No Expectations 087: Cold Beer & Country Music
The 2024 country music check-in. New LPs worth your time from JP Harris, Sierra Ferrell, Zach Top, and more.
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Headline song: Zach Top, “Cold Beer & Country Music”
Thanks for being here. No Expectations is mainly a source for indie rock recommendations but really, it’s just a place for me to write about music I like. This week, I’m taking a detour into country music, a genre I grew up with and still earnestly love. I’m visiting Nashville soon so the timing feels right but I mostly wanted to introduce a new series where I dive into artists I don’t normally cover here. This breaks up whatever monotony you might feel reading this newsletter (“Oh great, another under-the-radar guitar rock record”) and forces me to tackle things that other places cover much better than I can. (For country, the indispensable
is a must-read and the source of several of these recs).If this resonates, I’ll likely do entries on hip-hop, electronic, ambient, pop, and jazz. I figure it’s always good to keep it fresh. Hopefully, you’ll discover a few artists you love too.
As always, you can upgrade your free subscription to a paid one or tell a friend about a band you found out about here. Also, next week is my birthday and I’ll be traveling, so I’ll likely skip Thursday’s newsletter to rest and recharge. I appreciate your understanding.
No Expectations Goes Country
I used to be embarrassed to admit this but the first album I knew front-to-back was Shania Twain’s LP Come On Over. It came out in 1997 right after I turned six (it might have been something like Backstreet Boys, but even then that had skips). Out of the 16 tracks on Twain’s third full-length, 12 were rightfully released as singles (the last radio push happened nearly three years post-release). It’s a blockbuster pop-country classic and it kickstarted my parents’ obsession with country music. They’d have CMT on constantly, they’d take us to see acts like Faith Hill and Tim McGraw perform, and their CD collections blossomed to include Brooks & Dunn, The Chicks (who were then performing under a different name), and Martina McBride beyond their staples of Van Morrison, John Hiatt, and Tom Petty.
Soon, my tastes expanded. I dove deeper into rap and rock than I had with country. As I got older, my burgeoning political views felt diametrically opposed to what mainstream country music in the 2000s seemed to stand for: the Iraq War, the Bush presidency, and censoring alternative viewpoints (what happened to the Chicks especially turned me off). Still, I admit I sang Travis Tritt’s “It’s A Great Day to Be Alive” at a karaoke bar in college. (Yes, it killed). Around then, I decided to dive more into the genre’s history thanks to Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, my roommate’s obsession with Johnny Cash, and randomly hearing “Long, Long Time,” a Linda Rondstadt song that made me cry. The more I listened and read, I found personal all-timers, incredible songwriting, and musicians who were ahead of their time socially, politically, and artistically. I felt like an idiot for writing it off in my teens. It’s resilient and inescapably American music: the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.
Since then, country has been an essential part of my musical journey, even if I don’t write about it as much as I’d like. (I’m a fan, not an expert, and it’s nice to enjoy things without any pressure to make it deadline-based work). Rinsing the “Cocaine & Rhinestones” podcast, watching Ken Burns: Country Music, regular visits to Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame when I’m in town, and reading books (most recently Mark Guarino’s Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival) nurtured my love for this music.
Over the years, albums from Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, Brent Cobb, Waylon Payne, and more have all ended up on my recent end-of-year ballots too. (Plus, if you’ve had beers with me over the past year, there’s a chance I’ve put on Chase Rice’s disarming bro-country anthem “It’s a Bad Day To Be a Cold Beer” on the TouchTunes or Bluetooth speaker). It’s not just the genre-traditionalists, the alt-country rockers, or the outlaws, country is full of innovative writing, boundary-pushing experiments, and killer songs from the mainstream to the fringes. You just gotta know where to look.
The roundup below is a short primer of what I’ve been loving in 2024. I’m using country in its broadest sense: there’s critically acclaimed indie twang here, radio country, some bluegrass, and rock too. It’s a big tent and will continue to be. I also had to stop myself at 10 LPs, so there’s a good chance I’ll have a follow-up before the year’s over. (BTW: I purposefully excluded excellent new albums from Sturgill Simpson and bluegrass hero Billy Strings, which I’m sure several No Expectations readers already know and dig).
