Concert Review:Alison Krauss & Union Station, June 25, Berkeley, CA

It's hard to believe more than eleven years have gone by since I last saw Alison Krauss and Union Station in concert. But that's how long it was between concerts for me. This past Saturday night at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California, that long wait came to an end. As a first-time visitor to the Greek, I heeded the prior warnings to "bundle up" as the temperature drops once the sun goes down and the fog begins to roll in at this open-air amphitheater.

Alison and the band treated the crowd to a two-hour show featuring many songs from their latest album, "Paper Airplane", along with a bunch of selections from the past ten years. The show opened with the title track of that CD, sang beautifully by Alison and performed flawlessly by the band. Next in line was the 2nd song from the same album, "Dust Bowl Children", which Dan Tyminski sang the lead vocals. Among the other songs from the new album were "Dimming Of The Day", "Bonita and Bill Butler" and my personal favorite, "Miles To Go".

Other highlights from the show included songs from Krauss' last compilation, "A Hundred Miles Or More" as well as albums with Union Station such as "Lonely Runs Both Ways", "New Favorite", and "Forget About It". The band blended traditional bluegrass songs with the more contemporary sound that Alison has become known for during the past decade. Some of these highlights included "Ghost In This House", "Let Me Touch You For Awhile", "Baby, Now That I've Found You", "Oh Atlanta", and Tyminski favorite "Man Of Constant Sorrow", which was made famous when George Clooney "lip-synced" it in the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou".

To listen to Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS) perform live is to be transported to a musical world that few get to truly experience. In a world where flashy effects, auto-tune and even pre-recorded tracks are commonly found in concerts, this band had kept it simple and real, while pushing the envelope and boundaries of musicianship. Live or recorded, you will simply find no better a band than this one in music today.

Krauss' amazing vocals shine on every song she sings. But she also plays a mean fiddle on many of their songs. Dan Tyminski sings lead on the more traditional bluegrass songs and plays mandolin and guitar. Ron Block plays guitar and banjo and sings some harmony vocals. Barry Bales plays upright bass as well as electric bass. He also sings background vocals as well. Both Bales and Block have written some of the band's songs. Jerry Douglas joined Union Station as a special guest more than ten years ago. He is a quite simply a master of the dobro and lap steel guitar. Douglas' contributions to the band have been nothing short of amazing and he fits right in with the rest of the group who have been performing together for more than twenty years.

If I had to pick something negative from this show it would be the lack of songs from the earlier years of AKUS, as well as the omission of some of Alison's more well-known mainstream hits. It would have been nice to hear songs like "When You Say Nothing At All" and "Whiskey Lullaby" (even without Brad Paisley). And a show without songs from earlier albums like "I've Got That Old Feeling", "Too Late To Cry" and "Two Highways" would have been welcome at this show, and they would have shown more of the band's versatility.

Opening the show, from Portland, Oregon was a musician who went by the name of M. Ward. His brief set seemed to warm-up the audience as they continued to file into the amphitheater. The Greek Theatre holds about 8,500 people. I would estimate a crowd of near 6,000 at this show. It's hard to tell if the absence of a country music station in the Bay Area had any affect on the crowd size, because Krauss' songs were never played on country radio anyway. Overall, the Berkeley seemed a bit subdued. There was very little crowd participation during the bluegrass numbers, and many people seemed to not appreciate or be familiar with most of the songs. I even noticed several people making early exits before the show ended. Their loss.

But for those like myself who have followed Alison Krauss and Union Station for more than twenty years, this was a wonderful show by an amazing group of musicians. The band is currently touring the U.S. and Canada to support their new album. If you have the chance to catch their show live, I highly recommend that you do. You will not be disappointed.

Review: CMT Music Awards

Last night, Country Music Television (CMT) presented its annual awards show from Nashville, TN. This program has evolved over the years into a large-scale production for the cable network. Long before this program became what it is today, the show got its start as the Music City News Country Awards. That show was very much along the lines of the CMA and ACM awards shows of the day.

The CMT Music Awards are still following in the steps of the CMA and ACM shows. It's become a miserable representation of country music. In fact, last night's program was about as country as a concert headlined by Justin Bieber, with special guest, Ludacris. The show had all of the drama (none) as its CMA and ACM counterparts, with the same amount of predictability. To call this a celebration of country music is an insult to country music fans everywhere.

