Brooks and Dunn MetroCentre, Rockford, March 31 While generalizing can be a dicey business, it’s probably fair to say that the common man votes more often through SoundScan than on election day. Record store numbers will tell you that the common man doesn’t really want to spend an excruciatingly tasteful evening with Jimmie Dale Gilmore. […]
Author Archives: Chris Dickinson
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Dumb and Dumber
Billy Ray Cyrus Star Plaza, December 2 Billy Ray Cyrus’s 1992 debut Some Gave All may have sold seven million copies, but he’s hardly a popular guy. He’s challenged only by Garth Brooks for the title of most critically vilified modern country artist. Much of the Billy Ray backlash boils directly down to his looks: […]
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Bill Monroe
Virtuoso mandolinist, father of bluegrass, a frigging musical Mount Rushmore–Bill Monroe is all that, but he’s also a notorious master of the undying feud. His bands have always consisted of the creme de la creme, but in 1945 he put together what many people consider the best bluegrass band that ever was and ever will […]
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Tepid Tribute
KEITH WHITLEY: A TRIBUTE ALBUM (BNA) There’s a poem by Thomas Lux written to the poet Frank Stanford, who committed suicide in 1978, that ends with the line “Frank, you dumb fucker,–who loves you / Loves you regardless.” Country singer Keith Whitley wasn’t a suicide per se, but he was an alcoholic. And on May […]
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True Grit
REVEREND HORTON HEAT METRO, SEPTEMBER 18 RONNIE DAWSON SCHUBAS, SEPTEMBER 23 BIG SANDY & HIS FLY-RITE BOYS BEAT KITCHEN, SEPTEMBER 28 The United States Postal Service can always be counted on to screw things up. In its recent series of stamps saluting blues and jazz legends, it was decided that Robert Johnson deserved a tip […]
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Ronnie Dawson
Everybody knows that country and blues gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s a whole other thing to have witnessed the birth firsthand. Ronnie Dawson’s been playing rock ‘n’ roll since he was a teenager in Waxahachie, Texas, in the 50s. In 1957 he worked his way up to a regular slot on Dallas’s […]
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Candye Kane
Blues singer Candye Kane has a nonmusical reputation that precedes her. “A lot of people come to my shows to see how big my boobs really are,” observes the forthright Kane, a former punk/stripper/porn-mag model whose sizable cleavage once landed her on the cover of Jugs. Now she’s moved on to a career in music, […]
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Cash Conquers
JOHNNY CASH BISMARCK HOTEL, AUGUST 26 Where to start with Johnny Cash when there are so many precious Kodak moments to choose from? Like the time in 1965 when he was wrecked on pills and busted out the Grand Ole Opry footlights. Or his mid-60s bust in El Paso for amphetamine possession. Or the time […]
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Nice Guys Play Golf
VINCE GILL POPLAR CREEK MUSIC THEATRE, AUGUST 13 Nice. Nice, nice, nice. It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation about country star Vince Gill without that word coming up. Repeatedly. In fact, the word has become something of a mantra, endlessly evoked in the service of selling and marketing the man. Publicists, journalists, fans, musicians–they […]
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James House
After his own first two albums failed him commercially, James House got a major boost from Dwight Yoakam’s 1993 recording of his beautifully plaintive “Ain’t That Lonely Yet.” That song–which House copenned with country tunesmith Kostas–earned him a Grammy nomination, and recently his tune “In a Week or Two” became a hit for Diamond Rio. […]
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She’s a Believer
JOAN JETT METRO, JULY 24 Joan Jett always seemed like a good idea–a tough girl rock ‘n’ roller in a male-dominated world–though she’s rarely produced the product to justify it. Caught in a 70s time capsule, Jett’s touchstone songs–“I Love Rock ‘n Roll,” “Bad Reputation,” and “Light of Day”–haven’t had the resilience of dopey rock […]
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Redneck Raunch
HANK WILLIAMS JR. STAR PLAZA THEATRE, JULY 22 Like a beefier, unhinged version of the hillbilly in the TV commercial who asks the dowager to “please pass the jelly,” Hank Williams Jr. is a man who calls it as he sees it. It’s not that he doesn’t have any manners; they’re just complicated, family-specific ones. […]
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Hank Williams Jr.
Hank Williams Jr. has been embraced and vilified in equal measure, but his detractors consistently underestimate the fact that Bocephus has always been that most formidable and unfathomable of opponents–the smart redneck. In his prime he was the quintessential partying id man (“All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight”), the proud and paranoid isolationist […]