Dan Tyminski is best known as a member of Union Station, Alison Krauss' band, as well as the singing voice for George Clooney's character "Man of Constant Sorrow" in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The link will take you to the 44th Grammy Awards Show in February 2002, where the Soggy Mountain Boys performed the song together with the late Ralph Standley. Well now, comes news, that Tyminski has signed with Mercury Nashville.
An album "SOUTHERN GOTHIC" is planned to be released this fall, and for that endeavor, Dan will just be known by his last name, Tyminiski. According to newspaper "The Tennessean," he collaborated with Jesse Frasure (known for his work with Florida Georgia Line & Meghan Trainor) and the result is "marrying bluegrass instrumentation with the hefty rhythms and moody ambiance of modern pop."
After watching a teaser trailer, released on his new twitter account @tyminskimusic the project sounds more than intriguing.
Baptized in Southern Gothic, in the Garden of Good and Evil
The devil right here, who would have thought it
In a town full of god-fearing people.
The made-for-television movie "Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle Of Love," which aired last November on NBC is nominated for an Emmy in the category "Television Movie," and will compete against “Black Mirror: San Junipero” (Netflix), “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks” (HBO), “Sherlock: The Lying Detective (Masterpiece)” (PBS), “The Wizard Of Lies” (HBO).
The movie, a sequel to "Coat Of Many Colors" (after the Parton hit song), is also based on a true story, Dolly experienced when she was growing up in the mountains of Tennessee. Natural disasters and poverty try to harm the Christmas spirit of the Parton family. After some miracles, the movie transcends the message of close family and being home for Christmas. It also shows that Dolly by age nine is about ready to break out from the mountains of East Tennessee and conquer the world as an artist.
The movie also starred Dolly's sister Stella Parton and former Sugarland member Jennifer Nettles in her first and lauded role as an actress. While Dolly plays a local prostitute, The Painted Lady, in the movie, Alyvia Alyn Lind plays a young Dolly who befriends her. Nettles had the role of Dolly's mom, Avie Lee.
"I am so very proud and excited to have "Christmas of Many Colors" be nominated for an Emmy award," Dolly Parton said in a press release, announcing the nomination. She also thanked all her fans, who watched the Christmas movie.
In the clip below, Dolly explains why she made a sequel of the movie and why she wanted to have a cameo in it.
The winners will be announced during a show hosted by Steven Colbert on September, 17 on CBS.
Good things come to those who wait. More traditional country fans were able to rejoice. "Head Over Boots" by Jon Pardi of his second album "CALIFORNIA SUNRISE" which was co-produced by the Northern Californian finally reached the top spot as the most played country single on the radio (Billboard) after a staggering 44 weeks on the charts by the end of August (8/27).
The song, an unusual shuffle (well at least in these times) with a slight rockabilly beat to it, sounds modern, even though it has a retro feel to it. It could have easily been done (in an even more traditional way) in the '60s by Conway, Ray, or Eddie.
Asked by trade magazine Billboard why he was using traditional instrumentation like a fiddle (Jenee Fleener) and steel guitar (Mike Johnson) on his recording - which is missing in today's country songs, Pardi was quoted:
Fiddle all day! There’s a lot of fiddle on this record. There are a lot of old sayings from the '90s and ‘00s: "Shuffles won’t work on country radio." "You can’t have a pedal steel lead on country radio." If someone says you can’t have a fiddle on county radio... this is what I grew up with. I’m helping country sound a little more country.
Playing the late Buck Owens Birthday Bash that weekend in Bakersfield, he received a signature Buck Owens guitar from local Bakersfield station KUZZ, as you can see in the picture above. Not only citing Buck but California country music in general, Pardi was quoted:
"This guitar represents CALIFORNIA, and I'm proud to help make people aware of BUCK's legacy."
Visiting his dad many, many moons ago in Central Texas, they visited Twin Sisters Dancehall (where they later also filmed the video) outside of Blanco together. That's where he got the inspiration for the song. Back in Nashville, he sat down with Luke Laird, and they co-wrote "Head Over Boots," both not really sure they had written a hit song.
