Category Archives: Americana

NoDepression.com Debuts

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A greatly expanded and enhanced NoDepression.com makes its debut today, NoDepression.com is edited by No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock and will feature contributions from many of the magazine’s longtime senior editors and contributing editors, as well as content from the magazine’s back-issue archives. The site was created by The Old State, a web design and development firm in Dallas, Texas. No Depression received significant assistance in creating the new site through contributions from its Founders Circle, a cast of more than 200 donors whose names appear on  the Founders Circle page.

A series of 15  NoDepression.com Launch Shows will be held October 15-23  in conjunction with MusiCares, a foundation designed to assist musicians in times of financial, personal or medical crisis. Plans are also in the works for a July 2009 No Depression Festival to be held in the Seattle area.

Also appearing in early October is the first No Depression “bookazine,” part of a new twice-annual series of print publications issued through University of Texas Press. The bookazine, edited by Blackstock and ND co-founder Grant Alden, combines book and magazine elements to carry on No Depression’s tradition of publishing long-form music journalism.

NoDepression.com Launch Shows:

Oct. 15: Nick Lowe, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH
Oct. 15: Alejandro Escovedo, Fine Line, Minneapolis, MN
Oct. 16: Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet, Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, TN
Oct. 17: Jimmy Webb, Schubas, Chicago, IL
Oct. 17: Lucinda Williams, War Memorial Auditorium, Nashville, TN
Oct. 17: Chatham County Line and Thad Cockrell, Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC
Oct. 17: Minus 5, Mission Theate, Portland, OR
Oct. 18: Minus 5 and Band Of Annuals, Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
Oct. 18: James McMurtry and Mando Saenz, Granada Theater, Dallas, TX
Oct. 18: Crooked Still, Iron Horse, Northampton, MA
Oct. 19: Crooked Fingers, Bluebird Theater, Denver, CO
Oct. 19: Lucinda Williams, Pageant, St. Louis, MO
Oct. 20: The Duhks, Smith’s Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA
Oct. 21: Rodney Crowell, Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
Oct. 22-23: Carrie Rodriguez, Cactus Cafe, Austin, TX

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8

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Head up Northern Californians, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is on for this weekend (Fri, Oct 3rd – 10:30am – Noon & 2:30pm – 6:45pm & Sat Oct 4th 10:45am – 7:15pm – Sun Oct 5th, 2008 – 11am – 7pm) at the Speedway, Lindley & Marx meadows in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA.

The three day event has 5 stages featuring artists like Jimmie Dale Gilmore,  the Waco Brothers, Richard Thompson, Three Girls & Their Buddy (Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin & Buddy Miller), The Del McCoury Band, Steve Earle & The Bluegrass Dukes, Guy Clark & Verlon Thompson, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, Elvis Costello’s High Whines & Spirits, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, The Infamous Stringdusters, Alison Brown Quartet with Joe Craven, Justin Townes Earle and so much more!

If you see mw at the show make sure t say “Hi” and save me a spot near the stage!

Record Review – O’ Death – Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin (Kemado)

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New York based Gothic/Country/Punk band O’Death are named after the Dock Boggs penned song made famous by Ralph Stanley on the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. Like that hauntingly plaintive Appalachian dirge “Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin,” the third LP from O’Death, 14 tracks recollect tales of sorrow and ecstasy nearly reaching levels of a Pentecostal tent revival on a hot, sticky Summer night. If Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were invited to contribute to the same “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack it might sound a lot like this.

The release commences with “Lowtide” with its gypsy plucked violin trot that quickly breaks lose to a full runaway gallop, all cleaved through with Greg Jamie’s unnerving vocals.  Jamie intermingles British Sea Power and Brake’s Eamon Hamilton nervy wail and Pixie’s main howler Frank Black to result in something unflinchingly manic.

“Fire On Peshtigo” is a searing thrash-hoe-down that gives off as much heat as those described in the lyrics. You can almost imagine Bob Pycior’s fiddle smoking and threatening to burst into flames. “Legs To Sin” is a mountain jig that owes as much to white-hot punk as it does to old timey dittys.

“Mountain Shifts” is a woozy junkyard waltz that might tickle Tom Wait’s fancy. “Vacant Moan” starts with Gabe Darling’s slow discordant  claw-hammer banjo but quickly careens toward a wheezing, stuttering thunderous end.

