From BILLBOARD MAGAZINE 1/20/15....... MARTINA, GLADYS AND ELASTIC COUNTRYThe definition of country music is revisited by every generation, with the ad- vent of rap-inflected bro-country booting the discussion into the modern age. Intentionally or not, the inaugural installment of the Skyville Live online concert series on Jan. 14 put the debate in perspective by knitting Martina McBride together with modern R&B vocalist Estelle and classic-soul singerGladys Knight.Knight cited her Atlanta roots and proudly proclaimed, “I’m country,” toMartina McBride joined Gladys Knight and Estelle on “Midnight Train To Georgia” in Nashville during the Jan. 14 premiere of an online con- cert series, Skyville Live. From left are co-executive producer Tisha Fein, McBride, Knight, Estelle and co-executive producers Wally Wil- son and Dan Bean.the Nashville studio audience. That’s an oversimplification, though Knight and McBride did underscore the adaptability of country.McBride dipped her toe into soul classics with her latest album, Everlast- ing, and the lone title she performed from her country lexicon during Skyville Live, “A Broken Wing,” showed just how well some country material can be recontextualized with Kenny Greenberg emphasizing the song’s Memphis blues elements on acoustic guitar.Meanwhile, Knight pulled out several signature songs that appealed as much to country audiences as to pop listeners. “Best Thing That Ever Hap- pened to Me” and “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” are most familiar through her work with The Pips, though both were simul- taneous country hits — Ray Price earned a No. 1 single with the former; Bob Luman reached No. 7 with the latter.Jim Weatherly, in attendance at Skyville, wrote both those songs, as well as “Midnight Train to Georgia,” which found Knight, McBride and Estelle performing en masse. Its storyline, in which a disheartened dreamer returns to his roots with the woman he met in the big city, is certainly a country plot, and “Midnight Train” ranked among country’s 500 greatest singles in the Country Music Foundation book Heartaches by the Number. So did “Son-of-a Preacher Man,” the song that ended the Skyville night.The show — executive-produced by Wally Wilson, Tisha Fein and Dan Bean — transformed a small rehearsal studio into a shiny stage, and the easy power of all three singers zoomed right through the hi-def cameras. Tweets from the world at large — “Martina + Gladys. I might pass out” — showed the match had an audience.The Skyville series isn’t intended to be country-centric, but given its Music City location, the first episode was an appropriate start for a concert series that holds a lot of promise for onl
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:52:29 +0000
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