Todd Snider channels his inner Christopher Allen Bouchillon with his “Talking Reality Television Blues,” The clever animated video below gives us a history lesson in 20th-century media and its effects on culture.
“Talking Reality Television Blues” is on the upcoming “Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3,” and will be released March 15.
Track Listing:
1. Working on a Song
2. Talking Reality Television Blues
3. Like a Force of Nature
4. Just Like Overnight
5. The Blues on Banjo
6. Framed
7. The Ghost of Johnny Cash
8. [Dedication]
9. Cowboy Jack Clement’s Waltz
10. [Explanation]
11. Watering Flowers in the Rain
12. A Timeless Response to Current Events
It seems these days people are going out of their way to find reasons to divide themselves. Like somehow looking for the common humanity in your neighbor that binds us together is out of style, and choosing identity can only happen in opposition against…well, anything! is the new rule.
Chips on the shoulder are all the rage (oftentimes with actual rage.)
Hayes Carll has the tonic for what ails our wounded soul! His new album ‘What It Is’ is pure Carll – that is heart, wit, a wry smile and brimming with hospitality.
The video starts with Carll laying on a longneck littered dance floor as he’s helped to his feet by a random two-stepper. As an excellent study on contrast Carll wonders the bar singing about division and strife as the camera cuts to joyful couples dancing to the fiddle-fueled boogie blissfully oblivious to the message.
Carll is both onstage and in the crowd trading lyrical duties with various bar patrons as they embody the simple beauty of a Saturday night distraction away from work, bills, life.
In this Age of Outrage, we need a reminder that things, and people, are generally good as long as we take the time away from our grievance fetish to celebrate that fact. ‘Times Like These’ brings perspective and brings us together.
In times like these everyone could use a hand
Instead, we stand around losing ground
Fighting for the promised land
It’s so hard to tell if this is heaven or hell
And I could never measure by degrees
But it’s sure gettin’ warm ’round here in times like these
In times like these do I really need a billionaire
Just takin’ all my time tryin’ to tell me I was treated unfair?
Well then I got to pay, it’s the home of the brave
Gets divided into them and the weak
Oh I find I’m a-losing my mind in times like these
Yeah they come and they go
They’re in and then out
Every day I’m getting better at losing something I haven’t got
I just wanna do my labor, love my girl, and help my neighbor
While I keep a little hope for my dreams
But it’s sure getting hard, brother, in times like these
In times like these I wish someone was on my side
Instead of bringing it together we’re just widening the great divide
I hope and I pray at the end of the day
I can somehow get my troubles to ease
But I gotta say, it’s not looking good, not in times like these
Yeah they come and they go
They’re cold then they’re hot
I just try to keep the world from turning me to something I’m not
I’m gonna try to run until the whole thing’s done
And I just hope I don’t end up on my knees
But it’s sure getting hard to stand up in times like these
I just wanna do my labor, love my girl, and help my neighbor
While I’m keeping all my joie de vivre
But it’s sure getting hard, brother, in times like these
I could use just a little bit of help in times like these
The 2019 Academy Awards held very little appeal for me (how was Ben Dickey, Alia Shawkat and Charlie Sexton’s performances in ‘Blaze’ overlooked?!) but a break in the tedium came when Kacey Musgraves introduced Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. The Americana legends bedecked in matching nudie-esque suit finery performed “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings.” The song was a contender in this year’s race for best original song from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Welch and Rawlings wrote the track, which was performed on the Coen Brothers’ series and soundtrack by actor Tim Blake Nelson and singer-songwriter Willie Watson.
The Coen Brothers also received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings wrote “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings†for the recent six-part Coen brothers anthology, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs. If you watched the show you know the original song was sung by Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs alongside Willie Watson as “The Kid.†Today, Welch and Rawlings share a new version that they will perform at the 91st Academy Awards on 2/24.
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings recently garnered a nomination for “Best Original Song†at the 2019 Academy Awards, for “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings.†their version of the song on Acony Records, which they sing in their own lonesome and timeless
style, invoking both the absurd fatalism of the show and their own penchant for a good yodel.
Welch and Rawlings said about their nomination: “We are eternally grateful to Ethan and Joel Coen for giving us the opportunity to write a cowboy duet between the living and the dead, and to Willie Watson and Tim Blake Nelson for bringing it to life.â€
The pair confirmed they will perform the song on The Grand Ole Opry on February 16th as well as at the 91st Academy Awards on Sunday, February 24, 2019.
