Stoned Cold Country
Stoned Cold Country is a tribute album to the Rolling Stones featuring covers performed by country music artists. It was released on March 17, 2023 by This Is Hit and was produced by Robert Deaton.

Background
The album, made to celebrate the Stones' 60th anniversary as a band, will feature country artists such as Eric Church, Maren Morris, and Ashley McBryde, covering the band's songs. The project was helmed and produced by Robert Deaton, who called the album "country music's thank you to the Rolling Stones for 60 years of inspiration and providing the soundtrack of our lives." Deaton said the album, and his country music-centered career, were partly inspired by the Stones, explaining that he heard Ronnie Milsap live cover of "Honky Tonk Women" from 1976 and believed it to be "one of the greatest country music songs of all time."The lead single, Brothers Osborne and the War and Treaty's rendition of "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)", released November 4. The second single, Elvie Shane's cover of "Sympathy for the Devil", was released January 13. Lainey Wilson's version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was released as the third single on February 17. The fourth single, Jimmie Allen's version of "Miss You", was released on March 3, 2023.

Production
Per BMG Rights Management CEO Hartwig Masuch, Deaton sold him on the album over "three bottles of white wine" at a dinner in Los Angeles. BMG own the publishing rights to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' songwriting. Deaton confirmed that Jagger and Richards gave their blessing to the project personally, though it wasn't needed. With that, he began the process of selecting artists. He listened to the Stones' songs "over and over, 100 times" so he good decide which songs to pair with which artists, with Masuch setting no rules on who he chose or how many had to be BMG signees. Only three BMG artists – Elvie Shane, Lainey Wilson, and Jimmie Allen – made the cut. Deaton allowed Zac Brown to choose "Paint It Black" for his band to record. All musicians recorded live without click tracks. The songs were recorded in various Nashville-area studios.

Promotion
The War and Treaty and the Brothers Osborne performed their "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" cover together at the 2022 CMA Awards, with the show's co-host Luke Bryan introducing the performance and album.

Style
The album is said not to make pure country out of the Stones' catalogue, but to bring together country artists who have a rock and roll bent and have them stay close to the original songs, just with added steel guitar.

Reception
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Stoned Cold Country received "mixed or average reviews" based on a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 from 4 critic reviews.Variety's Chris Willman wrote that not all fourteen songs pay off, but "highlights abound" including Church, Wilson, Little Big Town, and blues rock musician Marcus King.

Track listing
Personnel
Musicians
Technical
Robert Deaton – producer
Danny Rader – producer
Marcus King – producer (7)
Oscar Charles – producer (11)
Jay Joyce – producer (13)
Mike "Frog" Griffith – project coordinator
Court Blankenship – project coordinator (13)
Sam Levine – arranger (4, 5, 11)
David Hamilton – arranger, conductor (14)
Dan Davis, Evan Wilber, Hank Bachara, Pete Lyman, Michael Walter, Jordan Reed, Brandon Towles, Michelle Freetly, Reid Shippen, Austin Brown, Steve Marcantonio, Jason Hall, Jay Joyce, Jimmy Mansfield, Josh Groppel, Joel McKenney – engineers

Charts


== References ==