The show had a nice start, opening with its traditional pre-taped c

omedy sketch. This one featured Taylor Swift and Shania Twain in a spoof of the film "Thelma and Louise". Filled with several cameos by the likes of Chord "Glee" Overstreet, Donald Trump and the show's host, Kid Rock. Ater the five-minute skit was done, we were stuck with two and a half hours of off-key performances and the aforementio

ned predictable awards.

Kid Rock started his hosting duties in very awkward fashion, with a scripted segment with Wynonna Judd that culminated in a strange duet. What followed were performances by several of today's so-called "hip" country acts. The only veteran in the house was Toby Keith who did the first performance (not bad).

As the show progressed, Kid Rock got a little bit better. He had several outfit changes and even more drinks to mellow him out. Awards went to all the usual suspects. Lady Antebellum, Sugarland, Justin Bieber. That's right! The teenage pop star took home an award for his video with Rascal Flatts, who appeared on stage for Bieber's acceptance speech, to worship the teen idol. The scene was quite pathetic.

The biggest winners of the night were not even on hand. Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert won Male and Female Video, respectively. Blake pre-taped a speech, while Miranda was a no-show. The most predictable award for Video Of The Year went to Taylor Swift who accepted the award via video from a concert. Normally I would be overly angry at Taylor Swift winning the top award of the night, but this is only CMT, so it doesn't really matter.

Performers included a who's-who of today's country superstars such as Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan and of course Ludacris. After-all, what's a country music show without a hard-core rapper? I guess Cowboy Troy wasn't available. One of the lone musical highlights from the show was the return of Big & Rich. They performed a song from a backstage set that was made to resemble "Tootsies" bar, and then magically stormed on stage to the rousing applause from a crowd that broke into a flash-mob sequence, dancing along with some hoochi-mama dancers that appeared on stage with Big Kenny and Jon.

Most notably absent this year were stars

like Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley. Maybe they decided to steer clear of this train wreck. Or perhaps the country music establishment decided those three were no longer relevant in "today's new country". The only other let-down for me was that Lady Gaga did not make a special appearance. That's OK, though. The CMA's are only five months away. I'm sure they will be able to book Gaga or Eminem for that show.

I guess it's pretty obvious how I feel about this year's CMT Music Awards. The words "pathetic" and "joke" come to mind, but I don't want to go off on a rant here. As far as awards shows for music videos go, this show made the MTV Video Music Awards show look like the Oscars. Wait a minute. Does CMT even show music videos anymore. Guess they

are more like MTV than I thought.

Sometimes The Good Guys Win

It's true! It's true! Patience actually pays-off and good guys really do win. At least that's how I feel about my recent victory in a small, but important Facebook war. As I have documented on this blog, another person who once was a good friend of mine, stole my ideal for "Country Music Front Porch" and used it to name his own page on Facebook. I tried using a different name for my blog and other country music entities over the past year, but was not happy with the fact that somebody else was using a name I created.

So I took my concerns to Facebook, and filed a complaint, citing infringement of my intellectual property and violations of Facebook user policies, and an investigation ensued. As of this writing it appears that the fraudulent page has been removed from Facebook, leaving my page as the only front porch on the site. Now I will begin the hard work of building a larger fan base on this and other pages.

A special thanks to Facebook for resolving this issue and doing the right thing.

What's The Deal With The Name?

Please don't be confused.  YES, I have changed the name of my blog.  I decided to claim what is rightfully mine, and take back the name that I originally created to use on my blog and on my future endeavors.  "Classic Country Front Porch" was a nice name, but I was settling for something and was not completely satisfied.  You may remember from my original post on this blog, the story about the former friend of mine who hijacked my original "Front Porch" concept and created a page on Facebook with the name "CountryMusic Front Porch.

This is my porch and I am not going to let a fraud keep playing like he created it.  If you are a "fan" of the other page on Facebook, please think about how little interaction that person has had with his page.  My pages are pretty busy when I have the time to devote to them. Having a full time job outside of this hobby keeps me from adding content more frequently.  But I hope to spend more time on my pages in the very near future. Until then, please rest-assured that "Country Music Front Porch" and "Classic Country Front Porch" are one and the same. I am just renaming everything "Country Music Front Porch".  After all.  It was my idea in the first place.

No more crying over "The Wolf"!

Last December I posted a review of the San Francisco radio station at 95.7 FM, KBWF, also known as "The Wolf".  I pointed-out many reasons why I thought the station was performing so poorly in the ratings and also predicted an eventual format change for the station, taking country music away from San Francisco listeners.

On April 15, "The Wolf's" parent company Entercom Communications did exactly what I had hoped for, and what many Bay Area country music fans dreaded.  They changed the format of KBWF from "today's country" to sports talk.  While many people don't understand how something like this could possibly happen, I completely do.

