The last few years has seen Ryan Adams dabbling in computer music and metal with occasional forays into his singer/songwriter wheelhouse with Easy Tiger and Adams’ last studio album, Ashes & Fire.
Maybe it’s his love affair with Fender amps, but the latest offering from Adam’s takes a page from the Tom Petty bible of hook-laden rock- and-roll.
“Gimme Something Good,†his first release in two years, is a blast at us who wondered if a sober Ryan Adams was a soft Ryan Adams. Guitar stabs swirls of Hammond B3 Organ. this is classic rock made anew – big and bold and content to leave feelings aside for a spell. An acoustic does appear near the end of the track, but it’s added for flavor and doesn’t slow down the charge ahead.
I raise a Bic lighter high to “Gimme Something Goodâ€
Dave Letterman is showing no sign of slowing down great Americana and roots music as he heads towards the exit door next year.
There is no better example than Hurray For The Riff Raff debuting their song “The Body Electric” on Letterman last night.
Alynda Lee Segarra, draped in angelic white, strums an acoustic guitar as the band swells and swirls around this classic murder ballad turned inside out from the woman’s point of view.
Her’s a taste of “Live from Atlanta” the first ever Lucero formal live release.
Below you can stream a live version of “Sweet Little Thingâ€, a classic ballad originally from the band’s sophomore effort Tennessee.
“Live from Atlanta” spans the roots-rock band’s career. Recorded over three nights in Atlanta’s Terminal West, it’s a collection of 32 cuts mixing folk, country, soul and punk rock.
About their live performance front man Ben Nichols says “We’re each playing in a completely different band. We’re on stage and each playing in our own Lucero. I’m not sure that’s how it works for other bands.â€
“Blackland Farmer” is a wonderful reverb drenched stomp-blues rock number by Hard Working Americans featuring Todd Snider, Dave Schools (Widespread Panic), Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood), Chad Staehly (Great American Taxi) and Duane Trucks. The roots-music supergroup’s self-titled debut has done well on Americana Radio and received high praise from no less than Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, USA Today, Relix, Magnet, American Songwriter, NPR’s Fresh Air. The band has been also been nominated for the Americana Music Association’s 2014 Duo / Group of the Year award.
Not too shabby at all.
The new video for “Blackland Farmer” is a contemporary twist on Frankie Miller’s 1959 hit’s narrative about working-class perseverance. The debut video from award-winning rock photographer, journalist Andy Tennille vividly depicts a small farmer facing another grueling day providing for his family. Necessity begets ingenuity as the farmer takes a risk, reacts to changing attitudes and market directions, and pursues a fail-safe cash crop.
Hard Working Americans and Melvin Records will release a special limited edition 12 inch single for “Blackland Farmer.†Side A will feature the original album version of Frankie Miller’s 1959 hit, while Side B will feature a live concert recording of the song. The single package will contain a pack of custom Hard Working Americans rolling papers and a 25% off coupon towards a purchase at the LoDo Wellness Center in Denver, CO, a marijuana dispensary that is open to the public. The final item in the package will be a download card for the new video for “Blackland Farmerâ€.
The limited edition singles will only be available at the band’s shows this summer and here.
The Americana Music Association continues its tradition of showcasing some of the best in Americana and roots music by it’s partial roster of Americanfest performers released today.
Though the lineup doesn’t show any groundbreaking direction, I’m fine with that. There are lots of folks on the list that have been busting their hump for years and deserve this recognition rather then inserting acts to placate outsider accusations of one thing or another. Personally I’m happy to see Casa Twang favorites Howlin’ Brothers, Jamestown Revival, John Moreland, Lera Lynn, Marah and Ben Miller Band on the bill. And Texas is well-represented by Billy Joe Shaver, Sarah Jarosz, Jason Eady and Hayes Carll
The event is celebrating its 15th as the premier Americana event by welcoming 160 performers taking the stage at 11 venues including 3rd & Lindsley, The Basement, City Winery, High Watt, Cannery, Mercy Lounge, The Rutledge, Station Inn, Music City Roots, Downtown Presbyterian Church and Musicians Corner.
Three-time Americana Group of the Year, The Avett Brothers, will headline the event at Riverfront Parl on Saturday Sept. 20. Americana’s Music Festival & Conference registrations will have access. Tickets for the general public will go on sale Friday, June 27 at 10AMat www.ticketfly.com.
