Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
A long form analysis of the underappreciated figure behind some of the most iconic country hits of the last two decades.
I don’t know what it is about science teachers and dropping eggs, but many schools have an “egg drop” competition. The idea is simple. Take some materials and cushion an egg so it won't break when dropped from a pre-determined height. The materials are given scores based on how useful they are. Bubble wrap is more shock absorbent. Therefore, a one foot sheet of bubble wrap will cost one dollar, when a correspondingly sized sheet of newspaper will only be a quarter. The cheapest successful drop wins. Various versions of the competition exist, but the same fundamentals apply. Create the best makeup with maximum efficacy of resources. It is great fun.
This is of course a fantastic classroom exercise, but not one without utility outside of an academic setting. At its core, the egg drop is a question that can be asked in any scenario. In any field, goals and objectives clash with resources, limitations, and efficiency.
Take music. In this lovely year 2024, the technological bar for entry is essentially nonexistent. In the comfort of your own bedroom closet, you can turn on a computer or phone and use GarageBand or some other free software to create the exact music that you desire. This does not require any proprietary ProTools digital recording systems. Every reader of this post has the full capabilities of a professional recording studio in the 1990s at our fingertips. This is an egg drop world without limit.
At least on the production side. Not so much everything else. Just because the world of technological limitations has been squashed, this does not mean we live in a world free of external limitation. Commercial desires quickly ram into whatever personal artistic expression wished for.
At best, one can hope that their exact personal style will somehow resonate with sufficient amounts of people to carve out a living and then some. This is foolish of course. Only in very rare circumstances is an artists taste aligned so wholly with an audience. Here in the real world, for those chasing the neon rainbow the goal is to achieve an egg drop like resolution. This exact balance of maximum artistic representation without sacrificing the commercial liability is the equivalent of dropping the egg off the building and having a clean landing.
It is easy to wholly embrace the commercial world and wrap up your song in musical bubble wrap until it’s unrecognizable. But that ain’t the point of the game. A genuine artist wants to have their cake and eat it as well. Go get that commercial hit, but also don’t sacrifice thine soul to the radio Moloch. As a consumer, the difference between the two types of contestants are very clear.
Country radio is full of people dropping their eggs while using as much protection as possible. Drum loop bubblewrap, auto-tune parachutes, and copious amount of test audience proven styrofoam. All of those are the standard accoutrement that come along with your “egg drop” country radio song. It makes for catchy, but forgettable fare. As Chase Rice (Eyes On You) smoothly transitions into Chris Lane (Big Big Plans) which after a pump fake shifts aggressively into Jameson Rodgers (Some Girl, Cold Beer Calling Luke Combs’ Name) who was really just a stand in for Nate Smith (Whiskey And You, World on Fire- which is apparently a historically important country song that no one actually has paid much attention to) the actual artists all begin to blur into one hazy mix of crowd tested anodyne mid-tempo blandness.
Once in a while, you find an artist who has it. The song is catchy. It may not stick out as tremendously different from what is on radio, but there’s something extra. It bounces around in your head afterwards. Maybe there was a bit of edge or a unique perspective. Perhaps it was the style or delivery that did it. But you remember.
In preparation for this piece, I looked back and compiled a list. It contained songs that were at least solid hits on radio over the last twenty years. These were the ones that epitomized this distinct blend of the personal and the public. The list had a few names on it. Fellas like Brad Paisley, Josh Turner, Darius Rucker and Scotty McCreery registered multiple songs on my list of stand outs. I started doing some digging and realized something very interesting. All four of these fellas were produced by the same man. Frank Rogers.
Rogers came to Nashville in the early 1990s. Now, the popular discourse frames the '90s as this golden era of traditional country music. Although that is true, the narrative suffers from the human inclination for oversimplification. Realistically, there was a ten year period of traditional music as the dominant sound in Nashville. This isn't in dispute. However, instead of this period being "the '90s", it pretty clearly ran from about 1986 until 1995. Essentially, Randy Travis until Shania Twain. It is just easier to divide things by decade, so we do.
In the late 1990s proper, traditional material was not cutting it. Of course the big stars from the early '90s still did well, but the new material coming up the pipe was significantly more pop oriented.
A great example of this is a relatively forgotten artist named Michael Peterson. If Peterson would have released his debut record in 1993 instead of 1997, he would have been a successful hat act in the vein of Tracy Byrd. Instead, in the more hostile environment of 1997, his early successful singles…
…struggled to build up momentum and after he stumbled with a single or two, he was done.
Contrast this with Andy Griggs. Griggs also started off his career with a couple smash hits…
…and a aftermath period where he stumbled, but Griggs got more chances and even managed to crack back into the top five multiple times a half decade after his initial hit. Peterson, with his traditional throwback sound didn’t get that second chance Griggs did. Of course the story of success or lack thereof is far more complex, however the environment was obviously part of this outcome.