“A Light That Does Not Dim” recalls The Pixie’s “Nimrod’s Son” (which O”Death covered on a 7″ single in October 2007) with all it’s primal impact and “Grey Sun” puts a fine point on the Gothic elements of O’Death’s with the refrain “hang the hardship baby, we go to sleep and then we die.”

“On An Aching Sea” is a slinky trash can sea-shanty of a poisoned marriage and “Angeline” is a sweetly aching tale of loneliness, abandonment and mortality. Like the before-mentioned Ralph Stanley’s genre of mastery, Bluegrass, there is no shortage of dark and tragic narrative in these songs.

Like their sonic brethren The Felice Brothers, Th Legendary Shack Shakers and Those Poor Bastards, O”Death takes a fever dream of music echoing from the saloons, alleys and churches across America’s past and distills it into a dark elixir of blood, moonshine and adrenaline.

O’Death – “A Light That Does Not Dim” – Roisin Dubh in Galway – 09/26/2008

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYRNk10xN6g[/youtube]

Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Show Legacy Edition – 10/14

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  • Christmas is not too far away, and the perfect gift for your Country Music aficionado (ah hem) is the Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Show Deluxe Box Set. This Legacy Edition will feature a 2CD/1 DVD will feature the entire two Cash 1968 concerts from the California prison, totaling in 31 previously-unreleased tracks, including songs like “Blue Suede Shoes,” “I’m Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail,” “This Ole House” and even more duets with his wife June Carter Cash. The DVD contains footage from the shows, plus interviews with Merle Haggard, Roseanne Cash and inmates who witnessed Cash’s Folsom concerts. Also featured are liner notes penned by both Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, Steve Earle and Cash himself, which he wrote in 1999. Out October 14th via Columbia/Legacy.
  • The Prophets of Country Doom Those Poor Bastards new release “Satan Is Watching” will be available (fittingly) on October 31st. on CD and Vinyl.
  • Get over to ebay and buy up all the It Burns When I Pee goodies! Norma Jean’s panties aren’t going to be up there forever people!
  • And lastly a little video from the Americana Music Conference:

Glen Campbell – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6myTC0XdUQ[/youtube]

Billy Joe Shaver indicted in 2007 Texas shooting

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From the Associated Press: WACO, Texas (AP) — A McLennan County grand jury has indicted country singer Billy Joe Shaver on felony charges for his alleged role in an April 2007 shooting at a Lorena bar.

Shaver, 69, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony, and a charge of unlawful carrying of a handgun by a licensed holder on a licensed premises, a third-degree felony, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported in its online edition Wednesday.

An official at the McLennan County Jail in Waco told The Associated Press that Shaver had not turned himself in Wednesday night.

Messages left by the AP for Shaver’s last known attorney and to his representative seeking comment after business hours weren’t immediately returned.

One witness said Shaver followed the victim, Billy B. Coker, out of Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena on April 1, 2007, and asked, “Where do you want it?” before shooting him in the face, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed last year.

Another witness said that after hearing gunfire, she went outside and heard Shaver say to Coker, “Tell me you are sorry,” and “Nobody tells me to shut up,” according to the affidavit signed by then-acting Lorena Police Chief John Moran.

Coker, who was treated and released, told police last year that the shooting was unprovoked.

An attorney for Shaver said at the time that Coker was drunk, aggressive and had a knife and that he followed Shaver outside.

End Associated Press. My take? Mr. Coker is looking to make his mistake into a pay bay.

Americana Update

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When Bob Lefsetz, of the online music industry screed the Lefsetz Letter, writes about you positively you’re
probably doing something really cool. This is just what he has done after listening to the Americana Music Awards on XM Radio while driving in his home town of Los Angeles. I was in attendance at the Nashville’s Historic Ryman Auditorium and though his angel was on Robert Plant;s involvement with the Americana movement his point is an importmnat one, it’s about something all but lost in today’s culture, authenticity.

Sitting in the Ryman is to a country music fan as close to a secular sense of the divine there is to be had. Add a live performances by Ryan Bingham and Joe Ely (together with band leader Buddy Miller), an appearance by Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Levon Helm, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, James McMurtry and John Hiatt and you’ve achieved, in my opinion, musical nirvana.

