Category Archives: Americana

Pitchfork.com Interviews Emmylou Harris

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Pitchfork.com has a great interview with Emmylou Harris about her new release All I Intended to Be (NoneSuch) song writing routines, about her many collaborations and his she’s traveled the tough country music and come out in one

Pitchfork: You’ve been associated with a lot of very inspired but also very hard living guys. How have you managed to move in the same circles as people like Gram Parsons and Steve Earle and survive?

EH: Well, Steve Earle wasn’t hard living by the time we started working together! [laughs] I was only around Gram for a very, very brief period of time. I was pretty much the country mouse. When I was around Gram, he really trying to straighten up. We spent most of our time singing, and you can’t get all screwed up and sing. So the time we spent together was a pretty healthy time. I wish I could have spent more time around him. Maybe I could have helped him a little bit. But there’s no point in looking back.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OKQqtmp0o[/youtube]

Emmylou Harris News

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As I’ve mentioned before Nonesuch Records will release Emmylou Harris’ new album “All I Intended to Be” (Nonesuch) on June 10. This will be her first solo effort since 2003’s Stumble Into Grace.

Listen to some samples of the release at the Nonesuch site.

Here is the track listing:

1. Shores of White Sand (Jack Wesley Routh)
2. Hold On (Jude Johnstone)
3. Moon Song (Patty Griffin)
4. Broken Man’s Lament (Mark Germino)
5. Gold (Emmylou Harris)
6. How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower (Emmylou Harris, Kate and Anna McGarrigle)
7. All That You Have is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
8. Take That Ride (Emmylou Harris)
9. Old Five and Dimers Like Me (Billy Joe Shaver)
10. Kern River (Merle Haggard)
11. Not Enough (Emmylou Harris)
12. Sailing Round the Room (Emmylou Harris, Kate and Anna McGarrigle)
13. Beyond the Great Divide (J.C. Crowley and Jack Wesley Routh)

Emmylou is currently on tour:

6/6/2008 Morrison, CO Red Rocks Ampitheatre
6/8/2008 Lawrence, KS Wakarusa Festival
6/14/2008 Lisle, IL Morton Arboretum
6/16/2008 Toronto, Canada Massey Hall
6/18/2008 New York, NY Town Hall
6/19/2008 New York, NY Town Hall
6/20/2008 Oyster Bay, NY The Planting Fields Arboretum
6/22/2008 Vienna, VA Wolf Trap Filene Center
6/23/2008 Charlottesville, VA Charlottesville Pavilion
6/25/2008 Raleigh, NC North Carolina Museum of Art
6/27/2008 Atlanta, GA Chastain Park Amphitheatre
7/17/2008 Avon, CO Vilar Center for the Arts at Beavercreek Resort)
7/19/2008 Alta, WY Grand Targhee Americana Festival
7/20/2008 Salt Lake City, UT Red Butte Garden Ampitheatre
7/23/2008 Vancouver, Canada Orpheum Theater
7/31/2008 San Diego, CA Humphrey’s Concerts By the Bay

Texas Man Returns George Jones Guitar After 46 Years!

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Props to retired oil man Larry Berry of Chandler, Texas for returning George Jones’ stolen acoustic Martin-000 guitar which he bought for $10 from two boys at his Fort Worth, Texas, apartment complex in 1962(!)

Berry said he’s been “trying to reach Jones since the 1960s to return it, and finally got through this year.”

The Possum will recieive the long lost instrument on June 14 when Berry will pesent him with the guitar at a performance in Bossier City, La.

What made Berry think that the guitar he bought belonged to Jones? The guitar’s strap had Jones’ name on it with streaks of “White Lightning.”

Yeah, that would do it!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3mYaiW__MI[/youtube]

Review – Eleven Hundred Springs – Country Jam (Palo Duro Records)

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Where can a self respecting upright, clean thinking country music fan find solace in this world of soulless corporate market-tested pop-country confection? I have the remedy right here friends.

Eleven Hundred Springs is THE best country band on the road today. That’s right, you heard me, THE BEST! I defy anyone to show me a band that exhibits even half of EHS’s passion and agility.

Their blend of trad but contemporary Western swing, honky-tonk and country rock speaks to the roots while it pushes the edge, and the band’s first release in four years (and after a band shuffle) “Country Jam” showcases those skills in spades.

You can almost feel the heat, smell the Tex-Mex combination platter, and taste the ice-cold cervezas as the album opener “Texas Afternoon” stretches out with a Tejano accordion and hints of West Texas artists Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Joe Ely. It’s a song that genuinely makes you want to smile.

The first single from the record, “Every Time I Get Close To You,” heads back out to the flat lands of West Texas to harken back Lubbock’s own Buddy Holly channeling his rave-up rockabilly style that once burned up the local sock hops.

“Nobody Told You About The Love” is a beautiful banjo and pedal steel woven reflection on fatherhood and love featuring lovely backing vocals from guest Heather Myles. “Whose Heart Are You Breaking Tonight” is a Western swing number. It’s smooth shuffle provided by drummer Mark Reznicek is sure to fill up boot-scooting dance floors for years to come and “I Never Crossed Your Mind” beautiful lament of heartache and “V-8 Ford Boogie” moves back into Rockabilly’s wrong side of the tracks will a pulsing “go-cat-go” sound right out of the Carl Perkins songbook.

The songs so seamlessly from style to style it belies the incredible dexterity being quietly exhibited and Matt Hillyer’s vocals are prefect for the songs with his ability to achieve longing and carefree hell raising with equal success. His writing is tight and effortless with nary a tired cliche in sight. Thankfully there are no obvious reaches for “the hook” that lead so many songs to trite repetition. The sincerity in each tune is solid , irony be damned.

