Sarah Jarosz with Alex Hargreaves (Fiddle) and Nathaniel Smith (Cello) performs two new songs from her 3rd album ‘Build Me Up from Bones’ (9/24 – Sugar Hill Records) in her hometown of Wimberley, Texas
‘A Thousand Things’ Jarosz says in the video is one she had been working on a long time and ended up finishing by co-writing by Darrell Scott. “Build Me Up from Bones” is the title cut of the new album.
Both songs display Jarosz deft touch and contemporary interpretation of traditional sound. If this is a solid sampling of what’s to come I’m really looking forward to this album!
All right Civil Wars fans, this is what we’ve been waiting for. Proof of the upcoming album that might not have been.
While riding high on the wave of their best-selling, Grammy award winning, Barton Hollow the pop-roots duo abruptly canceled a amidst a UK tour, citing “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition.”
Then last month the Civil Wars revealed that they’d completed a new self-titled album, a result of a Nashville recording session last fall with Barton Hollow’s producer Charlie Peacock.
Now a single “The One That Got Away,” (no, it’s not a Katy Perry cover.) It’s got the typical Civil Wars dramatic vibe but with more of an edge. What stands out is Joy Williams is more up in the mix with John Paul White as supporting in contrast to their more equally handling of vocal duties on their earlier EP and album.
“I wish I’d never ever seen your face,” Williams sings convincingly “I wish you were the one that got away.”
The band’s labels, Sensibility Music/Columbia Records, give some context to the song in the accompanying press release “The [new] album was recorded amidst a grueling touring schedule, exhausting workload and a growing disconnect from their families.”
More omens abound with the video for “The One That Got Away,” and the new album’s cover, features nothing more than a billowing cloud of black smoke.
Can all the bad blood be overcome to allow the band to embark on a tour to support the sure to be a huge selling new release? Stay tuned when it’s release August 6th.
Once there was a woman of musical talent, persistence and ingenuity who performed original songs and favorite covers to audiences worldwide. She was a road warrior for over 30 years before catching a career changing break. Belief in herself, and her craft, took her to heights she’d never imagined. It helped drive her that she possessed the confidence that she certainly deserved to succeed. She believed.
Fellow musicians and industry professionals, caught in a music business grasping for identity, relevance and diminishing revenue, applauded her drive. Though her music – a pop-folk, adult contemporary mix not unlike Sheryl Crow – might not be their shot of hooch, they all treated her with respect and heralded her as a harbinger of the DIY work ethic. One where an artist can circumvent gatekeepers and industrial trip-wires and engage the double edge levers of technology to snag a professional success. Even a Grammy nomination.
Well, not quite. Linda Chorney, a black horse in the run for the 2012 Grammy Award for Americana Album of the year , was nominated among rock/country/folk/Americana heavy hitters Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder, Lucinda Williams and Levon Helm (winner.) She used the Grammy social network, Grammy 365, to get her 7th album, Emotional Jukebox, in front of Academy members who nominated her for the short list for a little statue.
Chorney’s success from planning, help from friends and loved ones, dumb luck and shear will was met by some in the Americana community with almost immediate online character assassination, professional chicanery and calls for withdrawal of her nomination. On what grounds were the calls of withdrawal based? Accusations of “cheating” and “gaming the system” abounded though no actual proof was presented.
“Who The F$%# is Linda Chorney” details the her road to the Grammys much in a manner like her blog posts. Unguarded, profane observational bursts of of highs and lows that ring of authenticity. She tells of making the best of a once-in-a-lifetime moment – dress fittings in New York, cover features in Variety, shooting a music video in L.A. with renowned/producer Forrest Murray, walking the red carpet and hob-nobbing with her hero Gregg Allman. All the while enduring vile online and personal attacks and undermining. She does it in a way that never becomes dour and for reason both litigious and polite she changes the “names of the guilty.”
The worst offenders were those most threatened by by her unconventional success. media relations specialists, radio professionals and labels all piled on. Instead of accolades toward someone producing the stuff we all profess to celebrate – music- and a moment of professional self-reflection and reassessment where value is produced in the new music order, there was a circling of wagons and shots ringing into the night. The old guard reacted as you might expect. Attack and attempt retrenchment in a landscape shifting beneath their feet.
