Big Sound Saturdays [Guest Post]: Throwing Caution to the Wind

We are deep into a strange winter in Asheville, my neck of the woods, and it’s about this time of year that we all could use a pick-me-up…a reminder that, yes, the trees will leaf out again and yes!, in a matter of months we will be swimming and grilling. For this particular motivation I’m calling on some angels – specifically, the sassy darlings of 90s pop country – to bring in some light. Whether it’s hitting the open road or getting over some jerk, these ladies belt out the collective message of “I am moving on.”

Ready for an uplifting, fresh start? LeAnn Rimes’ “One Way Ticket (Because I Can)” and Martina McBride’s “The Time Has Come” are both such positive post-breakup songs that have you dreaming about new adventures and forgetting about the past—and the LeAnn Rimes video is pretty great, think pop country meets Clueless. In one of her more upbeat singles of this decade, “How Was I to Know?,” the great Reba McEntire reminds us with her commanding voice to put our faith in ourselves because we are tougher than we know.

“How was I to know I would be this strong, I had what it takes all along…

What I was so afraid of?

Turned out to be my freedom in disguise. Now I know what I’m made of.”

Or would you rather hear a sassier take on moving on? In the karmic “Blame It on Your Heart,” Patty Loveless uses perhaps the most adjectives ever to describe a scoundrel in a song:

“Hey blame it on your lying, cheating, cold deadbeating, two-timing, double dealing, mean mistreating, loving heart.”

Deanna Carter calls bullshit in “Did I Shave My Legs For This?” and harkens back to early (equally sassy) Loretta and Dolly songs that tell their fellas to shape up. And if you had any doubts about if these ladies were serious, Lorrie Morgan tells her man after he took her for granted one too many times, “Cab on the street, Hand on the door, Bag at my feet, Need I say more, Oh, watch me…Oh, just watch me walk away.”

 

The only thing I like more than a feisty “done me wrong” song is one about the escape of the road. Jo Dee Messina’s “Heads Carolina, Tails California” is so dang catchy and seriously has me craving those long summer drives with the windows down. With the same vibe, but a different sound, the late 90s hit from the Dixie Chicks, “Ready to Run,” does the country/pop “crossover” that really took off during that decade.

 

I threw a couple romantic songs onto Throwing Caution to the Wind for good measure, like Pam Tillis’s “Maybe it was Memphis,” a tune about summer love that will have you swooning from her serious powerhouse vocals. And I really couldn’t help putting Mary Chapin Carpenter’s version of Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses.” I dig a love song that exclaims “Give me what I deserve, ’cause it’s my right.” The finale is Wynonna’s “Girls with Guitars,” to celebrate all these badass artists.

 

These songs tackle heartbreak, call people out, and celebrate the good times with a particular audacious vibe – one of freedom, letting go, and praising your own strengths. So let’s escape this cold winter, channel some of this sass, and imagine throwing your hands up to the sunny skies and singing, a la Faith Hill, “I’m a wild one – runnin’ free!”

 

Keep cozy, y’all. Spring is right around the corner.

Track List:

1. Faith Hill – Wild One
2. Patty Loveless – Blame It On Your Lyin’ Cheatin’ Heart
3. Pam Tillis – Maybe it was Memphis
4. Jo Dee Messina – Heads Carolina, Tails California
5. Reba – How Was I to Know?
6. Shania Twain – Whose bed have your boots been under?
7. Leann Rimes – One Way Ticket (Because I Can)
8. Trisha Yearwood – She’s In Love With The Boy
9. Dixie Chicks – Ready to Run
10. Deanna Carter – Did I Shave My Legs for This?
11. Suzy Bogguss – Drive South
12. Mindy McCready – A Girl’s Gotta Do (What a Girl’s Gotta Do)
13. Martina McBride – The Time Has Come
14. Mary Chapin Carpenter – Passionate kisses
15. Terri Clark – Better Things To Do
16. Lorrie Morgan – Watch Me
17. Wynonna – Girls with guitars

 

 

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Which Addams Family Misandrist Are You…?? (A Quiz)

Image via Sony Movie Channel

With the scent of pumpkin spice and school supplies in the air once more, I finally feel justified in offering a guide to the Addams women. Go rewatch Addams Family Values not only because it’s a case study in sequels that trump their originals, but also because it gives the world the misandrist triumvirate of Wednesday Addams, Morticia Addams and Debbie Jellinsky.