49 Winchester, Leavin’ This Holler
Whenever I’ve come across writing about the Virginia six-piece 49 Winchester, it usually sounds like it’d be incredibly in my wheelhouse: I’ve seen ZZ Top, Drive-By Truckers, and Chris Stapleton all referenced in the breath. For whatever reason, their music never connected with me until the band’s fifth LP Leavin’ This Holler, which came out in July. This is 10 tracks of dialed-in and groove-based country rock that threads the line between the Band and Tyler Childers. Songs like “Yearnin’ For You” are undeniable and infectious while “Hillbilly Happy” finds galvanizing rock theatrics in silliness. There are only a couple of tracks that lose me: the orchestra in “Fast Asleep” gets perilously close to a twangy facsimile of “Drops of Jupiter”-era Train while closer “Anchor” verges on Aerosmith schmaltz. Still, everything here sounds like it’d absolutely whip live, especially the “feeling old turning 30” anthem “Make It Count,” which is good enough to ignore the absurdity of its premise.
Emily Nenni, Drive & Cry
Nashville’s Emily Nenni makes lived-in and lovable country songs that make you want to hear them live in a dive bar. As thrilling as it is comforting, Nenni follows up her 2022 breakthrough On The Ranch with a rowdier, more direct collection of songs. There’s an effortlessness to her subtle croon and how playfully floats over a bed of wailing steel slides, upright bass, and acoustic guitars. Harmonica and organ pepper the highlight “Greatest Hits,” while “I Don’t Have to Like You” showcases personality-driven bite and charm. Written while her live backing band Teddy & the Rough Riders were on tour, there’s a vulnerability and a rawness to her lyrics that is occasionally wrapped with jokes. Take the title track, where she sings, “Don’t you worry about me / I’m gonna have a bawl.” Alongside Friend of the Substack Erin Rae, Nenni guests on the Teddy & the Rough Riders album featured on this list.
Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive
When New Orleans songwriter Alynda Segarra started writing their critically acclaimed LP The Past Is Still Alive, they approached it almost as an exercise. “I started to feel this urge to be a documentarian: to use songwriting as a way to document these people that I loved and also kind of keep them,” they said in a recent interview with Don’t Rock the Inbox. “I felt like time was going like sand through my fingers, and so it was my way of holding these moments and these people close to me.” This feeling was made more urgent and personal by the sudden passing of their father (which is tackled on the gutting “Quico.”) With this stunning LP, their humanity and healing seeps into its 10 unassailable tracks. Recorded with star producer Brad Cook, it’s an effort that puts Segarra’s vivid, vignette-like writing front and center while synthesizing American musical traditions into something that sounds vital now. Where their previous efforts ventured into rock and synths, this feels like a homecoming, especially on the tone-setting opener “Alibi” and standout “Vetiver.”
JP Harris, JP Harris Is a Trash Fire
East Nashville’s JP Harris is a mainstay in his city’s music community, a carpenter by trade, and has my favorite country album of the year. His lyrics combine everything I love about the genre: self-awareness, cutting satire, grace, and heart. It can be laugh-out-loud funny and gutting in the same song. Plus, his arrangements are lovingly reverent to country music’s past while never being anything less than totally enthralling. Harris’ wit and earnestness as a writer allow him to indulge in a Kristofferson imitation on “To the Doves” and totally pull it off. Elsewhere, the title track finds him contemplating his place in the music industry and in his city’s own gentrification. He sings, “I’m like a trash fire raging at the scrap metal yard by the highway / It keeps burning against their will / It might take me some time, but you know I’m gonna do it my way / The world keeps turning, and I stand still.” It’s an admirable sentiment, but the whole thing is just a masterclass.
Kiely Connell, My Own Company
Earlier this summer, I saw Kiely Connell open for Tommy Prine at the Beat Kitchen. Even in a stripped-down setting, her voice was excellent and the bones of these songs were obviously solid. Listening to her sophomore LP My Own Company floored me. These full-band arrangements really allow her to soar. Raised in Indiana and now based in Nashville, Connell makes understated Americana pocked with resonant reflections on loss and mental health. Produced by Tucker Martine, there’s an earthiness and coziness to how these tunes are present but the real star is Connell’s full-throated and commanding singing, especially on standouts like “Coming Up Empty” and the explosive opener “Through To You.” It’s an album that tackles difficult, knotty feelings and hard transitional periods with palpable confidence.