Though there was no official condemnation from the Nashville-based trade group Americana Music Association, the choice to not issue it’s standard nominee congratulatory press release that year, for the first time in history of the Americana Album of the year 3 year history, spoke volumes.
Cards on that table – I was the official Americana blogger for the Grammys during this whole sad affair. I have a small part in the book and was surprised to discover in reading it that I was the first person to interview her after her nomination. I was also a witness to much of the online attacks and for a while got caught up in, complete with threats, the ugliness that transpired. Truth be told, i was ashamed of our community of outcasts. I still see it as a dark period.
In the aftermath of the spotlight Chorney has brought her story to the prestigious TED talk series (below) and she sang the Star Spangled Banner for her beloved Boston Red Socks and recently recording a song memory of 8 year old Boston bombing victim Martin Richard
Oh, and she wrote a book which she’s now shopping around to be made into a film.
Whether you see Chorney as a gatecrashing outsider or a industrious rebel, her story is one that any artist toiling on the road can take to heart as proof that if you believe in your craft, and cultivate a gift for gab and a sense of marketing, success can be yours. It’s also a cautionary tale for the music industry and self-appointed gatekeepers that access ain’t what it used to be.
The new video for the “The Fall,” by the Knoxville-based roots band The Black Lillies, sand being shifted a shimmering ocean , much like the lives being shifted and changed by the innocent youths that walk the windy beach and simmering landscape. The spare, atmospheric instrumentation builds slowly as we follow the boy and girl to adulthood and union in this tale of modest love.
“The Fall” is from the Black Lillies’ new release Runaway Freeway Blues, out now. they are currently on a national headlining tour in support.
Nashville-based Americana Music Association has released an excellent initial artist line-up for showcase portion of the conference, festival and awards show. the selections show a broad range of diversity and excellence the of the genre. Great to see many Casa Twang favorites represented as well.
Artists include: Black Prairie, Billy Bragg, Rosanne Cash, The Devil Makes Three, Frank Fairfield, Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors, John Fullbright, JD McPherson,
The Lone Bellow, Aoife O’ Donovan, Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien, Richard Thompson, The White Buffalo, Holly Williams and The Wood Brothers
The 14th annual event will take place in Nashville, Sept. 18-22. I’ll be there. hope you are too!
Showcase artists confirmed to perform include:
Black Prairie
Billy Bragg
Rosanne Cash
The Del-Lords
The Devil Makes Three
Sam Doores, Riley Downing & the Tumbleweeds
Frank Fairfield
Field Report
John Fullbright
Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors
Hurray for the Riff Raff
The Infamous Stringdusters
Kruger Brothers
Pokey LaFarge
Nikki Lane
The Lone Bellow
Luella & the Sun
JD McPherson
Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale
Aoife O’Donovan
Old Man Luedecke
Lindi Ortega
Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien
Shakey Graves
Sturgill Simpson
Sons of Fathers
Spirit Family Reunion
Steelism
The Stray Birds
Richard Thompson
Holly Williams
The White Buffalo
The Wood Brothers
St. Louis-based Jazz-roots traditionalist Pokey LaFarge teamed up with Old Crow Medicine Show front man Ketch Secor to produce his new self-tilted release on Jack White’s Third Man Records.
“Central Time” proves Pokey LaFarge is not merely a retro act. Sure he reaches back to a time when distinct the genres of jazz, country blues and western swing blurred together into one glorious cultural mash-up, but there is a timelessness and vibrancy displayed in this ode to his Midwestern home.
The time I spent living in New york taught me some things. One, New Yorkers aren’t rude they just don’t have time for your dumb ass, and New York has is a great market for roots music.
Brooklyn’s The Defibulators have been creating tunes some time and garnering a lot of praise by mashing their throwback honky-tonk with frenetic bent. Think of them as the perfect soundtrack for a family picnic, or a meth lab. Yes that’s a compliment.
Their upcoming ssophomore album “Debt’ll Get’em” (August 27) was recorded in Woodstock, NY, at The Isokon with D. James Goodwin and Eli Walker, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, at Motherbrain with co-producer Brian Bender (Langhorne Slim, Jose James), ‘Debt’ll Get’em’ is a 10-track and if the below tunes are typical i look forward to an amped-up take on classic country classic.
