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Friday Five: Bob Dylan Covers
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on this date in 1941. Narrowing down the thousands of Dylan covers that have been recorded over the past fifty years down to just five songs for this week’s post was no easy task. In fact, this easily could have been a Friday 500–and your favorite probably still [...]
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Friday Five: Rachel Brooke
We heard so many different influences on Rachel Brooke’s newest album, A Killer’s Dream, that, during our interview with the singer-songwriter, we couldn’t help but ask her to make a mini-playlist of the music she listened to the most while writing and recording the album. 5. Howlin’ Wolf, “Back Door Man” “Going into recording A Killer’s [...]
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Friday Five: Vince Gill
Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill turns 56 today. Over his long career, he’s played in bluegrass bands Mountain Smoke and Ricky Skaggs’ Boone Creek, fronted Pure Prairie League, been offered a chance to join the rock band Dire Straits, and played in the Western swing band The Time Jumpers. Along the way, he [...]
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Friday Five: Carl Smith
On this date in 1927, a future country legend named Carl Smith was born. Smith had thirty Top Ten hits in the 1950s alone, had nearly 100 different songs hit the country charts over his career and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003. He was also married to June Carter [...]
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Friday Five: Jungles
On this date in 1936, Rudyard Kipling passed away at the age of 70. His children’s stories are works of art that have endured a century now. His collection of short stories known as The Jungle Book is the most notable–particularly after Walt Disney made a film based loosely on the book. This week’s Friday [...]
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Friday Five: Atomic Bombs
Dozens of classic country, bluegrass, and rock ‘n’ roll songs reference atomic bombs, including “Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb,” “There’s a Power Greater Than Atomic,” Hawkshaw Hawkins’ “When They Found the Atomic Power,” Chris Cerf’s “Fallout Filly,” and, of course, Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama,” to name just a few. Here are five more. 5. Red Foley [...]
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Favorite Songs of 2012
More than 350 songs were on this year’s ballot. We cut the list to just our top 60, though it easily could have been a Top 100 countdown. What were your favorite songs of the past year? You can listen to a Spotify playlist of the available songs here. 60. Bucky Covington — “A Father’s [...]
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Best EPs of 2012
EPs seem to have grown in popularity this year, as several artists released fun-sized albums. Here are a few of our favorites. What were yours? Honorable Mentions that barely missed the Top 5: Punch Brothers, Ahoy; Brent Cobb, Brent Cobb; Dierks Bentley, Country & Cold Cans; Julie Roberts, Covered; Zoe Muth & The Lost High [...]
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Friday Five: Stockings
The legend of the Christmas stocking is almost as old as the stories of Santa Claus himself. Rumor has it that many years ago, a very poor man had no money for the dowries of his three beautiful daughters. He was worried how they would fare after he passed if none of them were married. [...]
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Friday Five: Bah Humbug, Volume 2
Just in case you don’t like your Christmas season as warm and fuzzy as those slippers you received last year from Aunt Frieda and Uncle Milton, we have a solution. Two years ago, back in our The 9513 days, we did a double-wide edition of our Friday Five that included all the songs that really would [...]
Current Discussion
- Matt: Wow! Great topic! Just by typing Dylan in my itunes then sorting by most plays.... 1. "Maggie's Farm" - Stephen Malkmus ...
- bll: I'm happy to hear that Ronnie Dunn and Garth are going to do something together; they go way back, and ...
- Luckyoldsun: Jon, I think you should try re-watching the Conan video--you "missed" it the first time. If I may give my interpretation, ...
- BRUCE: Toby's generosity and philanthropic work is very expansive. His USO tours plus other works deserves praise, though I an sure ...
- Luckyoldsun: Arlene, That's another big one.
- Fervor Coulee: Sometimes I really think I live in a Stephen King bubble-town: 12 weeks at number one, and I've never heard ...
- bll: Nice roundup today, Trisha singing and Jen Chapin too!
- Paul W Dennis: I guess my favorite would be George Hamilton IV's version of "Forever Young" and The Byrd's cover of Mr. Tambourine ...
- Jack Williams: Speaking of Chris Smither, he did a nice version of Visions of Johanna. Other favorites: Neville Brothers - The Ballad of Hollis ...
- Leeann Ward: I think benefit concerts and telethons are great and needed, but I'm also impressed by Underwood's generous donation.