Endless bad decisions by station management, as well as their own deep-rooted arrogance led to Entercom making this decision.  In the end, it was about money.  But as it relates to the state of country music, I believe there is more to this story.  But first the business part.  KBWF was losing money, BIG TIME!! Advertising revenue at the station was down by more than fifty percent.  Ratings were also dropping steadily and consistently for months.  Some have blamed the addition of the "Fitz In The Morning" show for this.  I think importing the Seattle-based Fitz show to San Francisco was more of an effort to save money, rather than spend it.

After the station's locally-based Ken and Kory morning show was dropped last fall, management chose NOT to replace it with a local program.  Expanding the already-established Fitz show to San Francisco was a win win for the station because it saved the money of producing a local show with new talent.  This was an indicator that Entercom was most-likely planning a format switch for a long time.

Another thing The Wolf did was drop the syndicated (and dreadful) Second Shift with Alan Kabel earlier this year.  They replaced Kabel with their own part-time dj, Ali Wilder, which filled void for the rest of The Wolf's time on the air.  Despite all the changes at the station (or perhaps because of them), KBWF's monthly ratings and position among Bay Area radio stations continued a steady plummet.  And worst of all, the very important CUME (cumulative audience) ratings have seen a huge drop since last Fall.

Earlier this month, "The Wolf" began carrying the live broadcasts of Oakland A's baseball games, along with the A's radio network's pre and post game shows, giving roughly five hours of daily programming to the Oakland A's throughout the baseball season.  For me, this was the final clue that something big was about to happen.  No music stations give up four years of programming for sports.  This just doesn't work.  But some would say that having sports on FM radio is also a big mistake.  Not Entercom...

Entercom has dabbled with FM sports programming in other markets and they have found success.  So the flip of the KBWF from country music to sports talk is not that big of a stretch.  And considering Entercom's  recent activity in the Bay Area market, this move was a right on track.  In February, the company sold-off its very popular classical music station KDFC, to a non-profit organization.  The station moved down the dial, but Entercom kept the 102.7 frequency and moved it's south-bay based classic rock station to that spot.  This may have put the company in a better financial position to go after the A's.

This format change leaves the nation's 4th largest radio market without a country music station.  Of course I have pointed-out in the past the fact that KBWF's "The Wolf" was hardly a "country" station.  The format featured what has been referred to as "country-pop" or "top-40 country".  It's a far cry from traditional country.  While this move is tough for Bay Area country music fans, it could signal the end of so-called "today's country".  Which means this could be the start of a major downhill slide for country music that will hopefully lead to a revival of the genre on the scale of the 1980's rebirth after the disaster that was known as the "Urban Cowboy Craze".

If you saw the telecast of the Academy of Country Awards from earlier this month, you should know exactly what I am talking about.  Country music is dead.  It has been replaced with a replica that doesn't resemble this great American musical genre one bit.  The ACM awards the Grammy's version 2.0.  I mean really? Rihanna, Steven Tyler and James Taylor all performing on the same show as Taylor Swift, Sugarland and Carrie Underwood.  It was a line-up that Ryan Seacrest would be proud of.  In fact, he WAS proud of it.  As Seacrest took the stage to present the final award of the night, he said "this night has not been about country music, it's been about American music."  Boy was he right.

If Bay Area country music fans are unhappy with the demise and end of their country station, they should take heart in the fact that they have plenty of other places to get their country from.  My hope is that after "today's country" fades into oblivion, some of today's real country performers like Chris Young, Sunny Sweeney, Easton Corbin and Zaz Brown Band will be left standing.  I also hope that the next incarnation of country music will bring back some of country's missing talents like Trisha Yearwood, Marty Stuart, Patty Loveless, Alison Krauss, Alan Jackson and others.  And of course I will work to make sure that when country comes back, it won't forget the legends who paved the way for everyone else to enjoy a career in this business.

I've Made It!!

I've done it!  I've reached a level of success that some people only dream of.  I have received my very first piece of hate mail, in the form of a comment left at the end of one of my posts.  Somebody took exception to something I said in a review a wrote about a local radio station.  Exactly what that was, I have no idea because the person wasn't specific.  Oh but they were very specific in their attack on me.  Here's what this loser posted on my blog:

Wow. Just read all of this. Who do you like? What are you good at? I can tell by reading this that you are embarrassed for yourself. You jab people you don't know pretty much because I guess no one loves you. You probably never have been loved by anyone and so you're angry at anyoneand everyone who seems happy, enjoying life. You're the guy in the bar leaning up against the wall mad and pissed because no women will give you the time of day.
You're a speck of dust. How sad you are, how totally sad it must be to be you my lonely angry friend. 

