Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt will be remembered with the President’s Award by the Americana Music Association during their annual awards show on Nov. 1 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The award will be accepted by Van Zandt’s friend, songwriter Guy Clark, who will perform one of Van Zandt’s songs in tribute. Emmylou Harris, who recorded Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” and “Pancho and Lefty,” has also been added to the list of performers for the awards show. The Hacienda Brothers, Elizabeth Cook, the Avett Brothers and Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby will also perform.

Some artist produce “Americana” music in a spirit that is akin to a gumbo or a stew. A medley of accompanying flavors melding together into something that is definitely more than the sum of it’s parts. Dodge City, Kansas native and current Greensboro, North Carolina resident Molly McGinn’s pedigree through her musical career has covered everything from jam-band to ska and reggae, so it’s not surprising MS. McGinn’s take on Americana, “Girl with Slingshot” (dotmatrix) utilizes these influences in a recipe that works to great and surprising effect.

Ms. McGinn is a vocalist with a style that is an equal blend of cool urbanite and earnestly sincere Southern girl. An example of the former is exhibited in the first cut Kill Devil Hills, a smooth folk-jazz snapshot of life which is delivered with a hep scat-like staccato and cloaked in a reverb drenched vibe. The latter comes though in the lovely slide guitar paired gospel-country tune “Preacher and Thieves” which is a song that would have easily for in Neko Case’s earlier Southern-gothic catalog .

“Bad Jokes and Blues” takes me to a smoky L.A. beat-club circa 1967 and offers one of the best one-liners I’ve heard in a song about love “Please don’t dull my eccentricities.” “Beautiful Ugly Man” sound like a funky beat-box rave up with a Suzanne Vega at the helm. Intimate and literate lyrics wrapped in poignant and sophisticated arraignments that never leaves you cold.

Molly McGinn is not an easy artist to pin down and her Jedi-like genre bending seems natural and not contrived or clever. I believe she is a talent to watch.

Coming off summer tour dates with The Slip and gearing up for a fall tour supporting Lucero, post-punk-alt.country innovator and Andre The Giant look-alike Bobby Bare Jr will be performing a special daytime Musicfest NW show today with members of the Decemberists appearing as his backing band! Bobby and his crack pickup band will support Cat Power at a special daytime Musicfest NW show. Touring in support of The Longest Meow, his critically acclaimed album on Bloodshot Records,  Bare Jr also announces a special reunion of his crack band in previous years, Bare, Jr, which takes place on November 23rd at The Exit in Nashville, TN.

I posted the overlooked a couple of doozies from the fall music calender.

Mary Gauthier with John Henry  9/20/2007    Blender Theatre at Gramercy   New York, NY

Ryan Adams                 10/31/2007    Hammerstein Ballroom        New York, NY

How stupid do the major labels think their customers are? The Wall Street Journal’s front page detailed a plan to deceive customers by passing off a signed talent, a 24-year-old singer and guitarist named Marié Digby, as a DIY YouTube using amateur cover-artist trying to get a deal.

Are the labels so bereft of ideas and hard up for the good old days when they printed money and screwed the customers and the artists that they are now willing to squander any shred of remaining good will they might still have with fans, well, at least the ones they haven’t sued? For an unknown cover artist? I mean where is the frikkin upside here? Are they trying to build a more justifiable moral case for musical piracy?

Country music’s soul remains it’s authenticity. Nashville has been very effective peddling pop-country hat acts to people that wouldn’t know Hank Williams from Robbie Williams, but this is a level of calculated fraud that would embarrass even the most hard-bitten music row veteran.

Good for the Journal for exposing this sham. I hope this level of coverage of business misconduct doesn’t diminish under the new ownership by media mogul and FOX News steward, Rupert Murdoch. I won’t be holding my breath.

Some upcoming New York shows foe all you city Hillbillys and Betties.

