Category Archives: alt.country

News Round Up: RIP Vic Chesnutt

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Welcome to 2010 folks, not let’s get a cup of joe and roll up our sleeves, and get into the latest in music happenings…

  • The New York Times features an article, Nashville Inches, Ever So Grudgingly, Into The Future, where it compares the lack of innovation in Music Row to the stubborn (and suicidal) stance to the recording industry over the last decade. Country music has learned tat “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” in as much as it’s attained it’s current  brand of pop-country. This is where the article overlooks Nashville’s history of of style assimilation over the past 50 years from co-opting the 1940’s crooners to the current filching of bad 70’s rock.
  • New York City twangers need to head over to the always excellent Rockwood Music Hall on Tuesday, January 12 to see friend of  Twang Nation Joe Whyte (the King of NYC Americana)  who will be appearing with his full band, Cat Popper (Grace Potter, Ryan Adams) on bass, Rob Heath (Kevin Kinney, Jill Sobule) on drums, and Dan Marcus (Norah Jones, Ana Egge) on guitar. Whyte will be playing current favorites as well as premiering new music to appear on his follow up to Devil in the Details.
  • American Songwriter’s newest legend’s issue features Townes Van Zandt, Robert Earle Keen, Bobby Braddock, Rickie Lee Jones, Richard Thompson and John Prine.
  • If you didn’t hear, died on Christmas Day at his Athens, Georgia, holidays singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt took his own life by overdose of muscle relaxants.  Paralyzed from the waist down after a 1983 car accident, Chesnutt was wheelchair-bound since the age of 18 and suffered from years of depression. His music is a unique blend of idiosyncratic folk/Americana, bracing in its beauty as much as in its honesty. Here are some tributes: PopMatters.com, Online Athens, the New York Times and the Guardian.uk.

News Round Up: 2009 Top Picks

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It’s the end of a year and the  decade (yikes!) and besides my own best of 2009 list I offer you some like-minded blogs year-end lists to round of the great selections of the year. There is some overlap but enough differences to make them worth a look for additions to your own list of music to check out. You can tell by many of the blogs breaking the top 10 mold and offering top 20 that it was a great year for Americana and roots music. Feel free to add your own as a comment below.

A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz

News Round Up: T Bone Burnett Discusses Crazy Heart Collaboration with Stephen Bruton

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  • The Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame plans to update their main exhibit space to devote an area to Americana and contemporary bluegrass music. The new exhibit will feature artifacts from Alison Krauss, Jim Lauderdale, Dell McCoury and Buddy Miller. Also to be included  in the the second floor gallery’s theatre (in front of the Hee Haw exhibit)  a new video exhibit will be featured showing about how topical events and social political issues are reflected and country music. The exhibit will feature examples like Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill,” the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” and Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American).”
  • For that Americana rock lover you need a gift for Billy Reid has offers a hand-made and -finished wooden box from Ross LeBlanc containing rare t-shirts inspired by the roots artists Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, and the Drive-by Truckers, and also includes a DVD of Old Crow Medicine Show’s live performance at the Tennessee Theater.
  • T Bone Burnett discusses his personal story of singer/songwriter Stephen Bruton. Thier collaboration and friendship led to the music selections for the upcoming Jeff Bridge’s movie about a down but not quite out country singer Crazy Heart. Burnett also mentions upcoming production duties with Jakob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Gregg Allman, Robert Randolph and John Mellencamp, and overseeing an all-star recording of music written by Mellencamp and horror-writer, and Americana music fan, Stephen King for “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a play with music. And then there’s “Tough Trade,” a new series about three generations of country music stars, for which he’s serving as executive music producer. It’s set to premiere next year for EPIX, Viacom’s new multiplatform entertainment service. (LA Times)
  • Paramount Pictures has begun an open casting call to find a Caucasian girl between the ages of 12 and 16 to play the lead role of Mattie Ross in the upcoming Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of True Grit. (Cowboys and Indians blog)

News Round Up: Emmylou Harris , Miranda Lambert and Brandi Carlile Join Lilith Fair Line-Up

