My Thanksgiving 2022 Playlist

My Thanksgiving 2022 Playlist

There was so much great new music this year that my Thanksgiving playlist (Spotify link) is mainly new stuff and I moved a bunch of great old stuff into a second playlist!

Recorded while Yola was working with the Highwomen on their album, her anthem Hold On kicks it off. Highwomen Brandi Carlile and Natalie Hemby, as well as Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell are on the track as well.

Next, a little East Bay grease for ya'll: fifty years later Tower of Power still blows the doors off with You're Still a Young Man.

Los Lobos put out the Grammy-winning (Best Americana Album) Native Sons this year, full of covers of the LA songs they grew up with. Here's their version of War's The World is a Ghetto.

The Iguanas' Oye Isabel is on here for my friend Max, who had a daughter, Isabelle, this year with his wife Kate. This is his life in about 18 years!

The next two songs feature Black Country/Americana singers that opened for Jason Isbell during his 2021 Ryman Auditorium residency (see Tressie McMillan Cottam's excellent piece on it), Brittney Spencer's Sober & Skinny and Shemekia Copeland's Too Far To Be Gone.

Miranda Lambert earned herself another Grammy nomination (Best Country Song) with her take on gender roles and cowboy myths in If I Was a Cowboy.

My personal song of the year, nominated for Grammys in the  Best Song, Best American Roots Song, and  Album of the Year categories, is Bonnie Raitt's powerful Just Like That:

I spent so long in darkness

Never thought the night would end

But somehow grace has found me

And I had to let him in

Bruce had a lot of fun recording his new album of soul covers, Only the Strong Survive. Here's his take on Jimmy Ruffin's What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.

Next, a few songs by Texans about drinking tequila, Miranda Lambert's Tequila Does (dedicated to my wife Leslie) and Midland's The Last Resort.

One of the highlights of Americana Fest this year was a panel discussion on Indigenous Americana, led by Shoshona Kish and Amanda Rheaume of Ishkode Records, and then a showcase featuring their bands. Rheaume's 100 Years addresses the recent revelations of the deaths of Native children in Canadian residential schools and the awakening of Native people:

Can you feel the heat

Underneath your feet

Rising on the land, stirring in the street

Waking from a hundred years of sleep

A hundred years of sleep

A hundred years of sleep

After hanging out with Joni Mitchell so frequently over the last few years, Brandi Carlile re-recorded her 2021 album In These Silent Days as In The Canyon Haze with a Laurel Canyon feel and Crosby, Stills and Nash-type harmonies. Here's  the new version of You and Me On The Rock. (Be sure to check out the videos of Joni and Brandi at the Newport Folk Festival if you haven't already).

At the Americana Awards his year Brandi won Best Song for Right on Time (on last year's Thanksgiving playlist) and Allison Russell won Best Album for Outside Child (featuring Persephone and Night Flyer, also on last year's playlist). Then they premiered You're Not Alone.

He's Fine is a catchy tune from The Secret Sisters. I would not like to be a real person named Davey White.

Austinite Sunny Sweeney has a fine new song, Easy as Hello.

I wanted to include Amarillo By Morning by George Strait but it didn't fit in anywhere else so here it is. The fiddle is beautiful, especially the long solo at the end.

We lost three amazing women in the past year. Native Austinite Nanci Griffith wrote some great songs, including Listen to the Radio. In it she namechecks badass Loretta Lynn, so let's add her Fist City which includes the immortal line, "But the man I love, when he picks up trash, he puts it in a garbage can". And we would be remiss not to honor Ronnie Spector, here singing on The Ronettes' Be My Baby.

The 2022 Americana Festival and Awards

My wife Leslie and I finally got to Nashville in September for the Americana Festival and Awards. We've been planning to do this since 2020 with our friends Donald Cohen and Madeline Janis. I'm kinda glad we waited because our new favorite singer, Allison Russell, won Best Album for her first solo album, Outside Child (see my blog post about her).

