Comments on: Stay a While – Byron Hill

By: Kenny Chesney Debuts Video On MySpace | The 9513

Kenny Chesney Debuts Video On MySpace | The 9513 — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:08:00 +0000

[...] Country California’s C.M. Wilcox on the Byron Hill album Stay a While: Given that Hill’s previous albums spent about half their time dealing wonderfully in the problems of love, it’s a little disappointing to find that everything is suddenly going so terribly right. While most of these songs are fine and even enjoyable on their own, the album sags a bit under the weight of so many of them. [...]

By: C.M. Wilcox

C.M. Wilcox — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:06:47 +0000

You’re right that they do take different approaches. I like the playing on “Chet.”

By: Occasional Hope

Occasional Hope — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:09:05 +0000

That’s a good point, but to me they seem very different in their approach: the Kristofferson is more personal to Byron himself as a songwriter, a tribute to Kris as the inspiration for his own caeer, whereas the Chet Atkins song is more chiding others for over-inflating their own more modest talents. And I like the Atkins-style guitar on it too.

By: C.M. Wilcox

C.M. Wilcox — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:01:13 +0000

I think I might have liked “You Ain’t Chet Yet” more if it hadn’t come immediately after the Kristofferson song. That seemed like an odd sequencing decision to me. I was ready to be done hearing about the difficulties of living up to name-checked legends.

By: Occasional Hope

Occasional Hope — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:10:19 +0000

I really like ‘Life’s a Ditch’, ‘Blame It On Kristofferson’, and ‘You Ain’t Chet Yet’.

By: Leeann Ward

Leeann Ward — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:33:12 +0000

You got me into Hill with your previous article, though Amazon never fixed the problem they had, so I only have one of the two albums. I’ll have to check this one out, even if your criticisms of it dull my excitement a bit, since I like those things that you say are missing from this project.