CMA Award Show

Ron Scott · Post by **Ron Scott** » 4 Nov 2015 7:45 pm

First of all I am not trying to knock what makes the money for so many new artist.I just wonder what everyone's thoughts are on the show tonight. It sure seems like the music gets louder and the voices not so much. These acts seem to draw the crowds of younger people to buy the music and attend the concerts,so I guess it's all in your own taste in music. It did have a few nice songs that I liked.I am still stuck on good old country songs with the Steel guitars and fiddles. Must be something I'm missing here.Sorry just my thoughts...RS

Jack Harper · Post by **Jack Harper** » 5 Nov 2015 5:46 am

I have avoided watching this for several years, but, was on a long road trip last night and listened on radio 'til the signal went away.
I'm just glad that to still remember what it was like to see and hear this show from '65 to '85.
guess I was country when country wasn't cool....
if this was country....
good night, bill walker....

country jack....

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 5 Nov 2015 7:01 am

We, mostly, beat those shows to death on here.

I don't listen to the current "country radio" so I have no idea on them. I listen to either Willie's Roadhouse or the Bluegrass channel on SIRIUS/XM.

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 5 Nov 2015 8:57 am

Chris Stapleton won Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year, and New Artist of the Year. The CMA's and mainstream country radio may not recognize a successful country singer like Sturgill yet, but I think last night was evidence that some kind of positive shift may be in the works. He seems like a great candidate for that having been a part of the hit making machine then going out and doing an album with Dave Cobb. Congrats to him and whoever stuck their neck out to make this happen.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 5 Nov 2015 9:03 am

I had never heard of Chris Stapleton, so I put on a mix of YouTube videos. I've been listening for about a half hour now, and have not heard anything closer to classic country, (which seems to be what we compare the new acts to) than the acts currently out there. All I hear is mainly blues. But I like what I hear. It's just not country.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 5 Nov 2015 9:07 am

I am still stuck on good old country songs with the Steel guitars and fiddles. Must be something I'm missing here.

You are missing the steel guitars and fiddles. $:\$

Brett Lanier · Post by **Brett Lanier** » 5 Nov 2015 9:08 am

Richard, have you heard "Metamodern Sounds in Country Music"?

Dave Burr · Post by **Dave Burr** » 5 Nov 2015 10:36 am

Call it what you want... but Chris Stapleton is "great" music to my ears. I kind of hate labels anymore. He was probably the "bluesiest" bluegrass singer I've ever heard (when he was with The SteelDrivers); next to Dave Evans that is. I dearly love "real" country music... and i've got a music library to prove it.. but I also love bluegrass, jazz, blues, gospel, rock, some pop and everything in between... as long as it's "good" music to my ears. There's a lot of crap out there, but if you'll take the time to sift thru the bad there's still great music being made. Chris Stapleton's ablum "Traveler" is great music in my humble opinion.

kindest regards,

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 5 Nov 2015 11:06 am

I recorded the CMAs, will watch some of it tonight - the keyword is "some" - I can't bear to watch the whole thing in real time plus commercials, this way I can distill it down to around 45 minutes.

I'm really stoked for Chris Stapleton, he's the real deal. A superb songwriter. Fine singer.

Loved him with The Steeldrivers, wish I had a dollar for every comment I've read or heard about, "but that's not real bluegrass singing."

Who cares? I have plenty of "high & lonesome" tenor lead singing here on records and CDs from Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, Del McCoury, etc.

And he sounds plenty country to me on some of the songs on Traveller.

I wanted to see him play a week from Sunday in San Francisco at The Fillmore but unfortunately it's sold out. It wasn't a few weeks ago, and it might not have been last night before the broadcast but it's sold out now.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 5 Nov 2015 11:49 am

i'm not familiar with the guy, but
new artist...!!!
male vocalist
and...album of the year ...
reeks of 'flash in the pan' to me

is this guy better than scotty mcreery?

i used to really like the band perry.
they had some class of their own.
last night on kimmel they looked like
justin beiber.

Dustin Kleingartner · Post by **Dustin Kleingartner** » 5 Nov 2015 12:01 pm

It's okay that people like Sturgill and Hayes Carll are not on these award shows' radar.

There is certainly authentic people out there making good music. We don't need the garbage on the radio, at least I don't.

Country music is alive and well if you look.

Josh Killian · Post by **Josh Killian** » 5 Nov 2015 12:59 pm

Stapleton winning these awards should be great news for steel players. "Traveller" is number one on the iTunes chart today, meaning thousands of new people are listening to an album with the steel guitar prominently featured throughout (and very well played by Robby Turner).

