little big town

Right back in ye olde podcasting days, I listened to just three shows – RuPaul and Michelle Visage's What's the Tee?, the BBC's Desert Island Discs, and the interview series LGBTQ&A, presented by Jeffrey Masters.

A GLAAD Award-winning broadcaster, Jeffrey's compassionate and curious nature shines through in his conversations with a ludicrously long list of queer legends, but it's his turn to take the interviewee seat for Tracks of Our Queers. 

We discuss music by Little Big Town, Nancy Wilson, and the Indigo Girls.

You can follow LGBTQ&A wherever you listen to podcasts, or find Jeffrey on Instagram here.
 
Listen to all previous guest choices in one handy Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers and follow the pod on Instagram.

Help keep Tracks of Our Queers ad-free by shouting me a coffee right here. Thank you for your support.

All the way from Boston, Lori McKenna is one of Nashville’s most in demand songwriters. From Girl Crush to Humble & Kind to Always Remember Us This Way, Lori has written some of country’s biggest hits. Not only do we talk about her guitars and songwriting process, but we get into how she wrote the hits, why she loves living in Boston and what you need if you want to invite her to your show. Lori McKenna is magical and it’s contagious. This episode will make you wish you were a hit songwriter.

In Episode 3, I dive into the sexist double standards and underrepresentation for women artists in country music. Radio consultant Heather Leigh joins me again as we discuss the "Tomato-Gate" scandal of country music, political music in the genre and Country queens like Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, Reba, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves. 

Luke Laird is one of Nashville’s most successful songwriters. He has written two dozen #1 country hits, earning him six separate CMA Trip Play awards, each of which recognizes the achievement of penning three #1 country songs within a 12 month period. The two-time Grammy winner has been named both ACM and BMI Country Songwriter of the Year. Highlights of his catalog include Kasey Musgraves’ “Space Cowboy” which earned him a Grammy for Country Song of the Year, Rodney Atkins’ “Take a Back Road” which was named BMI Country Song of the Year, Little Big Town’s “Pontoon” which earned an ACM nomination for Song of the Year, and Tim McGraw’s “Diamond Rings and Old Barstools,” which was nominated for a Country Song of the Year Grammy. Two of his most revered songs are Kenny Chesney’s “American Kids” and Eric Church’s “Give Me Back My Hometown,” which were both nominated for CMA Song of the Year, ACM Song of the Year, and the Grammy for Country Song of the Year. 

Laird built his reputation as a country chart topper with the Carrie Underwood hits “So Small,” “Last Name,” “Temporary Home,” “Undo It,” and “Mama’s Song” before going on to write chart toppers such as “A Little Bit Stronger” for Sara Evans, “Drink in My Hand” and “Talladega” with Eric Church, “One of Those Nights” for Tim McGraw, “Downtown” for Lady Antebellum, “I See You” and “Fast” for Luke Bryan, “Gonna” for Blake Shelton, “Head Over Boots” for Jon Pardi, and “T-Shirt” for Thomas Rhett. He’s written other massive hits for Miranda Lambert, Chris Young, Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean, Darius Rucker, and Frankie Ballard, and has had his songs recorded by George Strait, Zac Brown Band, Dierks Bentley, Maren Morris, Midland, Rascal Flatts, Lindsay Ell, Ashley Monroe, Toby Keith, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, Florida Georgia Line, Jessica Simpson, and Cassandra Wilson featuring John Legend. In addition to his success as a songwriter, Laird has produced Thomas Rhett, Brett Eldredge, Jake Owen, Sam Hunt, Ingrid Michaelson, and Kasey Musgraves, earning Grammy recognition for his work producing her albums Same Trailer Different Park and Pageant Material. He recently released his first album as an artist, the deeply personal Music Row. 

 

Who runs the world? Girls! In the latest Like This Pod Mini, Jacqueline and Meghan discuss their favorite female lead bands.