Welch revealed the story behind the song and working with the Coen Brothers in a recent Rolling Stone interview:
“They [The Coen Brothers] gave David and I the script, and they gave us the script of maybe two other of the shorts in the collection so we could gauge the darkness [laughs]… And then there was just a really basic conversation [with Joel Coen]. He was like, “Look, there’s the singing cowboy — he’s been around for a while. Now here comes the new guy. He’s cuter, he’s faster and he sings better. He’s just better. It’s the new model. He’s coming for him.â€â€¦ Joel just said, “Here’s the specifics of it. They have to be able to sing it together. They have to be able to sing it once Tim has been shot and is dead and is floating up to heaven.â€
Gillian also spoke to Variety about her and Rawlings’ process writing the song:
“It was a pretty straightforward thing: ‘Well, we need a song for when two singing cowboys gun it out, and then they have to do a duet with one of ‘em dead. You think you can do that?’ ‘Yeah, I think we can do that’â€â€¦ “The more peculiar restraints you put upon a song, the more fun it is, so this was kind of a dream assignment,†Welch says. “And they didn’t tell us to do this, but if you’re writing a gunfight song between two singing cowboys, who wouldn’t love the opportunity to put some yodeling in?â€
**PRE-SALE BEGINS TOMORROW (2/13) AT 10AM LOCAL.**
PASSWORD: FJMISBELL
GENERAL ON-SALE STARTS FRIDAY FEBRUARY 15 10AM LOCAL^
June 6 – San Diego – Cal Coast Open Air Theatre $ +
June 7 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl $ +
June 8 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek Theatre At UC Berkeley $ +
June 9 – Bend, OR – Les Schwab Amphitheater $ +
June 11 – Redmond, WA – Marymoor Park $ +
June 14 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory $ +
June 15 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion $ +
June 16 – Milwaukee, WI – BMO Harris Pavilion $ +
June 17 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre $ +
June 19 – Brooklyn, NY – BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival $ +
June 20 – Canandaigua, NY – CMAC $ +
June 21– Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion $ +
June 22 – Philadelphia, PA – Metropolitan Opera House $ +
June 24 – Richmond, VA – Altria Theater $ +
June 25 – Cary, NC – Koka Booth Amphitheater $ *
June 27 – Irving, TX – Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory $ +
June 28 – Houston, TX – White Oak Lawn $ +
June 29 – Tulsa, OK – BOK Center $ +
$ – Father John Misty
* – Jade Bird
+ – Erin Rae
^Unless otherwise specified.
Few contemporary bands embody what Greil Marcus coined as “Old. weird America” as well as The Felice Brothers and a new release by this Upstate New York rustic-core collective is always welcome news.
The new album, “Undress,” the follow-up to 2016’s “Life in rhe Dark,” will be released on May 3rd from Yep Roc Records.
Cut live to tape with very little overdubbing, Undress was recorded in the late summer of 2018 in Germantown, New York. Band members Ian Felice, James Felice, Will Lawrence (drums) and Jesske Hume (bass) teamed up with producer Jeremy Backofen to record their most personal and reflective album to date.
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“Many of the songs on the new album are motivated by a shift from private to public concerns,†says songwriter Ian Felice. “It isn’t hard to find worthwhile things to write about these days, there are a lot of storms blooming on the horizon and a lot of chaos that permeates our lives. The hard part is finding simple and direct ways to address them.â€
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Since the band’s last 2016 album release the group in a very different place. Between personnel changes, families growing and the political landscape, the result is a tighter, more-paired down release. “Every song is a story,†said James Felice. “On this album everything was a bit more thoughtful, including the arrangements, the sonic quality and the harmonies.â€
Listen to title cut “Undress”
Pre-order “Undress” Here
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Ian and James Felice grew up in the Hudson valley of upstate NY. Self taught musicians, inspired as much by Hart Crane and Whitman as by Guthrie and Chuck Berry, they began in 2006 by playing subway platforms and sidewalks in NYC and have gone on to release nine albums of original songs and to tour extensively throughout the world. Following the release of Life in the Dark, The Felice Brothers served as the backing band for Conor Oberst’s 2017 release Salutations and the subsequent tour.Â
The band kicks off a US tour starting on April 27 in Albany. Tickets go on sale on February 12 at www.thefelicebrothers.com.