The cover art merits Texas underground cred by featuring a psychedelic painting by legendary Austin artist/actor and Spicewood, TX. resident Kerry Awn. Locals might recognize Kerry’s unique style from the great graphics he did for the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters back in the 70’s.

Like the Greats, Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, this is hillbilly poetry at its finest. Hopefully the next release from this great band won’t take as long to get out.

Texas Afternoon(mp3)

Eleven Hundred Springs – You Can’t Hide From Your Heart – Denton, Texas

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCsNOHP8hE[/youtube]

The Village Voice Covers New York Country Music

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The Village Voice has a fine write up (Country Music Grows in Brooklyn) on the burgeoning Country Music scene in Brooklyn and mentions a Twang Nation favorite Hank’s Saloon, a 100 year old hell raising hillbilly bar smack dab between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope which features a trapdoor above the stage leads to an upstairs area once used as a flophouse by Native-American steelworkers. The article al

so mentions the New York Metropolitan Country Music Association which has hosted hoedowns for the last 25 years and now holds weekly line dances at the Glendale Memorial Building in Queens.

Review – Hayshaker – Black Holiday in Mexico City EP (Shut Eye Records)

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Surveying a wide swath of American music in just 6 songs, Waycross, Georgia’s Hayshaker features the wedded C.C. and Laurie Rider on rhythm guitar and vocals, and vocals respectively and T.W. Lott on guitar and Frank Sikes on drums. The band belies their leanness in members by producing a massive sound sure to shake the tin roof off any roadhouse.

Their recent EP, Black Holiday in Mexico City gets things rolling with the Bakersfield-sound fueled “Laurie’s Song” with C.C. and Laurie’s harmonies reminiscent of Exene Cervenka and John Doe in X’s twangier moments. The middle part of the song breaks off into the chug-chug-chug that starts off Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, but then kicks back into that sweet West Coast honkey-tonk beat.

In the Snow is a dark moody rocker that makes you want to bang your head to the story mental anguish. Scrap Work stretches out a country-rock landscape with yearning pedal steel and searing guitar work.

El Camino brings Dick Dale spastic surf-guitar spiked with Pixies fury complete with Black Francis yelps and exquisite Black and Kim Deal-style harmonies “Oh my pain, is like a candy cane, you lick and you lick, and it goes away.” Classic!

Black Holiday is a swampy murder ballad punctuated with a cool jumpy guitar lick that turns fierce in the middle then suddenly shimmers like asphalt heat just to jump up and blast out at the end.

Mexico City is a hoedown stomp reflection on South of the Border wantonness. “I lost my heart, I lost my soul, to a bottle and a whore in Mexico.” The EP ends with Dirtkick, a Black-Betty-eque hot rod surge to the cliff on a whiskey fueled race to hell. The drunken phone message hidden at the end is hilarious and a little freaky.

Pack up your ’56 Plymouth Fury and hit the long lonely dusty road and let Hayshaker’s “Black Holiday in Mexico City” be your soundtrack.

Laurie’s Song (MP3)

Laurie’s Song

Pop Matters Features Miranda Lambert

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PopMatters.com features 20 questions with Miranda Lambert. A highlight:

Of those who’ve come before, the most inspirational are?
Merle Haggard has been my inspiration. Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris are close behind. Since I’ve been writing songs and performing, Allison Moorer and Jack Ingram have been big idols of mine. All of these artists have written about what’s true even if it’s not always a pretty picture.

Miranda Lambert “Gunpowder & Lead” Fresno, CA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLC81Q49dyQ[/youtube]

It Burns When I Pee Episode #15

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Has it been a year already? BWIP turns calibrates their one-year anniversary with an interview with Wayne Gottstine from Split Lip Rayfield great music from Split Lip Rayfield, The Sluggos, and Scroat Belly (all with our special guest Wayne Gottstine). We also have music from Justin Towns Earle, The Honky Tonk Hustlas, and Missy Gossip and The Secret Keepers and a special dedication final song.

Illustration by Christoph Mueller

Joe Pug – Nation of Heat EP

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We mere mortals can only hope to be meager conduits for the grand themes of life – Love, hope, fear, death – these concepts are bigger then any one of us but that doesn’t stop the courageous and foolish from shaping these experiences into music and words.

Joe Pug, a Chicagoan sometimes-carpenter, is standing on the shoulders of Guthrie, Dylan, Van Zant, Prine, Clark, Simon and Young to join the ranks of present-day troubadours like Ryan Bingham, Willy Mason and Ray LaMontagne. Joe Pug’s songs belie this greenhorn’s recent foray into the craft of songwriting and his world-beaten voice belies his youth (early-twenties.)

“Hymn 101” is worth the price of admission alone. A trotting acoustic guitar supports the lyrics  “I’ve come here to get high, to do more than just get by, I’ve come to test the timbre of my heart.” and “I’ve come here to meet the sheriff and his posse, to offer him the broad side of my jaw, I’ve come here to get broke, and then maybe bum a smoke, we’ll go drinkin’ two towns over after all.” This is goddamn staggering in its courage and rich in it’s symbolism.

“Call It What You Will” has a mournful mood that brings to mind Townes Van Zandt at his most melancholy. “I call today a disaster, she calls in December the 3rd” Pug sings being at once melodramatic and nonchalant. You can almost feel the whiskey and brimstone on Pug’s breath when he sings “I am the day, I am the dawn, I am the darkness coming on” on the harmonica laced Hymn 35

There is a timeless quality to this 7 song EP, like a found chest of remembrances in your grandparent’s attic, there are treasures for this that pay attention. And the foolish courage of man armed with only an acoustic guitar standing as a lightening rod for the ages is a wonder to behold.

Joe Pug performing Hymn#101

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTj6pZ1HCM[/youtube]