Bands Mentioned:

• Blondie
• Rilo Kiley/Postal Service
• Lady Antebellum
• The Paper Kites
• Gladys Knight and the Pips
• The Pretenders
• Katrina and the Waves
• Alabama Shakes
• Superchick
• No Doubt
• Nightwish
• Unleash the Archers
• In This Moment
• Tegan and Sara
• She and Him
• Of Monsters and Men
• Flyleaf
• Stars
• Halestorm
• Sixpence None The Richer
• The Band Perry
• Letters to Cleo
• Florence and the Machine
• Garbage
• Sugarland
• Mazzy Star
• The Carpenters
• Siouxsie and the Banshees
• The Gos-Go’s
• The Bangles
• 4 Non Blondes
• Berlin
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
• The Hush Sound
• En Vouge
• The Kills
• First Aid Kit
• Eurythmics
• The B-52’s
• The Cardigans
• Roxette
• The Ting Tings
• The Veronicas
• The Cranberries
• The Ronettes
• Heart
• Jefferson Airplane
• Fleetwood Mac
• The Mama’s and the Papa’s
• Abba
• The Scissor Sisters
• The Dixie Chicks
• Pistol Annies
• Little Big Town
• Paramore
• Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
• Evanescence
• The Weepies

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She's about to have her first #1 song with her hit single, More Hearts Than Mine.

Her new album, Lady Like, is full of great songs.

The Fuzzy Mic host, Kevin Kline, spoke with her for 5 minutes during an interview for The Q Morning Zoo on The New 93Q, but she was so cool, 5 minutes just wasn't enough.

So, here is a 30 minute chat with Ingrid Andress.

In this episode, you'll find out the one song Ingrid wishes she would have written, her favorite place she's ever visited and you'll learn her "perfect hang" and how she plans to enjoy that with The Fuzzy Mic during her Houston stop on the Tim McGraw tour, should COVID-19 allow summer concerts.

This is the very cool, Ingrid Andress.

Growing up in Dallas, John Thomasson found the bass guitar the same way many did - a friend started a band and no one else played bass. He attended the Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and then the University of North Texas, where he studied music. After that, he was part of a band called Little Sister (later changed to Sister 7) and had some minor radio hits in the 90s. After moving to Austin, John started playing with one of his heroes - Davíd Garza, playing on his first major label record called This Euphoria.
In 2000, John got married, quit playing music for the most part and went back to school to get a degree in Psychology and focused on musical cognition. After working some tech jobs at Apple and Hewlett Packard, he wanted to play a little bit more while preparing for grad school. He started recording and touring with Matt Nathanson in 2004, and one of Matt's songs that John played on was "Come on Get Higher", a double-platinum single. Working with Matt also gave him the chance to play on the original Conan O’Brien show and Late Night With David Letterman.
After the birth of his first son, John and his growing family moved to Nashville in the fall of 2009. There, he learned about the family-friendly way that Nashville acts toured and that sealed the deal for him. He landed the gig with Little Big Town in April of 2010 and has toured with them ever since. During that time, he also recorded with LBT on numerous successful records, including: Tornado (platinum album) which featured hit singles "Pontoon" and "Tornado", Pain Killer (Platinum album) which including the triple-platinum single "Girl Crush" and gold single "Day Drinking", The Breaker, Wanderlust (produced by Pharrell Williams), and most recently, Nightfall (Self Produced).

Spotify playlist of some of John's work:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0s9wubeza5T6XMKuZNyeED?si=vj4C1X7fTiWhrsQnU7E-Mw

John Thomasson on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/johnthom/

Little Big Town website:
http://www.littlebigtown.com/

There have been three albums released already in 2020 by Dustin Lynch, Little Big Town and Tenille Arts that are superb examples of the good, the bad and the ugly of the sequencing of albums in Country music.
How to put together an album so that it flows and takes the listener on an aural and emotional journey is such a skill and yet Country music often gets the running order and sequencing of albums wrong. In this week's episode James takes a look at what albums he feels have been well put together and what albums haven't. He also speculates on the reasons behind why Country music doesn't seem to be able to often get the sequencing of albums right.