The 9513 - Country Music Blog

Ladies and gentlemen, after weeks of mulling over nearly every country album released last year, we’re proud to present The 9513’s Best Country Songs of 2008.

To be eligible, a song may not have appeared on 2007’s Top 50 list, and all significant covers have been excluded. Also, please note that a song need not be released as a single in order to be eligible (album cuts are allowed). Our final list was compiled based on the votes of The 9513’s editors and writers, who each submitted their Top 75.

50. “Hearts Are Breaking Across Texas” - Aaron Watson
49. “Just Got Started Lovin’ You” - James Otto
48. “Highway 20 Ride” - Zac Brown Band
47. “Do You Still” - The Wrights
46. “Made of Stone” - Dolly Parton
45. “Everything But Quits” - Lee Ann Womack (with George Strait)
44. “Lone Pine Hill” - Justin Townes Earle
43. “In My Arms Instead” - Randy Rogers Band
42. “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” - Hayes Carll
41. “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” - Darius Rucker
40. “It’s a Shame ” - Hayes Carll
39. “Yesterday’s Gone” - Hal Ketchum
38. “Georgia” - Ralph Stanley II
37. “Sparrow” - Hal Ketchum
36. “House with No Doors” - George Strait
35. “Outlaw Shit” - Waylon Jennings
34. “I Think I Know” - Lee Ann Womack
33. “Crooked Road” - Chris Knight
32. “Impatient Love ” - Twilight Hotel
31. “Heart of Stone” - Chris Knight
30. “Drunken Poet’s Dream ” - Hayes Carll
29. “A Marriage Made In Hollywood” - Jerry Douglas (feat. Travis Tritt)
28. “Til The Last Shot’s Fired” - Trace Adkins
27. “Texas Afternoon ” - Eleven Hundred Springs
26. “Anyone But You” - Jewel
25. “Sounds So Good” - Ashton Shepherd
24. “Lord Help Me Find the Way” - Ralph Stanley II
23. “Dig Two Graves” - Randy Travis
22. “Sweetest Waste Of Time” - Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
21. “Rattlin’ Bones” - Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
20. “Lonesome, Heartbroke and Blue” - Rodney Hayden
19. “Once In a While” - Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
18. “I Ain’t Dead Yet” - Ashton Shepherd
17. “Cheater Cheater” - Joey + Rory
16. “One More Year” - Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
15. “Ragged As the Road” - Reckless Kelly
14. “Bottle By My Bed” - Jason Boland & The Stragglers
13. “Heart of the Wood” - Joey + Rory
12. “I Can’t Outrun You” - Trace Adkins
11. “You Didn’t Have a Good Time” - Randy Travis
10. “Comal County Blue” - Jason Boland & The Stragglers
9. “By the Mark” - Dailey & Vincent
8. “She Left Me For Jesus” - Hayes Carll
7. “Sometimes a Man Takes a Drink” - Trace Adkins
6. “Either Way” - Lee Ann Womack
5. “Huntsville” - Rodney Hayden
4. “Anything Goes” - Randy Houser
3. “Last Call” - Lee Ann Womack
2. “Very Last Country Song” - Sugarland
1. “Sweet Emmylou” - Joey + Rory

Songwriter: Lee Thomas Miller & Craig Wiseman.

With “Nothing To Die For,” Tim McGraw, one of contemporary country music’s most venerable and respected artists, has fallen into a trap of preachy indulgence that works far too hard to drive home its point, and which seemingly speaks to McGraw’s (apparent) desire to define his image as that of a wizened veteran–an advice giver of sorts, one set against the backdrop of competition that grows younger by the day. After all, between the patriotic/spiritual undertones of “If You’re Reading This” and the heartstring-tugging “My Little Girl” (two of his biggest hits in recent years), he seems to be building on his reputation as an upstanding family man and model father.

Of course, it’s no small coincidence that such an image happens to position him squarely as the person most capable of providing the format with a melding of strength and sensitivity, a combination of mature sexiness and wholesome character that it has long been missing.

Commercially, it makes perfect sense. Artistically? The result is music that beats us over the head with its very cursory message.

