The staff of the College Football America Yearbook is on the road every weekend of the college football season, shooting games and gathering information for the following year’s book. That means a lot of driving and listening to a lot of music.
Earlier this year our College Football America Yearbook publisher Kendall Webb and our director of editorial content Chuck Cox put together ‘The Coronavirus Countdown – 100 Days of Great Music.’ Each of them sat down and compiled a list of 100 great albums. Their goal was not to select the ‘100 greatest albums of all time.’ It was simply to select 100 great albums to write about as they passed the time during quarantine and shelter-at-home orders.
This 2020 college football season will be unprecedented in so many ways. It’s very likely none of us will be on the road for games because, like most people, we’re trying to stay healthy. And we hope you are too.
So, for the next 100 days, we’re going to publish their countdown here at CollegeFootballAmericaPR.com (the list was originally published on Webb’s personal site, kendallwebb.net). Consider it the ultimate playlist for the ultimate college road trip — music for every taste, from every genre and from every decade of the modern era of music. When the staff of the College Football America Yearbook is back on the road, you can bet these will be some of the tunes we’re listening to.
And, if you missed the previous installments of our series, just click here to head to the Coronavirus Countdown — 100 Days of Great Music home page.
Here’s Day 13. When Kendall published this post originally on April 9, he passed along the news that Marianne Faithfull had coronavirus. She has recovered as of this re-publication date.
As we’ve stated before, we didn’t expect this countdown to turn into a memorial space for musicians fighting and sometimes losing their battles with the coronavirus, but that’s just one more little surprise this pandemic has sprung on us.
In fact, the music world has been struck so hard and so fast that it’s hard to keep up with all the cases. We missed the news that Marianne Faithfull was also hospitalized with the virus a few days ago, so we’ll rectify that oversight tonight.
Faithfull was Mick Jagger’s girlfriend (or one of them) from 1966 to 1970, but by then, she had already registered some hits of her own. Her albums weren’t always lauded by the critics, but her 1979 set “Broken English” was a critical favorite. That’s our bonus pick of the day as we wish her a speedy recovery.
— Chuck Cox and Kendall Webb
CHUCK’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Why I Love It
There are two things every Texan knows: Stephen F. Austin is the Father of Texas, and George Strait is the King of Country Music. After bursting onto the honky-tonk scene as a college student, the latter has built one of the most impressive music careers in any genre. The title of this collection sums it up. All he does is make monster hits. All hail the King.
Album Highlights
“The Chair,” “Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye” and “Heartland”
Kendall on Chuck’s Album of the Day
George Strait is one my all-time favorite artists so you knew he had to make this list. This is Chuck’s pick, of course, but there’s a pretty good chance he made my list, too.
KENDALL’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Why I Love It
This album came out when I was 16, still in high school and mostly paying attention to the New Traditionalist revolution taking place in country music.
So it wasn’t until I got to college that I really zeroed in on this album and came to appreciate how incredible it was. This album was so good, in fact, that it almost single-handedly revived the singer-songwriter sub-genre; it certainly pumped life into the format, and it stands as one of the best albums released in popular music during the entire decade of the 1980’s. I’ve never put it down in the decades since, and while she’s made some more great records since then, this is still the one that always brings me back.
Album Highlights
“Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution,” “Fast Car” and “For You”
Chuck on Kendall’s Album of the Day
Talk about distinctive voices. From the first time I heard “Fast Car” off of this album, I loved Tracy Chapman’s voice. Her songwriting is also amazing. This is one of the strongest debut albums you will hear.
College Football America PR 