Turn It Up - 6/23/25

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

Good things for hard times and some inspiring protests too, including a couple of antiwar anthems proving themselves frustratingly timeless.

Presley Haile – “Someday Soon” (from Off to Find a Sunny Day, 2025)
Los Lobos – “Three Hundred Pounds of Joy” (from Antone’s: 50 Years of the Blues, 2025)
Waylon Jennings – “Songbird” (from Songbird, 2025)

I am loving these three recent covers – one from an exciting young artist, one from esteemed veterans, one from a departed friend – that each pull off the rare trick of making the old sound new again. At the end of her fantastic first E.P., Texas’ Presley Haile revisits the Ian Tyson song memorably recorded by Judy Collins and Suzy Bogguss, among others. Over a loping groove, Haile relates the narrator’s yearning for a Colorado rodeo man over a tender, fiddle-supported arrangement. Background vocalists fill the gaps around Haile, a gifted vocalist who relishes each turn of the melody and dynamic rise-and-fall in this justifiably enduring love song. Elsewhere in Texas, the upcoming album honoring the 50^th anniversary of the great Austin blues club Antone’s features the inestimable Los Lobos rip-roaring their way through Howlin’ Wolf’s “Three Hundred Pounds of Joy.” The wolves do the Wolf with both humor and respect, with Cesar Rosas recalling but not trying to mimic Chester Burnett’s distinctive growl and the punches of guitar and saxophone keeping the whole thing light on its feet. Los Lobos never miss, and this house party is no exception. And still elsewhere in Texas (sort of), Waylon Jennings knocks me sideways with this astonishing version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird.” The first single from an upcoming release of recently discovered archival tracks, Jennings proves a perfect match for Christine McVie’s graceful lyric and swelling melody, singing with a tenderness and strength that wraps around you like a welcoming embrace. Where the Rumours original featured only piano and guitar, here ol’ Waylon is propelled by his crack early-1980s band and assisted by newly recorded background vocals from Ashley Monroe and Elizabeth Cook. A beautiful indication of what the Shooter Jennings-produced “new” album will be, and a rediscovery of both song and performer. In all three cases, it’s such a good thing to be reminded of good things, isn’t it? – CH

Special Consensus (feat. Robbie Fulks, Josh Williams, and Ashby Frank) – “I’ve Been All Around This World” (from Been All Around This World, 2025)

Special Consensus is celebrating fifty years as one of the best bands in bluegrass, and they’re marking their first half-century with this delightful new album featuring appearances by some of their noteworthy former members. Produced by the great Alison Brown, who also appears, Been All Around This World features songs from the Monkees and Motown, Roger Miller and Tony Rice, but its highlight is the title track, a traditional ramblin’-man blues that welcomes three of the group’s former singers. It’s a treat, leading to a climactic third verse from Fulks that alters the familiar melody with unexpected chords and a brief tonal shift. The band comes back together for the final verse, a joyous return that mirrors the album’s larger spirit of reunion. It’s such a good thing to be reminded of the good things, isn’t it? – CH

Shelby Means – “Farm Girl” (from Shelby Means, 2025)

A former member of Della Mae and Molly Tuttle’s Golden Highway, Means is one of the premier bassists in bluegrass, and her first solo album reveals her as an expert singer, songwriter, and bandleader in her own right. Produced by Maya de Vitry, the self-titled Shelby Means features a bunch of Means’ talented friends – from Billy Strings to Kelsey Waldon – but she’s always at center stage. The popping “Farm Girl” is one of many highlights, a tribute to a hardworking woman that works as both love song and personal aspiration. Backed by a truly all-star band of Ron Block, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Bronwyn Keith-Hines, and with Waldon and Rachel Baiman adding affirmative background vocals, Means longs for the “farm girl” in all the ways and pines for the rural life she hopes they’ll share. “Farm Girl” finds new sweetness in imagery perennially bulldozed by a parade of country meatheads, making the track a welcome reclamation as well. It’s such a good thing to be reminded of the good things, isn’t it? – CH

Rico Nasty – “Crash” (from Lethal, 2025)

I’m calling Lethal my favorite Rico Nasty album because it’s the one that’s the most all over the place, bouncing from pop punk to neo soul to spare-but-decadent rap to prog-rock club beats to arena rock to dreamscapes to borderline country. “Crash” is my favorite cut, its rootsy rock lick blending with new wavy synths and spinning Rico right round, swirling in love or something similarly desperate. She’s crashing like a wave onto the beach, like a friend on your couch, like she’s coming down hard from a high, like she’s steering giddily toward a telephone pole. Will she walk away from the impact? – DC

Doug Collins and the Receptionists – “She Loves Lyin’” and “Trouble at Home” (from Lonely Memories, 2025)

Doug Collins is a Twin City singer-songwriter, twang friendly but with an ear for pop hooks and for storytelling that smarts. The Receptionists are a roots band featuring bassist Charlie Varley on bass and vocals and with former Gear Daddies Billy Dankert and Randy Boughton, on drums and pedal steel respectively. Their latest album, Lonely Memories, is cracker jack country-pop straight through. You’ll want to check out Collins’ pathetic ballad “Trouble at Home” and the “basement couch of an old’s friend’s house” it inevitably leads to. But I especially recommend lead track “She Likes Lyin’,” a cruelly catchy heartbreaker that finds Collins playing with that double entendre title until he feels singularly miserable. – DC

