Category Archives: Americana

News Round-Up: Merle Haggard and Scott H. Biram Prepare Fall Releases

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There are a coupe of new releases upcoming that I am really anticipating…

Legendary country stalwart Merle Haggard will release ‘Working in Tennessee,’ on October 4,  his second on the Vanguard Records label.

The Hag penned nine of the 11 tracks on the on the album and jsut as on 2010’s I Am What I Am he invites his wife Theresa to provide vocals on the Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash classic hit, Jackson. Merle’s son Ben Haggard also joins his father by providing his adroit tele work and Willie Nelson joins on an updated version of Merle’s ‘Workin’ Man Blues.’
Despite his 2008 lung cancer diagnosis, with part of his lung being removed, the 74-year-old hasn’t lost his voice. “I’m swinging back in full throttle right now,” he insists. “Music keeps me alive. It makes me breathe better … It’s funny, but I feel better when I come off a tour than when I start out.”

Merle has been confirmed to perform at the legendary Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on October 1st. Check Merle’s other tour dates:

‘Working in Tennessee’ Track Listing:

1. ‘Working in Tennessee’ (Merle Haggard)
2. ‘Down on the Houseboat’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
3. ‘Cocaine Blues’ (TJ Arnall)
4. ‘What I Hate’ (Merle Haggard)
5. ‘Sometimes I Dream’ (Merle Haggard, Jenessa Haggard)
6. ‘Under the Bridge’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard)
7. ‘Too Much Boogie Woogie’ (Merle Haggard)
8. ‘Truck Driver’s Blues’ (Merle Haggard, Tim Howard)
9. ‘Laugh It Off’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
10. ‘Working Man Blues’ (Merle Haggard)
11. ‘Jackson’ (Billy Edd Wheeler, Gaby Rodgers)

 

And that Dirty Ol’ One Man Band from Texas, Scott H. Biram, will release his fourth full-length for Bloodshot Records, Bad Ingredients on October 11th on CD, vinyl LP, and digital download. Bad Ingredients was recorded at Biram’s home studio in Austin, Texas and mastered by Jerry Tubb of Terra Nova Mastering (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam), Bad Ingredients delivers SHB’s classic throat-stomping style (“Dontcha Lie To Me Baby” and “Victory Song”), but showcases a more mature songwriter-both lyrically and musically. It’s Biram at his quietest, but don’t worry, Hiram Biram still raises plenty a ruckus on his ’59 hollowbody Gibson and stomp board. But the best way to experience Biram is live, go check his schedule and see him if you can.

News Round Up – Allman, Plant, Civil Wars Booked For Americana Music Festivial

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The 12th Annual Americana Music Festival and Conference will celebrate is genres’ evolution as a bona fide musical force on October 12 -15, 2011 in Nashville, TN.

Confirmed so far are Americana darlings The Civil Wars, Gregg Allman, Robert Plant and the Band of Joy, Justin Townes Earle, North Mississippi Allstars, the reunited Foster and Lloyd and the Jayhawks with more to be announced. There will ultimately be nearly 100 performers playing five of Nashville’s best venues during the Festival’s nighttime showcases.

July 31 is the final day to register for the Festival and Conference under the current early bird rate, with priority Honors and Awards show seating going to those who register before the August 1st rate increase. Americana Music Association members receive a discounted rate over non-members. Tickets to the Honors and Awards go on sale July 29 to the general public.

Full Festival and Conference registrants receive entrance to all sanctioned daytime conference music, panels and parties, plus priority access to all evening showcase performances, and a ticket to the critically acclaimed Americana Honors & Awards show on Thursday, October 13th at the historic Ryman Auditorium.

The Honors & Awards will be celebrating ten years and once again Jim Lauderdale will continue his tenure as master of ceremonies, joined for another year by Buddy Miller and his All-Star house band. Over 2,000 artists, music lovers and industry executives attend the annual show, which is broadcast internationally through multiple outlets.

If you love this music this is the event to attend to catch the best and upcoming talents.  I’m still fiddling with the details but I hope to see you all there!