And some radio DJs actually had to be twisted in their arms, as they were claiming that the song was too traditional for today's radio. Well UMGN, Capitol's parent company was able to convince the DJs with solid numbers. Pardi started selling the song digitally and outsold many other artists, who were way farther up in the charts, the song was certified Gold for over 635'000 downloads - and still sells about 9000 copies a week. He also did extremely well in "streaming" - his youTube views for the lyric and the conventional video added up for over 21 million streams, all streams combined (YouTube, Spotify, etc..) over 100 million streams. These are impressive numbers if you compare them to the terrible "Fix" #1 hit and Chris Lane (see SR: No "Fix" please - make Chris Lane disappear!) who has only around 7.5 million streams on YouTube.
★★★★(★)/★★★★★ (4½/5) (scroll down to read about his new single "Dirt On My Boots")
I was hoping that the record company would follow this number one single with the outstanding "She Ain't In It," a song that evokes the timeless superiority of George Strait he defined for over 35 years. Maybe that's gonna be single number three of "CALIFORNIA SUNRISE." First, the powers there are, wanna keep the momentum going with boots, well more specific with "Dirt On My Boots."
Unfortunately, musical-wise the song is a U-turn to stupid radio mediocrity. There may be Banjo, Fiddle, and Steel accents in it, but the modern production destroys the real country feel of the lyrics. Written by Rhett Akins, Ashley Gorley, and Jesse Frasure, the song was according to a radio interview in Pardi's words 'way out there': “...like, it was a super hip-hop kind of style. But I loved the lyrics; the lyrics were so country. I just loved that; that’s what really appealed to me [...} So we took it and made it more country, and I think it kinda really made a cool sound.”
WTF, somebody please chase Jesse Frasure out of the Country realm, back to Nicki Minaj or Drake. As a songwriter he's responsible for some of the worst crap coming out of Nashville - "High Class" (Eric Paslay), "Fix" (Chris Lane), "Road Less Traveled" (Lauren Alaina), and "Like The Sound Of That" (Rascal Flatts) just to name a few.
“Dirt on My Boots” was produced by Pardi and his long-time demo producer Bart Butler. Lyrically the song actually can be referenced to the old country theme of going out on a Saturday night, like Lefty Frizzell did in his tune "Shine Shave Shower" - with its lyrics:
Gonna shine, shave, shower, and brush my teeth
Go out a dancing and forget my grief
Make all the nightclubs in this town
'Cause my sweet baby's gonna show me around
It basically is a hard-working blue-collar guy, who wants to go out and woo his gal dancing with her in his high heeled cowboy boots:
Been up since the crack of dawn
Just trying to be paid
Been hotter than a thousand suns
I can't find no shade
Just two more rows and I'm good to go
Yeah, I'm shutting this tractor down
Get me a half an hour for a shave and a shower
And I'll be outside your house
and in the refrain (excerpt)
Gonna hit the club, gonna cut a rug
Burn it up like neon lights
Might have a little dirt on my boots
But we're gonna dance the dust right off them tonight
Got a little dirt on my boots
As a gentleman he even promises to leave his dirty boots outside, if he should be invited for coffee after the dancing:
Baby, we can slip right out of that barroom door
And when I take you home, don't worry babe
I'm gonna kick them off on the porch
The discrepancy between the quality of music and lyrics is so high that I included two different numbers, added up and divided by two, they give the rating of "Dirt On My Boots" as 3 out of 5.
Chris Lane - Obviously celebrating his first #1 - Instagram
There are so many definitions in the dictionary that explain what fix is or may be, but it needs an addendum:
"Fix" - (song) - worst ditty to hit the top of the Country Airplay Charts by Billboard magazine and by IHeartMedia's mediabase in the summer of 2016.
During the tracking period to reach the top spot, the song got over 8100 spins, reaching and leaving an almost 56 million weekly audience impression. And you wonder why this country is in such a mess.
So it's time for celebration:
- a new artist, Chris Lane
- first charted single (others beforehand didn't scratch the top 40)
- new record label: Big Loud Records
- seasoned songwriters and producer
STOP - let's shine a light behind the curtain and we suddenly realize that we just stepped in a big fresh stinky turd.