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Tour Dates:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
4/27: Albany, NY – TBAÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
4/28: Syracuse, NY – The Westcott Theater           Â
4/29: Buffalo, NY – The 9th Ward at Babeville          Â
4/30: Toronto, ON – Legendary Horseshoe Tavern          Â
5/2: Chicago, IL – Sleeping Village                     Â
5/3: Lexington, KY – On The Rail Roots Festival                     Â
5/4: Columbus, OH – Rumba Cafe                                Â
5/6: Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe                                Â
5/7: Lancaster, PA – Tellus 360Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
5/9: Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s                     Â
5/10: Brooklyn, NY – The Bell House                     Â
5/12: Hopewell, NJ – Hopewell Theater                     Â
5/15: Portsmouth, NH – 3S Artspace                                Â
5/16: Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre                     Â
5/18: Cambridge, MA – The SinclairÂ
5/23: Virginia Beach, VA – Elevation 27Â
5/24: Richmond, VA – Richmond Music Hall               Â
5/25: Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap – with The Avett Brothers               Â
6/6: Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle Tavern                     Â
6/7: Decatur, GA – Eddie’s Attic                                Â
6/8: Nashville, TN – Exit/In
6/9: Birmingham, AL – Avondale Brewery
6/10: New Orleans -Gasa Gasa
6/12: Austin, TX – Barracuda
6/14: Santa Fe, NM – Tumbleroot
6/15: Tucson, AZ – 191 Toole
6/16: San Diego, CA – The Casbah
6/17: Los Angeles, CA – Bootleg Theater
6/19: San Francisco, CA – The Chapel
6/21: Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
6/22: Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern
6/24: Garden City, ID – Visual Arts Collective
6/25: Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
6/27: Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
There are many ways to describe the work of master singer-songwriter John Paul White. If forced to distill to a single word to describe his aesthetic it would be bittersweet.
So, to learn that White’s upcoming third solo release is entitled “The Hurting Kind” made perfect sense. The king of melancholy is back in the saddle.
Then you hear the single ‘The Long Way Home’ (listen below) from the album and, damn if it isn’t jaunty, defiant even. The cover displays White in his usual dark suit casual dapper persona and tassel of hair, his briskly strummed acoustic guitar strides right into a backbeat and, what’s that, pedal steel! But just behind the sonic rhinestones are weary miles of separation from loved ones, and hope and longing intertwin to lead him back to hearth and home. I’ve read that this song brought White’s youngest child to tears. That’s the power and humility of art.
I have no inside knowledge of this, but it’s been a theory of mine that the isolation of the road was once os the main reasons the Civil Wars called it a day at the height of their popularity. We all see the glamour of the working musician with no thought to the grind that it can be,
But this is no woe-is-me lament. This is a song with a higher intention. To celebrate and focus, on the big portrait of the loved ones that make the cookie-cutter hotels and stale-beer bars tolerable.
‘The Hurting Kind’ is out April 12 on Single Lock Records. Pre-order it here.
The Hurting Kind Tracklist:
01. The Good Old Days
02. I Wish I Could Write You a Song
03. Heart Like a Kite
04. Yesterday’s Love
05. The Long Way Home
06. The Hurting Kind
07. This Isn’t Gonna End Well (featuring Lee Ann Womack)
08. You Lost Me
09. James
10. My Dreams Have All Come True
Texas Roots Artist Charley Crocket took to his Instgram account to share that his recovery from open heart surgery is going well. The surgery was to address a heart condition called Wolf Parkinson’s White Syndrome, a condition Crocket was born with.  Wolf Parkinson’s White Syndrome is when there is an extra electrical pathway between the heart’s upper and lower chambers causing rapid heartbeat. The extra pathway is present at birth and fairly rare.
After seeing a specialist to address a long-existing hernia Crocket was referred to a heart specialist where tests proved that he would need to address his heart condition, as a missing valve in his Aorta was causing blood to leak into his heart, before getting surgery for his hernia. Crocket wrote that this condition would “…lead to a heart attack at anytime. (sic)”
Crocket also recounts “…dizzyness, shortness of breath and blackouts were something I thought came with playing 200 shows a year and living on the highway.” Talk about a road warrior!
Many refer to musicians as “artists.” Few deserve the designation as much as Townes Van Zandt does. In his brief and troubled time on this planet, Van Zandt spun dark beauty from tragedy and addiction. “Though he did briefly flirt with mainstream success with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covering his outlaw ballad “Pancho And Lefty,†at the time of his death in the early hours of New Years day 1997, at the age of 52, Van Zandt was relatively unknown.