Concert Review: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Warfield Theatre, San Francisco – 7/7/11

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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were greeted by an adoring Bay Area crowd Thursday night with and wit a wide smile Gillian greeted the crowd  “Howdy!”  She added “Somebody gave me shit the other day for saying “Howdy.” “Hi” yeah that’s more colorful.” In a nutshell that is Gillian Welch’s music, quaint traditionalism as a defiant gesture to a modern and cynical world. In many ways it’s the same attitude that close genre cousin Music City takes in creating their product. But Welch, and the rich vein of Americana acts that flooded in the aftermath of O Brother…bring a lack of contrivance to the craft and a love of the tradition they honor.

Strolling onstage Rawlings, in gentleman cowboy courtier with fitted suit and a straw Stetson carried his signature 1935 Epiphone Olympic and Welch in simple dark dress was carrying her 1956 Gibson J50 acoustic guitar and vintage Vega Whyte Laydie banjo.. In person Gillian Welch, a hardscrabble, sparrow-boned woman with fine red hair, looks very much like a like a Steinbeck character. A perfect embodiment of the music she performs.

Welch, who is an UCSC alumnus and lived in the Bay are in the early 90’s, mentioned that she had seen several shows at their venue this night,  the historic Warfield Theatre. “I saw a Jerry (Garcia) show here. I saw Tom Waits here, the one they filmed. And I was here for the Pixies when we broke the balcony dancing an jumping around.” She then added “It look much different from this side.”

After a rousing opening of Scarlet Town, also from, The Harrow & The Harvest, Welch mentioned was their fist time they had performed the song live. “Thanks for being our experimental lab.” She said. The applause, hoops and hollers showed the crowed was open to a show without a net.

If Trace Adkins or Toby Keith came into the Bay Area I’m not sure how many of the locals would stand in rapt attention about live below the banjos, trains and life below the Mason/Dixon but when Welch was doing this very thing on Down Along The Dixie Line they couldn’t get enough. It seems themes might be universal but the vehicle for delivery matters.

A lilting version crowd favorite, Look at Miss Ohio from 2003’s Soul Journey closed out the first set, there was a 15 minute intermission for them as well as the audience to get a drink or dispose of same.

The second set opened with the back-woods existential romp The Way It Goes. David Rawlings took a turn at the wheel by performing the whimsical David Rawlings Machine number Sweet Tooth. Rawlings then took banjo duty for Six White Horses and while singing duet at a single mic Gillian did band slapping sort of like playing spoons but she was too poor to afford spoons. The often stayed dead silent in the quieter songs but clapped and sang along to the to the more rollicking songs from the new album (played in it’s entirety) as well as the classics like Revelator and I Want To Sing That Rock and Roll, and no one left early. In fact, many stayed late—a testament to the quality of the music as well as the performance.

The first encore (there were two) featured an inspired rendition of the traditional number I’ll Fly Away, which Gillian sang along with Alison Krauss on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. The crowd sand so loudly with her that several times Welch’s eyes widened and lit up with surprise.

As a guitarist I’m especially impressed by a great player of David Rawlings caliber. His style falls somewhere between Chet Atkins and Django Reinhardt yet ends up sounding like nobody but himself. He deftly coaxes beautiful tones and delicate textures with deceptive ease.

“We promised not to let you leave happy.” Welch quipped referring to the frequent theme of misery that runs through their canon, before preforming the fitting closing song The Way The Whole Thing Ends. I’m sure as the crowd spilled into the brisk San Francisco night agreed that it sure felt good to feel this bad.

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

[edit – the playlist added]

Set I-Scarlet Town-Silver Dagger-One Morning-Elvis Presley Blues-Annabelle-The Way It Goes-A Dark Turn Of Mind-I Want To Sing That R&R-Hard Times-Look At Miss Ohio. Set II-Down Along The Dixie Line-No One Knows My Name-6 White Horses-Tennessee-Revelator-Swe​et Tooth-Red Clay Halo. E-The Way It Will Be-I’ll Fly Away. E2-The Way The Whole Thing Ends.

Music Review: Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest [Acony]

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If there is such a thing as a superstar in the Americana genre then Gillian Welch is one. Her debut album, Revival, came out in the height of Nashville stylized indulgence – hitherto known as the Garth years – and reached so far back in style and subject matter that it couldn’t be called old school, it predated the school itself. This New York City born and Berklee College of Music educated woman became a gabardine-clad personification mountain holler laments and sepia drenched Dust Bowl yarns. Like Duluth, Minnesota’s Bob Zimmerman she embodied the ancestral ghosts of mythology and willed herself into a contemporary symbol of a bygone era by exhibiting a respect for the cultural legacy and  ingenuity to work within the confines to create music that sounds not only timeless but new.

