Category Archives: Americana

Twang Nation Podcast Episode 5 – Ray Wylie Hubbard, The Damn Quails, Chelle Rose

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

It’s been a while but here’s Twang Nation Podcast #5 and it’s a beaut.

This episode features cuts from upcoming albums by  Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chelle Rose and Joe Pug and great cuts from The Damn Quails, The Steel Wheels , Hiss Golden Messenger and Jim White.Mr J.R. Cash concludes the episode to commemorate the year of his 80th birthday and the upcoming gospel-themed Bootleg Vol. IV: The Soul of Truth.
I hope you all enjoy the great Americana and roots music featured in this and all the podcasts  and hope you seek out the musicians and buy their music, merch and , most importantly, take all your friends and see them live. Remember you can leave requests or feedback below or email me at baron(at)twangnation(dot)com.

1. Ray Wylie Hubbard – song:  Coricidin Bottle  album: The Grifter’s Hymnal  (Bordello Records)
2. The Damn Quails – song:  Fool’s Gold -  album: Down The Hatch ( 598 Recordings)
3.  Chelle  Rose – song:  Browder Holler Boy (Feat. Ray Wylie Hubbard)  album: Ghost of Bowder Holler (Lil’ Damsel Records)
4. The Steel Wheels – song:  Spider Wings  album: Lay Down , Lay Low (independent release)
5. The Memphis Strange – song:  5 Miles or Less  album: Birth of the Strange (independent release)
6. Hiss Golden Messenger – song:  Jesus Shot Me In The head  album: Poor Moon (Tompkins Square records)
7. Screen Door Porch – song:  Devil’s Honey  album: The Fate & The Fruit (Independent release)
8. Jim White – song:  The Way of Alone  album: Where It Hits You   (Yep Roc Records)
9. Joe Pug – song:  Hymn #76  album: The Great Despiser ( Lightning Rod Records)
10. Brown Bird – song:  Bilgewater  album: Salt For Salt (Supply and Demand Music)
11. Johnny Cash – song: Walk the Line Album: Bootleg 3: Live Around The World (Sony Legacy)

 

Todd Snider Honors His First Musical Hero On ‘Time As We Know It: The Songs Of Jerry Jeff Walker,’ Out April 24

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Fresh on the heels of his new album ‘Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables’ Todd Snider will release ‘Time As We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker,’ a tribute to his original musical hero(4/24.)  “I’ve always hoped I’d stay around long enough to get to make a record of Jerry Jeff Walker songs,” Snider says. “He’s the guy I saw at 19 and decided to try to be like. His are the first songs I learned.”

Produced by Don Was (Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones), the 14 celebratory tracks feature friends and admirers like Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn, Elizabeth Cook, and Amy LaVere. “We just went into a studio and played about 30 of Jerry Jeff’s songs and let the performances dictate what songs would make it,” Snider says, adding, “I could’ve done 30 more.”

Todd’s tour continues this spring, with shows at L.A.’s El Rey Theater on March 30 and a headlining show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on June 2.

Track Listing:
1. Vince Triple-O Martin
2. Jaded Lover
3. Moon Child
4. Takin’ It As It Comes
5. Derby Day
6. Sangria Wine
7. Continuous Saga of the Bummer Or Is This My One Way Bus Ticket to Cleveland
8. Little Bird
9. Hill Country Rain
10. Railroad Lady
11. Laying My Life on the Line
12. Pissin’ in the Wind
13. Mr. Bojangles
14. Will There Be Any

Neil Young and Crazy Horse To Release New Album, Americana (6/5)

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

Neil Young and Crazy Horse will attempt to do what other brave souls (me included) have failed at for years, define definitively Americana.

Of course I don’t think the upcoming album, Americana (6/5) by Young and the band, he began fronting in 1968 after his band Buffalo Springfield dissolved, will be  doing anything of the sort. But I am intrigued by them covering late 19th century/early 20th century American folk songs, which include the classic murder ballad Tom Dooley, Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land,  Gallows Pole the classic folk song covered by Leadbelly and Led Zeppelin and forlorn American western ballad Clementine.

Young and Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, will redefine what people think of when when they associate the band with “Classic rock.”

The album was produced by Neil Young along with John Hanlon and Mark Humphreys. I saw the band in February for the Grammy MusiCares tribute to Paul McCartney where they covered the Beatles I Saw Her Standing There (all videos of that performance have been removed online as far as I can tell)  and the band was in lean fighting form. There are no reports of a tour resulting from the album.

Americana Tracklist:
1 – Oh Susannah
2 – Clementine
3 – Tom Dooley
4 – Gallows Pole
5 – Get A Job
6 – Travel On
7 – High Flyin’ Bird
8 – She’ll Be Comin ’Round The Mountain
9 – This Land Is Your Land
10 – Wayfarin’ Stranger
11 – God Save The Queen

Listen to Pistol Annies “Run Daddy Run” from Hunger Games Soundtrack

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Singer/songwriter/producer and Americana stalwart T Bone Burnett seems to be practicing a sort of genre alchemy  with the upcoming Hunger Games soundtrack (March 20.)

Mr. Burnett seems to be taking poetic license with Suzanne Collins’ trilogy which follows the heroine, whose home in District 12 that encompasses current-day Appalachia, an region Burnett knows something about. The setting of the books is a sort of future version of the old frontier which also plays to Burnett’s wheelhouse.

Burnett excels  in making neo-rustic music that would appeal more to Hunger Game readers parents. The young women that are the primary demographic for the books are more likely to be fans of indy rock, pop or country pop.

Burnett displays his craft to fuse his world to the new audience adeptly on the  Taylor Swift and Civil Wars track “Safe and Sound.” Now he’s done the same for the same for the Pistol Annies’ cut Run Daddy Run. The song is sung by the group, which consists of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, and sounds more akin to O Brother’s Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby sung by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch. This is a different sound than the sassy country found on the recent Pistol Annies debut.

Check out the track below and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYhvKabzUZ4&feature=player_embedded

Lisa Marie Presley to Release T. Bone Burnett Produced Storm and Grace – May 15th

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I recently heard that the Godfather of the Americana movement, T. Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou, Raising Sand) , has produced the upcoming release from Lisa Marie Presley. The album, Storm and Grace, will be out May 15th. I was skeptical at fist but after reading this post on Rollingstone.com about how Presley was collaborating with songwriters like Richard Hawley, Ed Harcourt and Travis’ Fran Healy and wanted to regain her faith in music and “find her roots” I think this might be a pretty cool release.

What the $#%& is Couch By Couchwest?!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Truth be told I really had no idea what the hell Couch By Couchwest was going in . I got that the name was a play off the Austin Music/Tech/Film festival South By Southwest but what else?

Being a newbie I reached out to the Couch By Couchwest via their twitter account for a scheduled of performances. Being a blogger I’m naturally lazy and like to get my information neatly packaged. No dice. I got this response “..this is a festival based on laziness! Do you really think we’d put together a schedule!?”and “Official CXCW Schedule: March 11-18th, videos sun-up to sun-up. Couch, kitchen, bed, bathroom, alternate as needed.” My laziness had been trumped.

So I did what any self-respecting blogger would do. I Googled Couch By Couchwest. I was presented with the main sources for performances, YouTube and Vimeo video uploads that are then gathered by the main site CouchByCouchwest.com,  a step up from their original tumblr page, as a single place for enjoying the music. Past performances by Neko Case (below) and other excellent, and some okay, performances. But there was no denying how compelling the idea of open source cultural event like this was.

The submission criteria makes to mentions of genre, style or guidelines of any type aside from uploading and tagging on the submitted video. This is as democratic as the local open mic except that it’s happening world-wide. Judging my the videos the only crieria is that there is often, but not always a couch in teh videos submitted.

Audience participation comes in the form of posting pics of your pets (sharing the couch with you no doubt) and tacos (apparently the official Couch By Couchwest fare) as well as the often hilarious Twitter feed which is topically aligned by the hashtag #CXCW or #CXCW2012.

Operations take place in secret from some undisclosed location Baton Rouge, Louisiana from the pseudonym, Baron Childs. Childs is reported as saying “There are some really talented people who just don’t’ get the chance to get heard because either they can’t afford to go to South by South West or they families that prevent them from going. This is a way to give those people a voice, too.” and that the purpose of Couch by Couch West is not about exposure or making money, but rather the focus should be on the music. “We’re not making any money off this, it actually costs us money.”

The defies all the conventional ideas about marketing and music publicity and results in an open-source cultural event. So far this week has Couch By Couchwest has given us excellent performance by Austin Lucas, Doc Dailey & Magnolia Devil , Imperial Rooster an many others.

In the end Couch By Couchwest is about the joy of music and the serendipitous nature of the web. The use of technology to support the traditional folk and roots legacy of intimate , personal space performances is a great hybrid cultural experience that I can really get behind.

 

Album Review: Amy Francis – Balladacious [Independent Release]

Posted on by — 5 Comments ↓

Bodacious is a Southern/Southwestern portmanteau of bold and audacious. It’s meaning is remarkable, courageous, audacious, spirited and unmistakable.
Corpus Christi TX native Amy Francis uses this linguistic fusion and forms the title of her new release , Balladacious. Just as she reinterprets words Francis also uses this skill to give her own take on some of  country music’s best-known classics.
The album opens with Francis beautiful voice powerfully breaking the silence with a vulnerable delivery of the Hank Cochran barroom lament Don’t Touch Me. Francis brings the longing and apprehension contained in the song to a palatable level and disarms you of all cynicism. A staple of country music is it’s unabashed sentiment and Francis’ heart is emblazoned boldly on this first song.

The spirits of Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette and Brenda Lee are conjured with all their romantic weariness giving testament. Not just because Francis covers Sweet Dreams, Apartment #9 and Fool Number One respectively, but because she is a believer. She brings authenticity to these songs because she embodies them wholly not simply mimicking them like many Music City talen dipping a toe in traditionalism.
Her take on Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billy Joe reworks this dark song of small-town gossip and makes it swing with an acoustic guitar and strings accompaniment. Her covers of George Jone’s “Picture of Me Without You” and “I’ll Share My World With You” elevates them to the honky-tonk majesty they deserve and Vince Gill’s hit “When I Call Your Name” is covered with barrel-house piano and pedal steel accompaniment and achieves a forlornness that LeAnn Rimes’s cover never came close to.  Ronnie Milsap’s “Stranger Things Have Happened” is given an equal turn with Francis’ voice soaring at heights while singing about the depths. The hope against hope and lessons contained in these testimonials of  despair makes country music some of the greatest forms of contemporary tragedy. Francis approaches each with dignity and grace they deserve and strikingly nimble vocals that breath life into every barroom confession.

I have an ambivalent relationship with Nashville Sound era country music. When Owen Bradley, with Chet Atkins and Bob Ferguson moved hillbilly music from the hollers and honky tonks to the supper clubs, by adding strings, backing vocals and other adornment better suited for crooners of the day, they laid the path toward the enormously lucrative but culturally superficial pop-country industry we’ve inherited. Like the great performers of the Nashville Sound era Francis charms me into putting aside bias by keeping the soul enact while stripping back just enough veneer to let you hear the heart break.

Official Site | Buy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ssAJ4u7VRA&list=UUCdLHmRYCJy-e9k_rh2Zhgw&feature=plcp

Twang Nation South-By-Southwest Americana Mix

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Circumstances conspired to keep me from attending the music (and tech/film) madness that is South-By-Southwest taking place March 13-18  in  my home state of Texas. In lieu of standing toe-to-toe with strangers an having beer spilled on me I will soldier on from my couch here in the Bay Area to shed light on the Americana and Roots artists tha will be sprinkled in with the indie-darling of the week bands that dominate the scene. Here’s a list of bands/musicians that I’ve collected that are playing the event. Have a listen and check them out live. Then help them out and buy a CD or t-shirt. Guitar strings and gas don’t grown on trees bud!

Twang Nation #SXSW Americana Mix on Spotify

SXSW Americana/Roots list:

Alabama Shakes

Justin Townes Earle
Anais Mitchell
Nikki Lane
Carrie Rodriguez
Hellbound Glory
Rachel Brooke
Ana Egge
Sons Of Fathers
The Trishas
Izzy Cox
Lost and Nameless Orchestra
MilkDrive
Shurman
Warren Hood and The Goods
Treetop Flyers
The Brothers Comatose
Brown Bird
Ghosts Along the Brazos
Joe Pug
Alejandro Escovedo and The Sensitive Boys
The Lumineers
Henry Wagons
Jack Wilson
Have Gun Will Travel
The White Horse
Jon Dee Graham
Shannon McNally
Hurray for the Riff Raff
Greensky Bluegrass
Guns of Navarone
Brett Detar
Owen Temple
Star & Micey
Andra Suchy
Sugar & the Hi Lows
Seth Walker
Carrie Elkin
Lydia Loveless
The Pines
East Cameron Folkcore
the Little Willies
Punch Brothers
Jonny Corndawg
the Gourds
HoneyHoney
Chuck Meadand His Grassy Knoll Boys
Fallon & The Bandits
Deadman
Mickey & The Motorcars

Song Premiere: Lera Lynn Covers “Ring Of Fire”

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Athens GA-based Americana songstress Lera Lynn follows up her debut full length (Have You Met Lera Lynn?) with a seven inch, which includes a cover of June Carter Cash penned and Johnny Cash renowned Ring of Fire.

Lynn says of the cover “I always thought June Carter’s “Ring of Fire” was written as a dark song, maybe it’s just where I was when I heard it one dark day. It’s been a lot of fun to rearrange it, almost making it my own. I hope we’ve done it justice. I hope they [the Cash Family] would be proud.”

I never understand when people do cover songs, especially of iconic songs, and then don’t interpret them personally. Lynn does exactly that with her take smolders (heh) punctuated with discordant peaks in the chorus. Look for Lera Lynn  on tour in Texas and up the East coast this March and April.

Lera Lynn – Ring of Fire

 

 

The White Buffalo New Video – ‘Once Upon A Time In The West.’

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

“Wish It Was True” is a sparse, acoustic song of longing for faith and the risk and disappointment that often comes with that yearning. The White buffalo (aka Jake Smith is a master songsmith in the manner of Guy Clark and Steve Earle, engaging the listener through expansive allegory that always winds up in the interior landscape of the mind and heart.

The video features Jake and his actual son and was filmed in Death Valley partially in an “old pseudo-abandoned motel” and a gutted bus. Both of which serve as apt forsaken symbols for the lyrics.

Mother, I tried to do right by you,To do what you asked me to.
I did wrong, and I knew.

Mother, I tried to behave for you.
Now I’m a-diggin’ a grave for you.
It was all I could do.

Find a way back home, make everything new.
I wish it was true.

Father, well I gave my soul to you.
I came in blind folded for you.
It was all that I knew.

Open your arms and I’ll fly out of hell up to you.
I wish it was true.
Boy, come on out from the cold.
You’re lost outside there, don’t you know?
It’s not what you say, it’s what you do.
Just keep wishing your wishes are true.
Well your dreams, they’re reality.
There’s no pain, there’s no misery.
Just polish the blood and the brews.
For there’s just no way you can lose.
Well I wish it was true.

Country, I was a solider to you.
I did what you asked me to.
It was wrong, and you knew.

Country, now I’m just a stranger to you.
A number, a name; it’s true.
Throw me away when you’re through.

Home of the brave and the free; the red, white, and blue.
I wish it was true.