Cody Jinks Announces New Album ‘After the Fire’ Coming This Fall

Cody Jinks

Insurgent country artist Cody Jinks will release his next independent LP ‘After the Fire’ on October 11th, the album is the first to be released via the Texas songwriter’s own label, Late August Records.

Last April Jinks posted photos from West Texas’ Sonic Ranch studio, where he recorded his last three albums – Adobe Sessions, I’m Not The Devil and Lifers – teasing new music on the way.

This is one release Casa Twang will be looking forward to this coming fall.

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Day 3 at Sonic Ranch!

A post shared by Cody Jinks (@codyjinks) on

‘After the Fire’ tracklist:

After the Fire
Ain’t a Train
Yesterday Again
Tell ’em What It’s Like
Think Like You Think
William and Wanda
One Good Decision
Dreamed With One
Someone to You
Tonedeaf Boogie

Watch Out! Kelsey Waldon – “Sunday’s Children”

Kelsey Waldon

Kelsey Waldon has released a lyric video for “Sunday’s Children,” he second single from her upcoming Oh Boy! Records release “White Noise/White Lines.”

The song is a Southern-fried soul-song urging awareness, unity, and understanding and to accept each other’s differences and look for “universal truth.”

It’s a cool song and Waldon pulls it off without beating the listener over the head with an overt partisan sermon. That’s a rare thing in these times.

The first single from the album, “Anyhow,” was released in early July.

Pre-order “White Noise/White Lines.”

Sturgill Simpson Announces New Album and Anime Tie-In

Sturgill Simpson (photo by Semi Song)
Sturgill Simpson (photo by Semi Song)

Few artists are less willing to rest on their laurels than Sturgill Simpson.

In his latest gutsy move, Sturgill Simpson announced last weekend at San Diego’s Comic-Con that his upcoming new album, “Sound & Fury,” will be paired with an anime film of the same title to be released simultaneously on Netflix. The anime
is written and directed by CG studio Kamikaze Douga founder Jumpei Mizusaki.

Simpson emerged as part of an outlaw country resurgence the release of his second LP, “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.” Much like the original outlaw country pioneers, Simpson was taking control of the trajectory of his career resulting in fans and media accolades as the mainstream country radio did what they always do and shied away from the risky weirdness of “Turtles All the Way Down.”

Simpson doubled-down on following his contrarian muse with 2016’s “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” a loosely assembled concept album with songs inspired by his time in the Navy. The album moved further from the jet-fueled honky-tonk that defined his early career and embraced his love of rock, soul, and psychedelia. ironically Simpsons’ least country album went on to win the 2018 Grammy for Best Country Album.

With this latest announcement, Simpson remains (place genre here) most interesting agent of disruption. He steadfastly refuses o play by Music City rules or typical music career rules in general.

We will all be able to hear and see the latest stop on this sailer’s (pirate’s?) journey when “Sound & Fury” is released in September.

Watch Out! Ray Wylie Hubbard “Snake Farm” – Opry Debut

Ray Wylie Hubbard Opry Debut
Credit: Judy Hubbard

One can only wonder what the hell took so long?

Throughout his career, Ray Wylie Hubbard, like many of his contemporaries such as Jerry Jeff Walker and Terry Allen, has defied rigid country music tropes while simultaneously displaying a strong sense of honor of the past. That’s why, as a fan, Hubbard’s Opry debut on Wednesday night, July 17th, 2019 at the age of 72 very, very satisfying.

Hubbard shared the stage this special night with many artists he’s influenced; Aaron Lewis, Jeannie Seely, Little Big Town, Pam Tillis, Tyler Childers as well as his friend and sometimes collaborator Pam Tillis.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0AJ0YPl92f/?igshid=na38scqkhujw

To my understanding, it was Tillis who was key in getting Hubbard the gig. Introducing him to the stage Tillis said:

“I want to get this next guest intro right because it’s so important to me, This gentleman I’m about to introduce you to has fans as diverse as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Patty Griffin, Ringo Starr, Steve Earle, Lee Ann Womack … so many people know about this man and look up to him as the very epitome of a true artist, a true writer. He has influenced a generation of Texas musicians and songwriters. 55 years making music. Made is debut on David Letterman, and I said, ‘You know, Ray Wylie Hubbard, it is time that you played the Grand Ole Opry.” (Saving Country Music)

“Thank you. Thank you Pam for the nice introduction. I can hardly wait to hear me,” Ray Wylie quipped in his signature wry manner. He then slid into what has become his signature song, his Freebird if you will, “Snake Farm.”

Backing Hubbard on the stage was roots-duo Larkin Poe, and his son Lucas Hubbard and some lucky others.

Responding to our question what this moment meant to him Hubbard said “There are certain moments in time that are more powerful than others. Being present at the birth of a child, hearing the one you love say “I do.” Performing on the Opry stage is equal to one of those moments”

Share the deservedly momentous occasion moment below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBoVE_dWKVs

Listen Up! Sturgill Simpson New Song ‘The Dead Don’t Die’

It’s been a long stretch waiting for new music from Sturgill Simpson. Well, folks, the wait is over.

For those concerned that Simpson might jettison his Country Gold classic country sound, take comfort in
“The Dead Don’t Die” a standalone single off the soundtrack from indy filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s upcoming zombie flick of the same name.

