Saturday Shuffle: III, Dash Rip Rock, SRV, Waylon and Willie, Ramones

This might be the first shuffle with no metal in it. We've got some country, some blues, some punk, but no metal ...


Hank Williams III, "Cocaine Blues." From the album Risin' Outlaw (1999). There's probably not a more appropriate Johnny Cash tune for III to cover. It's a song that already had much of the bad attitude that III brings to it. I'll choose Cash's version every time (as III himself probably would, too), but this one's very faithful and pretty solid.

Saturday Shuffle: Shooter Jennings, Marilyn Manson, Travis Tritt, Manowar, G'n'R

A couple of Jennings, a shock rocker, a hard rock classic and metal's loincloth-clad kings ...

Shooter Jennings, “This Ol’ Wheel.” From the album The Wolf (2007). The Wolf is, in my opinion, the weakest of Shooter’s records, but this rocking song was one of the highlights. Shooter delivers the verse in a rapid-fire, almost rap style, and it’s just a really catchy, fun song.

Something Borrowed: "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit Has Done Got Out of Hand?" James Hetfield/Waylon Jennings

So, we've already established that Metallica makes a damned good cover band, but when their frontman lets loose by himself, he's not half-bad either.

When I've Always Been Crazy: A Tribute to Waylon Jennings came out in 2003, there was a distinct feeling of "one of these things is not like the others" in the track list. You had Shooter Jennings, Jessi Colter, Hank Jr., Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt and others. Then, toward the end of the album, you have Metallica's James Hetfield. Huh?

Review: Hank III and David Allan Coe, "The Outlaw Ways"

A collaboration between Hank III and David Allan Coe has been long talked about and hinted at by III, something that’s been met with a great deal of excitement by both camps of fans.

It’s finally here, and the first disappointment is that it’s only one song, “The Outlaw Ways.”

Things start on a good foot, with an old-fashioned country swagger and a little mutual appreciation. It’s intended to be sort of an updated take on Waylon Jennings and Hank Jr.’s “The Conversation,” as Coe sings “You know your grandpa was one of my heroes Hank,” and III answers, “David, you were always one of mine.”

They move on to pay a little homage to Jennings, Junior and Johnny Cash. They also take a shot at the Grand Ole Opry and its refusal to reinstate Hank Sr., as III has done for years.

Review: Shooter Jennings, "The Other Life"

You never know quite what to expect from Shooter Jennings. It drives some fans crazy, but it’s part of what others, myself included, like about his music.

Will it be country, rowdy Southern rock, experimental art rock, hard rockers, heartfelt and serious songs, crazy and sometimes silly numbers? The answer on The Other Life is yes.

Really, for the first time in his career, Jennings has brought together all of the various sounds from his past, and it feels almost like it’s the first album that is fully and truly his musical voice.

 Last year’s companion piece, Family Man, focused on just what its title said. Every song had something to do with family. This one focuses mostly on life on the road and the music business.

Best of 2012: Country and Southern rock honorable mentions

Editor's note: This is part three of a four-part series looking at some of my favorite records of 2012.

OK. The country and Southern rock list is new territory for me. We'll start with a look at some honorable mentions, disappointments and a few other things.


ARTIST WHO PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN HIGH ON MY TOP 10 LIST, IF HE’D RELEASED A FULL ALBUM 
 Dillon Hodges: You probably haven’t heard of him yet, but you owe it to yourself to look him up. “Bullet for a Broken Heart” is easily one of the best tunes released this year, and the other songs that he has scattered around are almost as good. He mixes country influences, indie rock and an exceptionally soulful voice with some tinges of Stevie Wonder here and there. It’s good stuff. Go find it. Now.

Review: Hank III, "Long Gone Daddy"

After years of battling with Curb Records to have his albums released, Hank III finally broke free from his contract a little over a year ago. Now, it seems Curb has no problem releasing his records.

This is the second they’ve put out since he left, following up last year’s Hillbilly Joker, a rock album they refused to release when it was recorded in 2003.

Long Gone Daddy wasn’t quite as contentious as that release. It collects some songs from III’s earliest recording sessions, along with tunes that he did for various compilations while he was at Curb. There are a few originals, a few alternate takes, a few covers of his grandfather’s songs and a few covers from other artists. All in all, it’s a collection that should please fans who have been turned off by his flirtations with rock and metal. And, if I’m being honest, even I have to admit that it’s better than some of the records he’s turned out in recent years.

