Hard Times

These are tough times for America. Wall Street and board room crooks, unnecessary wars, mounting national and personal debt, massive unemployment, terrorists threats.. These are not the toughest times we’ve faced in our history,I think the fisr depression and the civil war were much tougher, but they are hard relative to the lives most people have lived today.

The silver lining is that from hard times comes great music, and country music taps into the populist zeitgeist better than any other genre beside blues. Much has been made about John Rich’s Shuttin’ Detroit Down and Hank William Jr’s Red White and Pink Slip Blues but it’s hard for me to buy populist empathy from a guy that parades around  in mink coats and a guy that puts hotel employees in a choke hold and demands a kiss.

Here is a list of songs that I believe exhibit the best of what it sounds like to live through the worst.

Ryan Bingham – Hard TimesA new artist with an old voice . The name says it all.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg428ZfOMsA[/youtube]

The Drive By Truckers – Puttin’  People on the Moon A stiff shot of old-school Southern rock chased withed populist rage.

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

Jimmie Rodgers  – Muleskinner Blues – A classic of down-on-your-luck and lookin’ for work poetry.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXV9_WilcHs[/youtube]

Johnny Cash – BustedHarlan Howard’s 1962 penned song of working man’s woe was aa hit for Johnny Cash in 1962 on his classic At Folsom Prison live album and was an even bigger hit for Ray Charles the following year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rnAYYh8gGQ[/youtube]

Merle Haggard – Workin’ Man Blues – Classic Bakersfield rocks this ode to the laborer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEstJ98TcM[/youtube]

Frankie Miller – Blackland Farmer – A paen to the 1958 farmers that were just starting to get a glipmpse of the industrial farms that were to change thier professions and lives forever.

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

Levon Helm – Poor Old Dirt Farmer -  Helm, the only American in the Americana/rock group The Band, tells the story of his Dad’s farm inTurkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU[/youtube]

Johnny Paycheck – Take This Job and Shove It – it’s not all hand-wringing and woe is me in country music. Paycheck’s cover of  David Allan Coe’s song was a huge 70’s hit and a raised finger to The Man.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knetbVx5A-Q[/youtube]

RIP Stephen Bruton

  • The fine folks at the 9513 brought to my attention the sorry news that Kris Kristofferson’s longtime guitarist Stephen Bruton has succumbed to throat cancer.
  • Country music legends Charley Pride and Marty Stuart and bluesman Pinetop Perkins will headline the third annual Mississippi Grammy gala.
  • Recycle your cell phones to support Nuci’s Space and get free merch coupons from the Drive-By Truckers official Store!
  • The New York Times has a piece on Steve Earle and his course in recording his trubute to his mentor Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

Country Singer Vern “The Voice” Gosdin Dies

  • Singer Vern Gosdin, who recorded country music hits like the award-winning “Chiseled in Stone” during a 30-year career, has died. He was 74. Gosdin reportedly had a history of strokes and suffered the latest one a few weeks ago and was under hospice care and died late Tuesday at a Nashville, Tenn. hospital. The 9513.com offers a fine tribute to the man.
  • Birthday Boy Willie Nelson will join relative young’uns Bob Dylan and John Mellencamp on a U.S. summer tour of minor league baseball parks, beginning July 2 at the GCS Ballpark in Sauget, Ill., and wrapping Aug. 15 at the Banner Island Ballpark in Stockton, Calif.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle has posted a review of the John Prine / John Ritter  Apr 25th Warfield performance.
  • And in painful crossover news Def Leppard has been confirmed to perform on the CMT Music Awards on June 16. The Britsh pop-metal has-beens…er…band have recently been involved in the Music Row marketering wet dream collaborations with Tim McGraw earlier this year on the song “Nine Lives” and appearing with Taylor Swift on CMT Crossroads. What’s next? Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach doing coutry music…oh wait…

