic guitar solo and – despite the song being set in Louisiana – Peck told Thrillist: “Musically that song is inspired by marabi music, which is essentially South African folk music (where he was born).” I absolutely love the lyric: “You know I recall somebody saying, ‘there ain’t no cowboys left’/But they ain’t met me and they ain’t met you, Lafayette.” 

35. "Old Heartbroke Blues" by Joshua Hedley 
“I’ve got those old heartbroke blues/there’s a cowgirl on the loose” feels like something that should’ve been written and recorded already – maybe 30-35 years ago. That’s the genius of Joshua Hedley and his throwback albums that place his modern music into classic country sounds like the ‘90s neo-traditional era with his latest album Neon Blue. 

34. "Calloway County" by Tony Logue 
Troubles between fathers and sons are an age-old tradition, particularly it seems among Southerners. Tony Logue tells this story well with “Calloway County” off his sophomore release Jericho about a young man looking to escape his family and hometown so he can better himself and have a brighter future. 

33. "Nashville Tuesday Morning" by The Band of Heathens 
“Nashville Tuesday Morning,” off The Band of Heathens Cutting Room Floor EP, is about a touring musician longing to be home with the ones he loves, even if it takes turning a “Nashville Tuesday morning into a Sunday afternoon.” The song, written by band members Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist, has a throwback vibe to it that reminds me of some of the Lindsay Buckingham Fleetwood Mac ‘70s hits, including the guitar solo. 

32. "John Wayne" by Whiskey Myers
One of the best country-rockers of 2022 is “John Wayne” by Whiskey Myers, though the one question I’ve had all year is “why is the song titled, John Wayne?” There’s no reference to the legendary Western star in the song. While I haven’t been able to find out the reason for the title (maybe the band just loves John Wayne? Maybe the actor’s ethos fits with the song’s theme of resilience during hard times?) I do know the groove to this track with its “Southern-fried disco boogie rhythm” as described by Rolling Stone’s Jon Freeman is infectious and will have you moving along the entire time.  

31. "Jamie" by Zach Bryan feat. Charles Wesley Godwin
Zach Bryan and Charles Wesley Godwin are two of the brightest and most gifted young songwriters today in the non-mainstream country world (though you could argue Bryan has broken through). Their duet “Jamie,” which was penned by Bryan and appears on his second album release of the year Summertime Blues, is a tragedy of a man whose beloved has died, and he longs to be with her again and his plan to reunite in the stars with her is via police chase and suicide by cop. It’s heavy stuff but written as a love song. The harmonization between Bryan and Godwin toward the end is a highlight of the track. 

30. "Ships in the Harbor" by Tommy Prine
One of the most emotional songs of 2022 comes from Tommy Prine, the son of the late, great John Prine whom we all loved, in “Ships in the Harbor,” which has clear moments of being about his father and missing him. The 26-year-old began writing more following his dad’s Covid-related death in 2020 as a way to cope with the grief. On his YouTube page, he wrote of the song: “I always get super existential around my birthday, and I had a thought that we as humans can only feel as deeply as we do and love people and fear things and all the other intense emotions because everything we experience is finite, including our own lives.” 

29. "The Man from Waco" by Charley Crockett 
I’m always a sucker for a good Western story and Charley Crockett gives us maybe the finest of 2022 with “The Man from Waco” off his album of the same name. The title track tells the tale of a cowboy who comes home to find his woman in bed with another man and how in a fit of rage he mistakenly shoots and kills her instead of his attempted target the man. All he could do was ride away in shame. I particularly love the guitar line that opens the song and repeats frequently throughout, especially right after he sings the title of the song. 

28. "Love Farewell" by Jake Xerxes Fussell 
North Carolinian folk singer Jake Xerxes Fussell took the traditional ballad “Come Philander” and turned it into a truly beautiful yet heartbreaking song of love during wartime for “Love Farewell,” off his album Good and Green Again. It’s a minimalistic blend of acoustic guitar and tender vocals with the true highlight being the harmonizing between Fussell and Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s backing vocals giving it a haunting vibe it needs to thrive.   