Interview: Shooter Jennings

Fans of Shooter Jennings probably noticed a slightly different attitude when his latest release, "The Wolf," hit stores. While there were still rockers like record opener "This Ol' Wheel" and "Higher," the record has a decidedly more country flavor than his previous efforts.

"We wanted to use a lot of those traditional instruments and do some really wild stuff with it," Jennings said. "I feel like it is more of a country record. It's not necessarily defining what my next direction is going to be or anything like that, but it's a storytelling record to some degree, so we wanted to keep it as rootsy as possible."

Though this record is his most country outing, when he's at home or on the bus, Jennings is as likely to have Sabbath on the stereo as George Strait, particularly the band's sixth record, "Sabotage." He's even incorporated the riff from the band's "Sweet Leaf" into a song from his first record, "Busted in Baylor County," and has been known to play more of the song live.

"I really do love George Strait's music, but if you don't listen to Sabbath, you're not going to totally get me altogether," Jennings said. "If you haven't put on 'Sabotage' before and listened to it from head to toe at least once in your life, you're probably not going to get the whole picture of my music."

So fans shouldn't worry, he said. Jennings is not giving up the rock.

"I love rock 'n' roll, and I'm definitely not going to turn my back on rock 'n' roll," he said.

It's an attitude that, perhaps, has cost him some traditionalist fans of country, who aren't crazy about the rap-like vocal he delivers on "This Ol' Wheel" or the rock 'n' roll lifestyle that he often sings about.

"I'm a big fan of pure country, and I'm proud that I can get a lot of the pure country fans," he said. "But I'm not out there aiming to get the pure country fans. I'm aiming to get my own kind of fans, and if the purists don't like it, they don't have to listen to it."

It's a testament to Jennings' crossover appeal that he was recently asked to play both on Charlie Daniels' Volunteer Jam tour and a few dates on Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello's Justice Tour. He's been equally accepted by both crowds, and that mix of fans is what he's after — people who can appreciate both rock and country.

"That's kind of my point," he said. "It makes me feel accomplished to do that."

He's also making a habit of playing with Louisiana artists. On his last record, "Electric Rodeo," Tony Joe White made a guest appearance. This time around, it's legendary fiddle player Doug Kershaw guesting on "This Ol' Wheel." The pairing came completely by accident. Jennings had gone to a guitar store in Los Angeles to buy a 12-string guitar for one of the songs on the album. The guy who sold him the guitar was Kershaw's nephew and played with Kershaw's son in a band.

"That was such a funny situation," Jennings said. "He said, 'hey, if you want any fiddle, my uncle is Doug Kershaw, he'll do it.' So I gave him my number, and like an hour later, he called. We flew him down there, and he cut the track and really killed it, and we had a great time with him."

"The Wolf" features a wide mix of sounds from a cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life," which Jennings says was a random decision after hearing it on the radio one day, to very traditional country. There's also perhaps a bit more of his legendary father, Waylon Jennings, on songs like "Old Friend," "Time Management 101" and particularly "Concrete Cowboys." He takes comparisons to his father as a great compliment.

"It's kind of a ballad of a modern-day drifter," Jennings said. "I feel like the instrumentation on it was really simple and raw, and that's what we wanted to do. The melody on it is really like my dad's or Willie's or something like that. He's always with me. He was very influential in my life, a good friend of mine, a hero of mine. I couldn't deny that to anyone."

Review: Shooter Jennings, "The Wolf"

You have to like a guy like Shooter Jennings. Based solely on his name, he could probably be a country hitmaker if he'd play by Nasvhille's rules, but instead he chooses to do his own thing, avoiding the generic, over-produced crap you hear on country radio these days.

On his first two records, "Put the O Back in Country" and "Electric Rodeo," Jennings mixed his dad's brand of outlaw country with his own rock 'n' roll background for an interesting mix of songs that ranged from about as traditional as country gets to hard rock numbers. He brings the same formula to this record, but for some reason it doesn't work quite as well.

For one thing, the songs here seem much safer. There's not much edge either lyrically or musically to most of the songs, and too often it sounds like he's trying to recreate Waylon's sound, particularly on numbers like "Old Friend" and "Concrete Cowboys."

