Category Archives: Americana

News Round Up: Americana Gets Some Love

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  • You know Americana as a genre has arrived when not only do they have their own Grammy category (or is that the death knell?) but also the Americana Music Conference is written up in the Wall Street Journal, Paste Magazine and CMT.com. With great power…
  • When in Nashville I always find time to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The place displays and represents the historic roots of country music in a tasteful and engaging way that I never get tired of. Where else can you see Mother Maybelle Carter’s 1028 Gibson and Elvis’ Gold Cadillac? But the place seems to be at capacity for a genre that is still making history. Now it seems that there’s a possibility that the Hall could double its size in the near future.
  • San Francisco’s free (!) Americana and Roots festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, has published a down-loadable daily schedule, as well as a map of the Golden Gate Park festival grounds and artist’s bios.

Americana Conference Wrap Up

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I’m baaaack. So if you’ve been keeping up with my tweets, or just reading the news,  you know the 10th Annual Americana Association Conference and Festival in Nashville last week was quite a shin-dig. I missed goodBBQ and that laid-back Southern charm and although the conference attendance seemed to be down a bit (well, a lot actually), if my Shiner fogged memory serves me, the showcases were better than ever.

There were a number of memorable nuggets that I wanted to quickly share. For one thing, there must be an aging painting in Jim Lauderdale’s attic becuase the man that is ubiquitous not only at the AMA event but in Americana music in general, still beams with youthful charm.

The performance that made my biggest impression was a serendipitous discovery. A friend’s showcase Friday afternoon at BB Kings brought Dallas’ Somebody’s Darlng to my radar. I should be ashamed of not knowing about them earlier since they hail from my home town and they rocked my ass with a their roots-rock soul sound.

Then there was the two great guitar pulls. The Douglas Corner Cafe featured The Americana Renegades Show with excellent performance by Irene Kelley, Roger Saloom, Joe Whyte and Stoll Vaughan. The club was like a Blue Bird Cafe II with a reverent and attentive audience. Then I lucked into getting out of the rain and a long line at the Station Inn to see Nanci Griffith, Mary Gauthier & Elizabeth Cook in their own audience hushing performance was a great treat.

Seeing Bearfoot do their short set at the Compass records’ notorious Hillbilly Central open house was also a nice surprise. I was not familiar with this newgrass band but they held the packed audience in spellbound attention with their performance and did musch less cocaine than the former Hillbilly Central residents.

There was the spellbinding rustic winsomeness of Amanda Shires. The leather-tough gold-hearted girl  – Angela Easterling (w. Will Kimbrough), and the omnipresence of Austin Texas with The Gourds, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Asleep at the Wheel, Reckless Kelly, Radney Foster and Charlie Robison.

Then there was standing near the stage to behold the wonder that is John Fogerty (along with Buddy Miller) at his semi-secret show at the Cannery. Wow…wow…

It was old-school alt-country at the closing night at the Basement with the ex-singer of Nashville super group BR549, Chuck Mead, and the only band that rivals the Drive By Truckers for a live performance, the Bottle Rockets, sending the whole thing off to a booming, bitter-sweet end.

Then there were the artists, radio, writers, fellow bloggers and general soldiers that, like myself, champion this music each and every day out of love more than riches (Ha!)

You can’t be everywhere all the time, and the four performance spaces for the AMA festival are a considerable distance from each other, so there are tough choices to be made and many show I wish I could have attended. But with a little logistics and a dash of serendipitous happenstance this trip to Nashville was a great party with wonderful memories (from what I can remember!)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE55QrdMR2M[/youtube]

Music Review: The Drive By Truckers – The Fine Print (A Collection Of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008) [New West]

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I discovered the Drive By Truckers while an ex-pat Texan living in New York City. The environment that I has always known, and taken for granted, was replaced by something foreign and I was looking for cultural footing to make me feel “at home” but also to reflect my learned redneck attitude, a new framework look back over my home and its history. That’s when I came across a review for the Drive By Truckers’ 2004 Southern rock masterpiece The Dirty South. Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Jason Isbell proved to the reincarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd cut with the  Replacementsthat I needed at the time. Blue collar, backwoods gems like Where the Devil Don’t Stay, Danko/Manuel and Daddy’s Cup revived my faith in the Southern magic of storytelling and the band’s triple guitar attack revived my faith in rock and roll .

The Fine Print (A Collection Of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008) is an odds & sods largely culled from that fruitful period in the DBTs career. Along with Live from Austin, TX album, The Fine Print fulfills the DBT’s obligation with New West Records and allows them to move on to their own label, Ruth Street Records. The dozen songs on contained here is a bumper crop from a fertile period underscoring the power and focus of that time and that line up. The bitter-sweetness from listening to the album is that as good as the consecutive albums have been, the band has not met this level of intensity or focus since the departure of the youngster Jason Isbell after 2006’s middling A Blessing and a Curse.