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• One of Miss Leslie’s resolutions this year is to get more people to hear her music. If you send her your email address via her MySpace page or official website, she’ll ship you an autographed copy of Between the Whiskey and the Wine–an album The Houston Chronicle named as one of the best local releases of the past year.
• Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Walter Haynes passed away last Thursday at his home in Tyler, Texas at the age of 80.
  

  Mr. Haynes’ legacy is not solely defined by his steel guitar prowess. He produced [Jeanne] Pruett’s “Satin Sheets” and Cal Smith’s “Country Bumpkin,” and also produced artists including [Del] Reeves, Marty Robbins and Bill Monroe. And though Mr. Haynes was not a prolific songwriter, he co-wrote (with Hank Mills) Del Reeves’ No. 1 1965 hit, “Girl on the Billboard.”

• Before his passing in August 2008, another steel guitarist, Don Helms, disputed claims that Fred Rose was a ghost writer behind Hank Williams‘ biggest hits.
• Actor Jack Black on singing “Old Joe Clark” for father-in-law Charlie Haden’s album Ramblin’ Boy:
  

  “I wasn’t sure what to expect because I haven’t recorded or really sung any old songs like that before, bluegrass style, but it came very naturally and I cranked it out in two takes,” said Black, who grew up in the Los Angeles area. “There was something in the music that I think struck a chord in my DNA. I think I’ve got some hillbilly in my roots. … I’m already practicing my square dancing if we play the Grand Ole Opry.”

• Sunny Sweeney posted demos of new songs “Easier With Me Gone” and “Virginia Rain” to her MySpace.
• The Sydney Morning Herald’s Bruce Elder summarized the rise and compromises of Keith Urban as told by by Jeff Apter in his unofficial biography Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise Of Keith Urban, which is being released today in Australia.
  

  In Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise Of Keith Urban, Apter explains: “‘Walkin’ The Country’ was the one song on the Ranch album that typified the seemingly never-ending saga that was its recording. As Urban revealed, Warner Bros were particularly hard taskmasters; this one track, to his memory, was cut ‘in five different studios with three different producers’ … Every time the band emerged with a track that they thought truly captured their hard-driving sound, Warner execs would listen, shake their heads and then tell them to return to the studio.”

  When the album finally emerged it had been recorded in 14 studios with six recording engineers and 11 assistant engineers.

• Ray Price will celebrate his 83rd birthday next Monday at the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame and you’re invited.
• Country California published an especially brutal edition of “Quotable Country” this week.
• In an interview with Matt Fink for American Songwriter, Marty Stuart talks about playing in Doc Watson’s band, meeting Johnny Cash for the first time and being around Porter Wagoner and producing his album during the last months of his life.
  

  When we were standing there on stage at Madison Square Garden opening for the White Stripes, he looked at me and said, “We’re doing pretty good aren’t we?” And I said, “We’re doing pretty good. Keep going.”

• Listen to an acoustic performance of “Black Wings” recorded live at KUT a few weeks ago by Ray Wylie Hubbard.

• When Merle Haggard plays at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace tonight and tomorrow, it’ll be his first performances since undergoing surgery for lung cancer. He says it’ll also be the first time in his life in which he hasn’t loosened up with tobacco or marijuana.
• We’re only two days into the new year and Los Angeles City Beat has a best albums of 2009 list. Among the picks are new albums from David Serby (Honky Tonk and Vine) and Mike Stinson (The Jukebox In Your Heart). Chris Morris provides a summary of both:
  

  On Serby’s Honky Tonk and Vine: “…finds Serby and his terrific band the Sidewinders (led by his producer and guitarist Ed Tree) in superb form. Beyond primo country like “Get It in Gear,” “Permanent Position,” and “I Only Smoke When I’m Drinkin’,” he stretches comfortably into Southern soul (“Honky Tonk Affair”) and Tex-Mex (“For Cryin’ Out Loud”)

  On Stinson’s The Jukebox In Your Heart: “…produced by Austin singer-guitarist Jesse Dayton and cut at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio. It shows off his magnificent writing, from saloon shakers like “No One to Drink With” and “I Will Live to Drink Again” to heart-tuggers like “Square With the World” and “Angel of the Evening.” What’re different here are the ace production values and Stinson’s full-bodied singing, which has never sounded finer on record.”

