(Album ©2001, Lost Highway Records)
The next album on my musical journey is Ryan Adams’ 
2001 masterpiece, Gold. It came out just two weeks after 9/11, accompanied by the video for the first single, “New York, New York.” The video, as it notes at the start, was filmed on September 7, 2001, and large parts of the video are Adams playing an acoustic guitar outside, under the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side, with the Twin Towers squarely behind him. Seeing the video was unnerving, and I’m sure that caused the video to not be played as often as it otherwise would have been during what was such a sensitive time in our country. But that’s how I was introduced to not only the song, but to Adams as an artist.
I was living in the northern suburbs of New York City, having just attended my business school graduation dinner at Windows on the World atop Tower 1 of the World Trade Center in June of ’01, shellshocked along with the rest of the country by the previously unthinkable level of destruction brought from oversees to American soil. My daughter Alison was 1 week short of her first birthday when that attack happened, and when I heard this song, and saw that video, the vulnerability I was feeling was replaced by this needed reminder of just how much I loved my birthplace – New York City. Needless to say, I had to get the CD.
I was astounded to find out that Ryan Adams was a songwriting genius, and could write in all different styles. Gold is filled with pop and country and folk and rock songs, with tinges of many other genres mixed in. Songs like “When the Stars Go Blue,” “La Ceinega Just Smiled,” “The Rescue Blues,” “Enemy Fire” – they were all great, and i got lost in this record for weeks. Eventually, I moved on to other things, and then the following year, The Corrs released a beautiful version of “When the Stars Go Blue” with Bono guesting on vocals, and that song was everywhere for a while. This record was so influential to me, however, because it served as my gateway drug to country music.
As I delved further into just who Ryan Adams was, I found out he had gotten his start in an alt- country band called Whiskeytown. Like Son Volt before them, I had an interest in alt-country in a way I had never enjoyed actual country music (aside form the occasional Eddie Rabbitt or Glen Campbell single in the ’70’s, and a lone Garth Brooks song in the ’90’s). I dove into Whiskeytown and found that I liked that too. Thus began my slow adjustment to country music.
Adams put out music at a ridiculous pace, which was good as a new fan, but also frustrating, as it seemed that he wasn’t that concerned about putting out only the highest quality songs, so the output was mixed at best. In 2004, he began putting out records with a new band, The Cardinals, and that music was more Country than his previous few albums had been, and I found myself enjoying those. Then, on a trip to Key West in the late ’00’s, Jen and I went to a Mexican restaurant that was inside a roadhouse, where some guys got up and played a set of Country cover tunes, most of which I found myself really liking. Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown,” Travis Tritt’s “Whiskey Ain’t Working,” and numerous Johnny Cash songs later, I knew I could no longer hate Country music. I found the Old ’97’s and Drive-By Truckers, and re-discovered Steve Earle. I loved the single “Hell On Heels” by a one-off group Pistol Annies (a Miranda Lambert project), and some Toby Keith songs weren’t too overly-patriotic, like “Bullets in the Gun”.
The transition was taken as far as I could go when I was introduced to The Zac Brown Band, courtesy of our friends Rod & Christine. We went to see them live and we loved it. Jen and I and my girls are all ZBB fans without apology. But Zac Brown is much more than a just a Country artist. While I’ve never be able to fully commit to modern country (Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton), or old-timey Country (Hank Williams), Johnny Cash has a ton of great songs and “Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a classic rock crossover staple. And I love Southern Rock, from Skynyrd and the Allmans to The Georgia Satellites to Blackberry Smoke and Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson.
In fact, it’s pretty true that today, the best guitar-based rock-n-roll can be found in Country. Keith Urban and Brad Paisley are two of the hottest guitarists out there. As Tom Petty once said, modern Country is now just “bad rock with a fiddle.” But I’ve learned to appreciate some Country music, and that is largely thanks to Ryan Adams and Gold, still one of the best albums from start to finish I’ve ever heard.