Wolfgang Valbrun – “Sun Don’t Shine” (from Flawed by Design, 2024) and “Sun Don’t Shine (Sophie Lloyd Remix)” (from Flawed by Design (Remixes), 2025)

I missed Wolfgang Valbrun’s Flawed by Design when it came out last year only checking it out after the algorithm suggested a set of remixes to me. The original “Sun Don’t Shine” pairs Valbrun’s husky soul cry with a rhythm track borrowed from Pablo Cruise but beefed up by dramatic piano chords and punchy horns. He’s begging to know if a lover will stick it out when the hard times he already senses are on the way finally catch up to him—it’s an anthem of anxiety. The remix is a reinvention, a neo-disco celebration that had me recalling RuPaul’s “House of Love” and finding Wolfgang certain that, rain or shine, love is enough. Both versions sound great to me, as does this slightly-wilder-than-the-original live take, but the remix is the one I needed this morning. – DC

Lynn Ahrens – “No More Kings” (from Schoolhouse Rock, 1975)

Last weekend’s No Kings protests around the country reminded me of this old Schoolhouse Rock episode from half a century ago. (I was hardly the only one who made the connection: At Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield wrote about Pavement’s fun 1996 version of the song.) The music and its key takeaway still stick—my wife hadn’t seen it since she was a kid but instantly started singing along—but the cartoon does hit differently these days. First, because the lyrics fail to mention that when the pilgrims found a place to call their own at Plymouth Rock, there were already people living there: At least a couple of concerned-looking native Americans appear for a quick second in the animation. (We could sure use a Schoolhouse Woke about now!) Second, because the White House’s current resident is acting more like King George III than any previous president in history. “Looks like it’s going to be a free country,” the song concludes optimistically. I guess we’ll see… - DC

Gangstagrass (feat. Allison Russell, Demeanor, R-SON The Voice of Reason, Dolio the Sleuth, and OleFuckTrump) – “No Kings in the USA” (single, 2025)

Following up on their 2021 “Freedom – Juneteenth Remix” with Rissi Palmer, the hip hop bluegrassers Gangstagrass now pair with pop-country-soul singer Allison Russell and a battalion of MCs, all backed by likeminded stomp and clappers, to ring shout the current crisis. No kings and no fences. No notes. –DC

X - “Country at War” (from Hey Zeus!, 1993)

One of the great anti-war songs to emerge from the Gulf War moment, “Country at War” is also on point for every American war since. Our bombs drop somewhere else while here at home people keep right on washing their cars and ironing dish towels—oh, and America also keeps right on turning its back on the sick, hungry and poor. “Country at War” isn’t remembered today like it should be because, well, see the previous sentence. But it’s overlooked, too, because its place in the X story falls between the departure of the band’s brilliant and beaming founding guitarist Billy Zoom, in 1986, and the first of Zoom’s several returns to the lineup in 1998. It’s from the band’s Tony Gilkyson period, in other words, an X era in danger of being forgotten altogether. A versatile former member of Lone Justice, Gilkyson granted the band greater sonic variety, including at times a sound that was heavier than they’d ever been—and scarier. His lines here strafe like missiles streaking across the sky, like police or air-raid sirens, and near the close his guitar makes ungodly, suffocating noises. The record fades out then, but like our nation, Gilkyson’s guitar just keeps dropping bombs. – DC (originally posted 10/2/2023)

Edwin Starr - “War” (from The Midnight Special, 1974)

Urgent as ever: “Lord knows there’s got to be a better way...” - CH/DC

Reading recommendations:

-Caryn Rose with a listening guide to Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums, for NPR

-Jon Pareles on Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II, for The New York Times

-Carl Wilson on Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II, for Slate

-Stephen Thomas Erlewine on Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II, for So It Goes

-Kandia Crazy Horse on Sly Stone, for The African American Folklorist

-David Cantwell on Greil Marcus, who turned 80 last week, for The New Yorker (2015)

-Candice Norwood on Beyoncé, the Grammys, and the new “Traditional Country” category, for 19thNews

-Tom Smucker, author of Why the Beach Boys Matter, on Brian Wilson, for And It Don’t Stop!

-Annie Zaleski talks with author Nora Princiotti about her book Hit Girls: Brittney, Taylor, Beyonce, and the Women Who Built Pop’s Shiniest Decade, for The Los Angeles Times

-Stephen Deusner on Zoe Dominguez, for SPIN

-Teague Bohlen talks to DBT’s Patterson Hood about music and politics, for Westword

-Dan Reilly on seven musicians’ “health-insurance horror stories,” for Vulture

-Chris Willman talks to Nezza, who sang “The Star Spangled Banner” en espanol at a Los Angeles Dodgers game, for Variety

-Eddie Flu reports on Carol Kaye’s decision not to attend the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, for Consequence

-Drew Millard on Metallica’s Load, for Pitchfork

-Ambrose Tardive on Charles Schulz’s short-lived Peanuts character, the “Shut Up and Leave Me Alone” kid, for Screen Rant

-Tressie McMillan Cottom on the realities of contemporary political violence, for New York Times

-Saida Grundy on Donald Trump’s war on the legacy of the Black Arts Movement, for The Guardian

-Rumsey Taylor and Eve Washington detail the ways in which Jaws provided a template of the modern blockbuster, for The New York Times

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