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  • Longtime member of Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys passed away at the age of 72. (Billboard)
  • The End Times Opry stops into New York City’s Lower East Side cozy Living Room on December 20th 7-10PM. The End Times Opry is a result of a group of artists who performed at the Pumpkintown Opry, in Pumpkintown South Carolina, for aging church groups. The End Times Opry fuses comedy, spoken word, and music for a collective entertainment experience. Performers include singer/songwriter Alexa Woodward , sonwriter/puppeteer Phoebe Kreutz, singer/songwriter Annie Crane , singer/songwriter Dan Costello, the band BoomChick, singer/songwriter Jack Hardy, singer/songwriter Frank Hoier and comic relief by Michael Robinette and Charles Massey of No Expectations Comedy.
  • Emmylou Harris , Miranda Lambert and Brandi Carlile will join Sugarland, Indigo Girls and Sheryl Crow performing with the newly reestablished Lilith Fair created by Sarah McLachlan. Some of first-round 18 cities already announced for this traveling tour are Atlanta, New York, Dallas, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Denver, San Francisco, Montreal and London.
  • Ranch Twang favorite, The Mighty Drive By Truckers, have left New West records and signed with Dave Matthew’s ATO Records (yes, THAT Dave Matthews.) Thier ATO Records debut record and the band’s 10th, The Big To-Do, is scheduled to be released March 16, 2010. The Big To-Do features thirteen new tracks from the Drive-By Truckers and was produced by their long time producer, David Barbe (Sugar, Bettye LaVette). “It’s very much a rock album,” says Patterson Hood of the Trucker’s upcoming release. “Very melodic and more rocking than anything we’ve done since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera.” The Drive-By Truckers will be hitting the road at the beginning of the new year and a full tour supporting The Big To-Do will be announced in early 2010.
  • St. Luis based root-rock stalwarts The Bottle Rockets will release a new live 7-inch single through Euclid Records store on Dec. 15. Recorded during the band’s in-store performance on Record Store Day this past April 18, the release will be strictly limited to 300 copies. The 45s are sold exclusively at Euclid Records (www.euclidrecords.com) for $9.99. For each sold a dollar will be donated to the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund (NOMRF) to benefit musicians displaced or suffering loss of equipment in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Euclid Records is located at 601 East Lockwood in Webster Groves, Mo. (Country Standard Time)
  • Fox Searchlight’s fading country singer comeback move, Crazy Heart,starring Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Lost Highway’s Texas singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham, looks like a great movie. It seems that it was lucky to make it to the theaters at all.

Music Review: Mandy Marie and the Cool Hand Lukes – $600. Boots

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mm coverThe Internet not only allows this site to exist but it makes discovering bands (and my work) a lot easier. I discovered Mandy Marie and the Cool Hand Lukes after coming across a featured review of their new release $600. Boots over at the the No Depression site (are you a member? You should be)  written by the good folks over at hyperbolium.com. The part of the review that caught my eye was the comparison with Ms. Mandy Marie and Ms. Wanda Jackson. After listening to $600. Boots and hearing Ms. Morris bet out her songs, rip her tele her and her Cool Hand Lukes (Morrison Foster – upright bass, Eric Grimmitt – Telecaster numero dos, Lewis Scott Jones – drums) I do believe that Ms. Jackson would be proud (and might jump on the stage with them.)

This is the wrong side of the Americana tracks. Evoking barrooms with chicken-wire caged stages, wood shavings on the dance floor, good-natured brawls, whiskey-fueled tears, Saturday nights with little thought to Sunday morning. Stories of sin, salvation, cheating, fighting, wayward youth, hot-roding, all-night trucking, doping and boozing spiked with an amped-up hillbilly Rockabilly/Bakersfield style that makes all that suffering sound like a grand old time.

Dresser Drawer Bible is a motel room honky-tonk Gospel-tinged number sang by a gal at the end of her rope and the title cut train-chugs Cash style road-weary tales that proclaims in the chorus “We’re too dumb for New York. Too ugly for L.A.”

Booze and broken heats are on fill display with This Old Tattoo, is a boot-skooting broken hearted tale of emotional and skin-art regret, and  (I’m Gonna) Drink You Out Of My Mind a high-gear jaunt on forgetting. For pure honky-tonk-girl-had-enough goodness you could do any better than Leave Me baby, Leave Me be, which sounds like a Loretta Lynn song written on meth.

Like a shot of good whiskey $600. Boots ends with a smooth burn, a blazing version of Jimmie Roger’s classic Mule Sinner Blues complete with Ms. Marie’s dead-on yelping yodel.