Festival News

  • Charlottesville, VA’s 6 Day Bender has embarked on their Spring/Summer East Coast tour, They are stopping by two of my favorite clubs in the New York area – Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn and Arlene’s Grocery in New York City. Go support this fine band!
  • MerleFest 2009, scheduled for April 23-26 on the campus of Wilkes Community College, will once again host the MerleFest Mandolin Contest, the Merle Watson Bluegrass Banjo Championship and the Doc Watson Guitar Championship on the first two days of the festival in Alumni Hall.  These contests offer aspiring pickers some time in the spotlight to be heard by the wildly appreciative audiences at the festival, along with a chance to compete for prizes.
  • Speaking of festivals Twangfest 13 will be held June 10-13, 2009 in St. Louis: Woot!”  Saint LouisOUIS, MO curretlty have conformation for Big Sandy & the Fly-Rite Boys, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles, Bruce Robison and Eilen Jewell with more on the way. Check thier website for more news.
  • The 11th Pickathon Indie Roots Music Festival July 31-August 2 just outside Portland, OR. will feature Blitzen Trapper, The Sadies,  Dale Watson, The Hackensaw Boys, Justin Townes Earle, Elliott Brood, Joe Pug and many other great acts.
  • The the 6th annual Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival June 4th – 7th at the Mulberry Mountain in Ozark AR. will feature the Yonder Mountain String Band, Split Lip Rayfield, Lucero, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Blue Mountain, Cross Canadian Ragweed and many more.
  • And though not strictly a roots music festival San Francisco’s second Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival will feature Band of Horses, Bettye LaVette, the Heartless Bastards, Ryan Bingham and Tom Jones (?!)

Billy Bob Thorton’s a Baby

I saw Billy Bob Thorton and his group the Boxmasters perform in Nashville last year as part of the Americana Music Association conference last year. The band played the big room downstairs at the cannery. My expectations were low. I figured a Hollywood star’s vanity project would just end up as Dogstar 2.0. But hell it’s Billy Bob Thorton and except for her uncle, Chip Taylor – who also performed at the AMA, her ex-husband was as close as I would get to Angelina Jolie.

I hadn’t heard the Boxmasters before they played and I was surprised how good they were. The band was tight and Billy Bob knew how to work the crowd (though his vocals were serviceable at best.) The identical outfits, Buddy Holly horn rims (except for Billy Bob) and black suits (were are the aliens or the dry toast?) were a bit silly but hell, if the early incarnation of the Beatles and many Grand ‘Ol Opry performers dressed in what comes doen to uniforms it’s okay with me.

The near the end of the Cannery show Billy Bob shocked me. He invited the legendsry country tenor Charlie Louvin onstage with him and, lyrics in hand and nerve in  his voice sang the great Appalachian murder ballad Knoxville Girl made famous by Charlie and his brother Ira in 1956.  That took guts.

Then the recent dust up in Canada. The Boxmasters (now featuring the awesome Unknown Hinson performing in the band under the name Danny Baker) were in the Great White North opening for Willie Nelson for a string of dates and were schedules

Apparently there was a some agreement with the Canadian radio station program the Q not to bring up Thorton’s acting career in an introduction before a band interview. Besides the diva-like behavior this represents the station did agree. Then the interviewer Jian Ghomeshi proceeded to bring up Thorton’s acting career. Thorton then proceeded to act like a pissy, spoiled 5 year old and give glib and non-sequiter answers, to the confusion of Ghomeshi (who probably thought that revealing Thorton’s apparently secret  acting career couldn’t be the cause of such ridiculous behavior) and the embarrassment of his band who had to intervene and pick up his slack.

The next night Mr. Thornton drew a round of boos at a concert in Toronto’s Massey Hall after Thorton called Ghomeshi an “asshole” on stage and compared Canadian fans to mashed potatoes with no gravy. The band went on to cancel the last two shows on the Canadian leg of their tour with Willie Nelson which the Boxmaster’s web site is contributed to a band member and several crew members having the flu.