The album kicks off with the jaunty George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues featuring John Neff’s sweet pedal-steel. The song deals the Possum’s 1999 car wreck while he was driving drunk and talking to his daughter on a cell phone. It shows love to Jone’s hopes it’s a while before he joins the legions of legendary country stars cluttering the afterlife.

The Trucker’s have never been shy about their influences and the four covers contained here are tackled with heart and reverence. Tom Petty’s Rebels is elevated to a Springsteen-like anthem and Tom T. Hall’s Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken) details the everyday cost of war without mounting a soap box. Warren Zevon’s Play It All Night Long fits right in with the The Dirty South‘s dark swampy groove and the cover of Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone is woozy fun and features a Shanna Tucker debut as a front and center vocalist.

The Alternate Versions of Uncle Frank, from 1999’s Pizza Deliverance and Goode’s Field Road from 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark are great but hardly improve on the originals. The gangstabilly mythos of The Dirty South‘s Where the Devil Don’t Stay and The Boys From Alabama has their dark reflection in The Great Car Dealer War, but to lesser narrative affect and Little Pony And The Great Big Horse highlights Mike Cooley’s subtle greatness in songwriting and storytelling. The creepy Christmas blues cut Mrs. Claus’ Kimono should have been the song behind the closing credits of Billy Bob Thornton’s black comedy Bad Santa.

Like most outtakes and rarities collections, The Fine Print is a bit of a mish-mash and overall doesn’t stand up as consistently as the DBT’s best work, but almost all the cuts are hands down better than most of what passes as rock these days. Besides it’s great that these songs (featuring another excellent cover by their long-time cover/poster/t-shirt illustrator Wes Freed) have seen the light of day at all I hope the release points the way to a revitalized and impassioned future for the mighty Drive-By Truckers.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLP_r7NZY_w[/youtube]

News Round Up: Kanye and Swift Give MTV Some Press

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  • Scottish-Canadian country singer Johnny Reid was in the running for six awards, including Album of the Year for his latest release Dance With Me.The singer took home five trophies including Album, Songwriter, Video and Male Artist of the Year from the Canadian Country Music Awards. Dean Brody won Single of the Year for Brothers, Crystal Shawanda won Female Artist of the Year and Corb Lund won Roots Artist or Group of the Year
  • Son Volt’s Jay Farrar & Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard are set to perform four special concerts to support their collaberation on the album One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.  Other surprise material will be performed at four concerts in October, underscoring the influential author’s enduring legacy 40 years after his death on October 21, 1969. The band features Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service), Nick Harmer (Death Cab for Cutie), Mark Spencer (Son Volt) and Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Bob Mould, The Mountain Goats).

Tour dates:
10/23 – El Rey Theatre – Los Angeles, CA (on sale 9/16)
10/24 – Bimbo’s 365 Club – San Francisco, CA (on sale 9/16)
10/26 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL (on sale 9/25)
10/28 – Webster Hall – New York, NY (on sale 9/1Cool

  • Billboard.com has a nice feature on the Avett Brothers and their upcoming major label debut I and Love and You.
  • After fuming with the multitudes on twitter about the whole Kanye West / Taylor Swift Female Video of the Year diss dust-up at the MTV Awards, I’m convinced the whole thing was staged for media controversy. Kanye seems to be willing to do this every time he needs ink. He shot his mouth off at the the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards in Denmark, when Touch The Sky lost out to Justice Vs Simian’s We Are Your Friends, Swift  has a repackaged Fearless coming out soon and more press couldn’t hurt, and MTV  gets press (and tweets) from any controversy. Remember the infamous 2003 Madonna/Britney Spears kiss?
  • Happy birthday to Bill Monroe is (98)!
  • Starting tomorrow I will be posting intermittently from the Americana Music Association conference and festival in Nashville. For more constant (and dubiously sober) posts check out my twitter profile.
Roots Artist or Group of the Year

News Round Up: Country Music Is Dead (RIP Johnny Cash)

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  • The 9513’s Matt Griffin draws comparisons to Levon Helm’s newest release, Electric Dirt,  and  Johnny Cash’s latter career reviving American Recordings.
  • The Academy of Country Music has chosen the The Ryman Auditorium as the Venue of the Year. Special awards to be presented at the 2nd Annual ACM Honors, scheduled for September 22 at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, will be the Jim Reeves International Award to Dolly Parton, the Mae Boren Axton Award to David Young, the Poet’s Award to Merle Haggard and Harlan Howard. Lee Ann Womack will host the evenand there will be special performances by Bobby Bare, Vince Gill, Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Jim Lauderdale and Patty Loveless.
  • The Country Music Association Awards announced the nominees for their 43rd annual awards ceremony. All the usual suspects, Paisley (leading with 6 nominations),  Chesney, Swift, Urban. A nod to tradition  – George Strait. Some black horses added – Joey + Rory for Vocal Duo Of The Year and The Raconteurs with Ricky Skaggs and Adhely Monroe performing the song Old Enough as the Musical Event Of The Year (?) Duller than the Grammys I say. Tune in to see Jamey Johnson perform and try to refrain throwing things at the TV when Kid Rock takes the stage.
  • Johnny Cash dies On this Day, 2003, at Nashville’s Baptist Hospital, of complications from diabetes, 4 months after death of wife, June Carter.

