Joy Lynn White Crossing Over
The alternative-to-mainstream country crossover movement may be picking up momentum:
A week after Jack Ingram’s “Flutter” hit Billboard’s country charts, Joy Lynn White’s album, “The Lucky Few,” spent its second week atop the Gavin Report’s alternative-oriented Americana charts.
White’s manager, John Dotson, says the next move for her will be to go for the mainstream with the next single. And representatives for Little Dog Records say that single will be “Why Do I Love You,” a Jim Lauderdale song that White makes unforgettable.
White had two unsuccessful mainstream Nashville albums before doing “The Lucky Few” with Dwight Yoakam producer Pete Anderson. She is currently performing in Nashville (including a gig for Vice President Al Gore) and northern Georgia while preparing for a two-week European tour of Switzerland and Germany in September.
Allen Butler, boss of the Nashville office of Sony Music, says the latest research he has commissioned shows that country fans in general, and men in particular, are turned off by most of the country mainstream. They say it is too slick and “too gooey,” Butler says.
Even before he received that research, Butler had launched an alternative-oriented label, titled Lucky Dog, to operate alongside Columbia and Epic imprints.
Butler says that although Lucky Dog’s first two albums are by the veteran swing band Asleep At the Wheel and the rebellious singer-songwriter David Allan Coe, both of whom are country but not mainstream, he expects its initial signees to include four young alternative-country bands.
An enlarged profile for another alternative country act seems certain. Wayne “The Train” Hancock, a hard-core Hank Williams zealot, is scheduled to release his second album for Ark 21 Records this month. Ark 21 belongs to Hancock’s new manager, Miles Copeland, who represents The Smashing Pumpkins, The Wallflowers and Bob Dylan.
Hancock’s first album, “Thunderstorms And Neon Signs” on little DejaDisc Records in Texas, sold 22,000 copies. The Ark 21 offering is titled “That’s What Daddy Wants,” and the guess here is that “The Train” is leaving the station.
Speaking of alternative
Alison Krauss, the 1995 Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year who is nevertheless much more alternative than mainstream, did her brand-new “Looking In the Eyes of Love” video with director Jean Pellerin, who normally works with pop acts like Def Leppard - a Krauss fave.
Buffalo Club convince bosses
How did a song by BlackHawk lead singer Henry Paul get on The Buffalo Club’s debut CD?
“It was something they (BlackHawk) actually demoed to cut (themselves), I think, and I guess they got the demo done a little late,” reports The Buffalo Club’s lead singer, Ron Hemby. “So Henry decided to go ahead and pitch the song. We fought to have the song on the record.”
“They (Rising Tide Records executives) all mentioned something else, and we went, ‘What?”’ recalls drummer John Dittrich. “They said, ‘It’s gonna sound too much like BlackHawk.”’
The Clubbers convinced the bosses that with them singing it, instead of BlackHawk, it would sound like The Buffalo Club.