Word: tonk
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sound that can by turns be as lush and languid as a full string section or as bright and bouncy as a banjo, that can be applied to the most complex jazz progressions as well as the rawest foot-stomping moonshine music. It's deeply sophisticated and wholly honky-tonk at the same time, and it's the ultimate American instrument...
...Dwight Yoakam reaffirms his status as a country outsider in his latest album Tomorrow's Sounds Today. Comprising diverse elements founded on honky-tonk tradition and on Yoakam's musical instinct, Tomorrow's Sounds Today is upbeat and bristling with the warm and honey-sweet vocals of the singer-songwriter. However, although Tomorrow's Sounds Today reflects Yoakam's emotionally charged This Time to a certain degree, it lacks the exuberance and gleeful rockability that launched that 1993 Grammy-winning album...
...Honky Tonk Downstairs" (Track 22, "Don't Stop the Music" Ace Records, 1987) Play a selection of the song here...
...shame she wears the name Of a man that's locked and chained To a bottle that's destroyed all hopes and cares To the men with hungry eyes She works and hides her pride She's a barmaid in the honky tonk downstairs...
...said, no matter - Jones' plaintive vocals (and the song's telling melody) get the message across. In his never-equaled way, he drifts across the languid honky-tonk beat; almost talking at points, he never fails to surprise with a speeded-up phrase or a well-placed drawn-out note. At the same time, he never makes mush of the lyrics; one of his great assets is that the listener understands every word. Moving to the new label seems to have reinvigorated Jones, who is at his vocal peak on this and the several albums that followed over the next...