Rosanne Cash – Sea of Heartbreak (w/ Bruce Springsteen)

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Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Don Gibson’s 1961 song was more syrupy pop that was the style in the Nashville Sound era of Music Row. Sea of Heartbreak has been gone on to be covered with anticipated schmaltz by Anne Murray and by Jimmy Buffett (complete with out of context steel drums) with George Strait backing vocals (yep, I would have reversed that one around) on the Live at Texas Stadium album, as well as Johhny Cash.

The story is that on her upcoming release, The List, Rosanne Cash is covering 12 classic songs taken from a list of country tunes given to her by her father, Johnny Cash, in 1973.

Rosanne’s version is much more subtle and refined then the versions I’ve heard, even Johnny’s own upbeat version of the song. The pop swing is still there but is now understated to allow the longing melancholy from the Sad Poet’s song to stand out. Roseanne uses her earnest voice as a fine counter to Springtseen’s classic croon. This is a fine start to what is sure to be a great release.

Sea Of Heartbreak (Feat. Bruce Springsteen) – Rosanne Cash Featuring Bruce Springsteen

Tom Russell – Santa Ana Wind mp3 Giveaway

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tom_russellAnyone who regularly reads this blog knows that I’m a huge fan of Tom Russell. L.A. born with a  degree in criminology from the U of California, Russell also taught school in Nigeria during the Biafran War. He began his musical career in the early 70’s in Vancouver BC playing strip bars. He later drove a cab in New York and met guitarist Andrew Hardin and Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead and both heard his songs and convinced him to pursue his craft. Rusell currently reside in El Paso, Texas where the border town culture influnces his work as a songwriter and painter.

An anticipated ’09 release here at Ranch Twang is Russell’s upcoming Blood and Candle Smoke (Sept 15.) The album was recorded in Tucson, AZ at Wave Lab Studios with members of Calexico providing a Southwest/world music accompaniment to the songs.

Southwest and Spanish textures are finely represented in the song Santa Ana Wind. The song features Nashville-based singer/songwriter Gretchen Peters, who Russell collaborated with on the excellent One To The Heart, One To The Head, on backing vocals. The backing band is Joey Burns (Spanish guitars, bass), John Convertino (drums), Barry Walsh (Wurlitzer, piano), Craig Schumacher (percussion), Jacob Valenzuela (trumpets), Nick Luka (steel Guitar.)

The song employs Russell’s trademark literary narrative blending spiritual mystery and the corporal grit resulting in a song as expansive as the great Southwest itself.

tom_russell-santa_ana_wind.mp3

News Round Up: The Glossary is Giving Their 2007 Album, The Better Angles of Our Nature

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  • PopMatters.com has Juli Thanki’s newest Torch & Twang post (Louisiana Woman, Texas Troubadour)  Thanki bypasses the standard view that Loretta Lynn’s best duet partner was Conway Twitty and makes her case for Ernest Tubb.
  • Best Buy is offering an exclusive EP from Miranda Lambert today which  includes her new single “ Dead Flowers” from her upcoming album Revolution. The EP includes three bonus tracks from her prior album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The cost of the EP is $1.99, or you can pre-order Revolution and get the EP free. (via My Kind of Country and the 9513.com)
  • Kris Kristofferson, Ray Price, Bobby Bare Jr. and My Morning Jacket are some that will pay tribute to writer, artists , country music songwriter and Playboy mansion resident Shel Silverstein on Turnable, Twistable Man which is produced by Silverstein ‘s friend Bobby Bare.
  • Murfreesboro, Tennessee-based quirky indy Southern rock band the Glossary is giving their new 2007 album, The Better Angles of Our Nature, free from their official site and in different quality formats.  I’ll review it soon, but after a couple of passes on the iPod it’s a great one.
  • Happy birthday Patsy Cline  (Sept 8 1932)
  • Another use for texting? Apparently looking for the country crooner that stopped in your town and might have knocked you up is now on that list.  A certain lady with a Wisconsin phone number is currently looking for this Rodeo Romeo. (via NashvilleScene)

Music Review: Chris Knight – Trailer Tapes II [Drifters Church]

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It’s Labor Day and I just finished watching Billy Bob Thorton’s contemporary Southern Gothic film Slingblade, so I believe I’m in the perfect frame of mind to review a Chris Knight album.