- behind the record label, Big Loud Records is the Big Loud Mountain team that also handles douche-bags Florida Georgia Line, even though they put their shit out on Republic Records. Add to this, the president of Big Loud Records, Clay Honeycutt and that's where the incest begins
- Honeycutt was for over 15 years a "yes man" (not my words but his colleagues in comments on trade website AllAccess) in the IHeartMedia (formerly known as Clear Channel Communications) operations. So he leaves the sinking ship, IHeart is struggling to get rid of $6 Billion in debt, and becomes the president of a record label after being in command for over a decade over more than 850 radio stations.
- the single that didn't chart in the Top Forty was "Broken Windshield View" a rather lame bro-country song, even though co-written by David Lee Murphy ("Dust On The Bottle"). During the production of an initial EP, producer Joey Moi discovered that Lane actually has a falsetto mode when singing and voilà, they found a new niche for the 31 year old singer from North Carolina and started re-vamping him.
- all revamped as a blue-eyed wanna-be R&B singer, his producer Moi passed him "Fix" to record.
- "Fix" could actually fly in a decent R&B arrangement, written by Abe Stoklasa (see his performance to prove my point for a decent production), Sarah Buxton and Jesse Frasure, latter being also responsible for that horrendous "High Class" single done by Eric Paslay,
- Producer Joey Moi, who won a CMA Award as a producer for Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise," the Single of the Year in 2013 pretty much stays true to his ear-numbing, over-top one dimensional productions. He may have caught Lane's falsetto but the whole production is missing depth, it's just a plain cacophony. It's bad enough that he is associated with Nickelback, Daughtry and the above mentioned Douche-Bags, but this guy gotta go home back north to Canada before he produces an other turd.
A quick listen through his new album "GIRL PROBLEMS" that was released last Friday, does not reveal anything promising. I will review the whole album later, when I have recovered from "Fix."
And a note to radio stations - if you force feed us this song 94 ! times in a week, like IHeartMedia owned KBEB-FM in Sacramento (92.5 FM) did, please don't start to wonder why we're all wandering away to streaming media and our own programming.
(★)/★★★★★ (½/5)
Sources: http://iamchrislane.com/, AllAccess, Billboard
Coming off his terrible first single "High Class" of his sophomore album "DRESSED IN BLACK," Eric Paslay just released his follow up single "Angels In This Town."
The good news: it's not as bad as the stupid "High Class" which stalled in April of this year at #32 of the Hot Country Songs Charts. And even though co-written by Eric with Corey Crowder and DJ Telemitry (aka Jesse Frasure) and having an urban dance club feel to it and mentioning Justin Timberlake, it failed to crack the Hot 100 Pop Charts.
It also destroyed my hope of maybe an artist that has musical integrity. After seeing him about three years ago unannounced at the Saxon Pub in Austin - see my blog "Eric Paslay - Emerging Artist - Proven Songwriter" - I was all hyped up, that there may actually be an artist with integrity. Damn was I way off the mark. Actually things weren't that bad at first, his debut release "ERIC PASLAY" was half decent, contained "Country Side of Heaven" as well as the quite amazing "She Don't Love You" which reached #15 in April of '15.
So Eric got from his snotty white trash "High Class" to a more down home style, replaced the black suit with jeans and ball cap again and on the way down, actually found some form of spirituality, albeit only in concept and lyrical content. Crowder is again a co-writer, third one in the round this time was relative newcomer Eric Dylan, who just released "Pink Flamingos."
The music production by Marshall Altman is with it's R&B loops still way over the top and Paslay's strength, his actually fine voice, is stretched way to far into arena-rock over-sung screeches.
Too bad, because the story line of the song is very promising, although (too) simple - scoring the winning touchdown in highschool football game, evading a deadly car-crash and still being alive. Yes miracles happen and angels are among us. With a more subtler instrumentation and maybe even a church choir behind it, to actually invoke the karma musically as well - this could have been a better song and maybe using the angels to help somebody more unfortunate instead of winning a football game would have shown real compassion for the angels out there.