The first half of Americanafest’s performing artist list includes:
Allison Moorer
Amy Ray
Angaleena Presley
The Avett Brothers
The Barefoot Movement
Ben Miller Band
Billy Joe Shaver
Black Prairie
Brennen Leigh and Noel McKay
Buddy Miller
The Cactus Blossoms
Carlene Carter
Caroline Rose
Chatham County Line
Chuck Mead
Danny & The Champions of the World
The Deadly Gentleman
Del Barber
The Deslondes
Doug Seegers
The Duhks
The Dustbowl Revival
Emily Barker & the Red Clay Halo
Ethan Johns
The Fairfield Four
The Grahams
Grant-Lee Phillips
Green River Ordinance
Greensky Bluegrass
Gregory Alan Isakov
Greyhounds
The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer
Hayes Carll
Howlin’ Brothers
Immigrant Union
Israel Nash
Jamestown Revival
Jason Eady
JD Wilkes & the Dirt Daubers
Joe Henry
Joe Pug
Joe Purdy
John Moreland
Jonah Tolchin
Jonny Two Bags
Josh Ritter
Joshua James
Lake Street Dive
Lee Ann Womack
Leo Welch
Lera Lynn
Marah Presents: Mountain Minstrelsy
Marty Stuart
Matthew Ryan
McCrary Sisters
Nathaniel Rateliff
New Country Rehab
Oh Susanna
Otis Gibbs
Parker Millsap
Paul Thorn
Pete Molinari
Quebe Sisters Band
Rhett Miller
Robbie Fulks
Robyn Hitchcock
Rodney Crowell
Ruthie Foster
Ryan Montbleau
Sam Outlaw
Sarah Jarosz
Sean Rowe
Shakey Graves
Suzy Bogguss
Todd Snider & Friends
Tom Freund
Tony Joe White
Trigger Hippy (feat. Jackie Greene, Joan Osbourne, Steve Gorman, Tom Bukovac & Nick Govrik)
Whiskey Shivers
Willie Watson
The 15th annual Americana Music Festival & Conference occurs September 17-21, 2014 in Nashville, Tenn. The 13th annual Americana Honors & Awards Show on Sept. 17 at the historic Ryman Auditorium.
Sturgill Simpson’s latest video, is for his dour yet heartfelt of version of Manchester synth-pop band When In Rome’s 1988 hit “The Promise.” (also included below for reference)
Simpson sits singing looking directly at you. Aashed-out colors fill in the grey-tone frame. Colors swirl and wash until replaced by inky clouds claustrophobically closing in.
And then.. he’s gone.
“The Promise” is a cover but Simpson makes it his own and shapes one of the best songs on his excellent release “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.â€
Ladies and Gents great country music is alive and well and, yes, sometimes it still comes from Music Row.
GRAMMY-award winning singer/songwriter Kacey Musgraves has a response to self-rightous neighbors and it’s “The Trailer Song,†and it’s a honky-tonk delight (with an “awww haaawww’ for bonus points)
The song was written by Musgraves, and her usual partners in crime Brandy Clark and Shane McAnnally
Last week Musgraves performed “The Trailer Song†on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (see below.)
Purchase “The Trailer Song.†at Musgraves’ website.
Musgraves is currently on tour this summer with Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss as well as Katy Perry on her Prismatic World Tour.
“The Devil Is All Around” is the first cut from Shovels & Rope upcoming sophomore release “Swimmin’ Time” (Dualtone Music – August 26)
Courage and perseverance in the wake of hardships and the lures of earthly temptations are a staple in folk, country and gospel music. The video show the natural interplay between Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent as they blend their roughhewn harmonies and give that classic form a kick in the pants.
It’s a righteous spiritual for these unsure times.
The band will tour will start in August in their hometown in Raleigh, NC with stops scheduled in Atlanta, Nashville, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, New York with The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and John Fullbright. Catch ’em if you can!
Shovels & Rope Tour
7/4 & 7/6 – Ottawa, ON – RBC Blues Ottawa Festival
7/5 – Toronto, ON – Toronto Urban Roots Fest
7/10-12 – Oakbank, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival
7/13 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre #
7/26 – Newport, RI – Newport Folk Festival
8/20 – Raleigh, NC – Raleigh Amphitheater **
8/21 – Charlotte, NC – Uptown Amphitheater **
8/22 – Alpharetta, GA – Verizon Wireless Amphitheater **
8/23 – Nashville, TN – The Woods Amphitheater at Fontanel **
8/27 – Louisville, KY – WFPK Waterfront Wednesday
9/18 – Wilmington, NC – Ziggy’s %
9/20 – Charlottesville, VA – Jefferson Theater %
9/24 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
9/26 – Boston, MA – Royale %
9/27 – Boston, MA – Royale %
9/28 – Montreal, QB – Corona Theatre %
10/1 – Detroit, MI – St. Andrew’s Hall %
10/2 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre %
10/3 – Minneapolis, MN – First Ave %
10/5 – Madison, WI – Barrymore Theatre
10/7 – Bloomington, IN – Bluebird %
10/8 – Knoxville, TN – Bijou Theatre %
10/10 – Athens, GA – Georgia Theatre %
# – with The Avett Brothers
** – with Old Crow Medicine Show
% – with John Fullbright
On his 1962 masterpiece “Modern Sounds in Country Music” Ray Charles’ broke cultural and racial boundaries, straddled styles, grew his audience and made the charts.
Sturgill Simpson’s newest release tips a hat to that release but “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” but it doesn’t break any boundaries that weren’t broke decade ago.