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(I’m Gonna) Drink You Out Of My Mind (mp3)

Rose Maddox

The Revival Tour – Slims – San Francisco, CA – 11/6/09

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Me and many others have drawn a crooked, dirty line from old-time country, mountain and folk music to punk music. Working class themes punctuated by simple rhythms defined more by passion then artistry While I consider myself a music fan, I know next to nothing about current punk (or post-punk) bands, so I took it on the advice of a friend to check this tour out. I did some research and like what I learned.

The tour started last year as the brainchild of Chuck Ragan, frontman for  post-hardcore/punk band, Hot Water Music, and presented by Ragan’s own label Ten Four Records. The format gathers a revolving cast of musicians from various punk and post-punk bands to revive the old style jamboree and hayride format of organic collaboration. The musicians either stripped down their original material to fit the folk/ Americana acoustic format or they have written material that fits the genre structure for the show and egos are kept in check as musicians accompany each other in various combinations.

Aside from Ragan, this bill for the Orlando show featured Jim Ward (of At The Drive-In, Sleepercar and Sparta), Frank Turner (of Million Dead), Joey Cape (Lagwagon), folk/Americana singer Audra Mae, The Anderson Family Bluegrass Band, Konrad Wert (Possessed by Paul James) and featured the frequent and excellent fiddle playing of Jon Gaunt & Digger Barnes on the upright bass bringing up the low end.

The show starts with all the musicians on stage exhibiting the democratic and supportive ethos that characterizes the tour. It sounds like a recipe for chaos but all the performers are amazing and the caradre from the musicians spills out into an adoring crowd that whoops and claps along.

Audra Mae and The Anderson Family Bluegrass Band were the only full-time Americana acts on the bill and they delivered in spades. The former sang with a clear stream voice that warmed your heart and made you forget your troubles and the latter,  Mom Christy on upright bass, Dad Mark banjo and their family Paige (guitar/vocals), Aimee (fiddle), Ethen (mandolin) and Daisey (fiddle), tearing it up onstage and winning over an audience that probably could not name one song by Bill Monroe.

El Paso, TX based Jim Ward, formerly the rhythm guitarist of At The Drive-In, the vocalist/guitarist in Sparta, and currently fronting his Alt-Country project Sleepercar performed a spirited set and appears to be comfortable in his newly chosen genre (must be those Texas roots) and British folk/punk Frank Turner (formerly the vocalist of U.K. post-Hardcore band Million Dead) performed a rollicking set drinking songs from across the pond and remained us all that “What you call Americana and country has been kicking around my country for a couple of thousand years.” tis true. Both  performers left me wanting more.

Possessed by Paul James did a sit down set with a soar and yelp of his voice he embodied the best tradition of a one man band and local boy (well, Santa Barbara) Joey Cape played a great set to an audience that seemed to know his songs word for word and sometimes filled in. Cape’s  voice, more than the others,  lent itself well to the more subtle singer/songwriter format. Jon Gaunt was a great pick for fiddle support. He reminded me of O’Death’s Bob Pycior as a find of a guy that brings ferocity yet precision to the instrument.

As a master of ceremonies Chuck Ragan is a modest one. His graveled vocals and acoustic attack that can only come fro a guy that cut his teeth on punk’s intensity and he commands the stage during his set.  As he plays through his set the rest of the band enters the stage and things end as they began , camaraderie and revelry on a large scale. Check closed by saying “See you next year!” so it appears  that the Revival Tour will continue for years to come. I’ll be there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMkuUxsQHzQ[/youtube]

Thankful For The Music

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Okay, I got a lot of hits and responses to my post on the dismal glitter parade that was the Country Music Awards. I’m encouraged that it was almost universally positive, though some was not (when will people get that just because I don’t like Taylor Swift’s songs or music I am not opining on her as a person? How many of these people know Taylor Swift personally? Maybe she’s a horrible diva that likes bathing in champagne and looking at her charting position and cackling “Suckers!!”), But I don’t just enjoy cursing the darkness (hilariously), I like to light a candle now and again.

The relationship of country music and Music City has been fraught with tension since Judge Hay started MCing the The Grand Ole Opry on the WSM Barn Dance from the fifth-floor radio studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company in downtown Nashville on November 1925. Music City is in the business of business.  The product they have historically offered is, at its best, a reflection n tradition and heritage of the Amerivcan human soul, the good bad and the ugly. Trouble results when the bean counters weigh in on song creation, studio production and trends are chased, not because they are interesting branches or simpatico with the music, but just to cash in. This output is mediocre if monetarily profitable. As a fan, and not a shareholder, I find this unacceptable and a damn shame and am noy t shy to say as much.