Pony Bradshaw, Thus Spoke the Fool
Thus Spoke the Fool completes a trilogy of albums that Georgia-based songwriter Pony Bradshaw wrote about his home state (the most agonizing part of compiling the No Expectations ‘23 EOY list was running out of space for his LP North Georgia Rounder). His character-driven approach to songwriting humanizes its people from the Cherokee tribes who first settled the land (“The Long Man”) to the working folks who live there now (“By Jeremiah’s Vision”). Though he’s interested in folklore and history, this collection of songs never feels cold or academic: Bradshaw’s voice is booming yet inviting, and his writing exudes a considered empathy. The arrangements here are given color from Rachel Baiman’s fiddle, whose expressive melodic lines circle each track.
Sierra Ferrell, Trail of Flowers
Of the country, bluegrass, and folk albums released this year, Sierra Ferrell’s masterful Trail of Flowers has to be one of the most critically acclaimed of 2024. It got raves in the WSJ, the L.A. Times, Spin, and Paste, and Ferrell just won Artist of the Year and Album of the Year at the 2024 Americana Music Association Awards. Take one listen to the fourth album from the West Virginia-born, Nashville-based songwriter and the praise seems obvious. There are a handful of basically perfect, timeless songs like the heart-wrenching opener “American Dreamin’,” the ebullient and snarky single “Million Dollar Bar,” and the fiddle-anchored “Lighthouse.” Beyond these clear standouts, every other track is still pretty damn good from the old-timey, jazz-inflected take on the 1930s Arthur Fiddlin’ Smith tune "Chittlin' Cookin' Time in Cheatham County“ and the jaunty single “Fox Hunt.” For an artist who’s collaborated with everyone from Diplo to the Black Keys, Billy Strings, and Zach Bryan, Ferrell’s appeal is as broad as her talent is mind-boggling.
Teddy & The Rough Riders, Down Home
This came out on Friday but it’s so hilariously up my alley that I had to include it here. Teddy & The Rough Riders are a country band led by Nashville’s Ryan Jennings and Jack Quiggins. Margo Price produced their last LP and you might have seen them open up for Orville Peck on tour. But most importantly, they indisputably rip. They write Grateful Dead-inspired and psychedelically twangy rock music that mesmerizes and thrills. For Down Home, they enlist guitarist Sean Thompson and backing vocalists Emily Nenni and Erin Rae for Down Home. Recorded during the pandemic, the highlight “Golden Light” still resonates now despite being about the excitement to see live music again. Elsewhere, “Hippies” deals with punishers at the merch with introspection and humor, while “Mountain Girl” shreds with frenetic guitars. There’s a breeziness here that’s as fun as the musicianship is impressive.
Willow Avalon, Stranger
While I came into this roundup with too many albums to list, I still polled some trusted sources to see if I had any glaring omissions. Friend of the Substack Charlie Hill, a Nashville country artist who had one of my favorite LPs of 2023 and an even better collection of songs he’s wrapping up now, recommended Willow Avalon. The Georgia-raised artist has a hypnotic voice that’s hard to shake and her love for country music’s history and future is tangible on the seven-song, 24-minute Stranger. Though I’m still unsure if it’s an EP or an LP, it’s damn good. “Honey Ain’t No Sweeter” is atmospheric and delicate while the smoky opener “Gettin’ Rich, Goin’ Broke” deals with economic anxiety and familial dysfunction. Each track is performed with ample charisma, where it’s easy to let your guard down and let these songs envelop you. Avalon is signed to Atlantic and the glossy sheen of the production gives these songs a boost rather than grate or sanitize. It’s not hard to imagine a Musgraves-like leap for her soon.
