genre bending tunes from barns courtney, kenny chesney and more...

Today I need to take a break from serious spirituality and jump head first into a few new tunes (and two old ones) that grab me where I live. The first is"Glitter and Gold" by Barns Courtney. It opens the British TV "Safe" that is currently running on Netflix and I LOVE it. Anything swampy that combines rock guitars with a hip hop beat just melts me from the inside out everytime.

I know this groove isn't for everyone, but it works for me. There is danger and darkness here mixed with an ominous vulnerability that is explosive. The way I hear it, this young man is in way over his head and may not make it out alive. It started out pretty but went south real fast. It strikes me as the perfect song  for our season of Trumpian madness.

I got hooked on this sound 20 years ago the very first time I heard the opening credits of The Sopranos. Again, not everyone's cup of tea, but man was the writing hot, the action wild and the moral ambiguities of that era personified with precision. Both soundtrack CDs are worth the effort even after all these years. Not only do they evoke the mood, but explore a wide range of tunes from Sinatra and Pickett to Big Momma Thorton and hip hop. Brilliant.


The TV show "Justified" added a bluegrass twist to the gangster/rock/hip hop thing in a way that struck me as ironic and earthy. It is "genre bending" in all the right ways and has now become mainstream in Nashville as the 2018 hit by Kenny Chesney "Get Along" documents. 

There's always been a close connection between white Country and black RnB and Gospel. It was not coincidence that the first three 45s Elvis recorded took an African American blues and made it hillbilly and then took a country and western standard and turned it inside out to become soulful. The King's time hanging out on Beale Street didn't hurt him one iota. So Chesney is just paying it forward on "Get Along."
  
And don't forget that Chuck Berry returned the favor by taking white country licks and kicking them up a notch for his first major hit "Maybelline." Back in those early days, as Woody Guthrie liked to say, there was no plagiarism - we stole from everybody!

I would be remiss not to wrap this up with the mother of all genre-benders: Hound Dog by Big Momma Thorton. Elvis reworked it completely, making it sassy and playful in a way that worked across the racial divide. But it was built on this in-your-face blues that continues to communicate all these years later.   
Happy listening.