Thursday Thoughts with the Boots & Whiskey Podcast
Hey everyone! Welcome back to another Thursday Thoughts here with the Boots & Whiskey Podcast. Sorry we missed last week, but with all the reviews and shit, I didn’t want to bombard you with more!
So tonight, we get to see the Dangerous Tour with Morgan Wallen, Hardy, and Kameron Marlowe.
To say the excitement is there would be an understatement. A big Thank You to Live Nation for this opportunity. We will be doing a full review that will be out I am sure next week. But for today, I wanted to talk about the Ernest/Hardy/Wallen trio.
I have said it and said it now twice in Ernest reviews that his live show has A LOT to be desired. With that being said, I honestly think, as a solo artist, he has some of my favorite songs in country music right now. Tunes like, ‘Cheers’; ‘American Rust’; ‘Sugar’; ‘Flower Shops’; ‘Tennessee Queen’; the list goes on and on. These songs are absolutely fantastic and very much country in sound and in story-telling. When it comes to a songwriter, I don’t think Ernest Keith Smith, gets enough credit. Sure he has written the forementioned tunes but has written so many other songs for other artists.
We obviously know the Morgan Wallen songs he has written from ‘Heartless’ to ‘Somebody’s Problem’ (which is one of my favorite MW tunes) and others. He has even written for Chris Lane, Kane Brown, and Florida Georgia Line. Ernest has writing credits on some of the biggest songs in country music over the last few years. Like I said, Ernest is an artist the genre is sleeping on and the masses are sleeping on as well. Just wait for Ernest to BLOW UP! You heard it here for on the B&W Podcast Blog.
We then of course have HARDY. Oh Michael Hardy, this dude…fuck. This dude has the star power, the song writing and the vocal chops to hold his own in country music and rock and roll. Remember back in April we saw HARDY acoustic in Boston and he blew the roof off of Big Night Live. I can not wait to see him full band later tonight. I have HIGH hopes for that portion of the show.
Let’s talk about HARDY’s song writing and what he brings to this trio. He has solo hits like ‘Sold Out’; ‘Give Heaven Some Hell’; ‘Truck’; ‘A Rock’; the list goes on and on and on. Not to mention all the tunes on HIXTAPE Vol:1 & 2. Those two albums alone are killer from start to finish. I would argue that out of the three HARDY is the MOST Rock N Roll. Obviously country music elements like the story-telling and the topics he sings about, but the overall sound is nothing short of a big Rock N Roll production. Which is also sort of nice for those of us who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s and that’s what the staples were from Audioslave to Nickelback (yes Nickelback, fuck you, they were great for what they were) it’s incredible to have that energy in the music. When you listen to everything he’s done so far, you can tell HARDY has what it takes all around, top to bottom.
He’s written songs for Blake Shelton, Morgan Wallen (obviously, it’s what the fucking article is about), Chris Lane, LOCASH, Jameson Rodgers, and so on. He’s really making a mark on the genre and some of the best artists in the game today. Also, don’t sleep on Jameson Rodgers. He’s coming for ya too. His popularity is gaining traction but look out in the next year or so for Jameson. Goddamn.
Now Morgan Wallen. Where do we even start. Oh, I know where. Probably for my initial annoyance of him. Before ‘Dangerous’ came to the masses. My oldest song used to sing ‘Whiskey Glasses’ at the top of his lungs every day every chance he could. Needless to say, the song got old, and my resentment for MW was very prominent at the time. Off of Wallen’s debut album ‘If I Know Me’, there were several great songs, including ‘Up Down’ which is much better without FGL, ‘The Way I Talk’ and as we mentioned ‘Whiskey Glasses’.
Morgan started to get noticed with this album from 2018 and I am probably speaking out of turn, but fame hit Wallen like a ton of bricks. As he’s getting going, a pandemic forces him to stop, get off the road, and produce one of the best albums in the last ten years with ‘Dangerous: The Double Album’.
I remember hearing this album for the first time and loving songs like ‘Sand in My Boots’; ‘865’; ‘Your Bartender’ and hell pretty much every other song on the album. There was something about the songs and how the blended and the sentiment of these songs. The sense of heartbreak, the feeling of figuring out life, and navigating a world we don’t know how to until faced with certain situations.
This bad boy of country is no stranger of controversy and I think a lot of these songs give us a glimpse as to why that is. Remember back before the “incident” he was supposed to be on SNL and got pushed because he went to a party in Alabama. He’s a young guy with the world by the proverbial balls and not to mention a huge Fame and constant media attention. What did we really expect? Honestly, what did we expect.
Now, I wasn’t going to acknowledge the elephant in the room when talking about Morgan Wallen and his comments to his friend drunk at his home. But I need to. I also know I am probably going to piss some people off with what I am about to say, especially seeing the horse has been beaten to death, but I feel it important to say.
Do I support or think it’s ok to use racial slurs? No of course not. In this house, my kids know better than to say words like that and how they make others feel. And that goes for all derogatory terms towards anyone.
Do I think Morgan Wallen is a racist because he said the “N Word”. Not in this life time or the next. This is a PERFECT example of throwing stones at glass houses. Everyone crying to cancel Morgan and all the shit that was said or tried to be done to him was insane. You CAN NOT look yourself in the mirror and say “I am free from this mess because I have never said one thing that could be seen as off color or insensitive to someone else.” If you’re saying “well yes I can.” You’re full of shit or a complete saint that has their one-way ticket already punched and laminated in gold.
I truly believe that’s why there’s been such a rally behind this guy. I think the masses knew his intentions and saw a little of themselves in the situation. The difference he’s famous, the majority of people aren’t.
I am psyched to see this show tonight. I am psyched to see MW sell out Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. I can’t wait to report back to yall how it was.
Cheers ya’ll
Thank you all for reading along and listening to the show. Check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter all of the above. And check out our website at http://www.bootsandwhiskeyentertainment.com