Simpson does fight against the current thinking that what’s old is bad. This is not new. Gram Parson’s did it in the 60’s and 70’s and the entire Americana genre is built on that premise. But just as Charles’ classic engaged country music as a lens to take a broader cultural view Simpson uses 70’s country gold as a review mirror to remind us what cultural beauty we’ve squandered.
Music City has always raced towards the shiniest object to gain market share and fill pockets. It’s charter is not historic preservation but cash accumulation. But that history is rich and fertile ground in the mind of Simpson, a mindful disciple that spans history and style with authenticity and a crooked smile.
That richness can be heard, and felt, in the songwriting.
The record opens as an old-timer, billed as “Dood” Fraley, announces the title album and then echoes off into infinite space.
Sunny psychedelic “Turtles All The Way Down” opens with a “Gentle On My Mind” feel with a twist “I’ve seen Jesus play with flames in a lake a fire that I was sanding in” “There’s a gateway in our mind that leads somewhere out there beyond this plane / Where reptile aliens made of light cut you open and pull out all your pain.”
“Tear in my Beer” this ain’t.
Drug use and mind expansion is not new in country music. Way before Willie and Snoop sang “Roll Me Up and Smoke When I Die.” and Kacey Musgraves , Ashley Monroe and Brandy Clark hitched a ride on the current weed bandwagon Kris Kristofferson was smoking his mind in “Sunday Morning Coming Down” (which Simpson references in “Life of Sin”) and Johnny Cash went on a murderous jag in “Cocaine Blues.”
But Simpson reflects a humanity in the mind alterations that grounds it and makes it relatable to even the straightest arrow.
Humanity is often dark, and “Life of Sin” takes a page from the book of Bakersfield and tells a leavin’ tale taht leads to drinkin’ and debauchery that raves like an prairie dust storm.
“Living the Dream” is a laid-back, Waylon-tinged cold reality lament of the futility of performing as you contemplate futility and “sit around and wait to die.”
“Long White Line” is a love song to the open road as a path away from hurt. “The Promise” is the most poignant track on the album. Simpson conjures loneliness and yearning in his softly, almost spoken, delivery as plucked guitar, drums, bass and stings build.
As you can guess this is not the feel good album of the summer. it engage human themes once prevalent in country music, misery. But not in th meost recent emo vairty of the emotion. this is misery as enlightenment. Angst as discovery.
“It Ain’t all Flowers” is a flashback kick in the teeth with “Are You Experienced”-style backtracking before giving way to a slow groover that slithers and seethes Southern sou.
Simpson’s voice is an expressive instrument in itself as if pleads and growls keening into hard-edge shapes and the occasional howl “oooHooooooo!” The band is on par with the level of excellence you’d expect from a Sturgill Simpson release. Kevin Black on bass guitar, Miles Miller on drums/percussion and backing vocal, Mike Webb on keyboards and
Dave Cobb plays. classical guitar/percussion. The stand out is Laur Joamets from Tartu, Estonia ranks up there with the finest interpreters of teh guitar I’ve had th honer of hearing.
Simpson doesn’t care to be country music’s savior but he’s willing to interpret it to make some damn fine new music an d fans are coming in droves. There’s a hunger for it.
Is “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” groundbreaking? No.and it doesn’t need to be. It just remind us there still some gold in that there High Top Mountain
At the 1975 Country Music Association awards in Nashville reigning Entertainer of Year recipient made a statement still talked about today, but now available on YouTube (for now)
The “Silver Fox” had won the honor the year before and obligated to announce the winner of the category the current year.
A visibly buzzed Rich made his way to the stage and proceeded to milk the moment or effect and, apparently, torture the nominees
“I know the people that are up for it are suffering right now.”
As he reads the list of nominees – John Denver, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn (who he proceeds to ask on a date in front of her husband, Mooney) Ronnie Milsap and Conway Twitty.
The audible scattered laughter from the crowd when John Denver’s name was read told you what you needed to know about the attitude in the room to the pop-folk newcomer.
The winning envelope is torn (annihilated) open and the winners name is announced. “My friend, John Denver.” Just after setting the naming card afire.
Talk about an outlaw move.
But Rich was anything but an outlaw. He tore up the charts with singles like “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl.” Pop-country fair that was key in moving country music into cross-genre audience expansion.
Denver was a natural extension of Rich, Eddie Arnold and Glenn Campbell to fuse pop and jazz elements into country, softening it’s edges and filtering out the twang that alienated a coveted uptown audience.
Whether Rich was joking or not is only known by him. Whether he was making some great gesture or just trying to get attention in a drunken stpor has been fodder for speculation for years.
Rich stayed publicly mum on the controversial event. But many in the tight-knit industry took his insubordination seriously and his career suffered as he found it increasingly hard to find work afterword.
The world the Rich and Denver shaped now dominates the industry, airwaves and filled arenas across the nation. There’s not enough lighters in the world to change that fact.
