2006 was the single worst year in recorded music history. You want to dance with me on that one? I’ll let you because there are only about ten albums, maybe fifteen, that you can actually use in a defense of the year 2006. Even so, those albums do not offer a strong enough case to trump any other year of recorded music, making it the single worst. Period.

And in 2006, I saw that trend hit home as I watched some of my perennial favorite artists make their worst albums yet. It was a sad time because of all the years for music, 2006 was really the year I needed them to stand up and produce some good stuff for me. But one by one, my favorites released albums. And one by one, those albums took one spin in my player and then got shelved. The letdown was a tough blow for me to swallow, but none was a tougher chew than that of Pat Green.

In the old song Here I Go, Pat Green once gave us the line, “I gave up on Nashville a long time ago.” The funny thing is, I believed him. I’ve believed him for years. Even in 2004 when his Lucky Ones album hit the stores sounding a little bit more radio friendly than any of his past efforts, I still believed him. But in August of 2006, Pat came in and burned all of those hopeful bridges down with the release of Cannonball.

When I opened the album to read the liner notes, the first thing I noticed was all the studio musicians listed in spaces usually reserved for Pat’s band. I looked at my wife, another PG fan, and winced. I told her that maybe Pat was just giving his guys some time off after all the touring, for their families and decided to use the studio musicians for that reason.

Then I noticed he’d held over Don Gehman to produce the album. Not that there is anything wrong with Don’s production. After all, he produced Hootie and the Blowfish’s “gabillion” seller Cracked Rear View and quality albums for John Mellencamp and Nanci Griffith. My worry was since Don came on board with Pat, his last two albums were growing increasingly radio-friendly and sounding less and less like the Texas country that Pat and his band had been churning out for the past decade in dives and bar rooms across the country.

And when I heard the album, I had to finally give up hope…for Nashville had finally claimed Pat Green. There would be no more Carry On, Here I Go, John Wayne and Jesus, Take Me Out to a Dancehall, Guy Like Me, or any of the other great songs that Pat created over the years of beer halls, bus rides, hellholes, and highways. Coming through my speakers instead was one more artist sounding just like everyone else on Nashville radio. Most of the time, it didn’t even sound like Pat Green’s voice. The change was that significant. It just sounded like some ordinary radio voice with canned “yeah, yeah, yeah’s” in the background. The album reeked of slick production from one end to the other with songs falling in a straight line with no differentiation. There was no dark, oddball song attached to the end in the spirit of Sweet Revenge or If I Was the Devil. There were no memorable Pat Green lyrics like “Lone Star Beer in my cereal and it’s keeping my alive”. There was nothing memorable period except for Pat Davis’s contribution Dixie Lullaby. And even that piece seemed a little forced on the record, especially after you hear Davis play it live.

Along with songwriter Sandra McCracken (who did put out a good album in 2006), I’ve seen Pat Green live more times than any other artist. I would still jump at the chance to see PG live, I’d just jump a little slower now. For me the belief is no longer that Pat gave up on Nashville a long time ago, it is the belief that maybe, someday…he will truly give up on Nashville now that it has him.