• Country music saw the second biggest percentage decline in 2008 with album sales plummeting 24 percent.
• Bobby Lynn Boatright, a member of the Texas Playboys, passed away on Sunday from cancer at the age of 69.
• Rodney Atkins is following in the footsteps of labelmate Tim McGraw with his own cologne, Atkins by Rodney Atkins, and duo Brooks & Dunn are not on speaking terms because of a text message. What’s happening to country music? It’s Country California’s new satire feature. I’m still waiting for the report about Guanabee Rich, a janitor who rescued unreleased master recordings of a 12-year old Taylor Swift from the trash. A prominent label executive, speaking under the cloak of anonymity, said Mr. Rich is in talks with several patrons of real country music to release a multi-CD box set. It will reportedly save the genre.
• More best of 2008 goodness from Twang Nation.
• Sunny Sweeney digs Carrie Underwood’s version of “How Great Thou Art.”
• Little Jimmy Dickens celebrated the 60th anniversary of his first performance on the Grand Ole Opry last November and continues his long tenure with a performance on this year’s first show, which is tonight.
• Susan Gibson might be best known as the writer behind the Dixie Chicks‘ “Wide Open Spaces,” but she records her own songs as well. Listen to and download a live recording of “Perfect World,” a song that Texas Music Matters considers a standout track from her new album, New Dog, Old Tricks.

Outside of American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and Nashville Star castoff Miranda Lambert, the spate of talent competitions that we’ve endured since the advent of reality TV has produced few artists who could be said to possess a level of talent that aligns them with the top tier of country stars. Idol also-ran Kellie Pickler’s bubbly personality, for example, is far more attractive than her mediocre voice, while counterpart Bucky Covington’s major label signing is simply inconceivable in other circumstances, as he has neither a particularly good singing voice nor particularly good looks. Add to the mix the legions of Nashville Star winners and finalists who have immediately faded into irrelevance, and you’re left with a group of “artists” who have sprung forth from a pop culture phenomenon without having anywhere near the talent or artistic savvy of their more well-traveled peers.

It is more than a little surprising, then, that one of 2008’s most talented new acts was born from such a competition, and it is even more surprising still that it was born from a talent competition that aired on the Viacom (MTV) owned CMT–a network which, in many ways, shares in the responsibility for building a mainstream format where image outweighs musical ability. The fact that a past-their-prime (in the eyes of a youth-hungry industry) husband and wife duo who openly adore each other could rise from that scenario defies all logic, and reminds us that even in our genre’s dark times there is still hope for the future of the music.

In a year that saw an alarming number of pop-to-country crossover acts, it was an artist who has never officially made a crossover attempt who claimed one of the format’s most successful and most pervasive singles. And not for the first time. Following in the genre-hopping footsteps of 2004’s Top 10 hit “Picture,” Kid Rock’s derivative (but catchy) “All Summer Long” successfully bridged the format gap and become the definitive anthem of Summer, 2008.

A cross format hit that dominated radio worldwide, it was the song’s rustic setting, carefree attitude and southern rock ties that endeared it to country audiences. With lyrics that urged us not to worry about tomorrow, it was a fitting and soothing sing-along for a time in which we had many things–a war, an election, a failing economy–to worry about. Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” may not have been country, but it served as a welcome reprieve from the daily turmoil of American life in this often unsettling year.

It was a bit of surrealism when once-notable rock band The Black Crowes sued once-notable country singer Gretchen Wilson.

It was Wilson’s “Work Hard, Play Harder” (which was used as a promo for the TNT original series Saving Grace) that caused the Crowes’ to get their feathers ruffled. The band alleged that Wilson infringed on its 1990 hit “Jealous Again,” with their manager claiming: “We find the musical verses of Wilson’s song to be such an obvious example of copyright infringement that I expect all parties to reach a relatively quick resolution to avoid litigation.”