I am currently reading the Ralph Stanley’s biography Man of Constant Sorrow and am struck by how resolute the man and his brother, Carter, was about keeping their “simple, mountain music sound” and how Ralph threatened to quite the band when the introduction of the new-fangled instrument ,the dobro, was considered as an addition to a Stanley Brothers song. Stanley was about 23 at the time. Can you imagine anyone that age starting out in music having that clear and focused of a vision of their music and not just will to allow outsiders to shape them to make as music as possible? Br. Stanley had a clear idea of their brand of “hillbilly music” and what the fans wanted it that he was willing to chuck the whole thing to save it.

I believe there are a few creators still out there today creating a brand of hillbilly music, maybe a more distant cousin of Stanly’s, but it’s no less bracing in it’s allegiance to tradition even as it breaks genre grounds in other directions.  Covering the miles, often in a car or a van instead of a bus or charted plane, they bring grateful fans a sound that just can’t be found largely on commercial country radio, and willing to hang around the place afterward toseel a CD or shirt,  press some flash, sign an autograph and take a picture or two.

Off the top of my head I offer from my home state of  Texas Dale Watson, Wayne Hancock, James Hand, Jake Penrod, Junior Brown, Hayes Carll and legends like Ray Willie Hubbard and Tommy Alverson.  In other regions there is Joey Allcorn, Elizabeth Cook, Robbie Fulks, Chuck Mead and the new school with Those Darlins, Justin Townes Earle and William Elliott Whitmore, Grant Langston, Angela Easterling, the Felice Brothers , Lindsay Fuller, Amanda Shires, and many many more are out there many night of the year doing what they love telling their stories and leaving it all out on the stage.

Like i said in the original CMA post, I criticize because i come from this music. Its part of my Texas heritage and part of my family business. I love it and , like family, am not shy to pipe up when I think it’s done wrong.

Music Review: Wrinkle Neck Mules – Let the Lead Fly [Lower 40 Records 2009]

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Lead_Fly_CD-208x208Richmond, Virginia’s Wrinkle Neck Mules’ fourth studio release Let the Lead Fly finds the band – Andy Stepanian on vocal, guitar, mandolin, Mason Brent on vocal, guitar, mandolin, pedal steel, Brian Gregory on vocal, bass, Stuart Gunter on drums and Chase Heard on vocal, guitar, banjo – strips down their earlier sound resulting in this fine rustic Americana bedrock veined with flashes of indy rock gold that fits well with other roots rockers like The Drive By Truckers,  Son Volt and American Gun.

The music of the hills and hollers is part of the backbone of rock and roll, but by dipping deeper into the well of influence Let the Lead Fly fits together the contemporary and the old timey like a snug harness. The title cut, with Andy Stepanian’s graveled Fogerty-like hollerin’ and top-notch fiddle, sounds as natural as an off-the-cuff front porch hullabaloo. Heard takes on the vocals for the mid-tempo Fortune Fades is a tunes that sounds like Jay Farrar stopped by The Band’s up state New York Big Pink hideout for a Summer night jam.

Stepanian and Heard use thier respective strengths to harmonize on rustic-jangle of Medicine Bow and Dopamine Dream has a nice Red Dirt regional twang with guitar and pedal steel (which is interlaced throughout this release nicely) playing off each other nicely. Interplay between the old-timey and the contemporary doesn’t stop there, The mountain lament The Waters All Run Dry dapples with clawhammer banjo and is met later in the song with a sweet run of electric guitar. Sepia colored memories are the source the smooth barroom shuffle of Catfish and Color TVs and Howard Johnson tells the tale the simple pleasures of a small town hangout. Let the Lead Fly is a great release  that,  strikes the right balance of old and new connected by excellent songwriting and performance chops. I can’t wait ’til the WNM reload.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

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Wrinkle Neck Mules -  Let the Lead Fly.mp3
Wrinkle Neck Mules – The Waters All Run Dry.mp3

Interview: Malcolm Holcombe – Casting Out Demons

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“Everybody get’s their own take on a song. They find something that they can tap their foot to or clench their fist to. Hopefully it’ll be somewhere in between.” Malcolm Holcombe

Malcolm-Holcombe_IT5jmyKe7Nwx_fullMalcolm Holcombe is like a myth. A backwoods character in a Southern Gothic novel with a voice filled with a grave-dirt rattle and telling tales of simpler, and harder, times. Times he knows about. Surviving brushes with Nasvhille Big Labels, addictions and demons – No less than Steve Earle once famously said of him “”Malcolm Holcombe is the best songwriter I ever threw out of my recording studio.” Strong praise from a man that knows a thing or two about demons.