Zach Top, Cold Beer & Country Music
Raised in Washington state, Zach Top toiled as a standout bluegrass player before taking a left-turn into full-on country, emerging as the platonic ideal of the George Strait, Dwight Yoakam, Alan Jackson ‘80s and ‘90s star archetype. His new album Cold Beer & Country Music feels like a time capsule of the music I grew up with but it’s performed with such charm and virtuosic talent that it never feels like a pastiche. One reason for this is how tasteful and dexterous Top is as a guitar player. The other is due to his drawling tenor croon, which coos and yelps with equal ease. Produced by Carson Chamberlain, who was once the band leader for the late Keith Whitley, Cold Beer & Country Music feels like a party the entire time. “Sounds Like the Radio” and the title track serve as honky-tonk barnburners and a self-referential tribute to the genre itself. That said, when he turns his focus inward and dials down the volume like on “Cowboys Like Me” and “Dirt Turns to Gold,” it’s still compelling.
What I listened to:
The No Expectations 087 Playlist: Spotify // Apple Music
1. JP Harris, “Old Fox”
2. Sierra Ferrell, “Dollar Bill Bar”
3. 49 Winchester, “Yearnin’ For You”
4. Treaty Oak Revival, “Happy Face”
5. Hurray For the Riff Raff, “Alibi”
6. Zach Top, “Cold Beer & Country Music”
7. Emily Nenni, “I Don’t Have to Like You”
8. Tyler Halverson, Carter Faith, “Tiffany Blue”
9. Willow Avalon, “Gettin’ Rich, Goin’ Broke”
10. Pony Bradshaw, “Going to Water”
11. JD Clayton, “Let You Down”
12. Teddy & The Roughriders, “Hippies”
13. Kiely Connell, “Coming Up Empty”
14. Chase Rice, “Hey God, It’s Me Again”
15. Silverada, “Hell Bent For Leather”
What I watched:
The Thing and They Live (dir: John Carpenter)
It’s October: the perfect time to watch horror movies I’ve never seen before. I would couch this sentence with a “somehow” to soften the blow of this movie blind spot but the reason I haven’t caught up with Carpenter’s filmography beyond Escape From New York is simple: I’m a big baby and thought these movies would be genuinely scary. I was wrong. While these films aren’t spooky in the jump-scare sense, they are existentially terrifying due to their apocalyptic premises. The Thing, starring Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley, deals with an excavated, shapeshifting alien wreaking havoc on an Antarctic research facility. It’s excellent and would make for a perfect double feature with Ridley Scott’s Alien. With the Roddy Piper-starring They Live, the alien is Reaganomics. This isn’t some writerly reach: they lay it on so thick throughout. It rules and even a fight scene that feels like a third of the entire film doesn’t mar a satirical and exhilarating sci-romp.
What I read:
Sean Thompson’s Weird Ears Is Now on Substack
When Sean Thompson performed in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, the Nashville guitarist asked me about my experience with Substack and whether or not he should make one to share recordings, live soundboards, tour dates, and other observations. Naturally, since starting this newsletter changed my life for the better, I told him to go for it. Now, Thompson’s
launched and I hope you sign up (so I don’t look like an idiot or bad advice-giver). His excellent new LP Head In the Sand is coming out in February, which you’ll be reading about here a bunch as he drops more singles.This One Weird Email Helps Explain the Horrible State of Concert Ticketing (Hearing Things)
The factors that brought us here are complicated, and talking about them in any detail is a good way to get your friends at the bar to stop listening and start sneaking looks at their phones. Which is why I’d like to show you an email that the then-legislative director for former U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey, sent to the offices of other Democratic congresspeople last year.
The email, forwarded to Hearing Things by a source under the condition of anonymity, helps to shed light on why we haven’t seen more federal legislative action that would make ticket-buying a little less miserable. It has everything you might want from a leaked email: misdirection, intrigue, corny Taylor Swift puns. What it shows, ultimately, is that the legislative discussion around ticketing—unsurprisingly, and like just about every other sphere of U.S. government policy—is awash in money and influence from corporate interests that are more concerned with strengthening their own bottom lines than the public good.
The Weekly Chicago Show Calendar:
The gig calendar lives on the WTTW News website now. You can also subscribe to the newsletter I produce there called Daily Chicagoan to get it a day early. With No Expectations likely taking next Thursday off, check PBS Chicago Wednesday for the calendar.
Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness would be right up your alley! Horror writer vs. existential terror.
Back when Dylan was covering regionally-appropriate songs at many tour dates, I was looking for contenders for his Dallas shows and discovered this modern-country classic.
(Sadly, Bob did not cover it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfrFY-uaupY