You can watch the whole tragic incident below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw[/youtube]

Now the nad’s publicist

Those Darlins Ready New Summer Release

  • Craig Shelburne  over at the CMT blog has posted a great video I had never see with Willie Nelson and fantastic bluegrass Melonie Cannon covering Willie’s Back to Earth.
  • Speaking of Texas (Wille, Texas…same thing) If you’re in the San Francisco area tomorrow night head over to the historic Fillmore to catch Houston’s own Robert Earl Keen with the great Hayes Carl as the opener
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    I heard that Miley Cyrus is slated to Perform at the 4th Annual Country Music Awards on April 5. Aand here I thought it was Miley’s buddy Taylor Swift’s job to serve the ‘tween demographic with insipid tales of mall heartache. Or maybe that’s Carrie Underwood… Point is the CMA’s continue to embody thier new acronym definition, Country Music my Ass.

  • Murfreesboro, Tenn’s country-punk sweethearts of the prison rodeo, Those Darlins,  got a lot of deserved attention at SXSW ’09 and it looks like they are due for more love this Summer when their self-titled debut album is released on July 7th (vinyl on July 23rd) on OH WOW DANG records. Here’s the title cut off their current Wild One EP to hold you over until then.

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Those Darlins – Wild One(mp3)

Legendary Country Tapes Discovered

  • Tapes of George Jones, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Tammy Wynette, Buck Owens, Charley Pride, and other country greats were among some of the hundreds of tapes that were discovered in a barn in southern Pennsylvania. This long-rumored treasure of lost recordings were made at high schools, dances, fairs, festivals, and auditoriums in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a few in the 1940s. (Tristram Lozaw  at The Boston Globe)
  • Austin American-Statesman’s Austin360 writer Brian T. Atkinson  posts an interview with Langhorne Slim just before his final SXSW appearance at Purevolume.com.

Neal McCoy, Linda Davis and Michael Martin Murphey are 2009 Texas Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees

  • Billboard.com posts on the South-By-Southwest tribute to Texas music legend Doug Sahm which featured performances by Jimmie Vaughan, the Gourds, Dave Alvin and Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles, Los Lobos, Delbert McClinton, Charlie Sexton, Little Willie G, Terry Allen and a collaboration between Joe “King” Carrasco and the Texas Tornados.
  • Two native East Texans are among three country music artists destined for the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. Jacksonville native-turned-Longview resident Neal McCoy will join Panola County native Linda Davis and western singer-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey as 2009 inductees into the hall of fame. The hall of fame show is scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame facility, 300 W. Panola St. in Carthage.
  • From Country Standard Time:  Willie Nelson has postponed six tour dates due to illness, according to his web site. The illness was not specified.  Postponed dates were March 17 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.; March 18 in Melbourne, Fla., March 19 in Panama City, Fla., March 20 in Choctaw, Miss., March 21 in Marksville, La. and March 22 in Springdale, Ark.
  • Famed moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton died at the age of 61 at the his Parrotsville, Tennessee home. He allegedly committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide in an old Ford Fairlane he kept in a barn on his property  a few days before serving an 18-month sentence in Federal Prison for illegally brewing spirits and possessing a firearm as a felon. Read Johnny Knoxville’s fitting post here.

Dexateens and Devil Makes Three Ready New Releases

  • In honor of today’s release of Sony Legacy’s Naked Willie you can head over to Go!Animate and create your own Willie Nelson cartoon n the persona of the Redheaded Stranger, Super Willie, Naked Willie (natch) , Willie harmonica player (and Naked willie producer) Mickey Raphael and a horse named Stardust.
  • Universal South is releasing a wholly unnecessary Shooter Jennings Greatest Hits album, Bad Magick,  album on March 24th. Really? A “greatest hits?” Shooter has 3 studio and one live album, and a live album is a gretest hits album. Rumor is that this is the labels, not Shooter’s decision and ythat he is now done with his contract and shopping for a new label. Maybe he and Tim McGraw can start a label called “They Done Me Wrong Records.”
  • Santa Cruz, California’s own Devil Makes Three will release Do Wrong Right to be released April 21st.  Go catch them this week at South-By-Southwest Mar 18 at Lovejoys (5:00pm) and  Mar 21 2009 at Submerged   (8:00pm)
  • Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s own Dexateens will release their new album Singlewide on May 12th.   Singlewide was recorded in Nashville with veteran engineer Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Calexico and the Silver Jews.) Their peculiar video for the song John Smith is below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHun18Uj8fM[/youtube]