Perhaps the most striking thing about Crowes v. Wilson, however, was the fact that it was Wilson’s most identifiable moment from 2008. Once considered a leading lady of country music’s next generation, Wilson continued an artistic decline that began with 2006’s “Politically Uncorrect”; Wilson, who burst onto the scene with a string of five consecutive Top 10 hits, hasn’t broken the Top 20 with any of her eight most recent singles.

Leading Alt-Country/Americana magazine No Depression crumbled under the pressure of a shifting retail music landscape, generally declining print readership and a poor economy that lead to declining advertising revenue. The magazine, which became a bible of sorts for fans of a form of less commercialized country music, published for 13 years and it’s demise and re-emergence in online form reminded us that no part of the music industry or the media is immune to the ongoing evolution of information consumption.

Nashville Star’s first winner, who scored two major hits in 2003 with “Help Pour Out The Rain” and “Sweet Southern Comfort,” tried to resurrect his dying career with the polarizing “This Ain’t Mexico,” a song that decried illegal Mexican immigrants. While the song served as a brief rallying cry for those who agreed with its central message (brief because it gained zero traction at radio), its lyrics were widely criticized for being offhandedly offensive.

Although Jewell refers to our current border situation as “an invasion,” It was not so much his expression of his opinion that rubbed some people the wrong way. Rather, it was the fact that the lyrics of “This Ain’t Mexico” were dismissive in a way that seemed to embrace certain topical aspects of Mexican culture while belittling the people from whom that culture comes from. Jewell declares his love for “Margaritas and them sizzlin’ fajitas,” in a way that seems to imply these things are at the core of his understanding of Mexican culture.

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• The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will be required to pay $750,000 to keep historic instruments from Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash and Mother Maybelle Carter. The instruments were donated by Bob McLean, who committed suicide after being accused of defrauding investors. The settlement will go to McLean’s bankruptcy estate to help pay back his creditors.
• Peter Cooper doesn’t like people who pull out their Blackberry during intimate concert performances. Especially when the intimate concert performance is by Don Schlitz, the writer of “The Gambler,” and he’s in the middle of intimately performing “The Gambler.”
• Photocrap is back to the funny with honest album covers chosen from several year-end best-of lists.
• In the introduction to his interview with Ashton Shepherd, The Washington Post’s J. Freedom du Lac mentions that Shepherd’s album Sounds So Good is his pick for album of the year.
  

  Was there ever any question that you’d make a traditional-sounding album? That’s not exactly the easiest sell these days.
  It was always just gonna be what it is. I remember when we first started, me and [producer Buddy Cannon] were starting to get to know each other. I remember talkin’ to him one day and I was telling him the different music that I love. I said, “Buddy, I love John Anderson’s music. I love that sound, with the fiddles driving a lot of his songs.” And I gave a couple of other examples of real country music that I like.

  I was a little afraid then because I didn’t really know Buddy. I knew a little of his history of course and just how legendary he is. But I didn’t know what he was going to want to do with my songs. Producin’, that’s not what I do. I’m just a singer-songwriter.

• Roughstock’s top 25 albums of 2008.
• If you’re not familiar with Dolly Parton’s catalog, you’re in luck–Country Universe’s Kevin J. Coyne put together a handy buyer’s guide.
• For his next album, due in the spring on Bloodshot Records, Wayne Hancock decided to use his road band. It will include a song titled “Moving On” that he wrote when he was 14 and another about economic hard times that he wrote 20 years ago.
• Listen to an interview with Charlie Haden and family, and musical selections from their latest album, on NPR. Haden is most known for being a jazz bassist, but he grew up in a musical family that performed together on country radio. His most recent album, Ramblin’ Boy, marks a return to those country roots with his current family: triplets Petra, Tanya and Rachel; son Josh and son-in-law and actor Jack Black. Also making appearances are country music singers Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, and Rosanne Cash, as well as Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, and Pat Metheny.
• Word has it that Tanya Tucker and Collin Raye will be releasing new albums in the spring on Saguaro Road Records.
• A big thanks goes out to Jim Caligiuri for mentioning The 9513 as best discovery in The Austin Chronicle’s year-end critic’s poll and for everyone who nominated us for The 2008 Weblog Awards in the best music blog category. Both were unexpected and exciting. We’ll let you know when voting opens for finalists in the Weblog Awards, so uh, if you’ve got the itch you can vote for us.

