This album doesn’t have 12 songs, but legend has it that the “12” refers to the session musicians recruited from Nashville to provide the excellent music.
However Ween being Ween, this album is likely to be very offensive, lyrically-speaking, to a lot of folks’ sensibilities in 2023 — just a heads up for folks not listening on headphones!
The Highwaymen — the ultimate country supergroup: Johnny, Willie, Waylon, and Kris. Highly recommend their live album, American Outlaws .
John R. Miller — his newest album, Heat Comes Down, is maybe a little less straight-up country, but it is excellent songwriting.
Colter Wall — Western Swing & Waltzes; Little Songs
Wilco - in the early years, they had some more “traditional” country sounds A.M.
As others have said, you can’t go wrong with John Prine or Townes van Zandt.
Bonus NRPS, Gram Parsons, and Merle Haggard
I grew up in a musical family and church environment where I had access to instruments and audio consoles and such.
Later, I was in a shitty high school rock and roll band, and did a little bit of guerilla home recording. I also organized some live events that were basically house shows.
In college (for an unrelated field), I worked the console for an easy, weekly show for a semester or two. After graduate school (in the same, unrelated field), I had some time to kill while figuring out my next move. My old neighbor was the audio engineer at a local venue, and after some work convincing that person, I was taken on as the intern. A short time later, I started working gigs around town and moving up the chain at the venue where I started.
So, I learned production the old-school way, like an apprentice. I had the benefit of picking up a weekly, low-stakes gig early on where I gained a lot of experience and got to make mistakes. I also had the benefit of a formal education that really helped out with the communication and organizational aspects.
Basically, through several twists of fate, I’m now a full-time, professional audio engineer/production manager. I’m now dipping my toes into the studio side, and doing some post-production work at home using the knowledge I’ve gained in the live sound world and, critically, with the help of friends and colleagues I’ve had the good fortune of meeting along the way.
TLDR: Sheer, dumb luck. Study hard and be kind to people. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and DIY.
A few years before Last Dance, but Runnin’ Down a Dream is the first rock song—and maybe the first song of any genre—that I can remember. Dancing on the bed while playing air guitar to Tom Petty is baked into my core childhood memories!
Feeling old indeed lmao
Ignoring the element of satire, I think that by today’s standards, Japanese Cowboy would be considered by most audiences to be racist, Piss Up a Rope to be sexist, and Mr. Richard Smoker to be homophobic.
From my experiences growing up in the rural south, I interpreted Mr. Richard Smoker as riffing on the obviously wrong-headed fear about gay men being “drug addled, cross-dressing dick smokers who want to ‘convert’ my teenage boy”.
Not to say that 12 Golden Country Greats isn’t an excellent album with an all-star ensemble of players and clever satirical takes on country music, just that it’s not something I’d recommend to people without a heads up lmao