Nobody's Lonely Tonight

My second runner up for favorite album of the year was Chris Stapleton's Songs From A Room Volume 2. I had insanely high expectations to the first volume, which was released in May last year, due to the greatness of the album Traveller from 2015. Volume 1 did not live up to my expectations - it was good, but not great, so when Volume 2 dropped at the beginning of December, my expectations were down a little bit. But after spending most of December listening to Christmas music (it's just a tradition I have - I load my car with Christmas songs and that's what I play), I finally started listening to it - and it's great. Really great. It has some raucous rockers, some more straightforward country - and then there is this little blues number. Not a traditional 12-bar blues, but definitely a ballad from the blues tradition. Nobody's Lonely Tonight has a bleak outlook on love and what it's all about, but if you listen to the emotion here - and the emotion in the guitar - I dare you to not get goosebumps. This is a live version from Jimmy Kimmel Live - and it showcases just how great a traditional power trio can be: Guitar, bass, and drums - and with the guitarist being a spectacularly emotional singer as well. Wow. Just wow.

June 27 - You Are My Sunshine

So today's song is a song that I don't know that I would've paid attention to it if it hadn't been for Christine. It is a song a lot of people already know, although this version bring something really new and special to it. I remember listening to this with  Chris when she was in the hospital during one of her many surgeries the spring. Today is her birthday, and I just want to wish I happy birthday to the woman I love with the song by Morgane and Chris Stapleton. I'll let the lyrics speak for themselves. This is You Are My Sunshine.

January 11 - Nobody To Blame (Best Albums of 2015)

It's taken a while... Although 11 days into the new year isn't really that long, I could have started earlier in 2015, but my #2 selection wasn't released until December 18... As usual, it is really hard to rank them individually, but I tried ranking my top 10. In reality, I am dead set on my favorite album being Chris Stapleton - and I think that #2-5 are better than #6-10, but I could easily change order within those groupings.

1. Chris Stapleton - Traveller
2. Baroness - Purple
3. Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls
4. Gavin Harrison - Cheating The Polygraph
5. Steven Wilson - Hand Cannot Erase
6. Motorpsycho - En Konsert for Folk Flest
7. Faith No More - Sol Invictus
8. Torche - Restarter
9. Sunn O))) - Kannon
10. Kylesa - Exhausting Fire

After the first 10, there are 15 additional recordings that really deserve to be mentioned - they are all albums I really liked over the course of the year. I have listed them alphabetically - but there are no individual preferences here:

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Chris Cornell - Higher Truth

Clutch - Psychic Warfare

Echolyn - I Heard You Listening

Steve Earle & The Dukes - Terraplane
Elder - Lore

Elephant9 - Silver Mountain

Enslaved - In Times

Ghost BC - Meliora

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress

Robert Earl Keen - Happy Prisoner The Bluegrass Sessions

Otis Taylor - Hey Joe Opus Red Meat

Richard Thompson - Still

Steve Von Till - A Life Unto Itself

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

Since Chris Stapleton's Traveller reached the first place on my list, I really feel like I need to let him be represented again - and this is a very country country song, which he plays with in the lyrics. Here is Nobody To Blame.

January 3 - Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore

Good music is good music regardless of genre. Back when I was in high school, one of my best friends announced that he and some classmates were starting a country band named after him in a traditional "danseband" stil: Arve Hjalmars. It was just for fun - or so I thought - but I have come to realize that while there was a massive dose of humor and timely 90s irony, there was a genuine interest in and maybe even love for country music at the heart of much of what he did (I dare not speak for the rest of the band - and I probably shouldn't speak for him either). And it rubbed off on me.

Arve had started turning my ear ever so slightly in a very stealthy manner as early as middle school, when his passion for ZZ Top filled my small Christmas and birthday present budget until I had purchased most of the ZZ Top cassettes with the orange "Nice Price" label at Playtime, the legendary record shop in Trondheim in the 1980s. I can hear the protests already - "ZZ Top isn't country." Taken as a whole, you might be right - they are still that lil' ol' boogie band from Texas - but there are gems in their catalog that can't be described as anything but country, for instance "(She's a) Heartbreaker" from  Tejas and "Mexican Blackbird" from Fandango. The thing is, not only were the songs country, but they were great as well.

So spurred by Arve's interest in country, which was further amplified by other bands' declared love for the music, I started looking around and exploring, and I found the country that I didn't care for was the country most often on the country charts and radio - the slick and overproduced country made more to sell than from the heart. Then there was the country that usually wasn't corrupted by Nashville, the country of the fringes, and I liked that. Mind you, I am aware that some of that might be by design, just like fast food companies are bringing in food designers to make their mass produced crap (which I admit to eating) look more rustic and artisan, but I still like it...

So during last year's Country Music Awards show, I was teaching my night class as I always do Wednesday night, and Christine was at home with a remote in her hand and space on the DVR, and she pressed record when Justin Timberlake (whom I greatly respect although his music isn't for me - the dude is immensely talented) and an unknown (to me) guy named Chris Stapleton performed, because she thought I might like it - and boy was she right! 

Good music is good music regardless of genre. Chris Stapleton isn't just good, he is great. When I look back at 2015, Traveller is clearly in the top 3 for me. It is an album I have played over and over again, and while I have a hard time picking just one song, the emotional cornerstone of the album is the gem "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore," a song he wrote about the passing of his own father. Listen carefully and you might really hear him choking up singing it - and, if you are like me, you might choke up right there with him...