On the stage he casts out demons away like a man possessed.  Eyes rolled back, head shakes, spinning tales in his graveled yelp, standing up, walking away from his chair in mid-song. Not missing a lick on his guitar.

Malcolm Holcombe isn’t for everybody. But if you love music with heart and soul. Music that’s been somewhere and seen a thing or two, then he might be just the man for you.

I sat down with Malcolm Holcombe on a rainy afternoon last month in Nashville.

Twang Nation: You were born in Weaverville, N.C., what were your musical influences growing up?

Malcolm Holcombe: A lot of different sources. My mama played a little French harp and she was very supportive. I litened to the Grand ‘Ol Opry on the radio, Flatt and Scruggs, and Stringbean (David “Stringbean” Akeman) was always one my favorites. Grandpa Jones. Bluegrass music. And then in the early 60’s when all the Rock ‘n Roll starting hittin’ some of that. Mother had a few records. The Nutcracker Suite and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I had an Uncle that was a Baptist Preacher that made records and we used to play those. Used to sing songs in church.

TN: Tell me a little bit about your High School band, the Hilltoppers.

MH: Oh yeah, we got out and played a Sadie Hawkins dance or two. We covered some new folk songs, Peter Paul and Mary and such, as well as old folk songs.

TN: You lived here in Nashville for a while and had a brush with the big label system.

MH: Yeah, I lived in Nashville for several years. I’m not sure what happened when I was with Geffen. My album (Hundred Lies) got shelved and a lot of folks got axed, people were just moved around the checker board you know? I think things are better now because they sure were in a pile of bullshit for about 8 years. So in my opinion they are looking up.

TN: Well, they certainly are for you. You’ve some out of some hard times come back with great work that has some pretty impressive critical and audience support.

MH: I don’t know about that. I’m just trying to be of service.

TN: I checked out the videos of you on fan made YouTube videos, and checked your Facebook and Myspace pages, and you’ve got a loyal fan base.

MH: Well, it flips me out. t’s a miracle. To have a pulse and be able to share a tale or two. It just goes to show that if you hang around the barber shop long enough you’re gonna get a haircut. I just hung on ’til I did.

TN:You tour Europe quite a bit don’t you?

MH: Yeah, I’ve been fortunate enough to get over there. I met a woman over there, Joanna Serraris (promoter for Musemix) is working with a lot of Americana artists. Andrea Parodi (the late Sardinian Folk Singer) he was a great songwriter, very soulful and passionate. He helped me and used to tour manage and helped a lot of people.

TN: Do you have a strong following there?

MH: I don’t know, if anybody shows up I’m thankful.

TN: Europeans seem to me to be open the rich history of American music that I think you best represent. More than whatever is on pop radio.

MH:Well I’ve been fortunate to have folks here and over there that have been appreciative, I can’t say that one part of the world is more so than the other. I’m just glade to be of service doing my job. It’s easy to get complacent. We’re pretty spoiled in America, but we are only 200-plus-change years old. There are peope playing music here that opens doors to the roots music of America and England, Ireland and Germany. Education and open mindedness is the key. I’m hopeful. These are hard old times and I’m just lucky to be of service, to have a job, to have a purpose.

TN: Onstage you play like you have a purpose.

MH: Well you want folks onstage to deliver. If you’re going to raise corn you gotta get your hands on the plow.

TN: You seem to really be in another place onstage.

MH: And scared to the dickins! (Laughs) Still scares me to get up there. But I’m glade when I do it. You’re from Dallas right?

TN: Yeah.

MH: You ever heard of the All Good Cafe?

TN: Yeah. That’s a great place to see a show and get a beer.

MH: That’s were I saw this guy once there named Slim Ritchie, he plays in Texas a lot. I think he lives down there. He reminded me of Django Reinhardt, Man he was smooth. Made it look easy. I saw this one l little lady around San Antonio that was gifted and talented and was about knee-high to a grasshopper, but she could belt it out, Bianca DeLeon. She’s a fine talent but no bigger than a minute.

TN: I’ll check her out. Now on your new album, For The Mission Baby, you are working with producer Ray Kennedy again (he also produced Holcombe”s last release 2008’s Gamblin’ House.)