27. "Damn Darlin'" by 49 Winchester
I assume the plot of 49 Winchester’s “Damn Darlin’” is fictional, but I love how songwriter and vocalist Isaac Gibson sets it up with such specificity in the first line: “It was the night before Christmas 1995.” He and the band then go into a weeper of a breakup song of a woman who leaves her man at the Exit/In, a famed Nashville establishment. “Hearts break harder and the old Exit/In” is one of the best lyrics of 2022. 

26. "Tom Barrett" by Ian Noe
The best singer-songwriters craft short stories that just so happened to be placed to music. That’s what Ian Noe has down with “Tom Barrett” on River Fools & Mountain Saints. As Noe states at the beginning “Tom Barrett was a killing man” before going into a portrait of an American vet turned into a killing machine. Noe told Under the Radar: “’Tom Barrett’ is about a relentless soldier’s life, inspired by local vets I used to know, or knew about. I talk about it a lot but juxtaposing dark themes or subject matter with upbeat melody is something I’ve always been drawn to.” 

25. "Open the Gate" by Zach Bryan
Great rodeo songs have always been a part of country music and one of the finest ones lately is “Open the Gate” off Zach Bryan’s expansive double-album American Heartbreak. “Open the Gate” is about how the lifestyle of rodeo and bull riding can get in your blood and become something more of an addiction than a hobby or career with the tale of a family line attempting to conquer a bull named To Hell I Go. 

24. "30 Miles" by William Beckmann
William Beckmann’s “30 Miles” might be the most personal song for me on this year’s list. The first couple of verses is very similar to my life and my first love – who just so happened to live 30 miles away from me. The only difference between Beckmann’s song and my life is I married my first love, whereas the song doesn’t have the same happy ending. It’s such a beautiful and – at least for me – truthful portrait of young love. 

23. "C'mon Baby, Cry" by Orville Peck
Orville Peck has this sort of Roy Orbison vulnerability mashed with Elvis Presley swagger that shines on a retro-sounding ballad like “C’mon Baby Cry” from his excellent album Bronco. “C’mon Baby, Cry” is the narrator giving a shoulder to cry on to a friend who’s been let down by a lover. The chorus is truly where the song hits a high note – both figuratively and literally. 

22. "Collateral Damage" by Shovels & Rope
“Collateral Damage” is my favorite track off Shovels & Rope’s sixth studio album Manticore. The song, written by Cary Ann Hearst, explores the difficulties of life and doing one’s best to get by. I particularly love the song’s chorus: “I get a little hazy on the details/how the whole thing went off the rail/and it got pretty slippery in the deep end/I crawled out of my skin and started over.” I love that the duo Hearst and Michael Trent are a married couple, and they sound so great together on this number. 

21. "I Didn't Know" by The Infamous Stringdusters
Infamous Stringdusters’ fiddle player Jeremy Garrett was stuck at home in 2020 during the pandemic like the rest of us when George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was murdered by a Minneapolis cop. He set out to write something reflecting on that time in America with legendary bluegrass lyricist Jon Weisberger. “From my vantage point, this song is both a reaction to what I saw and what was on my heart, but also about being a white person and being blind to what’s been happening to our black brothers and sisters and acknowledging this and now being part of the conversation toward change, justice and healing,” he told Grateful Web.  

20. "Wild-Eyed George Bailey Heebie Jeebies" by Izaak Opatz 
There are a couple of things I love about this song right off the bat: 1) it’s a reference to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” 2) it’s strange as hell (which fits perfectly for a song with “heebie-jeebies” in the title). The song recounts the tale of a relationship in which the woman is ghosting or even gaslighting the guy into thinking it never happened. I particularly love the verse about checking names on gravestones looking for Harry Bailey, George’s brother in the Frank Capra film classic who would’ve died if his older brother hadn’t been there to save him. It’s a creative as hell idea for a song.  

19. "Whose God Is This?" by Will Hoge
Will Hoge is no stranger to using his acid-tongue pen for good in songs I love like “Still a Southern Man” and “Thoughts & Prayers,” and he’s done it once again with “Whose God Is This?,” a comical, spoken word take on a particular type of toxic religion that seems more prevalent since Trump’s America. 