Don’t confuse disappointing with worst, as that list would most likely be dominated by obscure indie knockoff bands along with a couple of mainstream releases. There has to be a modicum of expectation that’s dashed upon the release of an album for it to qualify for the year’s most disappointing. Hopefully all of the acts listed here will make better albums next time around and if you want to be overly optimistic, hopefully a couple of them won’t have a next time.

• 10. What Am I Waiting For, Heidi Newfield
  Heidi Newfield’s debut solo effort started off strong, but the song selection lagged towards the latter half, creating an album that comes across as a little bland, which is unfortunate considering Newfield’s unique voice would shine amongst the current radio darlings. The songwriters who contributed to What Am I Waiting For certainly aren’t slouches, but these aren’t their best cuts. Here’s to hoping the song selection is a little stronger the next time around.
• 9. We Weren’t Crazy, Josh Gracin
  Four years after the release of his debut, Josh Gracin’s second album wasn’t exactly worth the wait. Gracin fits comfortably within the mainstream, but the songs and performances on We Weren’t Crazy are mediocre even by those standards. He brings back Tim McGraw’s “Telluride,” but doesn’t quite match the original and offers up a generic love song to his wife (”Unbelievable (Ann Marie)”) in a supposedly personal manner. The fifth single will be released soon after the album has only been available for eight months, so Curb will have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how they’re going to handle Gracin’s next album. Based on the way they’ve handled their other artists, we might not see anything for another four years.
• 8. Backwoods Barbie, Dolly Parton
  Backwoods Barbie contains some standout tracks that compare favorably with anything released in 2008, but it also has its share of mediocre tunes. And for an album trumpeted as Parton’s return to country, some of the material sure leans pop. If the song selection had been a little stronger, Backwoods Barbie could have been a contender for the best of ‘08 instead of the most dissapointing.
• 7. C’MON, Keith Anderson
  C’MON is more disappointing for it’s dreadfulness rather than failing to meet expectations. Somehow, Keith Anderson takes mainstream pandering to new extremes and how the unfortunate “Somebody Needs a Hug” was selected for a single is still baffling, much less the resources wasted to develop a marketing campaign around the song.
• 6. Kellie Pickler, Kellie Pickler
  Granted, Kellie Pickler doesn’t exactly inspire great confidence in her musical abilities, but she had the opportunity to do just about anything on her self-titled sophomore release and somehow chose the least interesting path. She included a song from her debut album that added nothing worthwhile and covered Catherine Britt’s “Lucky Girl” without bringing anything new to the performance. That leaves eight cuts, none of which are better than average, that do little to explain who she is as an artist.
• 5. Anything Goes, Randy Houser
  Randy Houser started out on the right foot by releasing a stellar first single that did surprisingly well on the charts and even made claims that he wouldn’t personally record something like “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” the polarizing cut by Trace Adkins he helped write. But upon the release of his debut album, there was a little too much badonkadonk and not enough material showing the talent hinted at by “Anything Goes.”
• 4. Mockingbird, Allison Moorer
  Allison Moorer chose to cover a collection of songs penned by women and bring them a “true” femininity, but for some reason she chose to bring in Buddy Miller to produce the album. And while she was busy reinterpreting the songs, seemingly for the sake of reinterpretation, she forgot to infuse the album with personality. Just look to her cover of “Ring of Fire” as an example–it’s missing the fire.
• 3. Good Time, Alan Jackson
  Good Time was supposed to be Alan Jackson’s return to form after taking a short artistic detour, releasing a gospel album, Precious Memories, that he recorded as a gift to his mother and the polarizing Like Red On A Rose album, produced by Alison Krauss. Good Time is the first album entirely written by Jackson, but it turned out to be some of the weakest writing of his career, making for a lackluster effort overall. There were certainly albums more deserving of the CMA Nomination Good Time received.
• 2. Moment of Forever, Willie Nelson
  Willie sounds best backed by sparse arrangements with the vocals mixed loud, making the decision to surround him with cheesy horns and beachy percussion a terrible production decision by Kenny Chesney and Buddy Cannon. Just check out Willie’s duet with Melonie Cannon from earlier this year for an approach that works. Other than the travesty that is “The Bob Song,” one of the worst of the year, the song selection was good, making for a record that should have been one of the finest of the year if the producers had just stayed out of Willie’s way.
• 1. Crossover Acts
  Collectively, the multiple crossover acts only managed to dilute the country genre without bringing anything new or exciting, unless you consider the potential of Darius Rucker. He managed to shake things up by topping the album and singles charts, but as mentioned in the album review, his success will be measured based on sales, and the album was compromised in order to placate commercial interests. Other than a couple of cuts, Jewel’s album failed to match the hype and Jessica Simpson’s album fell with a thud. If the rumors are any indication, the trend of crossovers might even pick up in 2009.