Overall the festival was a ton of fun, made even more special by Donald's knowledge of the music and relationships with many of the fine musicians present, including Alisa Amador and Ali McGuirk. We spent a few enjoyable days in Nashville prior to the fest, catching up with old friends and touring the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Johnny Cash museum.

Diversity was a strong theme of this year's fest, with Allison Russell and The War and Treaty winning awards, and Al Bell of Stax Records receiving a Lifetime Achievement award. A panel on Indigenous Americana, led by Shoshona Kish and Amanda Rheaume of Ishkode Records was eye opening and led us to attend their showcase later where Kish's band, Digging Roots, and Rheaume rocked!

Another fascinating panel, at the Country Music Hall of Fame, featured the Black Opry, a group of African-American country music lovers under the leadership of Holly G, with Aaron Vance, Nikki Morgan, Julie Williams and The Kentucky Gentlemen. All of the artists played a few of their songs, representing the range of roots music from blues to soul to indie rock to pure country.

Musically the highlight of the week for me was my discovery of Amanda Rheaume, a member of the Metis (Indigenous/French) Nation of Canada. She sings with a compelling intensity, with eyes that seem to make contact with you, even when you're at the back of the hall. Her songs combine the history of Indigenous people with her own personal experiences. One Hundred Years deals with awakening of Native people in response to, among other things, the recent revelations of the Canadian government's treatment of Native students, with thousands dying in residential schools:

Can you feel the heat

Underneath your feet

Rising on the land, stirring in the street

Waking from a hundred years of sleep

A hundred years of sleep

A hundred years of sleep

In Do About Her Rheaume sings forcefully about her experiences growing up with both Indigenous and settler lineage and not being accepted by either:

She's not quite an Indian girl

She's not quite a white girl either

Her heart beats in both worlds

What we gonna do about hеr?

Put a bullet or a blanket out for her

 

And I got a chance to chat up the fabulous Marissa Moss, author of the recent book Her Country on the struggles women have faced breaking through in country music and getting played on country radio (see my blog post about this great book). We talked about why many of these stars had to leave Texas for Nashville (the three singers she focused on - Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton - plus others like Miranda Lambert and Amanda Shires are all Texans!).

Why Allison Russell Should Win All the Major Americana Awards

After a two-year wait due to Covid, my wife Leslie and I are finally going to Nashville next week for the Americana Music Association's Americanafest. It's four days of nonstop keynotes, panels, and music performances all around Nashville, plus the 21st annual Americana Honors & Awards.

I've been a big fan of Allison Russell since her time in Our Native Daughters (the group she formed with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla and Amythyst Kiah, four Black female banjo players) and her first solo album, Outside Child, released last year and  produced by Dan Knobler, has just blown me away. Her personal story of  survival from and triumph over a decade of abuse at the hands of her stepfather (see this NPR piece), coupling that with the survival of enslaved people (she wrote Quasheba about her enslaved ancestor for Our Native Daughters), is reflected throughout this powerful album.

Three songs from Outside Child stand out for me:

Persephone (written with her husband Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero) is Russell's homage to her first love, a girl with whom Russell would take refuge from her stepfather. It's a rockin', toe-tapping, great to sing along with, joyful song of overcoming adversity and first love:

Blood on my shirt, two ripped buttons

Might’ve killed me that time, oh if I’d let him

He’s slow when he’s drunk, and he lost his grip on me

Now I’m running down La Rue St. Paul

Trying to get out from the weight of it all

Can’t flag a cop ’cause I know he won’t stop

I’ll go see Persephone 

 

Tap tap tappin’ on your window screen

Gotta let me in, Persephone

Got nowhere to go, but I had to get away from him

My petals are bruised, but I’m still a flower

Come runnin’ to you in the violet hour

Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin  

 