To further distinguish herself , at the time of her debut many of Welch’s contemporaries were approaching their work from a folky, more Lilith-like, direction. Welch was rougher, darker, and delivered her talws with grit. Like Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, she appeared to be a woman that could drink you under the table and hold herself in a fight.

After an 8-year stretch, where Welch battled writer’s block and provided a supporting role for performing partner David Rawlings solo undertaking, By plan or happenstance The Harrow & the Harvest has been released  to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a move that in many ways reflects to neo-rustic forms crafted by Welch. The movie’s multi-platinum soundtrack was a watershed moment for the Americana music genre and featured Welch performing alongside better-known contemporaries Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. Welch also has a cameo in the film requesting a copy of the best-selling single from the movies fictitious group Soggy Bottom Boys.

On The Harrow & the Harvest Welch heeds timeless advice and doesn’t try and fix what’s not broken by offering up 10 songs of want and worry in many varieties. Scarlet Town opens with the protagonist visiting a town calamity and deception that would make Dr. Ralph Stanley bow his head in woe. The darkness of the songs subject is countered dazzlingly by David Rawlings deft guitar picking.

The murder ballad Dark Turn Of Mind carries a sinister undercurrent that belies it’s lulling cadence with a come-on / threat “take me and love me if you want me, but don’t ever treat me unkind. ‘cause I had bad trouble already, and he left me with a dark turn of mind”

The Way It Will Be is a smooth-folk Crosby, Stills and Nash-like that takes the associated SoCal groove to darker regions and The Way It Goes is a jaunty ode to weary fatalism that comes from a worn soul.

Tennessee is a character study in temptation and willful sin in the best Puritan tradition of the Southern Gothic form. The arch leads us from Sunday School to carousing, dancing and gambling all leading to the sweet bye and bye. The Way The Whole Thing Ends fittingly as it saunters and offers up hillbilly existential nuggets like “That’s the way the cornbread crumbles. That’s the way the whole thing ends.”

All in all The Harrow & the Harvest is a, paraphrasing from the song Scarlet Town , a deep well and a dark grave of an album brimming with hard truths as plainly told stiff as a pull of mash. It’s a fine return to form from an crafts-person that has been sorely missed.  It’s the feel bad album of the summer

official site | buy

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjlgyy_gillian-welch-the-way-it-goes-conan-2011_music[/dailymotion]

Music Review: Grayson Capps – The Lost Cause Minstrels [Royal Potato Family]

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On his 5th studio album Grayson Capps engages a new band, The Lost Cause Minstrels, consisting mostly of former members of the now defunct Mobile, Alabama band Kung Fu Mama – Guitarist Corky Hughes, keyboardist Chris Spies, drummer John Milham and bassist Christian Grizzard  – captures the greatness of classic rock, country as well as folk, blues and Dixieland resulting in a blend of great Americana music.

The main protagonist in The Lost Cause Minstrels is the asphalt ribbon, both as a means of escape and as a means anguish. Sometimes, as in the country rock ramble Highway 42, both in the same song to Tao-like results “Let go of the future, let go of the past, put gasoline on the present, and have yourself a blast.”

Other characters emerge on the travels. Capp’s aging rocker rasp, reminiscent of Shooter Jennings, opens the album with Coconut Moonshine is a Jazzy Cab Calloway-style tale of the character Mr. Jim who dispenses tropical bootleg hooch from his Ocean Springs, Mississippi barbecue joint. Taj Mahal’s country shuffle Annie’s Lover gets a loving rendition of palatial proportions and features a bit of hillbilly scat for good measure.

Capps reflects both his Alabama birth and, until recently, New Orleans residence in a horn and drum fueled Dixieland romp on Ol’ Slac. the name derives from the fictional character created by Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain. in the song) Chickasaw Chief Slacabamorinico. Cain was a Confederate veteran that revived the tradition of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama after it was halted by the occupying Union Army. Cain and six other Confederate veterans paraded in a decorated coal wagon playing drums and horns were dubbed The Lost Cause Minstrels.