Knight storytelling style reflects John Prine (who he studied when learning the craft of songwriting) and Steve Earle (who he’s most often inaccurately compared to.)  His narrative thumbnail sketches are small-towns inhabited by country folks swinging from grinding poverty, break-breaking work and menacing fun and lawlessness (and sometimes all in the same song.)

Knight is writing his life. Growing up in the western Kentucky mining town of Slaughters he was able to stay out of the mines by getting a degree in agriculture from Western Kentucky University. But he did end up spending time on the business side by working nearly ten years as a mine reclamation inspector and as a miner’s consultant.

The Trailer Tapes II is a 44 minute companion to 2007’s The Trailer Tapes. The full session was recorded as stripped down kitchen table demos in 1996 with just Knight and his acoustic guitar, two years before Knight’s Decca debut, by producer Frank Liddell in the singer/songwriter’s single-wide trailer in Kentucky. Unlike its predecessor Trailer Tapes II is mostly comprised of songs that later appeared on official Knight studio releases, but the similarities between the two is the like raw emotion of the performances by a man thta doesn’t need any fancy studio wizardry to spin gold.

Old Man, which turned up on 2006’s Enough Rope, is Knight’s version of Cats in the Cradle. A son’s life journey turns back toward his land as well as toward his checkered and violent heritage. It Ain’t Easy Being Me, later on 1998’s self-titled debut, has Knight crooning forcefully of   self-loathing but never self-pity.

Highway Junkie, later on 2001’s A Pretty Good Guy is a raucous road song and Knight spits gravel befitting the story. The excellent Love and a .45  sounds better stripped down then the already well performed verion on the self-titled debut.

Fans will be familiar with the rest of the cuts. Bring the Harvest Home, Summer of ’75, and The River’s Own from the self-titled debut. Send a Boat from A Pretty Good Guy, all benefit from the less-is-more approach, along with the unreleased I’ll Be There and Speeding Train and Till My Leavin’s Through.

The first time I saw Knight perform it was a cold December night and he played in the basement performance space of New York City’s Knitting Factory. A man with only his acoustic Gibson guitar, and one man backing on guitar, spun dark gems and kept the city crowd rapt in silence for nearly two hours. This is that man in all his brilliant, simple, glory. (release September 15)

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

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Chris Knight – Highway Junkie.mp3

Chris Knight -  Blame Me.mp3


Happy Labor Day – Top 10

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Labor Day originated in Canada from labor unions fighting for a nine-house work day. The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City as a result of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike. With our current animosity toward all things union, Labor Day has become little more than a reason for a car sale and a three-day last gasp of Summer vacation. Kind of a drag when you realize that we are working harder and getting less now than generations past…

Here are the top 10 songs I believe celebrate the working person as the backbone of America.

1.  Work’in Man Blues –  Merle Haggard – Still a staple in Merle’s set list and a must have in all the best honky-tonks and beer joints across America.

2. Can’t Make it Here – James McMurtry  – In the recent economic downturn it’s become fashionable to pen songs about tough times for a quick buck. None come  even close to the gritty heart of McMurtry’s tale of hard times.

3. 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton -This two Grammy Award winning crossover hit was the theme song to the hit film starring Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman. Leave it to  Dolly to make cubicle drudgery sound so fun.

4. Take This Job and Shove It – Johnny Paycheck – Penned by David Allan Coe about the bitterness of a man who worked long and hard with no apparent reward.  The song was also covered by the Dead Kennedys on their album Bedtime for Democracy.

5. Maggie’s Farm -  Bob Dylan – Dyman made it popular but Maggie’s Farm has a much longer history that includes Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs.Though it has been documented that Maggie’s Farm was Dylan’s declaration of independence from the constructions put on him by the folk movement, it stands just as well as an oppressed employee leaving his thankless boss.

6.  Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell – Written by by Jimmy Webb and famously covered by Glen Campbell While driving on a deserted highway in northern Oklahoma, Webb spotted a solitary lineman working high on a transmission cable and the idea for the lyric was born.  It has been referred to as ‘the first existential country song’.

7. Working Man – Hank Williams III – Shelton’s narration of the hard times and the endless struggle of blue collar work and his role in society and his family.

8. Dark as a Dungeon – Merle Travis -  Travis’ father was a coal miner in Muhlenberg County, Ky. and this classic song details the risks and drudgery of the work.

9.  Millworker – Emmylou Harris – Emmylou covers this James Taylor song in her signature sublime style.

10. John Henry – Woody Guthrie, Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, etc – The enduring American folk tale of man and machine.

Country and roots music has a long history of honoring and reflecting the dignity of work and the labor of Americans from all walks of life.  We celebrate this Labor Day, 2009  with a collection of songs as diverse and enduring as the people they celebrate.