My gut reaction was to delete this comment and move on.  But writing is what I do.  I should be able to handle criticism and feedback about my posts.  Right?  Only problem is that this comment was neither.  It was a personal attack on me.

Anybody who is a fan of the station I wrote about would have defended something that I was critical of.  They would have said I was wrong about something or they would have said why they like the station.  On the other hand, someone who knows me would never spew the hateful garbage that this person did.  I don't associate with these scumbags.  So why am I giving them the time of day?

The person who wrote this comment (two months after I posted the review), is an unhappy soul, probably looking for something to bitch about.  They are trying to crawl out of a hole that they have dug for themselves by lashing out at somebody they don't even know.  Something I wrote about in that review (or some other entry) sent this person over the edge.  To have this kind of power is a gift.

Unlike the person who anonymously posted the comment, I am not a coward. Anybody can read by blog, and they are welcome submit comments.  But I won't allow somebody to hijack my blog by posting ignorant nonsense.  Especially when they are too chicken-shit to reveal their identities.  Therefore, I have decided to take a necessary step to protect this blog and my readers from vicious intent.  All future comments made about my posts will be reviewed by me before they are posted.  I will not edit any comments.  But if they are irrelevant to the subject matter being discussed, or if they contain any personal attacks, they will not be posted to my blog.

The fact that this person chose to be anonymous, proves one thing without a doubt.  He or she is either a fan or a stalker.  Either way, I have enough experience with people to know that this person is going to read this post.  The nature of their character makes it impossible for them to stay away.  Therefore, I'd like to speak to this person directly:

Hi,
Who you are doesn't matter to me.  WHAT you are is a loser.  You probably think you made yourself look good by attacking me.  Take a look in a mirror, and then take a deep look inside yourself.  In both cases you are going to see the same ugly person.  Now look around you.  Look at your life.  Pretty empty, huh?  You are pathetic.  And the only reason I am even giving you the time of day is because there is a great song that I want to share with you.  It's a song about you.  I dedicate this song to you on behalf of myself, my fans and everyone else you have attacked...online.

Now & Then: January, 2011 vs. 1991

This week I'm taking you back twenty years to look at the top five Country Songs from the week of January 19, 1991.  Then of course, I will compare and contrast that chart with today's current Country top-five.  Let's get things started with this week.

The chart hasn't changed much as Tim McGraw remains at #1 for the third consecutive week with his hit, "Felt Good On My Lips".  My opinion hasn't changed on this song.  I still think it's too pop-sounding, but then again, that's "today's country".  So basically, the song still sucks.  Jason Aldean dropped out of the top-five after peaking last week in the #2 slot.  Carrie moves up one spot to #2, while Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban both move up one spot.  This left the #5 spot open for Chris Young who appears with his song "Voices".  I really like Chris Young, and last week I discovered a video on YouTube of a performance by Chris from 2003, when he was only 17 years old. That is the featured video (below) for this week.

The top five from 1991 features four legendary acts and one from a legendary family.  When you have Garth, Alabama, George and Reba in the top five, you know it's a great week in Country Music.  There's not a lot that I can say about this week from twenty years ago.  Two of the songs are all-time classics, while two others are simply fantastic.  Number 5 is pretty good as well.  As much as I like Kenny, Carrie and Chris this week.  Their songs on this countdown can't hold a candle to any of the top-5 from 1991.  And I have to imagine that even they would freely admit the same thing.  It is just an example of how far Country Music has fallen.  But at least we have them recording music today, or we'd be in a world of hurt.

Week Of January 22, 2011
#1 "Felt Good On My Lips" - Tim McGraw
#2 "Mama's Song" - Carrie Underwood
#3 "Somewhere With You" - Kenny Chesney
#4 "Put You In A Song" - Keith Urban
#5 "Voices" - Chris Young
Here is a 17-year old Chris Young from 2003


Week Of January 19, 1991
#1 "Unanswered Prayers" - Garth Brooks
#2 "Forever's As Far As I'll Go" - Alabama
#3 "I've Come To Expect It From You" - George Strait
#4 "Rumor Has It" - Reba McEntire
#5 "Come On Back" - Carlene Carter
This Reba song comes from my favorite Country album of all time


Be sure to read my next blog entry.  "Front Porch Favorites".