a little dixieland delight at the right time of the night
(or: may 8’s honey from the hive)
posted at 5:31 am by brandon in sweet you rock and sweet you roll
Brad Paisley featuring Alabama — “Old Alabama”
(from This is Country Music
Regular readers of this blog know that, as much as is humanly possible, I try like hell to keep this website a Paisley-free zone, because nothing makes my teeth itch quite like his ponderous preening (not to mention the aw-shucks arrogant attitude with which he tries to sell same). But like pretty much everybody who came up in my generation with even a passing interest in the comings and goings at country radio, I grew up on a steady diet of the iconic hits of Alabama — a fair number of which this innocuously randy li’l ditty name-checks, and one of which (the classic “Mountain Music”) it samples outright — and this cute confection brings me right back to my childhood. The empirical evidence surrounding his new album (due at the end of this month) suggests that Paisley is out to do exactly that for his millions of fans, but compared to his awful last single — the album’s pompous, pandering title track, which trumped up every last ridiculous sweeping cliche about country music and its supposed base components — which was disastrously sappy and overblown, “Alabama” comes off as an organic minor masterpiece. So I dig this; sue me. (Plus, Paisley just announced that he is donating the proceeds from all digital sales of this single to the American Red Cross to aid the victims of the vicious tornadoes that ripped through the state of Alabama a couple of weeks ago, which adds an oddly appropriate layer of poignancy to this whole endeavor. You shouldn’t infer from this that I’ve changed my mind and decided to start liking Brad, but even a blind pig stumbles across an acorn a time or two. so there you have it.)