The return of a legend. The emergence of two legends’ sons. The unexpected pairing of two husband-and-wife duos. These were among the stories that defined country music in 2008.

This year’s top albums came to us from every corner of the country music spectrum–from Australia to the coal mines of Appalachia to the stage of a CMT talent competition. And despite the wealth of utterly atrocious music that we had to endure in 2008, it was a year that, in many ways, celebrated the great diversity of the genre; our list includes an acoustically-driven Americana album, the oft-humorous musings of a trendsetting Texan, and a collection of country classics as sung by one of our all-time great voices. It was, to that end, a good year for country music–at least in the eyes of those willing to dig a little bit beyond the surface of the mainstream.

Our list was compiled by taking a survey of The 9513’s writers. We then used a numerical ranking formula to assign point values based on an album’s ranking within each individual’s list, with the final Top 10 ultimately resulting from those rankings. The following staffers participated in this year’s survey: Brady Vercher (Editor), Brody Vercher (Editor), Jim Malec (Managing Editor), Kelly Dearmore (Podcast Editor/Host), Ben Cisneros (Correspondent), CM Wilcox (Contributing Writer), Karlie Justus (Contributing Writer), Juli Thanki (Contributing Writer) and Pierce Greenberg (Contributing Writer).

Individual Staff Picks

You can read each writer’s individual Top 10 (with comments) by clicking here.

A note about box sets and re-issues:
2008 saw a wide swath of quality box sets and re-issues, a number of which surely would have earned spots on this list. The Hank Williams Sr. Unreleased Recordings, for example, is considered by many to be the best and most important country music album released in 2008. Other notable albums that fall into this category are the Legacy Edition of Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison and the Mercury release of Jamey Johnson’s That Lonesome Song, an album previously released independently (and which appeared on last year’s list). While we recognize the value of these releases, we have chosen to focus our list on the new music being created and heard for the first time in 2008.

Top Country Albums of 2008

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• In the latest Rolling Stone, Vanessa Grigoriadis notes that aside from Willie Nelson’s project with Asleep at the Wheel, he has another album slated for early ‘09 titled Naked Willie. It’ll be produced by his harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, and consist of his RCA recordings from 1966 to 1970, without the strings and schmaltz. “For the album cover,” says Raphael, “Willie took a picture of himself with his iPhone while he was in the bubble bath, and sent it to me.” (via Still Is Still Moving)
• Joe Diffie’s wife organized a surprise birthday party for him last night and among the friends she invited were: Trace Adkins, George Jones, Linda Davis, Hal Ketchum, Opry stars Jack Greene and Jan Howard. Music City TV has pictures.
• The Houston Chronicle’s HandStamp blog published a list of the top Houston CDs of 2008 and it’s scattered with albums from Miss Leslie, Katie Armiger, Johnny Falstaff and Amber Digby.
• An unauthorized Keith Urban biography, Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise of Keith Urban, is scheduled for release in Australian bookstores next month. There’s no word on a U.S. release date, yet.
  

  “The first biography of this movie-star-handsome country hero tells the unlikely story of how Urban followed and eventually fulfilled his dream of selling country music back to the Americans, the people who created it in the first place,” reads the book description on the Random House Australia website.