The purpose of this tangent (aside from introducing you to the music of Michael Peterson and Andy Griggs) is to illustrate the details of the late '90s scene when Brad Paisley appeared circa 1999. Brad Paisley's debut record was quite traditional, in fact decently comparable to Michael Peterson. Defintely not the typical guy that late '90s labels looked for. In spite of his holler edge, he succeeded.
Why did Brad Paisley succeed when so many other traditional artists struggled? It seems clear that it is due to the marriage of Brad Paisley‘s music talent and Frank Rogers production vision.
If I could summarize the ethos of what appears to be the Frank Rogers approach to production, it is to find an artist who has a distinctive voice/vision, find what the popular style is, and tone that popular style down in a blend of the traditional sound aligned with the artist’s vision. The final result often sounds like very middle of the road music, but that’s no accident. It isn't easy to pull this balance off.
It would be one thing if it was just with Paisley that Rogers' formula found success. The commercial success could always be blamed on Brad’s unique and fresh perspective and overall wittiness. However, digging into Frank Rogers' discography shows that he consistently has managed to find artists and produce music that hits this middle ground. Not once. Not only with one artist, but instead with multiple artists over a twenty year span. No accident indeed.
All four of these abovementioned artists (Paisley, Turner, Rucker, McCreery) have the Frank Rogers fusion of traditional takes on progressive stylings. When placed in their era, they don't sound like out of place traditionalists. Brad Paisley or Josh Turner did not sound like Lefty Frizzell or George Strait. They sounded trad, but somehow also fresh. This balancing of artistic and commercial aspirations took them all the way to number one.
In part because of the amorphous nature of popular trends, it might be hard to get what this balance looks like. Let us give an ear to four songs. Hopefully this exercise will show us the Frank Rogers egg drop.
Brad Paisley- Waiting On A Woman
The song actually has an interesting history. It was recorded earlier in the aughts, only to be re-issued in 2007 and being pushed as a single in 2008. Smartly so, because it fit perfectly with the trends in radio that year.
It is a ballad. An interesting one at that. Typically, ballads are more immune to pop influence than upbeat numbers. Historically, country music struggled to compete with the energy of other genres. Rock has more heft, pop is more buoyant and irreverant. Therefore, when country artists are looking for upbeat or dance music songs, they often will incorporate other genre's influence. However, with ballads, the country side is allowed to come to the surface. This is true even in eras where pop or rock rule the day.
This generalization holds true in Waiting On A Woman. Paisley maintains a reasonably country atmosphere with banjo and fiddle. However, a twist exists. The song's structure is vaguely reminiscent of a power ballad. The dynamics especially. Similar to a classic power ballad, the accompaniment is pretty sparse in the verses and builds up to a louder and atmospherically full sound in the chorus and caps off with an electric guitar solo. This is a countrified take on that format, but it is a smart way to blend a modern feel into what is otherwise a traditional palette. Even in the rock forward country radio playlists of the mid aughts, this combo worked. By 2008, Alan Jackson was hanging onto commercial success by a thread, but Paisley managed to stay hot. Having songs that still exuded his trademark country feel, but also made enough accommodations to fit on radio was a balancing act that worked well. The song even still holds up in 2024.
Now let us compare that to a song that was similarly structured, but instead of hewing to balance as its ideal, went full bore trend chasing. Toby Keith’s number one song from that very same year; She Never Cried In Front Of Me.
This song also has the power ballad set up of sparse guitars and an acoustic centric verse paired with the fuller louder production for the chorus. That’s where the similarities start to fall away. Unlike the tempered finesse of the Paisley/Rogers production, Keith’s idea of this format turns everything up to eleven. Thunderous rock guitars wail, booming drums crash, and Keith powerfully expresses himself by belting his way throughout the all encompassing chorus. It is powerful, but somewhat one note. It suffers in comparison.
We hear from this comparison of the two songs how Frank Rogers’ production choices incorporate certain elements of the popular style, but don’t go whole hog in embracing the trends.
Paisley’s identity isn’t left at the front door, whereas Keith easily could have been replaced by any blustering frontman of a B- tier 80s power pop group.
The accompaniment of the Keith song was exactly in vogue with the progressive side of mainstream country.
The song's entire appeal is based on its “boundary pushing’ appeal. Whereas Paisley and Roger’s understand that while a popular trend is useful for catching attention, more is needed to preserve a sense of authenticity and build deeper connections with the art and audience.
Jumping ahead a full decade, Frank Rogers switched away from producing for Paisley, Turner, Turner and Rucker (with notable drop offs in quality for all three) and switched to producing for (the surprisingly independent) Scotty McCreery. They released a 2017 single entitled Five More Minutes that went to number one.
