15. Wayward and Weary – Tift Merritt. This is one I keep coming back to. It’s already one of my Top 25 most played tracks in iTunes. It’s a 2008 single and is by now quite an obscure one in Tift Merritt’s back catalogue. I can picture her on the stage at a small venue in Buckingham, rocking back and forth at the grand piano and pumping on the foot pedal. The video I’ve posted before, of Ms Merritt playing the song alone in a studio, misses out on the heartbeat of the song, and the lead guitar playing in the spaces left by the vocal. So the video below is just the audio (4 views on YouTube!), but is the track as released.
Those gigs in Buckingham were special. The venue was a converted church, and the acoustics were so good that she came back several times and even recorded a live album there. We took the kids. They were very young, but it was such a great experience for them to see some proper live music. We sat on the balcony and looked down, and I remember the youngest peering through the balusters. Tift Merritt is tiny. Her voice is huge. She strums her guitar so aggressively that she wore a hole in it.
Another time, we tried to see her in Oxford – with an actual band. This was it! I was finally going to see her with a backing band. But, turns out, it was an age-restricted venue because you had to go through a bar to get to it. Or something. When I went back to the same venue a couple of years later, they’d moved the entrance so you didn’t have to go in via the pub. Fucksake. We stood outside in the early evening, debating what to do. Four tickets, wasted. For a moment, I was all for abandoning the kids in a coffee shop. But I wouldn’t really have done that, would I?
14. That’s Where It’s At – Sam Cooke. Another one from my most-played Top 25. This 1964 single only managed the upper reaches of the Hot 100, but it has grown in stature with the years, I think. I relate this in my mind to that final chorus on the Allison Moorer song (at number 22 on this list). It’s the way the vocal and backing vocal are slightly out of synch. I guess you’d call it swing. My daughter’s great insight about Sam Cooke is that he is all the evidence you need to understand that songs aren’t poems. Cooke’s smooth, mellifluous voice can do wonders with the most unpromising material. Listen to him sing “It’s All Right” or “We’re Having a Party” and you understand that the most pedestrian lyrics become poetry when performed by a master vocalist. My personal favourite is this: the almost conversational hesitations, stumbles, improvisations, snatching at the words at times, weaving in and out of the simplistic backing vocals and droning horns. The only problem with this is that it’s only 150 seconds long, which isn’t a problem at all.
Sixty-five people have “thumbs-downed” this record on YouTube. What the living fuck is wrong with people? I mean, just the existence of a thumbs down on YouTube is one of the worst things in the world, but then you give people that option and they click it. What? Who? Racists? Cretinous know-nothing racists who apparently like to suck joy out of the world. I don’t care if it’s not to your taste, whatever. But don’t click the fucking button. These are the kind of people who would keep administering an electric shock to an obviously suffering person on the other side of the glass in one of those psychological experiments. People without a shred of empathy.
13. Left My Woman – The Wild Feathers. Another one from the recently-discovered vocal harmony country rock group. I like the audience sing-a-long in this 2014 track. What’s not to like about a band who swaps between vocalists, you know, like The Band on The Weight? 21 people have disliked this video on YouTube.
12. Sad City – Trick Pony featuring Darius Rucker. It really is a little bit sad when you buy a record and then over the months and years distil your listening down to just one track. For whatever reason I didn’t ever warm to Trick Pony, although I remember radio’s Eddie Mair once saying how much he liked them. This song, however, this I love. It’s from their 2005 album R.I.D.E. and features a guest vocal from none other than Darius Rucker, the solo artist who used to be the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish. In fact, he recorded this vocal three years before releasing his own debut country album, so I guess it’s a significant moment in his career. Nobody has disliked this one yet.
I miss Eddie Mair. Walked away from the BBC, another talent whose goodwill was burned through by dumb management decisions. I hope he still likes Trick Pony and still occasionally listens to this one.
11. On To Something Good – Ashley Monroe. Another one from Ms Monroe’s 2015 second album. This is a more uptempo number, the poppy debut single from The Blade. I love that country music is such a broad church. This is really just a very good pop record, but there’s no mistaking where her voice comes from, and that slide guitar is unmistakably country.
And so, we approach the top 10.
McMinn & Cheese 