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[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

Here is a live writing through, of a 2 hour Reba McEntire special, called CMT Legends, the text is behind the cut...

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when whoever is in new england is thru w. you--martina mcbride
rebas first big hit, and its so passive, no agression at all, no anger, just a weak, deseparion--whenever you quit fucking that broad, come back ome, and i will make everything okay. the only thing that redeems it, i think is the hope and strength of will, the confidence that Reba is a better catch then anyone else, and also the regionalism, the tension b/w oklahama and the east. i dont think that mcbrides version of this has either that regionalism, or the will. the song always reminds me of Jolene, too--but Dolly can get angry, and Jolene while similar in theme, lacks the anger

why havent i heard from you--kelly clarkson

clarkson moving from AA to country, and she does it so well. a honky tonk number, and i love the step down vocals that she does to get to the chorus, that and the refrain of why havent i heard from you, vamps just this side of torch...she also seems to have dropped the oversinging required by american idol

vince gill talks about her as a farm girl, i keep forgetting that she branded cattle, and barrell raced, and all of that work...and that she has been here for 34 years, i mean the sitcom is shit, and her songs have become more and more formualic, but for example, why isnt she in the hall of fame?

speaking of the sitcom, genuinely awkard...just liters of goop, really a roast would have been better, and they are qauting websters, this must have taken 20 minutes (is there anything salicious about her, any rumours--i mean i know about the plain crashes...)

the greatest man i never knew--leann rimes
i cant accurately judge daddy songs it makes me melt uncritically when country singers talk about the taciturn man who softens...Rimes does a workable version of this

trisha yearwood natters on, a bit, but i like the reclaiming of girl singers, and the acknowledgement that record company often screwed over women--i wonder if her moving into acting, producing, etc is about not being able to negioate a career in music

loretta lynn asks reba macentire to "go and get on a drunk", yearwood offers top drive

the night the lights went out in georgia--jennifer nettles
i dont know who she is, but this is my favourite performance so far, dar, dramatic, with a fierce, richness--and she roars it up so its barely in control, geniunely angry, there are a couple of reba songs, the fancy cover, this song, that talk about the south, small towns--the line dont trust a soul to a backwood southern man, because the judge has got blood on his hands, is an angry corrective to the mayberry kitsch that wanders in

she talks about how her mother told her it took twice as much effort then men...

is there life out there--wynonna
cause i grew up in a house where all women worked, in various versions, i dont consdier this as much as i should, my mother is moved deeply by it, and she considers it to be a femminist touch stone, wynonna has lost the deep blues power, the controlled shouting of her other work

keith urban talks of reba as being part of a "pratical compassion", plugs wal mart, i didnt realise that she was responsible for mammograms in rural communities though...

faith hill, im not exactly sure what she is singing, but she sure knows how to wring every drop of melodrama out of it (she makes the word lie, last literally, 18 syllables)

reba tells daddys land deer hunting stories!!

dolly makes fun of reba shilling for dillards, then breaks out the blue grass, making how blue sound so tennous and lovely, etheral and almost fleeting, less angry then it should have been, i think that dollys move to this kind of singing is a really clever way of working past a tired voice, and then she says it wasnt that good--it was excellent, and i think the umilty is geniune

reba and dolly then sing the last verse together

Miss Baraba Mandrell
it is my goal in life to be refered to as Miss Anthony Easton. They talk about the colour aqua, and uses the line "those personal places that we share as women" and then miss mandrell talks about jesus, and is the first person to actually mention the plane crash, and she is crying, and its moving, oddly enough, and all of that is in order to introduce tricia yearwood

trisha sings, and shes excellent, and i think shes feeling it, but its almost too perfect, and the piano/strings/melissima is so cinematic

we can safely ignore andy mcdowell, right

it gets really weird, megan mullaly does annie oakley, making the queerest song in the show even queerer (and well reba made it unqueer) (ie you cant get a man with a gun)

and god do i hate dakota fanning

and then george the first (one of the most fascinating aspects of the redstate and bluestate books was how geniune george ones love for coutnry was, and how it struck me as the one thing that he and his son had in common, but his son was capable of using the music as a way of connecting to an audience (and they travelled to greece together, thats just bizarre, can you imagine reba and barabara bush together?)

and alec baldwin, they are just dragging shit out of thin air in the last 20 minutes, though the victory, hunting dog story is really funny (they were in south pacific together on broadway, that i needed to see)

she has sold 50m albums (are we sure that she isnt in the hall of fame?)

james denton mentions the infamous red dress at the cma awards...

i really love the sogn does he love you, but i am not really sure that martina macbride has the power to complete it...and i dont think clarksons work on the song matches the original in sheer bitchery

adn then it continuies to meander, reba has the last word, and i think shes going to sing fancy, i hope shes going to sing fancy (she does end up saying that she hasnt finished singing, i hope thats the case)

and she ends it with fancy, and the thing about fancy, is that its about 90 per cent studio, one of those songs that are difficult to reproduce live, but the intensity comes through, as how she works louder, harder, towards the chorus, each detail piling up and the best thing is that before singing it, she changes from demure blue to harlots red...not nearly as good as other copies, and its been honed by decades of perfomances, but still--what else could she end with but fancy...) (best thing about fancy, the three back up singers, working the greek chorus vibe)