Allman Brothers Neil Young Creedence Byrds/Gram Parsons Eagles Steve Earle The Band Outlaws Molly Hatchett Charlie Daniels Robert Earl Keene
Joe Ely baby. This late 70s/early 80s was the best version of Joe and the best band he played with. Yes, that's Lloyd Maines on steel, the great Ponty Bone on accordion, and the late Jesse "Guitar" Taylor laying down licks. They gave some great concerts back in the day. And this is the best cover of Not Fade Away. Yes, I know the Stones did a cover too, but this is better--it captures the tension and energy perfectly. And just for kicks, here's a couple more Buddy Holly covers from 1996 with Maines and Taylor playing along.
Whatever Robert Plant did. He’s won like every Grammy since he started doing it with Allison Kraus or whomever. I think they ran out of Grammys he got so many.
its the 20th anniversary of yankee hotel foxtrot and i was talking with some friends about wilco and son volt last night. that first son volt album is so good and then they kind of dropped off for me. on the other hand, i was not a fan of the first wilco album, but the next 3 they did are all excellent (not a coincidence that those are the 3 albums made when jay bennett was in the band). i saw both of them at liberty lunch in 1995 when their debut records came out and son volt was the far superior band. i really thought that would have been the band to blow up and get huge.
theres a cool podcast called the history of rock music in 500 songs that some of yall might be interested in. theyre going back and citing stuff like bob wills and the benny goodman quartet as the very beginning of what became rock. chuck berry was massively influenced by county and basically turned this song into maybellene.
the outlaw country movement and lots of texas artists in general were always blurring the lines. willie and waylons rhythm sections were funky and swung like rockers.
I saw Son Volt that same year at SXSW. I had just learned about the 3 bands. I actually liked A.M. a lot as it was my intro to Americana. The next 2 were certainly better albums overall. Got to see Son Volt again back in 2019 at the Utopia Fest. Was a great show that reminded me how good they could be.
I had a similar relationship. At one point R.E.M., Elvis Costello, Squeeze and Talking Heads all had country songs that I loved. It was then I realized that my hatred for pop country didn't have to mean that I hated all country. In honor of that, I'll name Elvis Costello as my choice.