• Photocrap took a turn for the serious and posted a list of the top “mainstream” country albums from the past year.
• The third season of CMT’s reality show Gone Country airs next month, and at least one of it’s cast members is considering immersing herself into country music–pop singer Taylor Dayne. (via NashvilleGab)
  

  “To me, I don’t call it country anymore,” she says of the genre’s broadening parameters. “If you are looking at the charts, there would be nothing better to cross over (into) as an artist because I’ve crossed over every other genre except hip-hop.”

• Fred Bartenstein, a long time bluegrass radio personality, historian and photographer, is offering several hundred vinyl LPs of bluegrass and country from his collection for sale online.
• John Carter Cash just finished producing an album for Wylie & the Wild West, has been working in the studio with Loretta Lynn, and in January, Johnny Cash Remixed will be released, an album that he co-executive produced. Obviously, he’s a busy dude, but CMT’s Edward Morris notes that his most recent project is titled Chapter & Verse, a repackaging of Johnny Cash’s 1990 reading of the entire New Testament onto a single DVD and an accompanying CD.
• The Dallas Observer music blog DC9 at Night published their top ten country albums of 2008.
• After unsuccessfully searching for an original recording of Buck Owens’ 1979 duet with Emmylou Harris, “Play Together Again Again,” the Whooping Llama blogger bought the original 45 online and made it available for your enjoyment.
• Melodic Sunburst published a review of Megan Munroe’s album One More Broken String and says that she’s gained traction with airplay in other countries and perhaps it’s time the United States caught up.
• Bluegrass Now has been published since December 1990, but earlier this year the publication ceased the print edition and moved operations online. Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy has brought an end to that as well.
• If you haven’t grabbed this Justin Townes Earle bootleg from Pickathon 2008 yet, why are you still here?

• George Jones plans to spend a lot of dates on the road in 2009, but he hopes to find some time to open a museum of memorabilia that he’s been collecting with his wife Nancy.
  

  “Nancy scours eBay looking for my old stuff,” laughs Jones. “Sometimes fans bring things back that they have found. I recently got an old guitar back after 46 years. A guy had bought it in Texas for $10 and gave it to his father — not a bad price for a Martin [brand guitar]. I’m always thrilled to see some of the old stuff.”

  Of particular interest to Nancy are his classic suits, many of which were named for his most popular songs.

  “We did that in the early days,” Jones says. “We would have a suit made for a hit single. Everyone did it back then.

• Although Whitney Duncan wasn’t slated to release her Warner debut until January, the label decided to release a digital EP right before Christmas. (iTunes)
• Justin Townes Earle and Steve Earle joined the Morning Edition on NPR for a brief interview. Father and son discuss Justin’s early interest in music and whether there was an conscience effort on Justin’s part to write “Lone Pine Hill” so similar to his father’s own civil war song.
• Songwriter Rivers Rutherford had four songs on the charts this year, which is down from his average. It’s a trend across the music industry and one that he doesn’t foresee improving in 2009, but he has faith that a model of breaking artists and making money is waiting to be discovered. In an interview with The Tennesean’s Cindy Watts, he refers to the current downswing as a cleansing time in which the people who are in it for the wrong reasons will fold up and leave.
• Country and pop critic Barry Mazor lists several country releases and historic issues and reissues from 2008 that are the most likely to last, including albums from Jamey Johnson and Ashton Shepherd along with an Ernest V. Stoneman box set and Willie Nelson’s One Hell of a Ride retrospective.
• Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelly proposed to his girlfriend of two years, Cassie McConnell, on Christmas morning. (via Music City TV)
• As a young woman, it wasn’t always acceptable for Bobbie Nelson to perform in bars and clubs, although playing with her father and brother, Willie Nelson, made it easier. Even then, she eventually lost custody of her children and put her performing career on hold. After Willie had established himself as a songwriter he wanted Bobbie to help him make his 1973 album The Troublemaker. Lara Pellegrinelli notes that it was a turning point for both of them and after more than 30 years in Willie’s band, Bobbie just recently released her debut album–thanks to a little trickery from one of her sons and Willie.
• The extended Christmas break caused me to fall behind on the news front, but you better believe I’ll be back tomorrow with a more thorough roundup.