Best Blues/Country/Roots Rock/Americana Albums - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

rkm wrote:

How about some assessment of works by female artists? Emmylou Harris (sans Gram), Lucinda Williams?

List isn't updated yet, I still have lots to revisit... Lucinda Williams' self-titled will be added, and Emmylou Harris has at least one (maybe 2 or 3) that will be added, though I don't recall which at the moment.

Regardless, the higher ratings, particularly on this list, will be dominated by men more than on the other lists. Just the way it is, I guess. I make no efforts to ensure women or men are more or less represented, one way or the other.

There are many woman represented on my overall list, and additional entries on the other genre lists.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

AfterHours wrote:

List isn't updated yet, I still have lots to revisit... Lucinda Williams' self-titled will be added, and Emmylou Harris has at least one (maybe 2 or 3) that will be added, though I don't recall which at the moment.

Regardless, the higher ratings, particularly on this list, will be dominated by men more than on the other lists. Just the way it is, I guess. I make no efforts to ensure women or men are more or less represented, one way or the other.

There are many woman represented on my overall list, and additional entries on the other genre lists.

Luxury Liner by Emmylou Harris

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams

Are both all timers for me. Lucinda's s/t is great as well.
_________________
-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Mercury wrote:

AfterHours wrote:

List isn't updated yet, I still have lots to revisit... Lucinda Williams' self-titled will be added, and Emmylou Harris has at least one (maybe 2 or 3) that will be added, though I don't recall which at the moment.

Regardless, the higher ratings, particularly on this list, will be dominated by men more than on the other lists. Just the way it is, I guess. I make no efforts to ensure women or men are more or less represented, one way or the other.

There are many woman represented on my overall list, and additional entries on the other genre lists.

Luxury Liner by Emmylou Harris

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams

Are both all timers for me. Lucinda's s/t is great as well.

Right on, thanks Very Happy

_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

rkm

I’ll add

Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris

Red Dirt Girl by Emmylou Harris

Sweet Old World by Lucinda Williams

Time (The Revelator) by Gillian Welch

And anything by Patty Griffin

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

rkm wrote:

I’ll add

Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris

Red Dirt Girl by Emmylou Harris

Sweet Old World by Lucinda Williams

Time (The Revelator) by Gillian Welch

And anything by Patty Griffin

Thanks, I've only heard some songs by Welch and Patty Griffin, no complete albums. I'll look into them and might check them out further.

I did already add Emmylou Harris' Red Dirt Oak album earlier today. She may have another one or two from her early career, as you guys are alluding to.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

ADDED:
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen (1973)
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen (1975)
Pearl - Janis Joplin (1970)
Red Dirt Girl - Emmylou Harris (2000)

RE-RATED:
Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen (1984) 6.8/10 to 7.2/10
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground - Bright Eyes (2002) 6.9/10 to 7.1/10
Hotel California - Eagles (1976) 7.0/10 to 6.9/10
After the Gold Rush - Neil Young (1970) 7.1/10 to 6.9/10
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

Quote:

it is very rare for its earliest incarnations to rate very highly on my lists because I generally prefer those forms when theyve been a bit more developed and less restricted creatively, emotionally and conceptually.

I just went through and read this because I was curious as to why no delta blues, hillbilly music, or any other kind of pre-war music.

As someone who has spent a long time reading about and studying various forms of traditional American music, I've got quite a few issues with that statement. I would say that there is nothing more emotional than a Lomax recording from a prison camp, or a long lost recording of some dude sitting on his porch playing a banjo. There is no artistic pretense to the music. Sometimes it was for money to barely make a living, but mostly it was purely because they had a song in their heart and soul to sing. i understand this might sound a little sappy, but I can't see it any other way.

But to each their own I suppose.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Tha1ChiefRocka wrote:

Quote:

it is very rare for its earliest incarnations to rate very highly on my lists because I generally prefer those forms when theyve been a bit more developed and less restricted creatively, emotionally and conceptually.

I just went through and read this because I was curious as to why no delta blues, hillbilly music, or any other kind of pre-war music.

As someone who has spent a long time reading about and studying various forms of traditional American music, I've got quite a few issues with that statement. I would say that there is nothing more emotional than a Lomax recording from a prison camp, or a long lost recording of some dude sitting on his porch playing a banjo. There is no artistic pretense to the music. Sometimes it was for money to barely make a living, but mostly it was purely because they had a song in their heart and soul to sing. i understand this might sound a little sappy, but I can't see it any other way.

But to each their own I suppose.

I understand the view, and you're of course entitled to your opinion, but I don't see that it works out in actual practice. The creativity, expressive depth and conviction of the works on this list far outstrips any album length works I know of that you may be referring to, with only few possible exceptions that may hold up to the 7/10s.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

boyd94

AfterHours wrote:

Both are beautifully sun-drenched, presenting (particularly in their slower songs, epitomized by Hotel California, Desperado...), wilting stories of nostalgia, of the wanderer, of the lonely souls wandering into the sunset never to be heard from again, or searching for existential truths, the myth of American folklore... They reinvigorate a bit of the sound of the dying sun and wilting flowers of Love's Forever Changes (albeit with Love, it's more dangerous, striking a more extraordinary middle point between beauty and death), though with more elegance and perhaps more class, majesty and poetry (with idiomatic, sparkling, expansive and lyrical guitar work, banjo, mandolin...). The country-rock/harder songs (especially in Desperado) are excitedly in the boogie tradition, while in Hotel California they have a more polished and honed (and probably Pop-Rock) quality... They are both the sound of California, its fading mythology represented in the stories of its protagonists. They are the sound of lonely and nostalgic hippies, distraught by drug addled death and revolutions lost, forging their way into sunsets as outcasts.

Decided to give Eagles a real chance after this recommendation.

Maybe I'm a product of the postmodern world but music this insistent and earnest makes me queasy. It feels inauthentic no matter how much it tells me otherwise. I can handle it from someone like Bruce Springsteen perhaps because he hits a rebellious working class nerve that's more universal and relatable beyond it's distinctly American mythic qualities, but Eagles are talking about a world and way of life that's completely remote to me, and is in no way seductive or interesting.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

boyd94 wrote:

Decided to give Eagles a real chance after this recommendation.

Maybe I'm a product of the postmodern world but music this insistent and earnest makes me queasy. It feels inauthentic no matter how much it tells me otherwise. I can handle it from someone like Bruce Springsteen perhaps because he hits a rebellious working class nerve that's more universal and relatable beyond it's distinctly American mythic qualities, but Eagles are talking about a world and way of life that's completely remote to me, and is in no way seductive or interesting.

Fair enough, no worries Smile

_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings