The Railbenders to Play Denver’s Mile High Music Festival

  • The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will feature music from their 42 year career to Austin’s Riverside Arena stage at 9:15 p.m. Friday, July 18. D.C. Drifters & Friends opens the show.
  • The San Jose Mecury News has a nice piece on David Andersen who plays his 15-year-old Epiphone and greets tourists from around the world in the atrium of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Earl Scruggs said of Andersen “I love your pickin,’ son.”
  • Nashville Skyline’s always excellent Chet Flippo has good things to say about  Randy Travis’ upcoming release “Around the Bend (July 15)
  • For all you with laptop country music asperations Beta Monkey Music has released “Pure Country I: Rocking Nashville” a new set of drum loops targeted to Country music musicians. The loops come in many formats, including Apple Loops, which are compatible with GarageBand and Logic. Just bring a real drummer when you hit the road, folks.
  • There still seems to be some confusion why Tim McGraw dragged Marcus Nirschl 30, a union glazer from Kent, Wash. on stage at a Washington State performance and then had him thrown out of the show. There have been allegations the man assaulted a woman who was in one of the front rows but the YouTube video of the incident is inconclusive (Q: Does McGraw allways look so bored while on stage as he does in this clip?). The ejected fan says he’s still a fan of McGraw. “I still like the guy,” Nirschl said. “The music’s still great. I just don’t know why he wanted to punch me.”
  • Our thoughts go out to Elizabeth Cook on the passing of her mother. Cook has used her MySpace Blog to share her feelings uduring these rough times.

Toshio Hirano

PRI’s The World featured a great segment with correspondent Julie Caine profiling Japanese teacher and country and western singer Toshio Hirano. Hirano heard Jimmie Rogers when he was a teenager and he talks about how it changed his life. Hirano currently lives, plays live, and evangelizes the gospel of Jimmie Rogers in San Francisco, CA.

Emmylou Harris News

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

Nashville Fan Fare

I (justifiably) bitch a lot about Music City and tier ongoing campaign to strangle any beauty and creativity out of
country music, but one tradition I do like is the idea of the annual Fan Fare (my contrarian nature won’t allow me
to use the new corporate friendly title “CMA Music Festival”)

This years event features 30 hours of autograph signings, 100 hours of live music, 400 Country Music artists and
celebrities.”

Now 90% of these “Country Music artists and celebrities” I wouldn’t cross the street to meet, but I do applaud the
populist spirit of the event (as well as inviting Dwight Yoakam back after an unconscionable 20 year absence.)This is
something you won’t find in any other genre and it speaks to country music’s respect for it’s fans. Now if Music City
only reflected that same deference to tradition and fans’ intelligence when producing the music.

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

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

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.

Ryan Bingham Talks New Release/ Plays New York City

Ex bull-rider and troubadour of dusty trails and hard living Ryan Bingham discusses with PopMatters.com how his latest release, “Mescalito” (Lost Highway), came to be. Bingham also says that he is working on the follow-up to “Mescalito,” which he hopes to release early next year, and is sticking with Marc Ford as producer.

Bingham will be playing at the Mercury Lounge in New York City tonight appearing with David McMillin.

Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses – Bread and Water

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=002sthqGSRs[/youtube]

Pop Matters Features Miranda Lambert

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]