He has soul, R&B and rock influences in his music, but it IS country and his lyrics actually make you feel something. I'm hoping that this will lead to more great voices on the radio, instead of just pretty faces, and more meaningful songs played with actual instruments.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 5 Nov 2015 1:33 pm

chris ivey wrote:i'm not familiar with the guy, but
new artist...!!!
male vocalist
and...album of the year ...
reeks of 'flash in the pan' to me

is this guy better than scotty mcreery?

i used to really like the band perry.
they had some class of their own.
last night on kimmel they looked like
justin beiber.

Chris, I have great respect of most of what you write here (since I generally agree with you

), but you are way off base in comparing Chris Stapleton to Scotty McCreery.

Stapleton had already been established as one of the finest songwriters in Nashville over the past several years.

I do agree with the Band Perry assessment. I liked their first album, but they've gotten sort of "popped out" more recently - too bad.

One song Stapleton wrote for the Steeldrivers was even picked up by Adele and she had a pretty sizable hit with it, "If It Hadn't Been For Love." Sort of a modern day version of a country song picked up by a pop singer, think Whitney Houston with Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You."

I find it next to impossible to ever get anyone to click on a link here and have them check out a video, but do yourself a favor and check out the song below from when Chris Stapleton and the highly respected Mike Henderson were co-founders of The Steeldrivers. It's from the first album, called "Sticks That Made Thunder." The story of a Civil War battle scene from the "eyes" of an old tree that lives on the battleground. It's one of my favorite songs to have come along since we've all been living in this 21st Century. I like to play and sing this one on my Martin. Brilliant piece of songwriting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdUJPAG0ns8

The lyrics:

My roots are deeper than the bones of the others
My colors that change with the sun
My branches, were higher
Than anything on the hillside
On the day that I watched them all come

Some wear the color of the sky in the winter
Some, were as blue as the night
They came like a storm with the light of the morn
And they fell through the whole day and night

Chrous:
Colors flew high and they danced in the sky
As I watched them come over the hill
Then to my wonder, sticks that made thunder
Such a great number lay still

When the light came again
There was death on the wind
As the buzzards made way for the worms
And the little white trees that don't bend in the breeze
For the ones that will never return

Those that have fallen, come when I call them
And answer the best that they can
But all they can see is what they used to be
And that's all that they understand

Colors flew high and they danced in the sky
As I watched them come over the hill
Then to my wonder, sticks that made thunder
Such a great number lay still

Dave Burr · Post by **Dave Burr** » 5 Nov 2015 1:42 pm

Spot on Mark! Love that song; it's pure poetry!

Dustin Rhodes · Post by **Dustin Rhodes** » 5 Nov 2015 2:16 pm

chris ivey wrote:i'm not familiar with the guy, but
new artist...!!!
male vocalist
and...album of the year ...
reeks of 'flash in the pan' to me

is this guy better than scotty mcreery?

i used to really like the band perry.
they had some class of their own.
last night on kimmel they looked like
justin beiber.

Hilarious.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 5 Nov 2015 2:48 pm

Barry Blackwood wrote:
I am still stuck on good old country songs with the Steel guitars and fiddles. Must be something I'm missing here.
You are missing the steel guitars and fiddles. $:\$

Actually, steel and fiddle was prevalent in several of the songs. It's just that the songs "ain't no 'count". What's there for them to do? Most of the music is just boring bland.

I agree with some of you that didn't like the stuff and I agree with your right to say so, no matter how many times it gets said. But, as I've posted many times, the award shows are just representative of the music that was out there in the previous year. To expect anything different would be foolish.

There were some high spots, but few. Some of our heroes, Paul Franklin, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush at least were honored, without folks like these in the studios these groups would be left floundering.

Don't know Mr. Stapleton, but the first song I heard him sing on the show was blues, not country.

Timberlake and Fall Out Boy....don't get no countrier than that does it? Miranda was having some sort of trouble with her bathroom "sank". And LBT was espousing lesbianism. Pun intended.

Many of the female performers were dressed, or not, like Las Vegas hookers IMO.

I actually enjoyed some of it, but for me personally, I would not call it country. YMMV.

Total irreverence and disregard for the tradition of country music sums up the whole wad for me.

