Bad Angel on the Top Ten List of "Not a single...yet"

The Boot picked ten tracks that are not singles...yet, and Dierks Bentley's 'Bad Angel' featuring Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson is #2!  Wouldn't that be great if the song was a single?!  But unless DB adds the song to his new upcoming August album, it's not likely to happen.  Too bad, because it has the potential to be a number one hit!

"Dierks took a trip 'Up on The Ridge,' veering away from mainstream country in favor of a bluegrass-inspired sound. 'Bad Angel' with Miranda and Jamey is arguably the most intriguing track on the Grammy-nominated project. The featured voices give the song a modern-day Buddy & Julie Miller feel, and offers more than enough star power to catch radio's attention."

Read the entire story, "Top 10 Country Songs That Aren't Singles ... Yet," here.

Dierks Bentley Remembers 10 Grammy Winning Country Classics

Reposted from CMT.com:

Dierks Bentley is up for three Grammy Awards in recognition of Up on the Ridge, the bluegrass-influenced project he released last year. Along with a nod for best country album, Bentley is rooted in two slots in the category of best country collaboration with vocals: one for "Bad Angel," featuring Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson, and the other for "Pride (In the Name of Love)," featuring Del McCoury and the Punch Brothers.


"With this record in particular, it seems fitting to be a part of the Grammys because it's an album that encapsulates a lot of different types of music under the country music umbrella," Bentley tells CMT.com. "For me, personally, it's really exciting. It's exciting for my producer, the musicians and all the writers and collaborators on this album. I think it's a fitting way to end this album, just being nominated. It's nice to come back and have one last chance to visit Up on the Ridge and do it in the setting of the Grammys."
With the Grammy Awards scheduled to air Sunday night (Feb. 13) on CBS, Bentley shares his personal thoughts about 10 Grammy-winning country classics.

"El Paso," Marty Robbins

1960, Best Country & Western Performance

A great storytelling song by one of the greatest voices of all time in country music. It's a lost art, to have a song that really pulls you in like that.



"Foggy Mountain Breakdown," Flatt & Scruggs

1968, Best Country Performance, Duo or Group -- Vocal or Instrumental

Earl Scruggs invented the three-finger style of banjo picking that was never better played than on a song like "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." That three-finger roll is on great display there. It probably blew people's minds when they first heard that. It's not every day that somebody invents a style of playing like Earl did. It's a very deserving song.



"Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Cash

1968, Best Country Vocal Performance, Male

That's one of the most-played songs of any bar or state fair in America. (laughs) It took me a long time to get that one out of my set list. We played it so many times. It's probably the most recognizable Johnny Cash song there is out there. It encapsulates what is so great about country songs, which is storytelling. It has that dark element to it, which draws people in.



"Forever and Ever, Amen," Randy Travis

1987, Best Country Song (Songwriters: Don Schlitz and Paul Overstreet)

What a great country voice singing a great country song. In the love song category, that's a song about never-ending devotion. You hear that pure country sound coming out at a time when country had been popped up a little bit. Here comes a guy that's a real traditional country singer with a great country love song. It was a turning point in country music.



"From the Bottle to the Bottom," Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge

1973, Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group

A total innovator -- Kris Kristofferson and his writing. To think about the kind of country songs that were out in the 1970s, no one was writing the way Kristofferson was writing. The alliteration and the poetic style of writing ... but also the realness of it. It's about a real down-and-outer. It's a style of writing that he unleashed upon Nashville that nobody else had done before.



"Gentle on My Mind," Glen Campbell

1967, Best Country & Western Solo Vocal Performance, Male

1967, Best Country & Western Recording

1967, Best Country & Western Song (Songwriter: John Hartford)

1967, Best Folk Performance (for Hartford's version)

It's a great John Hartford song. I love that song so much because it allowed Hartford the financial freedom to be [himself] the rest of his life. How do you write something like that? It's so out there as a writing style. He definitely wasn't trying to write a hit. He was just writing a great song. You can tell when you listen to it, it's a song that came from his heart. It has a little bit of that left-fieldness that makes it one-of-a-kind.



"He Stopped Loving Her Today," George Jones

1980, Best Country Vocal Performance, Male

It's a song that a lot of people consider to be one of the greatest songs of all time. When it comes to great country songwriting, the best songs always leave a little twist in there for you, that you don't expect to see coming. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is the example of the best twist, the best turn, that you can do. He did that punch you're not expecting, and he does it better than anybody. You take a great song and mix the greatest voice with it, you're going to get a Grammy.



"High Lonesome Sound," Vince Gill and Alison Krauss & Union Station

1996, Best Country Collaboration With Vocals

What a great collaboration. The harmony in that song touches anybody in any genre of music. Whether they're a country or bluegrass fan, or a rock and pop fan, you hear that and you can't help but be moved by the hauntingness of the vocals and the content of the song.