18. "Pine Grove (Madhouse)" by Ian Noe
It’s so hard to choose a favorite track off Ian Noe’s fantastic sophomore release River Fools & Mountain Saints. It’s without a doubt one of the best country/Americana releases of the year. For now, I’m going to go with “Pine Grove (Madhouse)” as my favorite, but that’s always subject to change. Noe has down-trodden, small-town life down pat in his songwriting, and ‘Pine Grove’ is another example of it with its disheveled characters and bleak imagery and circumstances, though a bit more upbeat in its groove than his previous outing. 

17. "Sing Me a Song" by William Prince & Serena Ryder
The duet “Sing Me a Song” by William Prince and Serena Ryder is simply adorable. It’s so “simplistic and gentle,” Prince’s own words to The Sound Café, but it works beautifully. Prince and Ryder’s voices meld terrifically, and you’ll instantly fall in love. It’s the best male/female  duet of the year. 

16. "Pink Sky" by Lola Kirke 
I was a fan of Lola Kirke the actress on one of the underrated shows of the last decade in Amazon Prime Video’s “Mozart in the Jungle” before even realizing she’s also a musician. Her album Lady for Sale has some striking beauties on it with my favorite being “Pink Sky,” about staying at home while your man is out on the prowl. Kirk has a throwback sound to her that absolutely fits this song with its crying guitar perfectly. 

15. "Weatherman" by Matt Daniel
I’m always a fan of creative, new spins for an old theme, and Matt Daniel’s “Weatherman” is exactly that. In “Weatherman” his girl leaves him for another man, but he knew from the beginning it wouldn’t last and she’d come back crying to him. Using weather symbolism like “don’t go telling me the sky is blue” and “I called the storm before it began” before dropping the “Girl, I ain’t your weatherman” line is such a creative way to turn a cheater who’s realized their mistake down.  

14. "First High" by Nikki Lane 
“First High,” the first single off Nikki Lane’s latest album Denim & Diamonds, sees the badass singer-songwriter embracing rock & roll on a track about feeling that “first high” again with nostalgic lyrics like the propulsive chorus: “Take me back to the first dream/501 blue jeans tighter than goddamn Springsteen/take me back to the first show/right back to the first note/when I knew my heart was pure rock & roll.” 

13. "Fancy Boys" by Ray Wylie Hubbard feat. Hayes Carll, James McMurtry & Dalton Domino
Three of my favorite singer-songwriters and Dalton Domino get together for “Fancy Boys,” off Ray Wylie Hubbard’s latest duets release Co-Starring Too, a brutal takedown of mainstream country stars like Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, etc. (even though it doesn’t call them out by name) who “prance around on stages where Waylon once stood.” 

12. "Die When I'm High" by Particle Kid & Willie Nelson
I couldn’t imagine a better tribute to his father than “Die When I’m High” by Particle Kid (Micah Nelson). Micah was playing chess with his father, the legendary Willie Nelson, in late 2020 when Willie looked up from the board and said, “If I die when I’m high I’ll be halfway to heaven.” It immediately struck Micah as “the best song title I ever heard.” He urged his dad to write it, but Willie felt Micah should do it. What came out of the statement was a terrific tribute to his father and a beautiful duet between father and son. 

11. "Wildfire" by American Aquarium 
“Wildfire” by American Aquarium is a different type of song from the band and vocalist/songwriter B.J. Barham – maybe because it’s a happy love song? “We gave in to the simplest of desire and watched that spark turn to wildfire” is such a simple line, but there’s often beauty in simplicity. Lovely isn’t a word that would describe a lot of the American Aquarium output, but it fits with “Wildfire.” 

10. "Broke Again" by Joshua Hedley
Joshua Hedley’s debut album Mr. Jukebox in 2018 had a countrypolitan ‘60s sound. His sophomore release Neon Blue, released in April, takes the sound of ‘90s mainstream country music. The best track off the album is “Broke Again,” which would’ve been a no. 1 smash in the ‘90s. It was honestly a good song for 2022 with prices skyrocketing due to inflation, but also fun enough to briefly forget all that crap. 

