Category Archives: Country Music

This Just In – CMAs Still Suck Ass

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  • The Tomorrow The Green Grass lineup of the Jayhawks have confirmed a pair of summer shows, with plans to play together more next year. The band is headlining the Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis on July 10, marking the first time the Jayhawks will play with both principals Gary Louris and Mark Olson in the United States in over a decade.  The band is also booked for the Primavira Sound ’09 Festival in Barcelona, Spain on May 30.
  • Ethen Hawke has more then just great taste in ex-wives, he is a big fan of Kris Kristofferson. The current issue of Rolling Stone features what amount to a 1000 word fan-boy love letter. There are also some juicy details that Kristofferson and Toby Keith got into a backstage ruckus at Willie Nelson’s 2003 birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. The gist is it was over  Kristofferson’s liberal beliefs and Keith has a big mouth. Keith has since claimed the altercation is untrue.
  • So, I watched the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. I could have been watching the 43rd, 42nd or the 41st CMA since the winners and performances were generally identical. The few surprises there were was the shcok of an actually heartfelt country music song – Jamey Johnson’s best song winner for In Color and the dull – Miley Cyrus cribbing from pal Taylor Swift’s diary for The Climb. Hell, even Sugarland’s Kristian Bush stopped wearing a cowboy hat acknowledging their music and the event didn’t warrant one. The glitter-glutted informercial that is the CMAs (or Country My Ass for those that know better.)

Dale Watson on Sirius XM’s Willie’s Place | Friday, April 3 at 10PM EST

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Supporting his upcoming new album The Truckin’ Sessions: Volume Two on Hyena Records, hardcore honky tonker Dale Watson will be honoring the men and women who puttin’ the pedal to the metal with a free “trucker appreciation” concert on Friday, April 3 at the beautiful Night Life Theater at the Willie’s Place truckstop in Carl’s Corner, Texas.
SIRIUS XM Radio will carry the entire show live on its Willie’s Place channel, SIRIUS channel 64 and XM channel 13, beginning at 10PM EST. There’s plenty of truck parking for drivers rollin’ through Texas, but if you can’t be there in person, tune in for great night of gear grindin’, truckin’ tunes, along with an exclusive pre-show Dale Watson interview by Dallas Wayne from the SIRIUS XM studios at Carl’s Corner.

A portion of proceeds from the CD sales of The Truckin’ Sessions: Volume Two during the evening’s performance will be donated to the St. Christopher Truckers Development & Relief Fund, a not-for-profit organization that provides financial assistance to professional truck drivers who have

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell, Doug Kershaw

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More YouTubes goodies…

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell, and Doug Kershaw play Hank Wwilliam’s “Jambalia” – 1974 Willie Nelson’s 2nd Annual 4th Of July Picnic. Bryan/College Station, TX

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H6me1FSPb8[/youtube]

Bob Dylan Releases Free Track from Upcoming “Beyond Here Lies Nothin”

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  • The first track from Bob Dylan’s forthcoming release, Together Through Life, has been posted as a  free download on BobDylan.com. Seriously, you don’t have to enter an email address or anything. Titled  Beyond Here Lies Nothin, the song features Mike Campbell from Tom Petty’ Heartbreakers on guitar. The release will be available for  free from midnight, March 30th through midnight, March 31st.  Together Through Life will be released on Columbia Records on April 28th.
  • Dyman’s Rolling Thunder camapdre Ramblin’ Jack Elliott will revisit neighborhoods he used to frequent with the likes of Jack Kerouac and Dylan in the 1950s and ‘60s when he plays a special show at the Highline Ballroom in New York City on May 13th.   The 77 year old Elliott is making a number of select appearances in support of his upcoming release A Stranger Here, available April 7th on ANTI- Records.  Produced by Joe Henry (Bettye LaVette, Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint), A Stranger Here is a collection of carefully chosen pre-WWII blues songs, re-crafted with backing by legendary Los Angeles session musicians such as Van Dyke Parks and David Hidalgo.
  • I saw the Shooter Jennings and Jamey Johnson Crossroads on CMT the other night and was duly impressed. They were like a couple of old friends sharing a HUGE bottle of Jack and talking country music history in reverence and passionate tones it deserves. As I currently enjoy Johnson’s exellent That Lonesome Song, I wonder when Shooter will release anything that reaches the excellence of Put The O Back In Country. In the meantime we get an inexplicable “Greatest Hits” (Bad Magick: The Best of Shooter Jennings – March 24) after three studio release and a live album (which is the same as a greatest hit IMO.)
  • In more Shooter news, Ted Russell Kamp has taken time from his main gig as the .357’s bass player to release his newest solo album Poor Man’s Paradise which was recorded in  Ted’s living room, Shooter’s tour bus & countless hotel rooms across America. Kamp a great instrumentalist, a sharp dresser and a great guy. Go give him a listen.