"O Death," Ralph Stanley

2001, Best Male Country Vocal Performance

Dr. Ralph represents that mountain music, that unpolished version of bluegrass. To hear someone sing so starkly like that, it's a really cool thing. And it talks about a subject matter that we all try to avoid. And he takes it straight on and talks about it! (laughs) It's a one-of-a-kind song.



"On the Road Again," Willie Nelson

1980, Best Country Song (Songwriter: Willie Nelson)

Willie Nelson at his best. It's very personal. It's about Willie and it's about his lifestyle. You wonder if other people would be able to connect with it, but people really do. They get to wear Willie's shoes a little bit and feel the vibe of the road through that song. I see myself in that song a lot. Even before I was traveling around, I just loved that song.

Source

Bentley's Ridge Album Makes MSN "BEST" List

Nestled among Eminem, Taylor Swift, Jamey Johnson, and Robert Plant is our very own DB Congress president, Dierks Bentley, with his 'left turn' bluegrass project, "Up On the Ridge," earning a well-deserved spot on the MSN Best Albums of 2010 list!

Best Albums, By Sam Sutherland
MSN Music

Another year of music-biz turmoil has brought fresh bulletins from Chicken Little pondering the industry's shrinking fortunes and the Death of the Album in an age of downloads and a la carte songs. But judging from the sonic evidence, reports of the ... morefull-length's demise are premature, at the very least. Many of the artists on our honor roll are represented by new creative peaks, and the diversity of styles brings added reason for good cheer, as does the dominance by artists who've emerged in the new millennium. Here are 2010's most compelling albums as voted by MSN Music's editors and contributors.

Best Albums
Dierks Bentley – "Up on the Ridge" (Capitol Nashville)

One of this year's most satisfying left turns, Dierks Bentley's seventh album finds the charismatic singer chucking modern country convention to head into bluegrass territory. Teaming with a blue-chip cast of bluegrass and... more Americana aces, including Alison Krauss, the Punch Brothers, Julie and Buddy Miller, Kris Kristofferson, members of the Del McCoury Band, Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert, Bentley turns a side trip into a satisfying pilgrimage. Smart covers from Dylan and U2 (with Del McCoury himself harmonizing on "Pride (In the Name of Love)" to stunning effect) and well-chosen new material complete a set that's a timely reminder of bluegrass's timeless, high lonesome power. It's also a heartening testimony to the robust health of this homegrown style in the hands of younger musicians.

Vote for Dierks' Bad Angel Video!

Bad Angel, the video for track #6 from Dierks Bentley's Up On The Ridge album, featuring Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson, was nominated for the 2010 CMA's Musical Event of the Year award. You can watch the video and vote for it on CMT's Pure 12-Pack countdown. The tempted trio performed the song live in Nashville, and the video landed at #12 this week! Keep voting, 'congrass'!

Miranda will join Dierks at Miles and Music For Kids next week in Nashville (October 17) as they perform to raise money for the Children's Hospital!

Bad Angel Live Performance Video, Featuring Dierks, Miranda and Jamey

Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson are nominated for the 2010 CMA "Musical Event of the Year" Award. See why by watching the trio's "Bad Angel" performance in June at a downtown Nashville venue, as shown on the ABC special, "CMA Music Fest: Country's Night To Rock," and as posted on CMT.com.

Dierks Bentley More CMT Music More CMT Music Videos

Dierks DVR Alert: Sep. 1, CMA Fest on ABC

Dierks Bentley has been announced As a performer on CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock. He will be featured on the TV special airing September 1 on ABC at 8 pm eastern/7 pm central. A collaborative performance with Dierks, Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert will be included in the special. Stay tuned for more information, and be sure to mark your calendars! (Source: dierks.com)

Is anybody else guessing, hoping the trio will sing, "Bad Angel?" I know I am!

DIERKS, MIRANDA, JAMEY: THREE WISHES GRANTED

Dierks Bentley's version of "Bad Angel" is one of my favorite songs on the new "Up On The Ridge" CD. I found this article from way back in April! I am really hoping this song becomes one of the many singles that gets released to radio from this album!

"Suzi Ragsdale, whose latest two-CD set, Best Regards/Less of the Same, continues to garner airplay at Americana radio, will have one of her songs featured on multi-platinum singer Dierks Bentley's upcoming CD, Up on the Ridge, set for release on June 8 by Capitol Nashville.

Ragsdale's track (co-written by Verlon Thompson), "Bad Angel," features Dierks Bentley joined by special guest vocalists Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson, two other powerhouses of country music. The song originally appeared on the Ragsdale/Thompson album, Out of Our Hands.