Bowery Ballroom

Fri 09/14/07 Pieta Brown
Fri 09/14/07 Teddy Thompson

Sat 09/29/07 Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers
Sat 09/29/07 The Alternate Routes

Wed 10/10/07 Jason Isbell
Wed 10/10/07 The Whigs

Tue 10/23/07 Shooter Jennings

Fri 10/26/07 Drive-By Truckers
Fri 10/26/07 Ryan Bingham

The Mercury Lounge

Sat 11/10/07 David Kilgour
Sat 11/10/07 Euros Childs
Sat 11/10/07 Laura Cantrell

Town Hall

Wed 09/26/07 Allison Moorer
Wed 09/26/07 Steve Earle

Tue 10/02/07 Fionn Regan
Tue 10/02/07 Lucinda Williams
Wed 10/03/07 Fionn Regan
Wed 10/03/07 Lucinda Williams
Thu 10/04/07 Fionn Regan
Thu 10/04/07 Lucinda Williams

Sat 10/27/07 Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Sat 10/27/07 Jack Cooke
Sat 10/27/07 Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys

Hey Dallas and San Antonio homies, do yourself a favor and get out this weekend and check out that honky-tonk sweetheart and CMT.com blogger Sunny Sweeney at a show near you.

Sep 7 2007      9:00P Sons of Hermann Hall     Dallas, TX
Sep 8 2007     9:00P Leon Springs Dancehall w/ Rodney Hayden     San Antonio, TX

Sunny Sweeney - East Texas Pines

Hank Williams III took time from the road to talk to KNAC.COM about his new CD, “Damn Right and Rebel Proud” (Curb - early 2008 release) his early inspirations, his country royalty legacyand the sorry state of Nashville.

KNAC.COM: Don’t you think there are still plenty of people out there who don’t have the two-story house and the car payment and botoxed wife? I mean, there are still people who live on the edge, don’t you think? Day to day with a lot of obstacles who just do what they do to get by?

HANK III: Yep. Right. The lawyers outsmarted all the musicians in Nashville, and that’s when it totally changed. We just do what we do. I’m going through the same fuckin’ bullshit on the new record that I just turned in. “There’s no country song for radio on here.” Well, it’s not my fuckin’ fault that I’m too country for radio or that my topics aren’t pristine or picture perfect. I just stick to my guns. “This is my record. These are my songs. If it’s not good enough for radio, that’s your problem—not mine. Our fans will still be here and we’ll still be doin’ what we’re doin’ with or without you, man.

KNAC.COM: This will be your fourth record though. At this point why would they expect that you had changed at all? I mean, you aren’t Rascal Flatts.

HANK III: I guess it’s just like the same reason Creative Artist Agency let me go eight months ago. They were like, “Are you gonna take the next step and go to the next level?” I’m like, “I’m gonna keep playing the bars—they’ve been supporting me since day one. If you have a couple of big shows, I’ll open for a band if the situation is right, but I’m not gonna say “Fuck y’all, see ya later!” to the bars that have kept us alive.” They fired me. I guess it’s the same mentality at the record label that I have to deal with now. Maybe they figure, “Hank’s getting older now—maybe he’s got this rebellious bullshit out of his system and do it our way.” Thank God that I’ve got a good manager and a good lawyer who believes in what I do.

Hank Williams III - Dick In Dixie

Singer/songwriter and heir to the outlaw tradition Shooter Jennings will introduce the lead single from his third studio album, The Wolf (9/17), a cover of the Dire Straits cut “Walk of Life.”

Now I like Dire Straits, especially “Sultans of Swing”, but “Walk of Life” always seemed pretty lightweight and silly to me.

Jennings says “I’ve loved this song since I was a kid, but when I actually read the lyrics, I was fascinated by the line ‘he do the song about the sweet lovin‘ woman, he do the song about the knife,’ because it’s a struggle that I can relate to as a musician,” explains Jennings. “Hopefully this song will make people let their guards down, and it will open the door to the rest of the album. Then the more personal songs I wrote will speak for themselves.”

Okay I’ll hold all judgement until I hear it for myself.

Jennings also wrote nine of the 13 tracks for The Wolf, produced by Dave Cobb, including the autobiographical country blues tinged title cut, as well as “Slow Train” featuring guest vocals by iconic country music group The Oak Ridge Boys and the tribute to best friends everywhere, “Old Friend.”

Jennigs says “Dave and I were able to live out some of our musical fantasies with this album, which includes horn sections, and some of the Grand Ole Opry background singers,” added Jennings “It’s a country album that shows my influences from guys like Hank Jr. and my dad, and a lot of the country from the 70’s and 80’s. We also got a cool drum sound for the whole record that almost has a disco sound to it, as strange as that may sound. I think my fans are really going to dig it.”