Those Darlins Ready New Summer Release

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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

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  • 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]

KBSO 94.7 Badlands FM Returns to Texas Music

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  • After more than a two-year absence KBSO 94.7 Badlands FM in the Corpus Christi area is switching from it’s current Tejano music format back to to a Texas, Red Dirt and Americana music format. Texas music fan and postal employee “Bobby” “My love of Texas music developed after I bought the High Chaparral dance hall in Robstown about five years ago,” said the 47-year-old, originally from Sinton. Larma states:  “When Texas music went off the air, it was heartbreaking. They were actually building band recognition. We aim to do that again.”purchased the station from retiring long-time station owner Manuel Davila. “My love of Texas music developed after I bought the High Chaparral dance hall in Robstown about five years ago,” said the 47-year-old, originally from Sinton. “When Texas music went off the air, it was heartbreaking. They were actually building band recognition. We aim to do that again.” (Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
  • Several events at this week’s SXSW will pay tribute to Texas great Doug Sahm, next week (March 24) co-producers Bill Bentley, Shawn Sahm and David Katznelson will release Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm. (via 9513.com)
  • In her always excellent Torch & Twang series over at PopMatters.com Juli Thanki surveys the colorful, and largely forgotten, career of “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band,” Maddox Brothers and Rose.

Here’s a YouTube treat I came across. Townes Van Zandt plays The Hole on the Solo Sessions Austin Music Network – January 17th, 1995.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8XHFRsze1o[/youtube]

SXSW To Do

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It’s been a long time since I was able to attend the coveted, and now convoluted, South-By-Southwest music festival and conference amnd this year is no exception. But in the nature of bloggy goodwill I will try and list all the Americana-Roots events I have come across. Please feel free to add any I might have missed.

Joe Pug is pretty damn cool. His schedule is:

3/18   SXSW–Stimulus Package Day Party @ Paradise – 3:00pm  (401 E. 6th at Trinity upstairs Free/Public)
3/18   SXSW Official Showcase – 10:30pm Victorian Room at the Driskell Hotel
3/19   SXSW–Schubas Roundup @ Yard Dog Gallery – 12:40pm (1501 S. Congress Free/Public)
3/19   SXSW–Thru Windows Party @ Fado -  11:00pm (214 W. 4th Free/Public)
3/20   SXSW–Bring Down the House Show  – 5:45pm  (Free–email day of  show for address don@nodooragency.com)
3/21   SXSW–Reggie’s/Unscene Party @ The Jackalope – 3:45pm and 4:40pm (Free/Public 404 E. 6th at Trinity)

3/18  – Joe Ely’s playing Momo’s

3/19 Aquarium Drunkard and My Old Kentucky Blog’s “Vaya Con Tacos” party featuring Roadside Graves, Those Darlins, The Rosebuds and many more.

Also 3/19  the Yep Roc at the Continental Club is offering one of the best showcases with Dave Alvin, The Iguanas, The Gourds, Giant Sand and BeauSoleil.

3/20 The always lovely Bloodshot Records day party at Yard Dog art gallery (1510 S Congress) – starts at the crack of noon
No invite or badge required!
12:15 Walter Salas-Humara / I’m Not Jim
12:45 Andre Williams
1:15 Charlie Pickett
1:45 Dex Romweber Duo
2:15 Ha Ha Tonka
2:45 Exene Cervenka
3:30 Deadstring Brothers
4:15 The Meat Purveyors
4:45 Justin Townes Earle
5:15 Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
5:45 Waco Brothers w/ Rosie Flores

and

Bloodshot Records SXSW showcase
Red Eyed Fly (715 Red River by 7th Street)
Saturday, March 21
8p Exene Cervenka
9p Deadstring Brothers
10p Ha Ha Tonka
11p Dex Romweber Duo
Mid Justin Townes Earle
1am Waco Brothers

Hoist a shiner and some BBQ or a taco and enjoy the fine music and hospitality Austin offers.