Tag: Lori McKenna

Jack Ingram Returns to Roots: “It’s Always Going to Rain”

Jack Ingram It's Always Going to Rain Jack Ingram is releasing his first album since 2009’s Big Dreams and High Hop. On the new album, Midnight Motel, Ingram reasserts his position as an outstanding roots singer-songwriter. Midnight Motel covers a range of topics, including real-life farmers in “It’s Always Going to Rain.”

Ingram recently explained to Billboard how his album hiatus came about. After some popular country music chart success in the early 2000’s with songs like “Wherever You Are” and “Love You,” Ingram felt a need to go in a different direction than the record company wanted him to go. Thus, some listeners may find that Ingram’s new album is more like some of his early albums.

Ingram’s Early Work and Returning to Roots

I had been a fan of Ingram’s early work before he started appearing on mainstream radio. While I was happy for his success and enjoyed songs like “Love You,” he had been recording and performing for more than a decade before the Academy of Country Music awarded him the “Best New Male Artist” award in 2008.

I prefer Ingram’s work that predated his mainstream discovery, slicker sound, and that “new artist” award. If you only know him from his work in more recent years, you should listen to his earlier albums like Livin’ Or Dyin’ (1997) and Hey You (1999). So, I am excited to hear that he is going his own direction on the new album.

Ingram explained that one reason for the recent break from recording was to allow him to “be whoever the f— I wanna be. I can make music my way and be the best me possible. I can tell you who I am, and you can decide whether you like me or not.”

The album sounds great, so hopefully both old and new fans will give it a listen. As Ingram has explained, in working on the new album, he wanted to focus on writing songs that he wanted to sing and that he would play for his heroes like Guy Clark and Johnny Cash. And he succeeded in creating one of the best albums of his career and one he should be proud of.

“It’s Always Going to Rain”

Ingram drew inspiration from real-life working people on one song on the new album, “It’s Always Going to Rain.” As Ingram explains in the video below, the title for the song came from an elderly woman interviewed in Texas Monthly.

The woman explained about the cycles of droughts faced by Texas farmers. Her line about believing it is always going to rain gave Ingram the inspiration for the song, and he worked with singer-songwriter Lori McKenna to finish the track.

Check out this 2014 performance of “It’s Always Going to Rain.”

Regarding the woman who uttered the expression that inspired Ingram to write the song, she appears to be Sandy Whittley.  She grew up in San Angelo and is the executive secretary of the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association.

Although Ingram remembers Whittley being 94 years old, she actually was 74 years old at the time of the interview. Her quote in Texas Monthly that inspired the song came from her discussion of the droughts: “It was so disheartening because we needed it so bad, and everybody kept saying, ‘It’s gonna rain. It always rains. One of these days it’s gonna rain.’ Well, after seven years you’re still telling yourself the same old fable: ‘God won’t let you just die of thirst. I know he won’t.'”

Midnight Motel hits stores and the Internet on August 26, 2016. Currently, you may listen to the whole album over at The Boot.

What is your favorite Jack Ingram song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    3 Movies That Make Us Mad

    { Ignorance – Lori McKenna (Kasey Chambers cover)}

    lorimckenna_ignorance

    The Cove In the Kasey Chambers song “Ignorance,” covered above by folk-singer Lori McKenna, she sings, “If you’re not pissed off at the world / Then you’re just not paying attention.” There have have been several excellent documentaries in recent years that reveal disturbing information about our world that should make us mad. Chimesfreedom recently wrote about Gasland. Here, we discuss three other movies that make us mad: The Corporation, Food, Inc., and The Cove. All three movies are now available on DVD and Blu Ray.

    (1) The Corporation (2003) is a documentary about the role of corporations in our society. The movie paints a disturbing picture of the power that corporations have and the damage they have caused with almost complete immunity. The movie is very disturbing, and almost overwhelming at times. In watching it, I kept wanting to take a break from the movie but could not stop watching. Just when you think the stories could not get any more disturbing, they do, such as information about how American corporations profited through supporting Nazi Germany.

    Certainly, The Corporation has an agenda, so one should maintain a little skepticism. For example, the movie unnecessarily went a little overboard with a segment about corporations meeting the definition of a psychopath. But many of the techniques, like using movie clips, are designed to make the information entertaining. And if the movie makes you seek more information, then it is a success. Many of those interviewed provide intelligent commentary. In addition to insight from some who you would expect, like Noam Chomsky, there is interesting commentary from people like Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, who had an epiphany after many years.

    (2) Food, Inc. (2008) reveals information about the sources of our food. Yes, the movie includes some information about where our meat comes from, and I know a lot of people try to avoid being reminded of that knowledge. But animal flesh is not the focus of the majority of the movie. Among the interesting information is the extent to which corporations own and patent some of our basic food sources, a topic also briefly addressed in The Corporation.

    (3) The third movie, The Cove (2009), is not as broad as the other two movies. Instead, it explores a narrower issue. The Cove delves into secrets behind the dolphin meat industry, focusing on a hidden cove in Japan. While you are learning that dolphins are more intelligent than you thought they were, you also may realize that humans are more devious than you expected. The Cove won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary of 2009.

    Unfortunately, these three movies are not uplifting. The good news, though, is that there are intelligent people making these movies and that people are watching these movies to learn about the world around them.

    It is easy to look away from unpleasant Truths. And there is a cost to having your eyes opened. These movies may affect how you view your food, the corporations around you, and your decision whether or not to visit Sea World. Do you want to know the information or not? It is like the movie, The Matrix (1999). Your decision whether or not to watch these movies is similar to the offer of whether to take the red pill or the blue pill. Welcome to the desert of the real.

    “And you can turn off the TV
    And go about your day.
    But just ’cause you don’t see it,
    It don’t mean its gone away.”
    — Kasey Chambers, “Ignorance”

    What is your favorite movie that makes you mad? Leave a comment.

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