On Friday CMT aired their "Outlaws" concert special, which featured the extremely ILM/blogosphere-friendly lineup of Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson and Montgomery Gentry, in addition to Hank II presiding over the affairs. It's kind of interesting how new-school their definition of "outlaw" is; even Bocephus as elder statesman is kind of a strech. I mean, sure, Waylon and Cash aren't around anymore, but they could've at least gotten Willie in there, he always seems to be up for that kind of thing (maybe Willie did pop up for a guest spot, I didn't see the whole thing, but they did use his version of "Midnight Rider" in one of the ads).

And Kid Rock of course had to be there to run around and wave his country flag a little more. It's funny how accomodating the Nashville community is of any mid-level rockers who want to be join the club; all he has to do is say "Johnny Cash" in the chorus of a single and do a country ballad with Sheryl Crowe and he's in, they treat him like royalty. The best part of his set was a slowed down, countrified cover of "Fat Bottomed Girls", which was a pretty inspired choice. I always thought the multi-Freddie harmonies on the chorus had a touch of twang (and I was a little disappointed that Juelz Santana's recent "Fat Bottom" only saw fit to sample the guitar riff from the verses of the original; those a cappella "ahhhh"'s are really begging to be chopped up over a Dipset track).

I'm still a little mystified by the Big & Rich hype that started on ILM and seemed to blossom into a critical darling from that almost independent of the album's sales boom. Granted, I actually take a little credit for that (I was the first person to post about "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" on ILM, although Chuck Eddy had posted a bit about B&R prior to that). Maybe I'm just conservative or stingy about checking out albums, especially based on the strength of one big single, but I haven't given their record a chance for the same reason I didn't cop the Terror Squad LP. But I guess not having given it a listen isn't really grounds to criticize. And I'm not very down with Gretchen, even on a singles level. I don't think her voice/presence really sells the lyrics, especially her timid, holding but barely strumming a guitar on "Redneck Woman", which just reminds me of Avril Lavigne playing up the whole guitar playing thing. But I was a bit impressed by the Outlaw concert performance of "Here For The Party", which came off a lot stronger than the one in the video.

Labels: music, TV

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 04, 2004 at 2:33 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.