Mouth to mouth, mouth to flower

Salty sweet, you give me power

I feel you shake under my lips

Your fingers tender find my secrets

Don’t make a sound, don’t cry out, love

Your parents are sleeping just above

I kiss you once, I kiss you twice

Fall asleep looking in each other’s eyes

But the night must end and then it's

Back to the cold’s bite, back to the hard life

Back to the harsh bright street 

Nightflyer's chorus echoes two great rock songs:

Yeah, I'm a midnight rider

Stone bona fide night flyer

I'm an angel of the morning too

The promise that the dawn will bring you, you

The verses are filled with lush imagery celebrating her triumph over the abuse:

His soul is trapped in that room

But I crawled back in my mother's womb

Came back out with my gold and my greens

Now I see everything

Now I feel everything, Good Lord

What the hell could they bring to stop me, Lord?

Nothing from the earth, nothing from the sea

Not a God Almighty thing 

 

I'm the wounded bird, I'm the screaming hawk

I'm the one who can't be counted out

I'm the dove thrown into battle

I can roll and shake and rattle hm-mm, hm-mm

I'm the moon's dark side, I'm the solar flare

The child of the Earth, the child of the Air

I am The Mother of the Evening Star

I am the Love that Conquers All

Nothing is going to stop Allison Russell! 

4th Day Prayer is another empowering song about rising up against hate:

Father used me like a wife

Mother turned the blindest eye

Stole my body, spirit, pride

He did, he did each night 

 

From the coast of Africa

To the hills of Grenada

To the cold of Montreal

That whip, that whip still falls

The chorus exhorts us to stand against the hate: 

One for the hate that loops and loops

Two for the poison at the roots

Three for the children breaking through

Four for the day we're standing in the sun

So I'm definitely rooting for Allison Russell to win Album of the Year for Outside Child, Song of the Year for Persephone (it could have been Nightflyer, which was nominated for Grammys in Best American Roots Song and Performance) and Artist of the Year. Let's take a look at her competitors.

Album of the Year

Outside Child's competitors for Album of the Year are:

• "In These Silent Days," Brandi Carlile; Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings
• "Raise The Roof," Robert Plant & Alison Krauss; Produced by T Bone Burnett
• "A Southern Gothic," Adia Victoria; Produced by Mason Hickman and Adia Victoria, Executive Produced by T Bone Burnett
• "Stand For Myself," Yola; Produced by Dan Auerbach

I think Brandi Carlile will be Russell's main competitor in all three categories. In These Silent Days is a great album, like we've come to expect from Carlile, with several excellent songs like Right on Time. I was glad to see Adia Victoria and Yola, two new Black women singers, recognized. I never got the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss pairing. She can do a lot better! Several great albums but I'm gonna go with Outside Child.

Song of the Year

The other nominees for SOTY are:

• “Canola Fields,” James McMurtry; Written by James McMurtry
• “Diamond Studded Shoes,” Yola; Written by Dan Auerbach, Natalie Hemby, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Yola
• “Juanita,” Sturgill Simpson feat. Willie Nelson; Written by Sturgill Simpson
• “Right On Time,” Brandi Carlile; Written by Brandi Carlile, Dave Cobb, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth

Right on Time, a powerful ballad in the style of her songs The Story and The Joke shows off Carlile's vocal range and songwriting ability. Yola's Diamond Studded Shoes is a strong conciousness-raising song. I love Sturgill and Willie but they've each done better songs than this. And I actually like Canola Fields, from an artist I've never enjoyed, despite his being from Austin and the son of Texas royalty. Persephone beats these fine songs.

Artist of the Year

For Artist of the Year we have Russell and:

• Brandi Carlile
• Jason Isbell
• Billy Strings
• Yola

Either Carlile or John Prine has won this award for the last five years and she could quite well win it again. Jason Isbell is my favorite current singer but his main contribution in 2021 was the release of Georgia Blue, a record of covers of Georgia songs that Isbell promised if Georgia went for Biden, with proceeds going to voting registration organizations. Major props to him for the courage to cover Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long! Yola and the multi-instrumentalist Billy Strings are up-and-coming stars and will have their day. But this is Allison Russell's year!

Her Country by Marissa R. Moss

 I just finished a fine new book about the women of country music, Her Country, How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be, by Marissa R. Moss, a superb Nashville-based music writer. I used her Rolling Stone reporting on the Highwomen extensively in my 2020 blogpost on that fine supergroup (A Deeper Dive Into The Highwomen).

Focusing on Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton, Moss tells the story of the struggles that women have had to go through in the last twenty years to get played on country radio, once abundant with the likes of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, etc., etc. Between consultants telling radio programmers that their audience only wants to hear one female artist per hour, sexual harassment from DJs and programmers, and resistance to weed- and gay-friendly lyrics (Musgraves) or Black voices (Guyton), these three and many other women have had to force their way into the national conversation.

As a reporter covering the Nashville scene for the past decade, with close access to all these artists, Moss presents a compelling story of the rise of these artists and many others including Miranda Lambert, Brandy Clark and Brittney Spencer. I found her description of the Nashville music scene especially fascinating, how the musicians agree to write together during the day, then play together in clubs and living rooms at night; how singer/songwriters face the choice of having their best work covered by established artists or hold on to the song for their own breakout vehicle.

Until reading this book I never realized how the banishment of The Chicks from country radio after lead singer Natalie Maines blasted George W. Bush for the Iraq invasion was so profoundly received in Nashville, forcing progressive country singers there to "shut up and sing" for years.

Of course the story of women in country music is a work in progress and I found two areas that I would like to see Moss (or someone else) explore further:

The first is the economics of country music and the reliance on country radio airplay. Several of the artists mentioned in the book broke through using non-traditional channels such as Spotify, Apple Music, SiriusXM Radio, or Country Music Television. Can a country singer thrive financially without airplay on mainstream country radio?  Many country-adjacent Americana artists like Brandi Carlile and Jason Isbell seem to be doing okay, although I don't have career earning figures at my disposal compared to, say, Tim McGraw.

The second question I have concerns the fact that Musgraves, Morris and Guyton are Texans, as are Miranda Lambert and Highwoman Amanda Shires. Why did these women have to leave Texas for Nashville to make it? As an Austin resident for almost four decades, I have become used to country radio ignoring our biggest stars like Kelly Willis, Joe Ely and Robert Earl Keen. I rarely hear the new breed of Texas country artists like Josh Abbott, Cody Johnson or Midland on traditional country radio. Since Willie Nelson fled Nashville in the early '70s for Austin the Texas music scene has flourished and has had a definite impact on Nashville country but hasn't lifted many local artists to national prominence. What's your take on that Marissa?

Texas Waltz Playlist

Here are 26 Texas songs I love, arranged in a somewhat geographical manner. So put it on and get ready to waltz across Texas. Here's the Spotify link.

Let's kick it off with Gary P. Nunn telling us What I Like About Texas. My buddy Venancio Figueroa has created a great video that goes along with the song. Here's the link.

You ask me what I like about Texas
I tell you it's the wide open spaces!
It's everything between the Sabine and the Rio Grande.
It's the Llano Estacado,
It's the Brazos and the Colorado;
Spirit of the people down here who share this land!

We're going to start our tour in Austin where, Waylon Jennings will tell you, Bob Wills Is Still The King.

Then we'll bring back Gary P. for his classic London Homesick Blues (Home With the Armadillo).

Now we head down I35 to San Antonio. We're going to hear two versions of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys' San Antonio Rose. The original was an instrumental with those twin Texas fiddles and pedal steel guitar. This was a hit, but the record company wanted a version with lyrics so Tommy Duncan wrote and sang the New San Antonio Rose, with more of the big band instrumentation the Playboys were known for.