The road takes it’s own toll in Rock N Roll, a Turn the Page-like lament of empty gas tanks, full whiskey glasses and long nights and Yes You Are has an aging, battle-worn musician confessing the futility of his chosen career to his lover who tenderly assures and  and encourages from afar.

A couple of classic-rock styled torchers pick things up as  No Definitions (in which the title defines the album overall) highlights guitarist Corky Hughes chops and manages to sound new and channel Hendrix’s Foxy Lady. John the Daggar rocks by digging out the blues is a retelling of the John Lee Hooker crossroads fable.

The albums taunt sound is a credit to Capps, who co-produced the effort with his longtime partner and Grammy Award-winning engineer/producer Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Dylan Leblanc, Sheryl Crow). Capps has taken on a considerable undertaking of styles and personal, heartfelt confession and made it into a great album.

Official Site | Buy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m4ftz-bfXw[/youtube]

News Round Up – Cowboy Jack Clement Home Studio Destroyed in Fire

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Sad news received here at Casa Twang -  the Nashville home studio, of famed musician and producer Cowboy Jack Clement (80) was consumed in a fire on Saturday 6/26th. The source of the fire is currently unknown but many reel-to-reel master tapes of rare recordings by Johnny Cash, John Prine, Louis Armstrong and dozens of others, many of which were unreleased. Also lost were many priceless mementos such as photos taken by and autographed by Clement’s  friend Johnny Cash, files on music productions and movie scripts. (The Tennessean)

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

 

 

The Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa

Tom Russell – Mesabi

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Tom Russell has always been a pioneer, a wander expanding his territory of influences.  The L.A. native now calls the border town of El Paso home and there is much Tex-Mex grounding in his ventures. The title song from his upcoming Mesabi starts with an spare acoustic but then swings into full band including mariachi-style trumpet. The sonic imagery that greatly influences Russell is the narritive here as a  Mexican kid hears  Buddy Holly, Howling Wolf, Ritchie Valens, polkas and dreams of being a troubadour. To make things intereting there’s even a dash of The Who’s  Baba O’riley in there if you listen

Tom Russell’s new album, ‘Mesabi’, out 9/6. The album features Calexico, Van Dyke Parks and Lucinda Williams.

 

 

Mesabi_Tom Russell.mp3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUH2SDjwa0g[/youtube]

News Round Up: New Guy Clark and Hank Willams III Coming Soon

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  • On August 16thlegendary singer/songwriter Guy Clark will release Songs And Stories, a live album recorded at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. Clark runs through his extensive collection of classics – L.A. Freeway, The Randall Knife, The Cape, Homegrown Tomatoes, and Stuff That Works – complete with stories and casual asides that should make this a must-have.
  • In other Clark news – In time to coincide with his 70th birthday This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, is set to drop November 1 on Icehouse Music. Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas with a rotating cast of other musicians including multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, bass players Glenn Fukunaga, Mike Bub and Glenn Worf, and drummers Kenny Malone and Larry Atamanuik. The release will feature Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett and many other singer-songwriters that have performed with and been influenced by Clark over his extensive career.
  • Bringing prolificacy to a new level Hank Williams III will celebrate his freedom from his well-documented contract disputes with Curb Records and his own new label , Hank3 Records, in a grand fashion – by releasing four records on September 6th. That’s right — four. Ghost to a Ghost/Guttertown,’ a double-album set,will be a country collection fusing Hank’s trademark hellbilly sound with Cajun influences and will feature special guests including Tom Waits. The other two releases are ‘Attention Deficit Domination’ and ‘3 Bar Ranch Cattle Callin,’ are metal-driven records on which Hank 3 plays all instruments. ‘Cattle Callin’ will explore a proposed genre entitled “cattle core” sound, featuring Hank 3’s speed metal woven around actual cattle auctioneering. Hmm, something about that makes me very happy. All three projects were recorded at The Haunted Ranch, Hank 3’s home and studio on the outskirts of Nashville.

Father’s Day – Songs for Daddy

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For Father’s Day I rustled up some greats singing songs for their dads. I know it’s not an even 10 but I think you’ll like what I have. Share your favorites in the comments or just leave some memory or sentiment for your own dad. Thanks for all the great suggestion from my friends and followers in twitter.  This is dedicated to my own father Jerry Max Lane, and my daughter Isobel and my step-father Joe Herbert whose been more than a father to me in my life.

