Today, virtually all of the music that spills out of the Nashville mainstream is country-pop, "pop" defined in the current instance as stadium rock. When country-pop (sometimes called "countrypolitan") first emerged in the latter 1950s, the "pop" part meant something else: pre-rock 'n' roll popular music, specifically the sort associated with saloon (as opposed to honkytonk) singers. Dean Martin, who in due course cut some country-pop hits of his own, was a particular influence.

Jim Ed Brown, who grew up in rural Arkansas, played a significant role in the creation of the smooth country-pop sound. From the early days touring and recording with his sisters Maxine and Bonnie as the Browns (their "The Three Bells," translated from a French pop song, was a crossover smash in 1959) through performances on his own or with Helen Cornelius, he charted hits for a quarter century. That's a pretty remarkable feat for anyone in either country or pop. These days, he hosts the nationally syndicated Country Music Greats Radio Show. In Style Again is his first solo album in three decades.

It is, no surprise, not an attempt at radical reinvention. He plays to his strengths, which begin with an easy baritone, perhaps not quite so smooth as it once was but still perfectly serviceable, and an approach that over 13 tracks varies from country to pop to split difference. Two or three of the pure pop songs strike my ears -- yours may differ -- as bland and unmemorable, but others, such as the wry, jazz-inflected "Older Guy" (written by producer Don Cusic), let us know that Brown still has it.

He reunites with his sisters on the lovely opener, Harry Pease and Larry Vincent's "When the Sun Says Hello to the Mountain," with echoes of the parlor ballads of long ago. It seems perfectly suited to Mac Wiseman. This cut also highlights Daryl Hornburger's lyrical steel guitar, which appears sporadically, and always happily, throughout the album. Vince Gill joins Brown on the melodic love song "Tried and True" (Cusic), and the Whites, who do this sort of thing as well as anybody, supply harmonies on "You Again" (Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz). Helen Cornelius brings her impressive vocal powers to a duet on the hard-country "Don't Let Me Cross Over," the classic cheatin' song associated with Carl & Pearl Butler.

The show closes with "Am I Still Country?," another Cusic composition, which pokes fun at country singers' way of hyping their rural roots, real or imagined, ad nauseam. The singer, presumably giving voice to Brown's sentiments, confesses that he likes jazz, reads books and doesn't hunt or hang out in bars. Besides being an artist it is hard to dislike, Brown is shrewd enough to know exactly who he is: a grown-up without pretenses or insecurities. It's a pleasure to have him back doing what he does so assuredly.

by Jerome Clark
Rambles.NET
28 February 2015

Back when country music was characterized by honky-tonk music and cheatin' songs -- you know, back in the days when the music was real and good -- the industry began worrying about its image and its sales, so they did what they always do in one of these moments of panic; they killed what was soulful and genuine about the music and, led by Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley, developed what was known as the Nashville sound. In it, violins replaced fiddles, honky-tonk vocalists gave way to crooners, and lavish background singers, such as the Anita Kerr Quartet, came into the picture. Pop-style production made sure that all the rough edges were sanded down smooth, and the Nashville A-Team of studio session musicians emerged.

Records sounded smoother, poppier and, just as overcooked canned peas go down easier than the more nutritious broccoli, the new Nashville product as typified by people like Gentleman Jim Reeves went down much more easily than the music of Hank Williams.

Life was good in Nashville -- until Bakersfield started happening.

Watching their market share decline once again, the Nashville heavies struck back by removing the last bit of soul from their records, morphing the Nashville sound into countrypolitan music, which featured full and lush orchestras, with string sections the size of those used by Sinatra, and background vocals by choirs. Ballads, as wimpy and sentimental as Valentine's Day cards, ruled, and Nashville looked upon what it had built and declared it good.

Which brings us to Jim Ed Brown. With his two sisters, he worked as the Browns, and in 1956, the group signed with RCA Nashville, which made countrypolitan heavy Chet Atkins their producer. How committed was Chet to the countrypolitan sound? Once when asked what it was, he simply jingled the coins in his pocket and said, "It's the sound of money." The Browns became the epitome of the countrypolitan genre, chalking up hit after hit until they broke up in 1967.

After the breakup, Jim Ed Brown carried on as a single, substituting vocal groups like Anita Kerr's and choirs for the backup his sisters had provided.

If one adjective can be used to describe the music he made, it would be "pleasant." As a solo, one member of the trio, or on the duets he did with singer Helen Cornelius, Brown's music was always pleasant, never offensive or challenging. If it never changed the course of musical events, it also never caused the ship to sink. It was simply there.

Now, Jim Ed Brown is back again with his first album since 1979. How is it? Pleasant. It does nothing a Brown album from the '60s didn't do, brings nothing fresh to the party. Despite the presence of Vince Gill and the Browns on harmony vocals, a duet with Helen Cornelius that sounds remarkably like the cuts they did back in the '70s, and the use of studio heavies like Brent Mason and the other members of the current generation of the Nashville A-Team, the album sounds as if it could have been done in 1966.

Listening to it, you get the impression that Brown and his producers have made a deliberate decision to relive his past, to make a record that will appeal to his old fans, to remind them of their pasts, to make them young again.

by Michael Scott Cain
Rambles.NET
7 March 2015