He does offer up some rocking moments. The opener "This Ol' Wheel" finds him rapping over a fiddle line in a Kid Rock-like piece. The funky "Higher" is the closest he comes to his previous two records here and another bright spot for the fans of his more rocking side. But there's not a song here that will connect like the dark and grooving "Bad Magick" from "Electric Rodeo" or the Southern rocker "Steady at the Wheel" from "Put the O Back in Country."

There's also a bit too much borrowing on some of the songs -- from his dad as well as others. For example, on "Tangled Up Roses," I just can't get past the fact that I want to sing The Who's "Baba O'Riley" when those big notes hit on the chorus.

That's not to say that there aren't good songs here. There are some really strong straight country songs like the low-down "Last Time I Let You Down," the double entendre of "Time Management 101" and the record's soulful title track. He also turns in an excellent cover of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life," and one of the strongest tracks on the album, "Slow Train," features a guest appearance by, of all people, The Oak Ridge Boys. Their tight harmony on the chorus really makes the song.

In the end, "The Wolf" is a solid offering for Jennings, though it doesn't come close to his previous two records. It seems designed to appeal more to the country side of his fan base or perhaps to open himself up to a wider country audience (something he's tried to avoid in the past). I, for one, miss the rowdier rock side of his music, and I hope he brings it back on the next record.

Get "The Wolf."

Interview: Shooter Jennings

With his debut album in 2005, Shooter Jennings attempted to bring back the outlaw sound his father Waylon was famous for and "Put the O Back in Country." With his new release, "Electric Rodeo," he just wants his albums to show up under country in the record store.

"We stripped the whole Americana thing out of it, and I love that," Jennings said. "It's not that I have anything against Americana, it's just not my style. We got grouped in with a lot of the Texas music and a lot of alt-country, and I just wanted to be as far away from all those genres as possible — really confuse them and make them say, 'the only place this will really work is country.'"

To that end, he's mixed his outlaw country heritage with his rock roots.

"We tried to push the limits as much as possible by trying to make it loud and rocking when necessary and as old school country as we could, then try to mix the two," Jennings said.

Jennings also recruited a local product, Oak Grove native Tony Joe White, to work with him on the song "Alligator Chomp." Jennings said White was good friends with his father, and he grew up around White's son Jody. Jennings and his band had written the music and wanted White to come up with the lyrics, but then guitarist Leroy Powell, who wanted the tune to have a message, presented them with lyrics they liked.

"It's a satire of what the real world is, based around this little swamp," Jennings said. "We thought it was great, so we called Tony Joe and he came in. He was nervous, and we were nervous, but it came off good. It's actually one of my favorites on the album."

Jennings grew up listening to rock 'n' roll and left Nashville at a young age for Los Angeles, where he performed with the band Stargunn. When his father died in 2002, Jennings took a break from music. He emerged from that break with the collection of songs that would become "Put the O Back in Country" and would bring him back to country music. But Jennings says he was headed in that direction before his father's death.

"I got a little older and got a little sorrow under my belt — I heard somebody say that the other day, and I thought that was a great expression, to understand country music, you have to get a little sorrow under your belt," he said. "The lyrics just stand so stronger, and it's a much more personal, kind of journalistic way of writing as opposed to an avant garde rock way, where you're enigmatic or something.

"I think him dying had the effect on me that I really wanted to grasp on to his roots and figure out where he came from more than I did before, but I don't think it was necessarily just that."

Though rock is still a heavy influence in Jennings' music, he said he never really felt at home in front of the rock crowd. He's much more comfortable playing to country audiences.

"I walked in front of an audience of rock fans and I did the 'woop-woop-woop' thing that my dad used to do, and nobody would get it," he said. "In front of a country audience, they'd all laugh. It's like that audience understands where I'm coming from better. When I speak to them, no matter what the music sounds like, they get it."

Jennings' style has often found him sharing the stage with strange acts. He recalls opening for California punk rockers Social Distortion and the reaction the band got.

"It was really weird," he said. "Our audience that was there loved it, but then there was this massive group of greasers that were totally like, 'what?' We won them over by the end of it, but you definitely know when you walk in if it's your crowd."

He may be more comfortable sharing the bill with Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd and 3 Doors Down on this summer's Double Trouble tour. It's a big tour, but just a small part of what Jennings and Co. have planned for the summer.

"That's going to be great, but it's only 12 dates," he said. "We're headlining all year, and we've got all these great festivals we're playing. We've got a lot of fun. We keep working and working, and we've got another good four or five years in us before we take a break."