9. "Scale These Walls" by Caroline Spence
One of the most beautiful songs – vocally, sonically, lyrically – all year was Caroline Spence’s “Scale These Walls” off her latest album True North. Jeff Gemmill for The Old Grey Cat described the song as an “introvert’s love song” and that’s a pretty spot-on summation. The narrator is fully capable of living and doing things on her own, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be accepting of a love that was able to break through her barriers. The vocal makes it seem she’s yearning for it. 

8. "Paranoid Heart" by John Fullbright 
John Fullbright is one of today’s brightest songwriters – who else is going to throw the word “cerulean” into a song? “Paranoid Heart” is my favorite track of his latest album The Liar, his first in eight years. The song is a call to love that begins slowly before turning into an impassioned rocker with a nice slide-guitar solo from Jesse Aycock. The repeated “I will never speak your name if it’s not out of love again” chorus is so powerful. 

7. "Feelin' the Miles" by The Wilder Blue
“Feelin’ the Miles” is my favorite track off The Wilder Blue’s sophomore, self-titled album, but in some ways, it’s the least country-sounding track on the record. You can even hear some disco vibes in the song (something I generally would turn against). The Wilder Blue have reminded me occasionally of the Eagles on certain tracks and if that analogy continues this would be their “One of These Nights.” Zane Williams’ vocal is one of my favorites of the year. 

6. "Outta Time" by Orville Peck
“Outta Time,” my no. 1 Orville Peck song off his terrific album Bronco, is gorgeous with a catchy, simplistic chorus that’s easy to listen to and verses with the kind of specificity I enjoy from a songwriter - like the second verse mentioning a woman trying to chat the song’s narrator up and mentioning she doesn’t like Elvis, which obviously offends the narrator. 

5. "Something in the Orange" by Zach Bryan
Zach Bryan released about 500 songs this year, but the best of his output is “Something in the Orange,” the heartbreaking ballad off American Heartbreak. In vivid lyricism, Bryan remembers the fall of a relationship he depended on so much but doesn’t believe he’ll ever see coming back his way through the horizon. The vulnerability in Bryan’s scarred voice comes through perfectly.   

4. "Russell County Line" by 49 Winchester
One of the true country music highlights of 2022 is 49 Winchester’s fourth album Fortune Favors the Bold, which will see multiple tracks on this list. My favorite track on the album is the incredibly sweet “Russell County Line,” about longing to be with the one you love back home while having a career as a touring musician. Isaac Gibson the band’s vocalist and guitarist penned the song which truly shows off his made-for-country music voice. 

3. "Carousel" by Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert loves circus imagery in her music, most notably in her 2013 single “All Kinds of Kinds.” “Carousel,” off her latest album Palomino, is the best of her circus imagery songs thus far with its tale of a romance between trapeze artists. Co-written with Luke Dick and Natalie Hemby it makes a perfect album ender, especially with a line like “every show must end/every circus leaves town.” 

2. "12th of June" by Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett’s “12th of June” hits you in the heartstrings like a ton of bricks in its reflection on fatherhood, family and mortality. The date in the song’s title is the birthday of his twin children – one boy and one girl – born in 2017. “12th of June” is Lovett pouring his entire heart out in song to his family and as a result is one of the most beautiful songs of the year. 

1. "Chicamacomico" by American Aquarium
​American Aquarium’s B.J. Barham sure knows how to write an emotional song. “Chicamacomico,” the title track off the band’s newest album, might be his most emotional yet as it tells the tale of a couple trying to get back on track after the loss of a baby (likely via miscarriage). It’s a raw portrayal of something experienced by so many couples in this world and Barham and the band sound terrific. 

