Gary’s last blog post..Crook Guitar Straps

And I won’t mention that simply typing something like ’site:blogspot.com brad paisley’ will point you to some places where you can get everything is free, because that would be WRONG.

Sans Direction’s last blog post..Your History is not History, or My Favorite Year

I will tell you it’s fairly easy to find ways to hear his music without paying, if that’s something you’re accepting of.

There are a few levels Brad works on. There’s the standard pop country thing. Well, the George Strait thing. Don’t know if it’s offensive to call that level pop country, and I don’t want a real cowboy’s boot up my ass. They have that point at the end, you know. Anyway, he’s OK at that. Not great. First music I heard from him was “He Didn’t Have To Be”, which easily could’ve been a Strait hit. Brad’s not George, and I find the great and powerful George a chore to listen to sometimes, even knowing he’s a freakin’ industry in and of himself.

(There’s an XM station now that’s all George, all the time. My goodness. Could you imagine having enough product to be all you 24-7?)

(I love the Pure Country movie for one scene. Once George stopped being Billy Ray Cyrus and gone back, he meets his stand-in. Now, George can act about as much as I can rule the country charts, which is to say, not a lick. He recites his conditions to the double, which approach “you will go away and crawl under a rock or I will squash you like a bug on a windshield”. Double says “You haven’t heard the last of me. He responds, “Yeah, I have.” An actor would try to make that line have a punch. George Strait says it with an unaffected line reading, like he honestly couldn’t care less. Which is awesome. But enough George.)

Then there’s the novelty. The first point I payed attention to him was when I heard “I love her, but I love to fish”. I knew I was in for a love song that Dr. Demento would love. Then I found “Me Neither”, which has to be the least successful string of pickup attempts in the history of Nashville. I like to laugh. I’ve been picking up Weird Al albums since In 3-D. Then he gets to the skits with the Kung-Pao Buckaroos (George Jones, Bill Anderson and Little Jimmy Dickens) that are somewhere on that line between clever and stupid. And while novelty might sell, might keep Weird Al in vegetables and tape and California property, it isn’t where you find respect.

Then there’s the fact that Brad’s a freakin’ chicken pickin’ shredder. I first picked up in “Me Neither”, when he asks “Don’t you think we should quit this song? … Me neither!” and tears it up with the band for a good few minutes. I’ve been thinking and comparing him with people like Keith Urban. Keith sounds like a rock player with a phone in the 615 area code. Rockers play like it’s a drag race, where they play fast until they’re done. Country players, tracing for me as far back as Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, play like relay players. You don’t hear about rockers trading 8s, but that’s one thing country got from jazz via western swing.

Country has the tradition, through Hee-Haw and the Opry, of being as much humor as music, and lowest-denominator humor, too. “You found another and *phhhhht* you were gone!” I’m glad to hear happy songs. I’m glad to hear songs like “Mr. Policeman”, which has Brad in Bandit’s Trans Am and challenging Smokey to a chase, until it ends with a chorus of “In The Jailhouse Now”. Most other genres have stupid elements, too, but take themselves seriously too much.

(When Bill Monroe brought Earl Scruggs to the Opry, Uncle Dave Macon said “He ain’t a damn bit funny.” Keith can tear it up, but unless I’m missing something, he ain’t a damn bit funny, either.)

The piece I’d send out to sell Brad is “Time Warp” from his fourth album. It basically switches between a cool jazz thing and a hot country instrumental, and it’s instrumentally mindblowing and musically hilarious.

Sans Direction’s last blog post..Your History is not History, or My Favorite Year

Gary’s last blog post..CD Review – Neil Diamond – Home Before Dark

J’s last blog post..Economies of Scale -A Night Out with Custer & Foster

“guitarists’ guitarist” – Lowell George 13 — Paisley 4.5
“songwriting collaborator” – Elton John 10 — Paisley 0
“hooky clever pop novelty deliverables” – Barry Manilow 10 — Paisley 0.5251
“pop tenor” – Eros Ramazotti 10 — Paisley 2.314
“dark, Clooneyesque boy next door good looks” – Clooney 11.99 — Paisley 7.002
“biggest hitmaker in America” – Chuck Liddell 10 — Paisley 0.10
___________________________________
References:
http://ptwithchris.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/sicom-chuck-liddels-prep-for-rampage-jackson/

survey given to three thousand phone in groupies ages 1 to 99. 10 is highest value= “Like a lot”, 1 is lowest= “eat up with a dumbass.” Negative numbers not shown. Results are +/- 3%

Pat Darnell and Friends’s last blog post..The next 2 miles of roadway are adopted by the Divorced Catholics of Wentzville…MO !!

Pribek is looking for “the answer” as if we can read his mind — (btw, I was double dipping, J… and I’m the culprit who ate all the miniature sweet gherkins, and baby carrots.. with the raunch dressing. I stayed away from the hot sauce, gave me heartburn last week.. oh goodness)

..this is double entendre, right?

“Paisley owns a sly, back of the throat humor that allows him to make the ladies swoon and the guys snicker..

So give him a red, white, and blue guitar and call him Buck Owens, but…
Well, Jason, that may all be true, but unfortunately this triple threat kid Brad Paisley is not more desirable than Robin Trower, in any category, sorry old boy.

Pat Darnell and Friends’s last blog post..The next 2 miles of roadway are adopted by the Divorced Catholics of Wentzville…MO !!

As a guitar player he’s as good or better than, say, Albert Collins, Richard Thompson, Danny Gatton, or any guitarists’ guitarist you can think of. Although he writes most of his songs in collaboration, he’s a great a songwriting collaborator, like Elton John, and as good at delivering a hooky clever pop novelty as anyone since Smokey Robinson. He sings with the most immaculate, clearly enunciated pop tenor since Billy Joel’s (but instead of Joel’s strident keening, Paisley owns a sly, back of the throat humor that allows him to make the ladies swoon and the guys snicker). He’s got dark, Clooneyesque boy next door good looks AND he’s one of the biggest hitmakers in America.”

Jason Chervokas

http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/06/20/brad-paisley-making-contemporary-country-safe-for-guitar-geeks/