Five More Minutes is not a neo traditional country song by any definition of the word. The synthetic drums and wall of noise style chorus guarantee that. What differentiates it from other songs with similar late '10s pop country identifying traits is the overall maintenance of an organic atmosphere throughout. Listening to it in March ‘24, it does not stand out as especially organic, but in contrast to 2017 radio it really shines. There are still aspects of the traditional format bolted onto the structure of a radio record.
Steel guitar whispers all throughout the song, and in a shocking moment for the time, even has an instrumental solo.
The storytelling embraces a thoughtful three part story structure that hearkens back to songs like Don’t Take The Girl and other classics of the genre.
McCreery’s vocals are straightforward and melodic. No Adam Levine imitations to be found here.
Even the synthetic drums merely drive a rhythm, as is the case with classic country percussion, rather than acting as an instrument in it's own right like more modern music genres tend towards.
New decade, yes. Same core ingredients for the Frank Rogers mixture? Also yes. Effective? Highly. Commercially successful? You bet.
Now let’s take a look at another number one song from that year for contrast. It serves as an illustration of what Rogers borrowed from the progressive chart topping stuff.
Chris Young's Losing Sleep.
This song is so consumed with burnishing its résumé with everything that was trendy in 2017 that it feels like the proverbial kid in a candy shop who just grabbed whatever he could without any thought towards form or function. The song starts out with sparse acoustic plucking and a "sultry" R&B inspired vocal performance. Thick drum loops are then added to finish off the verses. The chorus is a discombobulated "country" "rock" wall of noise smear of guitars. The overall effect is something akin to a mashup of Justin Bieber's Love Yourself, Alicia Keys' This Girl Is On Fire, and any random Montgomery Gentry song circa 2006 or so. It doesn't work.
However, a song like this is invaluable in attempting to pin out precisely what the trends were, and then therefore what Rogers was looking to incorporate.
The songs do share a similar tempo and have some common characteristics. Both Scotty and Chris have enjoyable baritones. The tempos are well balanced and the songs have a clear sense of timing. Most other areas, it seems as if Young just took everything and thoughtlessly pushed the sliders all the way up similar to what Toby Keith did a decade earlier.
If there were subtle pop-rock moments on McCreery's song, then Young twisted the dial all the way for both the pop and the rock.
If the chorus's relied on jacked up guitars and drums, Young's cranked beyond the point of aiding the mix and rhythm.
If there were synthetic drums on McCreery's track, then they fell into the background and kept rhythm as opposed to being the fort in the forefront of the mix and defining the song as it did with the Chris Young song.
If there were moments of acoustic emphasis in Chris Young’s song, they just aped a guitar lick from pop radio. Whereas with McCreery's they offer more country/country rock twang and bite.
Of course, if now you were to make a song like Five More Minutes, with its focus on balance of the country and popular elements, that song would sound differently. Nowadays some things have changed. There will be a time where these synthetic drums of 2017 may sound as chintzy as the electronic organs in Ronnie Milsap songs from the '80s. However, the Rogers blend has the ability to grow as a long-term hit because it isn’t precisely time to a moment in style like the pop forward antics of Chris Young. Iconic songs that Rogers has produced like Your Man, Wagon Wheel, and many others all have that blend of timeless but relevant to the era that they came out in. They sound slightly dated ten years later, but not as much as something specifically written to the time and place.
Further evidence of the flexibility of the Frank Rogers way are the singles that McCreery has previewed for his upcoming 2024 record. These are significantly more traditional and organic than anything he has put out yet. This is, as Frank Rogers understands, because the scene has changed, and therefore the balance has changed. With organic country and country rock being much more popular than the synthetic pop country that dominated pre-pandemic, a new balance point between the competing trends has been found. This point is now is Cab In A Solo, where organic instrumentation and neotraditional tones meet schticky Nashville songwriting. It's perfectly aligned with the current meta and will most likely be the Scotty McCreery/Frank Rogers next number one hit.
Other producers like Dave Cobb, Dann Huff, Joey Moi, etc... have gotten more press in the past couple decades than Frank Rogers. With all due respect to the tremendous work those other producers have done, I think that Rogers has left an underappreciated and indelible imprint on the world of country music these past two decades. This piece is my attempt at understanding his work. I think his production ethos really fits with the duality of the always changing and yet always continuous concept of country music. The more I dug into his work, the more appreciative I became of what he has accomplished.
If you enjoyed this piece, please share it with a friend. If you have feedback, please leave a comment or reach out via email. (Today I heard blog @ gmail.com)
Thank you for reading,
Joe
p.s.
As this goes to press, William Michael Morgan has dropped his long awaited Keith Stegall produced EP. When the news of this project hit the news cycle last year, it barely made a ripple. I was ecstatic however and wrote a whole piece getting into the weeds about William Michael Morgan as an artist and detailing my excitement. I greatly enjoy his music and consider him to be in the cream of the crop of the modern neotraditionalist crowd. Here's a link to my piece as an introduction for those unaware of his background and previous output as well as a Spotify link to the EP.