MH: Yeah, I’ve been talking to Ray for a long time and I thought it would be a rewarding experince to work on a project with Ray. And thanks to this little fledgling lebel in Asheville, NC (Echo Mountain Records) we were able to make a deal. They brought Ray on board and let me call the shots and have the creative control and I appreciate that. It’s very rare in this business to make a record like this, with great musicians, without people breathing down your neck to make a hit. Man, make a hit- I don’t even know what that is. It’s beyond my understanding, that’s not my purpose

TN: For a typically live solo act you have some great help on this record.

MH: Aw it’s wonderful, we had more fun! I saw Tim O’Brien (bouzouki, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, harmony vocal) last night and he was right in the pocket at this PBS Song of America taping we did last night. a lot of good people, David Roe on bass, he was on Gamblin’ House and Wager, I wanted to work with him again. Jared Tyler from Tulsa (dobro, lapsteel, harmony vocal), he’s got it in his blood and his skin the way that music pours. And Lynn Williams on percussion, Lynn’s been with Delbert McClinton for years. Ray’s wife Siobhan (Maher) and Mary (Gauthier) on backing vocals. It’s a lot of history and scary stuff ya know (laughs). But we played as a band and after one or two takes we were done. Very organic.

TN; This seems like a more upbeat album than Gamblin’ House. Is it because of the fun in the studio?

MH: Well, everybody get’s their own take on a song. They find something that they can tap their foot to or clench their fist to. Hopefully it’ll be somewhere in between. We did have a wonderful two or three days cutting it with thise folks. I have some wonderful memories. Hopefully people will feel that like you do and it’ll ease the burdens of the passing of time.

TN:Your finger picking style, playing the bass, rhythm, lead, percussion along with your vocals, reminds me a lot of style of Lightnin’ Hopkins.

MH: Well, that’s kind of you to say so. It’s just me trying to hone down desperation, trying to hone down frustration. We’re are all products of our raising, our environment. Like you and Dallas. Where are you now?

TN: Right now I live in San Francisco.

MH: Man, I love California. It’s really pretty. The most red tailed hawks I’ve ever seen. In Santa Ynez, North of Santa Barbara there’s a place, uh, Tales from the Tavern. It’s run by Ron Colone. He’s got a series that gets folks to spin a tale and pick a tune. Ron’s a sweet man and a promoter and he has this wonderful series of people that come pick and sing. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s played there. Have you been?

TN: No, but it’s now on my list.

MH: Well you need to do. It’s not that far from San Francisco. Sweet people, nice as they can be.

TN: You opened for Merle Haggard. Did you get to meet the man?

MH: Very briefly. There  was one show that I was at and his first song was Silver wings and I just about melted into the floor.

TN: Who else have you played with that impressed you?

MH: I got to play with John Hammond, he’s a sweetheart. Richard Thompson, he’s such a gentleman. He’s a real picker and writes those great songs. I remember The Fairport Convention, they had great harmony. And Shelby Lynn,  she’s a wonderful songer and performer. A lot of people have been good to me thank the Lord.

(starts to rain hard)

TN: Looks like it’s coming down hard. I’ll wrap up so we can get out of here.

MH:Yep, we better get before we all get water logged.

Official Site | MySpace

News Round Up: George Jones Says Get Your Own Damn Genre!

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  • Happy birthday to Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer and the “Paul” of the Willie’s song “Me and Paul,” Paul English.  Happy birthday also to legendary Texas singer/songwriter Guy Clark.
  • The latest installment of Popmatter.com’s excellent Torch & Twang series Juli Thanki delivers a post exploring ithe intersecting careers of bluegrass legend  Bill Monroe and musician and folklorist Ralph Rinzler.
  • I’m a long time fan of Libertyville, Illinois rocker Ike Reilly. So when I read over at the fine 9513.com that Reilly was teaming up with on-and-off country outlaw 2.0 Shooter Jennings for the song The War On The Terror and Drugs (from Reilly’s upcoming release Hard Luck Stories) I was intrigues. Turns out it’s damn fine! (Song Illinois)
  • Front Porch Musings is offering a sweet playlist from performers playing the Americana-by-way-of-punk showcase showcase The Revival Tour.Featured are Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Jim Ward (At the Drive-In, Sparta), Frank Turner (Million Dead), and much more.
  • Country, roots, Americana- as the rest of us are grappling with nomenclature (fancy word for names) for music, George Jones uses his old-guard status to reclaim flag and call Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift “not country music.”