The sound is a melancholy sweetness that warms the heart and brings a tear to all lovers of barroom serenades.
Sure the subject matter is weird, but with Simpson’s smooth croon delivering the weirdness, I’m in!

“The Dead Don’t Die” opens this weekend.

Look Out! HBO Full-Length ‘Deadwood’ Trailer featuring Colter Wall

Deadwood: The Movie

Deadwood fans are still cautiously giddy at the news of a full-length version of our favorite profanity-splattered Shakspereon western. Deadwood unceremoniously canceled on June 5, 2006 Fans were left with a fragmented and ponderous third season after creator and primary writer David Milch decided he wanted to work on the HBO surfer sap opera ‘John from Cincinnati.” (which was immediately canceled)

In the aftermath, Milch agreed to make a pair of two-hour television films, but HBO executives and the otherwise newly contracted actors at various times over the years put the odds of that happening as slim to none.

But good things come to hooplheads that wait and HBO announced a few weeks back that ‘Deadwood: The Movie’ was happening. This was backed up by W. Earle Brown, who plays Al Swearengen’s hang-dog muscle Dan Dority verified on Twitter that the movie was in post-production.

Then came an official announcement from HBO with a trailer. Canned peaches all around!

Today we get a full-length trailer (see below) trailer highlighting more of the excellent cast (Calamity Jane!) The trailer also treats us with the perfectly placed Colter Wall song ‘Sleeping on the Blacktop.” This is a nice treat though no surprise as Deadwood has always featured great roots music.

Wall’s song being included appears to have been taken him by surprise as he heard the news while working on his ranch. He responded on social media.

Though the news of a movie finally being released is cause for celebration it comes with the bittersweet revelation that David Milch is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Deadwood: The Movie will premiere on HBO, May 31, 2019.

UPDATE>> Apparently Jason Isbell will have a cameo in the movie!

Colter Wall’s ‘Sleeping on the Blacktop” on his album “Imaginary Appalachia.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0WrXmhvXTA

Buddy and Julie Miller Announce Summer Release For New Album ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South’

Buddy and Julie Miller - ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South’

It’s said that good things come to those that wait. For patient fans of one of Americana music’s most influential artist-songwriter couples (married since 1981) that wait for something good is almost over.

The long-anticipated follow up to 2009’s Americana Music Association Album of the Year ‘Written in Chalk’ is entitled ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South,’ and it will be available June 21st on New West records.

New West has whetted our appetite by releasing 2 cuts from the album. “Spittin’ on Fire” and “War Child,” both tracks reflect the lo-fi aesthetics the couple has established throughout their careers. Echos of the folk and Southern Rock reared in the Mississippi Delta and the Appalachian Mountains is apparent throughout the songs.

The album’s title comes from the couple’s much-delayed home studio in Nashville. The delays stemmed from Julie’s ongoing health issues as well as demand on Buddy as a go-to sideman, producer and co-host of the Buddy & Jim Radio Show on SiriusXM with his friend Jim Lauderdale.

Once the new record was underway, Julie penned some 50-plus new songs for the pair to choose from. Recorded in the couple’s bedroom make-do studio located upstairs from Buddy’s home studio, the results are raw, immediate and honest. Buddy and Julie are scheduled to make a rare live appearance to celebrate the album’s release Nashville’s City Winery on June 26th. The performance will be recorded for later broadcast on the Buddy & Jim Radio Show.

“Breakdown on 20th Ave. South” will be available June 21st via digital retailers, on CD and vinyl, with a special “Root Beer Swirl” colored vinyl available only at independent retailers. The album is now available for pre-order.

Breakdown on 20th Ave. South track listing:

“Breakdown on 20th Ave. South
“Feast of the Dead”
“Everything Is Your Fault”
“Unused Heart”
“I’m Gonna Make You Love Me”
“Till the Stardust Comes Apart”
“Underneath the Sky”
“Spittin’ on Fire”
“Secret”
“War Child”
“Thoughts at 2am”
“Storm of Kisses”
In This Article: Buddy Miller

Preorder ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South.’

Watch Out! The Blood Moon Howlers – “Drunk N’ Cold” [VIDEO PREMIERE]

The Blood Moon Howlers - Drunk N' Cold

If you like your music greasy then, folks, do we have a treat for you!

L.A.’s The Blood Moon Howlers’ newest single “Drunk N’ Cold,” slithers to life with grinding electric guitar and smokey saxophone (how many roots music dare to feature saxophone?!) Guitarist/vocalist Matt Wayne then growls, with harmony provided by bassist JuJu, this ode to swamp water and booze-drenched love would slot perfectly as a track from a particularly menacing David Lynch scene.

Of the song the band says “It’s the first song we wrote for the LP and it really set the whole writing process for the LP into motion. This is a song written about stories Matt has of hangin’ out with his friends partying outside in the cold when they were younger and there was no other place to go. Although people have interpreted it other ways which is fun to hear.”

“Drunk N’ Cold” is from the upcoming full-length album, “Mad Man’s Ruse, out April 6th.

Official Site: thebloodmoonhowlers.com/

Watch Out! Hayes Carll – Times Like These

Hayes Carll - Times Like These

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.

And reminds us to dance.

Buy ‘What It Is’ here.

Let’s all sing along…

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

Hear Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Perform “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings”

 Gillian Welch & David  Rawlings -  “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings”

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.”

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.”… 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.”

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’”… “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?”

Buy the single “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” here.