"I feel like I've found the proverbial magic lamp and the genie has granted my three wishes: Dierks, Miranda and Jamey," said Ragsdale upon hearing her song for the first time as it was performed on the new CD.

At a recent advance listening party for the new CD on Nashville's Music Row, celebrated music journalist Robert Oermann declared: "The bluesy 'Bad Angel,' featuring hair-raising, triple-whammy vocals by Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson, is already a contender for Vocal Collaboration of the Year, in my opinion. I never wanted it to end."

Source


~Ronna
DB Congress Chair

WATCH DIERKS & JAMEY MAKE BAD ANGEL

Dierks Bentley shares a little peak into the making of "Bad Angel", one of the songs on the new Up On The Ridge album. Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert each sing a verse in the fully-recorded song:

DIERKS ALBUM GOOD, ANGELS BAD

Dierks Bentley Sends a Pair of 'Bad Angels' to the Ridge, according to The Boot's Donna Hughes.

For his new bluegrass-inspired album, 'Up on the Ridge,' Dierks Bentley has roped in several special guests, including Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson on a song called 'Bad Angel,' written by Verlon Thompson and Suzi Ragsdale. While every single song on the project is his favorite, having Miranda and Jamey take part was extra special for the singer because of their close ties.

"I've toured with both of them. They're both good friends," Dierks tells The Boot. "Miranda likes that kind of music. She cuts Buddy and Julie Miller songs. It really started with that song ... It's such a fun track. I thought of two people who would be perfect on it, whose voices who would all complement each other. They were the first two names that came up, and it was really easy to get them on there. They're excited about it ... they're two people I know I can call and they'll do it before they have to ask anybody. Miranda's voice has never sounded better. She was definitely inspired.

"Jamey was great [too]. We toured together before he went through his transformation kind of thing. When we toured together, it was wild and crazy. I remember he was wearing a hat this big," Dierks continues, holding his arms out to demonstrate just how big. "I don't know what the hell he was doing backstage before they went onstage, but they were amped up. We had a lot of fun on that tour, and then he lost his deal and went through his thing, so we've known each other a long time."

The singer-songwriter even brought cameras into the studio to capture the memories of making the record. "We documented this whole thing," he says. "And it's always awkward having a camera right on you, but it was great. I remember us being in the studio and we were doing some stuff and the camera was right on [Jamey's] face. He goes, 'Yeah, it's sounding good, but I'd love to do a couple of passes without this damn camera in my face.' And my cameraman was like, 'OK, time to go!' [He] packed up and walked right out of the room. I think he was a little scared."

The new album is due out in 24 days-June 8!

DIERKS BENTLEY'S UP ON THE RIDGE PREVIEW LISTENING PARTY

Apparently, a priviliged few were lucky enough to hear a few cuts from Dierks Bentley's upcoming Up on the Ridge Acoustic Album, during a March 30 listening party at Gary Paczosa's studio in Nashville.

CMT.com has the scoop!

Dierks and his producer, Jon Randall Stewart, previewed tracks from Bentley's impending country-bluegrass album, Up on the Ridge, during a Tuesday afternoon (March 30) listening party at engineer Gary Paczosa's studio in Nashville. Although the instrumentation and sensibility of the 12-song album are solidly bluegrass, the project ventures well beyond the traditional sounds of that genre. The title cut, for example, is a rap-flavored, banjo-inflected paean to rural living, which Bentley co-wrote with songwriter-producer Angelo Petraglia, best known for his works with Kings of Leon.

Besides marking a return to the music that influenced Bentley early in his career, the album features guest appearances from such bluegrass luminaries as Del McCoury (one of the artist's regular picking and recording buddies), Alison Krauss, Sam Bush, Sonya Isaacs, the Punch Brothers (mandolinist Chris Thile's current group) and the SteelDrivers' Chris Stapleton.

Stewart has a distinguished bluegrass pedigree, as well, having toured and recorded as the lead guitarist in Emmylou Harris' fabled Nash Ramblers band.

Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson contribute stellar vocal performances on a lyrical exorcism called "Bad Angel," a Verlon Thompson-Suzi Ragsdale tune. Aided by McCoury and the Punch Brothers, Bentley also takes on U2's throbbing and incantatory "Pride (In the Name of Love)."

He resurrects "Rovin' Gambler," the old folk song, and creates a new one with the ancient-sounding coalfields lament, "Down in the Mine," a co-write with Stewart.

According to Esquire Magazine, the album is scheduled for release in May. That's a whole 30 days from now!

What I wouldn't give to have been a fly up on the ridge, uh, wall of that listening party! Congrats to all the DB fans who will get to see him and the Travelin' McCoury's live on the April-May bluegrass tour! Sadly, nothing is scheduled close to me. Guess I'll just have to wait for the album!