Tom Keller · Post by **Tom Keller** » 5 Nov 2015 3:01 pm

Chris Stapleton is the real deal not to be compared with bro-country or the hat acts. He was very deserving of these awards and as far as a flash in the pan he's been a professional musician for at least 2 decades. IMHO,My 2 cents. etc..

Tom Keller

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 5 Nov 2015 3:18 pm

And LBT was espousing lesbianism. Pun intended.

As I wrote earlier, I haven't seen the show yet but I have it on my DVR and I'll whip through it this evening and stop every once in awhile for something that looks good.

Jerry, I assume you're referring to Girl Crush by Little Big Town. You can add yourself to the list of folks who apparently don't "get" the song - it has nothing to do with pushing "lesbianism."

Little Big Town is one of only a handful of mainstream Nashville acts that I can even tolerate these days.

The chief songwriter is Lori McKenna, here is what she had to say about it:

One morning earlier this year, McKenna tested out the "Girl Crush" title on Rose (co-writer). "She gave me this look like she just hated it," recalls McKenna, who kept arguing for the idea. "She said, 'Lori, shut it down. We're not writing a song called Girl Crush.' She didn't even explain, she just hated it." So like a teenager going from one parent to another to borrow the car keys, McKenna decided to try the idea on Lindsey (other co-writer).

"Liz starts with her argument with the dirty look and, I'm not kidding, Hillary played the first chord and sang the first verse as it is. And immediately after she sang it, Liz said, 'Oh my god, I love this idea! I get it now, I love it!'" recalls McKenna with a laugh. "So we wrote it pretty quickly. And because Liz hated it so much at first, we thought nobody was going to like the song but us, so we weren't careful. It's good for your songwriting soul to write a song that's just for you and isn't commercial."

But when LBT's Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman came over that afternoon â€” literally the fifth and sixth people to hear the song after Rose's publisher â€” they immediately fell in love. "Karen just flipped out and said, 'You have to save that for us.' And we were like, 'Save it for you? Who else is going to record it?' Sometimes you just don't know, it had just come out of the oven."

"I knew as soon as I heard the hook of the first chorus that we had to have this song," says Fairchild. "I'd never heard a jealousy song written like this. It's definitely one of the best songs I've ever heard and to get to sing it every night is a gift."

LBT fans who picked up Pain Killer had a similar reaction to the ballad, thanks to the unconventionally spare arrangement and Fairchild's sultry reading of the lyrics, in which the narrator of the song yearns to have another woman's looks, sounds, smells and even the taste of her lips. But it isn't long before listeners realize the character covets these things because the man she pines for is sharing a bed with this other woman.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 5 Nov 2015 3:24 pm

You might very well be right Mark. I don't follow this stuff that closely and I don't figure I have to try and decode the messages in the songs. I just know how it hit me.

The lyrics are out there for anyone who wants to look them up and make their own evaluation.

I take some comfort in knowing there is a "list" and I'm not the only one on it. If I've misjudged, apologies to those involved. Can't step on any toes these days, ya know.

I still have my opinions and that's all they are...to each his own.

Apologies to b0b if any of my remarks are deemed political and out of forum bounds and feel free to edit or delete as you see fit.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 5 Nov 2015 3:48 pm

yeah..don't want to step on any toes.

mark..good to hear that chris s. is a good thing. maybe he will help the whole genre.
i hadn't heard him.

...and sorry to hear about rudy q.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 5 Nov 2015 3:58 pm

Yeah, tough news about Rudy. I never got to meet the man but I've been told he was quite a character, and he built some fine guitars.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 5 Nov 2015 11:08 pm

It doesn't get much more country than this Leanne Womack song written by Chris Stapleton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvsqUMTOc4A

Now Check Chris out singing harmony with Mrs. Womack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hwH1Un4cSE

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 6 Nov 2015 12:31 am

Good examples. Apologies to anyone I may have offended.

Dustin Rhodes · Post by **Dustin Rhodes** » 6 Nov 2015 6:00 am

The hilarious part is that the "Girl Crush" controversy was 100% manufactured. The Nashville PR machine was screaming "oh no a lesbian song" before anyone even noticed the song at all and people played along. That was a huge part of its success.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 6 Nov 2015 7:44 am

Tom Keller wrote:Chris Stapleton is the real deal not to be compared with bro-country or the hat acts. He was very deserving of these awards and as far as a flash in the pan he's been a professional musician for at least 2 decades. IMHO,My 2 cents. etc..

Tom Keller

Not saying this will happen to him, but a lot of one-hit wonders have been musicians and song writers for many years. That doesn't guarantee anything.