But artists as renowned as Bob Dylan and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley were aware of his genius and wanted to work with him. Over the years his name has come to stand for the craft and authenticity so many Americana and roots artist strive to achieve.
New music by Townes Van Zandt is a rare find. So I’m thrilled that on March 7, 2019—which would have been his 75th birthday, TVZ Records and Fat Possum Records will release “Sky Blue,” eleven unreleased Van Zandt recordings made in early 1973 with the late Bill Hedgepeth, a journalist, musician, and most crucially a close friend of Townes. This forty-six year-old time capsule is a rare glimpse of the artist working out some of his most iconic songs in an intimate, comfortable setting with one of his lifelong confidantes.
Hear the new unreleased song “All I Need” below.
During this period of his life Van Zandt was splitting his time between Texas, Colorado, and a shack outside Franklin, Tennessee: an itinerant life that suited and informed many of his most famous and beloved tunes. Throughout his life he would often return to Hedgepeth’s home studio in Atlanta, later with family in tow, to record, re-work, and experiment with new songs as well as old favorites.
From the PR sheet: “These versions of “Pancho & Lefty†and “Rex’s Blues†show these songs as early drafts: raw, sorrowful, and as stunningly moving as he ever was, full of clean flat-picking and adept flourishes in just the right places. He emerges as a master of economic songwriting and playing, providing all that’s needed and nothing more, confident that his ideas and emotions would come through more clearly for being so judiciously understated.
In addition to a handful of old favorites, “Sky Blue” also includes two new songs that have never been heard before—”All I Need†and “Sky Blueâ€â€”as well as covers of songs by Richard Dobson and Tom Paxton. There is a smoky version of “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues†and a scarred and scarring interpretation of “Hills of Roane County,†an East Tennessee murder ballad from the 1880s that was popularized by Tony Rice. Van Zandt performs them deftly, sings them intuitively, and displays his delightfully twisted sense of humor on the devious “Snake Song†and the vicious “Dream Spider.â€
Conceived by Townes’ surviving family—his wife and literary executor Jeanene, along with his children, J.T., Will, and Katie Bell— “Sky Blue” sounds like an entirely new album rather than a reissue of old recordings. That’s how urgent and invigorated these performances sound, offering a revealing glimpse into Townes’ process, the evolution of his songs as well as the myriad versions he had in his head.”
Ryan Adams has revealed that he plans to release three albums in 2019. First up will be “Big Colors” out April 19. Produced by Adams, Beatriz Artola, and Don Was, and features contributions from Benmont Tench of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and fellow alt.darling Bob Mould. (Big Colors tracklist below)
Hear “Doylestown Girl,” the first single from ‘Big Colors.’
Next will be “Wednesdays” which has been verified to feature contributions from Emmylou Harris, Jason Isbell, and Tench. Adams co-produces with Artola. (Wednesdays tracklist below)
The album release information became public in a way that, if you follow his Twitter feed, displays his political slant. News of “Big Colors” coming from MSNBC anchor Katy Tur and the Washington Post’s “Power Up” news feed.
. @TheRyanAdams is releasing three new albums this year (3!). The first is called BIG COLORS. Here’s the cover. Can’t wait to dive in. pic.twitter.com/pKsZd4jYu9
Adams is no stranger to prolific output as these three albums slated for 2019 will match his output from 2005. In that year Adams released “Cold Roses” (with The Cardinals) on May 3, “Jacksonville City Nights” (with The Cardinals) on September 27, and “29” on December 19, 2005.
Big Colorsfollows 2017’sPrisoner.
Big Colors track list:
1. Big Colors 2. Do Not Disturb 3. It’s So Quiet, It’s Loud 4. (Expletive) the Rain 5. Doylestown Girl 6. Dreaming You Backwards 7. I Surrender 8. What Am I 9. Power 10. Showtime 11. In It for the Pleasure 12. Middle of the Line 13. I’m Sorry and I Love You 14. Manchester 15. Summer Rain
Wednesdays track list:
1. Walk in the Dark 2. Who Is Gonna Love Me Now, If Not You 3. So Anyways 4. Wednesdays 5. Lost in Time 6. It’s Not That Kind of Night 7. Somewhere It Is Spring 8. Poison & Pain 9. Nobody Wins 10. Momma 11. When You Cross Over 12. Birmingham 13. Like a Heatwave 14. Red & Orange Special 15. Magic Trick 16. Pennsylvania Moon 17. Take Me Home