Honorable Mentions: 
​
"A Song Can't Fix Everything" by Sunny Sweeney feat. Paul Cauthen

"Angel Band" (Hallelujah Version) by Tyler Childers

"Annabel" by 49 Winchester 

"Antioch" by Whiskey Myers 

"Blue" by Ingrid Andress

"Bored If I Don't" by Kaitlin Butts 

"Borrowing Sugar" by Jenny Tolman

"Bourbon Whiskey" by William Beckmann 

"Burning Down the Prairie" by Ian Noe

"Call's Last Letter" by David Miner 

"Can't Wait to Never See You Again" by Hellbound Glory 

"Come On Loretta" by Drew Moreland 

"Comes in Waves" by Dawes 

"Common Law" by Zoe Cummins & Gabe Lee 

"Daytona Sand" by Orville Peck 

"Empty Cups" by Amanda Shires 

"Everything She Ain't" by Hailey Whitters 

"Hard Way to Make it Rain" by Randall King 

"Hard Working Man" by Marcus King 

"Headstone" by Brothers Osborne 

"High Heels" by Paul Cauthen 

"How the River Flows" by Matt Castillo 

"If These Dogs Could Talk" by Brandy Clark feat. Ashley McBryde 

"Into the Fire" by Yonder Mountain String Band 

"It Feels Alright" by Sam Burchfield 

"Jeremiah" by Cody Howard 

"Jersey Giant" by Elle King 

"Little Devil" by Jesse Daniel 

"Neon Blue" by Joshua Hedley 

"No Mistakes" by Sarah Shook & the Disarmers 

"O Charlene" by Cory Branan 

"Odessa" by Charley Crockett 

"On the Roof" by Sarah Buxton 

"One More Night" by Miko Morris & the Resurrectors 

"P.O.W. Blues" by Ian Noe 

"Pipeliner" by Teague Brothers Band 

"Reasons to Run" by Old Crow Medicine Show 

"Road to Abilene" by Ronnie Dunn feat. Parker McCollum 

"Rusty" by Gabe Lee 

"Southern" by Muscadine Bloodline 

"Tell the Devil" by Aaron McDonnell 

"That Look I Lost" by Cory Branan 

"The Hardest Thing" by American Aquarium 

"The Last Resort" by Midland 

"Too Far to Be Gone" by Shemekia Copeland 

"Unlocked Doors" by John Fullbright 

"Unwanted Man" by Aaron Watson 

"Waking Up the Echoes" by American Aquarium 

"Welder" by Tony Logue 

"When In Rome, When In Memphis" by Cory Branan 

by Julian Spivey
The White Water Tavern is a small music venue and tavern hidden in Little Rock, Ark. that doesn’t seem like much to look at upon entering. It’s just an open floor with a bar near the entrance and the tiniest stage I’ve ever seen at a music venue in the back right corner from the front door. The wood boards under your feet move and creak while you’re moving along to the music and the walls and ceilings are lined with paper posters of past events at the venue.

The place is absolutely magical though. I realized this not long after stepping into the venue for the first time some years ago to see a show by Cory Branan. There’s a mutual feeling of love and camaraderie between the musicians and the audience every time I’ve been. The sound is near perfect. You feel more in love with music while at the White Water than you’ve ever felt. I’ve seen great shows there: Branan, Austin Lucas, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers and most recently before Saturday afternoon American Aquarium, for which the venue is so important in the past of the band that songwriter B.J. Barham immortalized it in lyrics to multiple songs, but maybe most notably in the words of “Rattlesnake” with “That first time I saw her, down at the White Water, dancing across those ancient hardwood floors.”

It was one of the local venues I was most concerned about not being able to survive the pandemic in 2020 that shut down music for at least a year and was thrilled when it made it through the other side. And I’ve only been to the White Water a handful of times. Though, I know we have a great future ahead of us.

This weekend (Dec. 2-4) the White Water Tavern hosted its annual Holiday Hangout were musicians both local and from across the country came to this little one-room corner stage to share in the fun and camaraderie and see another year almost ready to end. Over the weekend acts like American Aquarium, Branan, Lucas, Ben Nichols of Lucero, Rod Gator, The Vandoliers and more would perform at the Hangout.

