Two months before he passed. Sad but beautiful. Enjoy.
Month: May 2007
MySpace Showcase – Baskery
I love discovering roots/country music from across the world. Baskery does their thing in Stockholm, Sweden with such passion and fire that you could be forgiven for mistaking them for Tennesseans or Texans reared on equal parts Carter Family and Tanya Tucker.
Think a Swedish version of the Dixie Chicks…wait…what was I saying? Oh yeah…great arrangements and sweet harmonies make Baskery shine. Check ’em out.
Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton – Just Someone
CMT on Gruene Hall
In its continuing quest not to completely suck CMT has a nice write up on Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas. Gruene Hall, Texas’ oldest dance hall, was opened by Pat Molak in1974 and then featured a young unknown named George Strait and his Ace in the Hole band who played one or two shows a month there starting in 1975.
“I have many great memories of playing at Gruene Hall,” Strait says. “It was definitely one of the highlights of my early career. Pat Molak, who owns it and I still consider a friend, let us play there one Sunday afternoon for, I think, 50 cents at the door. He had never heard us and wanted to check us out before he let us do a weekend night. This led to many great nights at one of Texas’ greatest dancehalls.”
No Country For Old Men
“No Country For Old Men” is on of my favorite Corman McCarthy books and the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Brother Where Art Thou) are some of my favorite film makers, so you know I’m anticipating thier adaptation of this book about a drug buy gone wrong in rural West Texas. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson.
It was recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival to great reviews.
Jason Isbell New Album Details
From Billboard.com – Former Drive By Truckers guitarist Jason Isbell will release his solo debut, “Sirens of the Ditch,” July 10 via New West. The 11-track set features guest turns by DBT principals Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker and Brad Morgan, plus Hood’s father David and Spooner Oldham.
“Sirens of the Ditch” was tracked at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and Muscle Shoals session musicians will join Isbell on the road this summer, beginning July 9 in a city to be announced. Beforehand, the artist will play warm-up shows June 20 in Little Rock, Ark., June 21 in Memphis and June 22 in Chicago.
You can hear three tracks, “Dress Blues”,”Try” and “Grown” from the new CD on Isbell’s MySpace page. Damn that boys got a voice that can melt butter!
Here is the track list for “Sirens of the Ditch”:
“Brand New Kind of Actress”
“Down in a Hole”
“Try”
“Chicago Promenade”
“Dress Blues”
“Grown”
“Hurricanes and Hand Grenades”
“In a Razor Town”
“Shotgun Wedding”
“The Magician”
“The Devil Is My Running Mate”
“Dress Blues” by Jason Isbell
Lone Star 92.5
Has Clear Channel lost it’s little rigid, corporate mind?
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram’s Cary Darling (great name!) has an interesting article on a local radio station with went from the old tried-and-true classic radio format to an alt-country mix, an example playlist contains the Drive-By Truckers, Johnny Cash and Robert Earl Keen, coupled with a low-key PBS style of corporate sponsorship instead of the hyper-audio-effects whiplash-inducing commercials that make most terrestrial radio hard to take seriously. Even thier web-site shows images of Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Tom Petty. Nice!
XM and Sirius satellite radio and it’s more niche formatting (think radio in the 70s) has displayed enough relative success at pealing off listeners that Clear Channel is throwing the dice and taking some calculated chances. D.js. are seen as more than playlist parrots and more like the musical authorities with their own crates of vinyl they schlep to the station and with tales about the music and the artists.
I still think Clear Channel is an example of everything wrong with a corporate media giant, but I will take my hat off to them for treating listeners and the music with respect and not simply a spreadsheet list of product and consumer.
Lone Star 92.5’s Commercial Featuring Wille Nelson
Review – Kendel Carson – Rearview Mirror Tears
Kendel Carson knows a thing or two about music. At the tender age of three she began playing violin and soon after climbed in the Canadian classical music world appearing as a featured guest soloist with the Victoria Symphony and later joining the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. She performed across her native Canada and around the globe since she joined her first musical group at nine years old.
Carson’s muse led her to the Juno-winning roots music band The Paperboys and she appeared on their most recent album, The Road to Ellenside.
Now at the age of 22 you could say she’s been around.
After making the acquaintance of music veteran Chip Taylor – best known for his country-folk work, being the brother of John Vought (and Angelina’s uncle) and for penning one of the most enduring songs from the 60’s “Wild Thing” – at a 2004 South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas Taylor began offering Carson long-distance encouragement and guidance similar to the guidance he gave to another singer/violinist from Austin by the name of Carrie Rodriguez.
As with Taylor’s collaboration with Rodriguez he has written songs that encourage Carson to bring out both the playful and the smoldering side, and Carson’s charming new release on Taylor’s Train Wreck Records label “Rearview Mirror Tears” serves up plenty of both and more.
The album kicks off with a runner in the excellent “Run to the Middle of the Mornin'” which showcases Caron’s and Taylor’s’ off-kilter harmony with Southern sass and fine fiddle work.
“Take Me Down to the River” has a swampy vibe that makes it sexy and just a little spooky.
Ribbons & Bows and Gold in the Hills (Of Saltery Bay) are great guy/girl songs about the trials and triumphs of love.
“In the Middle of a Think About You” sounds like a Bonnie Raitt country-blues stomp that cruises along nicely with guitar
work by John Platania. “Especially for a Girl” is a sassy strut about desire bubbling-over featuring great slide guitar work.
The album’s rowdier tracks, “I Like Trucks” and “I Certainly Know Why” both sound as if they were recorded in
a bar full of drunk, loud women and it seems to set the right environment for the songs.
Carson isn’t belter, she a setter of mood, but her voice excudes a confidence that is beyond her years coupled with her
nuance and fine fiddle work drives this release all the way to the bank.
Kendel Carson – I Like Trucks
Earl Pickens – Can I Turn On the Radio?
Deadstring Brothers – 5/9/07 – Mercury Lounge New York, NY
There was a time in the early-seventies when the first cousins of rock and country music laid together and beget a sleazy offspring that was best exemplified by early 70’s Faces and then followed Ronnie Wood when he took the swaggering sound to The Rolling Stones. It was then officially castrated later in the decade by the Eagles.
If the brits can take country and make this kind of potent mix of sound then why not some Yankees from Detroit, MI.?
The Deadstring Brothers carry the roots-rock flag back into the sleaze with their carefree brand of 70’s fusion that is ready made for the roadhouse or the pub.
Marschke (vocals/guitars) looks, playing style and mannerisms are reminiscent of a hillbilly version of Pete Townsand. He and the sultry songstress Masha Marjieh (backing vocals/percussion) belts backing and sometimes lead vocals provides
loads of passion and energy.
The stomping boom of “I’m not a stealer” to the rousing closer of the slide-guitar laden “Sacred Heart” the band, Marschke, Marjieh and Jeff Cullum (bass/vocals), Pat Kenneally (piano/organ), Spencer Cullum (pedal steel/lap steel/guitar) and E. Travis Harrett (drums/percussion) took it to a fevored level of rock/country hedonism that is rare to see.
One thing about music in the 70’s,it was a lot easier to catch something that blew you away. Something unexpected and wild. People making music just for the shear joy of it. They HAD to do it! They had no choice but to create, to express.
The Deadsting Brothers channel that passion, and the not quite capacity crowd was lucky to be there to witness.