Jerry Max Lane – Swinging Doors – A snippet of a leaving and drinking song by my dad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QphvJhBKUho

Conway Twitty – ‘That’s My Job’- For such a macho genre Country Music has never been shy about it’s sentimentality. And nobody could deliver the heartstrings yanking goods like Mr. Conway Twitty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGstAcxrl7I

George Strait – ‘Love Without End, Amen’ – King George gives Twitty a run for his money. Love Without End, Amen is Cat’s in the Cradle with a better ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTidoW2Erc

Guy Clark – ‘Randall Knife’ – Storytelling get’s no better than Clark’s use of a battered knife as a metaphor for life and a conduit for letting go.

Loretta Lynn – ‘They Don’t Make ‘Em Like My Daddy Anymore’ – The ultimate daddy’s girl! The Coal Miners Daughters sings the praises and quiet grace of her daddy

Charlie Louvin – ‘See the Big Man Cry’ – The jaunty tone of Louvin’s famous “See the Big Man Cry” belies the heartache of a man that sees his boy while walking on the sidewalk on day but can’t approach him and his ex-wide due to court orders.

Reba McEntire – ‘The Greatest Man I Never Knew’ – The darker side of Loretta’s tune. A man’s quiet grace leads to isolation and alienation from his daughter.

Shooter Jennings – It Ain’t Easy – Shooter relays some wisdom on career and manhood handed down from his daddy.

Brad Paisley – ‘Anything Like Me’ – Brad Paisley is a cut above the typical Music City hat acts and his performance of this song on impending fatherhood shows as much.

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

Jamey Johnson – ‘The Dollar’ – Even early in his career and with all the production sheen Johnson is a great songwriter. This is a tale of a boy that saves his change to buy time with his overworked father. An anthem to family challenges in these tough economic times.

John Prine – My Old Man – Tell ’em you love ’em while they’re on this side of the ground.

Americana Music and the Big Tent

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This morning the Americana Music Association  shared a link to an online Spin.com (Meet the New Stars of Americana) past covering the Americana scene in Red Hook Brooklyn and touching on the Americana genre in general.

I take a view much like I believe Jed Hilly and the AMA do, since they sent this article out via twitter and their own official email blast, that any press is good press and it helps to lift all Americana boats in the ocean of mass-media and National consciousness.  It takes a real aberration of opinion, like calling Robert Plant the King of Americana or declaring the predecessor to Americana, alt.country to be dead , to rile my feathers enough to take use this blog as a virtual soap box..

But the article is pretty much what i would expect from Spin magazine. A 20-something speaking using context of indy-rock and language of 20-somethings to establish shared taste and like-mindedness. Ever generation does this. Have you listened to most 20-somethings on the  train talking to one another? It’s like razor wire, like, for your, like, ears. Right?!

I’m just glade that in this instance Uncle Tupelo , Whiskeytown and Bill Monroe are the topic of conversation instead of the whatever skinny-jean and hoodied is the flavor of the week.

If there’s anything in the article that peeves me it’s the reference to Americana pioneer Gillian Welch, who co-produced of the 9 million unit selling O, Brother, Where Art Thou and Alison Krauss, the most awarded woman in Grammy history (26 awards of  38 nominations) as “niche acts.” I think most musicians would love to have that niche. there is also the painfully ham-handed application of sub-genre definitions – “chillbilly, bootgaze, artisanal rock, outhouse, tin can alley, or hobohemian.”

Fans of Americana share, aside from band-wagoners, share a lot of the same attributes as folk, blues and jazz fans. there is a reverence to a purity and reverence to an idea of “tradition” that sometimes gets in the way of innovation and creativity. But in the case of Americana, a mongrel genre at best, the litmus of genre purity, or as I like to call it the “more authentic than thou” argument, makes no sense for a field that can claim genre-bending acts like Those Darlin’s , Hank Williams III and the Legendary Shack Shakers as members.

Washboard lessons held in Brooklyn, John Deere caps and pearl-snap shirts from Urban Outfitters  and a vague grasp of bluegrass history is no threat to Americana.  Age, geography, wardrobe or other litmus tests aside from the musical variety which I partake in ad nauseam, is pure horseshit.