Unfortunately, I did not have tickets for the Holiday Hangout. I hadn’t seen them go up for sale and the night I wouldn’t have wanted to miss (Saturday night) I had already had tickets to see comedian Nate Bargatze across town at Simmons Bank Arena (no real regrets it was the best stand-up set I’ve ever seen live).

Luckily though, the White Water Tavern put on a Songwriter Showcase free to the general public on Saturday afternoon hours before the real shindig got started, and as soon as I saw Barham was one of the songwriters featured I knew I had to go. I’ve seen American Aquarium live three times and they’re a can’t-miss live act Barham has become one of my favorite active songwriters. The event also featured Isaac Hoskins and Isaac Alexander, both of whom I’d never heard before, but the only way to love new music is to seek it out. I would soon learn guys named Isaac know how to write a good song.

The three songwriters would perform 12 songs, four apiece all solo and in the round over the span of about an hour, not including the unplanned roughly 20-minute or so intermission for a medical emergency involving a fellow attendee who collapsed to the hardwood floor with 911 being called to check her out.

I feel bad having not gotten all of the song titles for the performances by Hoskins and Alexander. Luckily, Hoskins just released an album, Bender, at the end of November and at least three of the songs he performed Saturday afternoon are on that album, so they were easy to find. I only caught one song title of the four songs that Alexander performed – even though I thoroughly enjoyed them all.

Barham’s music falls along the lines of country-rock but is often a bit more on the rock side for me. Hoskins is a country singer out of Texas. Alexander, a local, is more indie-rock style.

There wasn’t a bad song among the dozen performed by the lot on Saturday.

One of the best moments of the entire show – though I’m not sure Hoskins would agree because he seemed a bit perturbed by an equipment malfunction – was when he stepped out front of the stage and performed his first song (the one I couldn’t find the title of) without the help of a mic. I’d seen this previously at a White Water show from Austin Lucas (though he did it intentionally) and something about seeing a performance done this way just adds to the magic of it all.   

The three songs Hoskins would perform off Bender were “Leon’s Blues,” “Moments I Would Never Trade” and “The Pistol and the Prayer.”

Right when Hoskins started “Leon’s Blues” is when the medical emergency happened and brought things to a screeching halt for a bit. When things got back going Hoskins continued with “Leon’s Blues,” a song about an old dustbowl kid and WWII vet who was lonely and considered an old drunkard by the community, but as the human, he was by the song’s narrator and his mother. It may have gotten the biggest response out of the crowd of any performed during the event. “Moments I Would Never Trade” was inspired by Hoskins’ engagement and was one of the few “happy songs” of the showcase, which the songwriters remarked upon a bunch. I certainly didn’t mind because like Barham says in AA’s “Starts With You”: “sad songs make me happy.” Hoskins would finish with the revenge song “The Pistol and the Prayer,” which he said he had performed the night before on night one of the Holiday Hangout at the tavern.​

Once again I apologize for not being able to locate most of the songs Alexander performed through his Spotify output (maybe they were unreleased?), but I enjoyed his lyrics and style. The one song I was able to locate is “Like a Sinking Stone” off his 2017 album of the same name and you could tell there’s some obvious inspiration from Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” on the track, which is certainly cool.

One of the great things about attending live music is finding new artists to spend your time with. I went to the Songwriter Showcase for Barham but came out a fan of both Hoskins and Alexander and eager to listen to their discographies.

The great thing about seeing Barham solo is you’re likely to get a couple of performances you haven’t already seen him perform live with his band. While I had seen “The Long Haul,” off 2020’s Lamentations before it’s one of his best so I loved hearing it again done as a solo performance. I’d also seen “One Day at a Time” from 2018’s Things Change but hearing him do it with just his voice and his guitar is fantastic. The other two songs were ones I don’t believe I’ve seen him perform live before, so it was truly a treat for this fan. Those songs were “How Wicked I Was” from Lamentations and “The First Year,” a song he wrote about losing his mom, off the newest album Chicamacomico, which came out in June.

I can’t thank the White Water Tavern enough for putting this free event out there for us, especially those of us who couldn’t make the Holiday Hangout. I hope to see these events again in the future and next year I’ll be looking more closely for those Hangout passes! ​