Kacey Musgraves, 2/19/19 at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle

So what if Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson had a baby girl? Maybe she would be somebody like Kacey Musgraves, a singer-songwriter with model looks and clothes to match. This goes along with a strong sense of tolerance and minding one's own business, not to mention that she loves to smoke pot.

So ho​e your own row, yeah, and raise your own babies

Smoke your own smoke and grow your own daisies

Mend your own fences and own your own crazy

Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy

Yeah mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy

From the song, Biscuits

Kacey speaks to people with an inner voice that they can identify with; someone willing to break with tradition while holding many values of tradition at the same time. Some may see her music as "schmaltzy" but I think she's got a Dolly and Willie-like intelligence to deal with the Nashville establishment on her terms. She may call herself, "Spacey Kacey" but there's a lot going on inside her head with the dichotomy of what you perceive is not what you are going to get. 

There's certain things you're s'posed to know

When you're a girl who grows up in the south

I try to use my common sense

But my foot always ends up in my mouth

And if I had to walk a runway in high heels in front of the whole town

I'd fall down

And my mama cried

When she realized

I ain't pageant material

I'm always higher than my hair

And it ain't that I don't care about world peace

But I don't see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage

I ain't exactly Ms. Congenial

Sometimes I talk before I think, I try to fake it but I can't

I'd rather lose for what I am than win for what I ain't

From the song, Pageant Material

Then there's Kacey creating a synth "Space Country" sound in her 2018 album, Golden Hour. A departure from her previous two albums, Same Trailer Different Park, and Pageant Material. Here you have a woman whose head over heels in love with her new husband, Ruston Kelly and she's writing about it with a world view of wonderfulness. When I first heard it last year, I said to myself, "Oh, this is going mainstream and could be big, yes very big!"

Two weeks ago, on February 10th, Golden Hour won Kacey four Grammy's including Best Country Album, and the granddaddy music industry prize, Album of the Year.

Oh, what a world, 

I don't wanna leave

There's all kinds of magic, 

it's hard to believe

Northern lights in our skies

Plants that grow and open your mind

Things that swim with a neon glow

How we all got here, nobody knows

from the song, Oh What a World

Last week I got to see Kacey Musgraves in Seattle in what turned out to be the hottest ticket in town as she came into the Paramount with that fresh Grammy win to a wildly excited sold out crowd. The audience was quickly on its feet for the whole show with all the ladies enthusiastically singing along, knowing every word of every song.

A man in the center front row, got down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend during Oh What a Wonderful World, Kacie looked down paused at that moment and said, "He's proposing!"

At another point in the concert, Kacey put the microphone down to her side and let the audience sing two verses of one her songs as that must be such a rush to be in Freddy Mercury territory! I see arena bookings in some cities just around the corner.

All that I know

Is you caught me at the right time

Keep me in your glow

'Cause I'm having such a good time

With you

from the song, Golden Hour

I hope you enjoy the wit and charm of Kacey Musgraves from my Playlist this week from her four studio albums. I believe she is one of the key people currently saving Country Music from itself.

For Real, Tom Petty

For Real - The previously unreleased track, taken from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers career retrospective ‘The Best of Everything’. Pre-Order Now for the March 1st release.

Linda Ronstadt Live in Hollywood

Linda Ronstadt is a legend. I don't really know anybody older or younger who doesn't like Linda Ronstadt. Like many males of my generation, we not only loved her beautiful voice but carried a huge crush to match.

In 1980, she was at the top of her game, a bona fide rock 'n' roll star with a succession of platinum selling albums. In April of that year, she performed a live concert at Television Center Studios in Hollywood for an upcoming HBO Special.

Through a friend, I was able to get a bootleg cassette tape of the entire concert and played that thing to death in my new 1980 blue Toyota truck cassette player.

The concert has now just been released, Feb. 1st as a live album (view sources here) and I have delighted in revisiting these tracks with Linda and her wonderful band including, Wendy Waldman, Kenny Edwards, Danny Kortchmar, Dan Dugmore, Billy Payne, Bob Glob, and Russ Kunkel. If you ever read album jacket covers in the 70's and 80's, these guys were on everybody's records.

Nobody could belt it out like Linda, and it's extremely emotional for me to see one of my teenage idols stopped in 2009 from singing and doing the thing she loved the most due to her Parkinson's diagnosis. Now at 72, you can catch up with her in her recent February 7th interview in Rolling Stone and on the TV show, Sunday Morning  from February 3rd.

Here is my playlist starting with the Sunday Morning interview with Linda. Then, a mix of good and poorer quality video of the concert along with the better audio tracks from the album, as sometimes the 80's tape hiss is a bit much, but I love to watch Linda perform! Enjoy my friends.

Gary Clark Jr. - This Land (preview)

Here's a little sneak preview with a couple of songs from Gary Clark Jr.'s new album to be released on February 22nd, This Land. Gary just gets bigger and bigger with every album and I can't wait for the full release. I'll add songs to the playlist once they become available. Enjoy my friends!