How to Slowly Transform Yourself into Patti Smith

Performance with the Patti Smith Group, Germany, 1978 via Wikipedia

A handy step-by-step guide for your metamorphosis into one bad bitch idol.

1. Become very comfortable with your nipples. So comfortable, in fact, that that they lose all meaning. You wouldn’t even notice if they disappeared.

2. Become the muse/lover of a talented young artist whose pictures of you will sometimes feature your nipples. This is to remind you of their existence.

3. Start writing poetry.

4. Carry the tragedy of lost girlhood innocence in your eyes. Never smile again.

5. Wrap androgyny around yourself like a cloak of rumpled, woolen menswear.

6. Your poetry should be just exactly what the poetry of a young woman on the cusp of maturity ought to be. That is to say, angry that it ought to be anything at all.

7. Surround yourself with the kinds of men who wear sunglasses indoors. You have about as little use for women as you do for your own femininity.

8. Discover that you are only ever naked or dressed like a chic hobo.

9. Rage, rage against the myths that have made the world thus. Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not yours.

10. Read lots of Sylvia Plath just to be sure. Anne Sexton too. Chant “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through” in the mirror every night.

11. Buy a wide-brimmed hat. This is an advanced move—do not attempt until you have mastered steps 1-10.

12. Rock that triangle hair, girl.

13. Find that your fame has alienated many of the men in the punk scene. This is the most punk rock thing of all. Never stop making men angry.

14. The phallic fortitude of mens suiting softens into something more vulnerable when draped over your slight shoulders.

15. Become a member of an art collective or four. Begin calling yourself a poet slash visual artist.

16. Never let anybody tell you how much hair grease is too much hair grease.

Big Sound Saturdays: Ladies First, Sister Soul vol. 2, Oh Mama (Afro-Caribbean Beats)

Not sure if y’all missed this, but on April 9^th, Obama paid the first presidential visit in 32 years to Jamaica, immediately visited the Bob Marley Museum, and opened his speech to a crowd of students at the University of the West Indies with a cloying patois, “Wah Gwan Jamaica?”. Leaving aside the politics of Obama’s attempt to divert trade from Venezuela, his role in the distribution of liquid natural gas, and, less seriously, his statement upon first setting foot at the museum— “Yes. This is it! Bob Marley”—Obama’s role-play might actually bring us into a deeper history of exchange between American music—particularly blues, gospel, and soul—and Caribbean, particularly Jamaican, sound.

For this second installment of Sister Soul, M.H. and I collaborated on an Afro-Caribbean “Ladies First,” mixing her choices, contemporary Soca and heavy Trinidadian dance beats, with the tunes I’ve pulled from across Africa (bless you, Awesome Tapes From Africa) and high-life Jamaica. It took a long-time ex-boyfriend’s reggae obsession to make me realize how innovative and heart-shaking ‘60’s and ‘70’s reggae stars were in their recreation of American soul and gospel music—see Phyllis Dillon’s “Picture on the Wall,” à la Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You”—and lots of these songs seem like they come straight from the Jamaican ether. Cum Nora Dean: “He’s got barbwire in his underpants.”

M.H. and I wanted this mix to be big and new, so it’s full of stuff that people still dance to: Destra Garcia’s 2013 hit, “Call My Name,” for one, or Patrice Roberts’ banger, “Do Wuh Yuh Want.” We’ve also got classics, Sister Nancy’s “Transfer Connection” and Patra’s “Queen of the Pack,” with the biting, lolling invective, “look how me cute and sexy like that,” that reminds me of The Breeders’ furious plea, “do you love me now?” This mix is full of African rhythms pulled by Awesome Tapes’ cassette collection, the comically bored “Jam It” and Congolese rhumba singer Mbilia Bel’s heavy-hitting 90’s R&B inflected Manzil Manzil, and rounds out Accran musician Jojo Abot’s “To Li” bass/falsetto dreamscape. Sister Soul lives!