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant took top honors with Album of the Year with Raising Sand. The Band’s drummer/singer,now solo artist, Levon Helm won Artist of the Year. The award was presented by Billy Bob Thorton, who was on hand to promote his Americana/Country band The Boxmasters and thier new self-titled release. I caught Billy Bob and the Boxmasters at at the Cannery last night and was surpirised at how well done the music was and how fully invested he is in this musical endevor. Billy Bob also eaned my repect when he invited Charlie Louvin on stage for al acapella duet of the old Louvin Brothers murder ballad “KnoxvIlle Girl.”

A quick shout out to some of my fellow bloggers I caught up with -  Larry Karnowski at Hickory Wind, Greg Geil at AmericanaRoots.com, Justin Gage at Aquarium Drunkard.com and Dodge at My Old Kentucky Blog.com.

Here’s a list of the winners from the awards show …

Album of the Year: Raising Sand, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
Artist of the Year: Levon Helm
Duo/Group of the Year: Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
Instrumentalist of the Year: Buddy Miller
New Emerging Artist of the Year: Mike Farris
Song of the Year: “She Left Me for Jesus,” Hayes Carll and Brian Keane (songwriters)

Awards were also given, including …

Spirit of Americana Free Speech in Music: Joan Baez
Lifetime Achievement (Songwriting): John Hiatt
Jack Emerson Lifetime Achievement (Executive): Terry Lickona
Lifetime Achievement (Performance): Jason & The Scorchers
Lifetime Achievement (Instrumentalist): Larry Campbell
Trailblazer Award: Nanci Griffith
Lifetime Achievement (Producer/Engineer): Tony Brown

Billy Bob Thorton and Charlie Louvin – Knoxville Girl

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Af1DwHeV_c[/youtube]

Happy Bithday Hank Williams Sr.

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I’m in Nashville for the Americana Music Association Conference which starts full steam tomorrow so today I had time to stop by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to check out their new exhibit Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy featuring Hank Sr. and Hank Jr. I was perusing this great exhibit and reading the history of Hank Sr.’s life and it dawned on me. It’s Hanks 85th birthday  today (as well as my Sister’s, not 85 though) !

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFnsGDG5tY[/youtube]

Music Review – Chris Knight “Heart of Stone” (Red Distribution)

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Before he became the equivalent of a hillbilly Che Guevara Steve Earle was the king of roots-rock. Since moving to New York City, and shunning his redneck past, the roots-rock division seems open for the next singer/songwriter able to blend introspective, populist narratives  fueled by an amped-up rock sound. Slaughters, KY’s Chris Knight‘s “Heart of Stone” makes a convincing run at that title.

Small people in small towns with little to hope for populate Knight’s landscapes. Enduring and overcoming economic and cultural obstacles that would make lesser souls crumble and succumb.

The classic tale of the road is told on the opener “Home Sick Gypsy.” Though there is a series of sexual liaisons alluded to it’s made clear that it’s rough and lonely going out there for the working musician.

“Hell Ain’t Half Full” is a raucous morality tale that cuts just as deep against the meth cooker as it does the preacher with nothing good to say. The song ends on a note of stark humanistic self-reliance for our moral salvation since “Up in Heaven above, God ain’t paying much attention at all.” Another Dollar is another moral tale, this time on greed, that is far too busy rocking to become sanctimonious.

“Something To Keep Me Going” is an electrified country song about love gone wrong where memories do as much to call him back to his ex-lover as they do to remind him why he needs to keep heading on down the road. The tile cut sets a story of rural abandonment of family and how hardships can shape a man for the worse. Knight uses the chorus to caution the listener to persevere and overcome and “Don’t break yourself on a heart of stone.” “Crooked Road” is introspection of a man that is, like Knight himself, from a coal mining town and trying desperately to leave the hard, dangerous work behind to save himself and his family.

“Hear of Stone” returns Knight with producer Dan Baird of Georgia Satellites (who produced Pretty Good Guy and The Jealous Kind) and Baird has the good sense to let well enough alone. With a vocal style reminiscent of a Southern Randy Newman Knight taps into what made country music (and later folk) great since the days of Jimmy Rogers and the Carter Family. Walking that delicate line that balances sentimentality with an iron core of earnest character to make it through another day.

In Nashville last year I was fortunate to catch Knight in a round table that included Southern fiction writers and song writers on how story-telling through the different mediums were alike. Like the great writer on the panel William Gay, Knight’s takes are stark in their telling and elusive in their seeming simplicity. It’s there that the common can become extraordinary.

Chris Knight – Heart of Stone

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qk6Rv2bN38[/youtube]