The video for “Cackalacky,” directed by Alexis Boling, follows a hayseed as he finds his way in the big city looking for music success.And “Pay For That Money” is a sassy swagger of a song about fiscal responsibility and moral comeuppance.
Yesterday, fittingly on 6/6 at 6am, the roots psychedelic duo Hymn For Her released a video for thier deomically funky Lucy Fur. The single is from their newly released second album “Lucy & Wayne’s Smokin Flames” (Buy it at CD Baby)
The video stars Wayne Waxing as the victim as he and Lucy Tight’s darling daughter is transformed into a a hellion trickster. Inter-cut with scenes of Tim Curry as Lord of Darkness, from the 80′s cult fantasy “Legend,” Waxing suffers a myriad of indignities inflicted by the masked prankster in this cranked-up, funked-out, roots number. Suffering never sounded this good.
The Johnny Cash “Forever” Stamp celebration took place June 5th at the Ryman Auditorium featured John Carter Cash, The Oak Ridge Boys, Marty Stuart, Randy Travis, Carlene Carter, Wesley Orbison and other members of the Cash family to kick off the release of the limited-edition stamp
A “forever’stamp is a non-denominated stamp that retains full validity postage no matter of price increases.
Kathy Cash , Johnny’s Daughter from his first marriage to Vivian Liberto Distin and sister of Rosanne Cash, posted her heartfelt and funny speech from the event. I re-post it here with a video of a rousing “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” from the finale. Enjoy.
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Good Morning.
Thank you for being here to celebrate the “Johnny Cash Forever Stamp” in the Music Icon series.
My dad and mom had a 4 year courtship in the early 50′s. Dad was in the Air Force in Germany, mom was a young woman living in San Antonio, Texas. During that 4 year period, they exchanged an astounding 10,000 letters.
Dad was no stranger to licking a stamp.
He loved stamps and we have the letters to prove it.
When dad was on the road until he retired, he sent us hundreds of cards, letters, poems and Valentines, postmarked from all over the world. When he heard a new upcoming artist on the radio and liked what he heard, he always sat down to write a letter of encouragement.
Always postmarked, always mailed.
In a fast paced world of telegrams and faxes, then email and texts, dad always preferred and chose writing. It meant a great deal to him to send a handwritten letter, stamped and mailed to people he cared about.
Dad has been inducted into all 4 Halls of Fame : Country Music, Songwriters, Rock and Roll and Gospel. He received the Kennedy Honor Award, The National Medal Of Arts, and was the first person to receive the Spirit Of Americana “Free Speech Award.” He earned thousands of awards for his musical accomplishments and humanitarian works. There’s even a main street in Hendersonville, TN., named “The Johnny Cash Parkway.”
Dad loved this country. I have no doubt that having his image on a United States postage stamp would be his proudest accomplishment.
If dad were here he’d be beaming with pride, and would say something to the effect of, “Well. Ain’t that somethin’? This face of mine on a postage stamp. A government issued postage stamp. A FOREVER STAMP.” He would love that it’s a forever stamp.
Dad had such an impact on American history. To have him recognized in this capacity is incredible. It means future generations will realize what a monumental part of American history and music Johnny Cash is.
On behalf of the entire Cash family, I want to thank the United States Postal Service, the fans and collectors who initiated and participated in this remarkable effort, voicing their support for a Johnny Cash stamp.
The Recording Academy continues what they call a “continuing evolution” of the Grammy Awards with changes in three categories, including our beloved Americana category.
If you remember a couple of years ago the organization caused a backlash when they eliminated categories and folded many into already existing genres. Those changes remain three new changes are being implemented “to ensure the Awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape.”
Two years ago, the organization made major waves in the industry with a long list of changes to existing categories that saw many areas condensed and elicited protests from multiple genres. Those changes have stuck while three new changes are being implemented “to ensure the Awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape.”
In 2009, the Academy split the category for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album into two separate categories: Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Americana Album.
The strength of the Americana genre’s grow is being recognized the addition of the Best American Roots Song. “A songwriter’s award, it will encompass all of the subgenres of the Field (Americana, bluegrass, blues, folk, regional roots music), and puts the Field in line with the Rock, Rap, R&B, Country, and Gospel/CCM Fields, all of which have songwriters’ awards.”
This is great news as it allows the Recording Academy to better reward the broad pool of talent that makes up the genre.