San Antonio's Doug Sahm made his fame with Mendocino in California with his band the Sir Douglas Quintet but came back to Texas in 1972 and recorded (Is Anybody Going To) San Antone, which had been a 1970 hit for Charley Pride.

We leave town to Tish Hinojosa's autobiographical West Side Of Town and head down to the border.

My favorite version of The Streets of Laredo was song by a guy who's not from Texas but it's Johnny Cash so we'll let it slide.

Next we swing back up to the Texas Hill Country for Waylon and Willie's Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love).

Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood could happen anywhere in Texas but I'm placing it in the Hill Country to commemorate the adventure we had picking up our kids from their camps in Hunt, Texas when the Guadalupe overflowed!

Now we take a left turn and head out west, where Marty Robbins will spin a tale of old El Paso.

Lubbock's Butch Hancock wrote the classic West Texas Waltz but I like the way his Flatlanders bandmate Joe Ely sings it more.

From Lubbock we head up 87, the Amarillo Highway. Terry Allen wrote it but I prefer Robert Earl Keen's version better. More from REK later.

I don't wear no Stetson
But I'm willin' to bet son
That I'm as big a Texan as you are

Can't have a Texas playlist without George Strait's Amarillo By Morning.

We'll stay up in the Panhandle for a minute to catch Texas country music supergroup The Panhandlers' West Texas in My Eye, written by Charlie Stout. Check out the video with William Clark Green, John Baumann, Cleto Cordero and Josh Abbott taking turns on the verses.

Lately I've been thinking that I could leave this town
I'd cut back on my drinking, stop this running 'round
Playing songs 'til after midnight, staying up till dawn
There's something in the dust and wind that keeps me hanging on
And I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd say goodbye
I ain't crying, that's west Texas in my eye

From the Panhandle we head down to Dallas, Jimmie Dale Gilmore's song. Once again we are going with his Flatlanders bandmate Joe Ely's version.

You can't have a playlist about Texas without Tanya Tucker's Texas (When I Die).

Texas Sun by Houston's Khruangbin, with a vocal by Fort Worth's Leon Bridges, is a little tour of Texas by itself.

I had to include Wide Open Spaces by The Chicks, which is clearly about Texas even if it doesn't mention Texas. If I had to pick one voice that represents Texas it would be Natalie Maines's!

Sir Douglas Quintet's Texas Tornado starts out in Port Aransas and wipes out a bunch of Texas cities includes Galveston, Amarillo, Houston and Corpus Christi.

Speaking of Corpus, Robert Earl Keen tells us about life on the Corpus Christi Bay.

From the coast we'll head back toward Houston.

The Yellow Rose of Texas goes back to the 1840s. Many historians believe it is about Emily Morgan, a free mulatto working for Capt. James Morgan in 1836 whom Santa Anna met when his army came through what is now the Houston area in pursuit of the Texian army under the leadership of Sam Houston. To get at her, Santa Anna stopped in an indefensible position in San Jacinto, and was in his tent with her when the Texians attacked and routed the much larger Mexican army. Santa Anna was captured and was traded back to Mexico in exchange for Texas's freedom. Everybody in the world has recorded this song, from Gene Autry to Mitch Miller. My favorite, by Artie Morris, is not available on Spotify, so I'm going with Texan Michael Martin Murphey's version.

Houston's most successful musical export of course is Beyoncé and this is her song about her father, Daddy Lessons. I picked the version where she is backed up by The Chicks. What a combination!

Before we leave the town, we need to hear Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers' Houston (Means I'm One Day Closer To You).

Asleep at the Wheel are from Philadelphia but they have been the biggest proponent of Western Swing since they got here in the 70s so let's celebrate this road trip with Miles and Miles of Texas. And, yes, I'm gonna live here until I die.

I hoped you enjoyed this Waltz Across Texas. Take us home, Ernest Tubb!