Great news Twangers. The pride of Charleston, South Carolina, Shovels & Rope (Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent) release their sophomore album Swimmin’ Time (Dualtone Music) on August 26.
Swimmin’ Time is the highly-anticipated follow up to the band’s 2012 breakthrough debut O’ Be Joyful, which garnered unanimous praise from the press, followed on the heels by dozens of sold out shows, national television appearances, numerous year-end lists (including mine) booming album sales and major festival performances like Newport Folk, Lollapalooza and Sasquatch. Topping at all off the band also took home two of the top honors, Song of the Year (“Birminghamâ€) and Emerging Artist of the Year at the 2013 Americana Music Awards.
They should have been nominated for a GRAMMY as well, but I digress….
Whereas a good deal of O’ Be Joyful was recorded on the road when time allowed, Swimmin’ Time was done at their home studio in Charleston, SC. Trent again producing. Swimmin’ Time features 13 new songs that “that maintain the elemental Shovels & Rope songwriting and sound while incorporating new ingredients to the mix. From the heady harmonies of “The Devil Is All Around†and the quirky “Mary Ann & One-Eyed Dan†to the epic beauty of “After The Storm†and the Waits-ian “Ohio†fans are sure to be pleased and pleasantly surprised by some of the chosen new paths and dark turns.”
Sounds cool. No?
Here’s a song that the band is doing on the road that will be on Swimmin’ Time
Hurray for the Riff Raff made their late night TV debut on Conan. Alynda Lee Segarra , bedecked in a gilded Nudie-inspired suit is in fine form performing the Cajan-flavored “I Know It’s Wrong (But That’s Alright.)” there is also a wbsite only performance of “End of the Line.” Bothe songs are from HFTRR’s newest “Small Town Heroes” (ATO Records)
And if that wasn’t enough, look for the band to play David Letterman on June 26
The Secret Sisters – Laura and Lydia Rogers – new release “Put Your Needle Down” (review here)
prove they can do more than winsome covers with their sizzling new single shows they can rock.
The cut was penned by Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth and swings a Bo Diddley-style swing.
The Tyler Jones-directed video sits somewhere between “At Folsom Prison’ and Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” behind-the-bars dance off.
Is it hot in here or is it just this video?
The Secret Sisters are on tour now:
5/03 9:30 Club Washington, DC
5/04 9:30 Club Washington, DC
5/06 Taft Theatre Cincinnati, OH
5/08 Egyptian Room Indianapolis, IN
5/09 Riviera Theater Chicago, IL
5/10 Pabst Theater Milwaukee, WI
5/11 State Theatre Minneapolis, MN
5/13 Ogden Theatre Denver, CO
5/14 Kingsbury Hall Salt Lake City, UT
5/16 Crystal Ballroom Portland, OR
5/17 Moore Theatre Seattle, WA
5/19 Fox Theater Oakland, CA
5/20 Balboa Theatre San Diego, CA
5/21 The Wiltern Los Angeles, CA
On their debut release the country/folk duo The Secret Sisters (Laura and Lydia Rogers from hallowed Muscle Shoals, AL) featured mostly covers. They showed impeccable taste by interpreting legendary gems by George Jones, Bill Monroe, Buck Owens, Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra. But even with the inclusion of a couple of originals the spirit of the Sisters seemed buried under that considerable musical history.
Since their 2110 debut the sisters haven’t rested on their well-received laurels. The duo honed their craft by working with Jack White’s Third Man Records, with Dave Stewart on a solo album, with The Chieftains on a tribute album. if that weren’t enough they supplied a cut for a Hunger Games soundtrack. This busy schedule has done wonders to refine their craft and that refinement is put on full display on “Put Your Needle Down.”
The opener is a clear example of that expertise. “Rattle My Bones,” written by Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth, sits atop a Bo Diddley beat on this cooking tune about man regret that has the sisters mingling sibling harmony in a way that only experience (and genetics) can.
“Let There Be Lonely†is a dreamy lament to hard love that yearns and burns right through you.
“Dirty Lie†is an unfinished, bootleg only, Bob Dylan song from the 80’s that was brought to the sisters by producer and spiritual leader T Bone Burnett. They finished ou the song later after that meeting in their hotel room and the result is striking. Less folky obtuse defiance than a full torch mode Peggy Lee fronting a gypsy-jazz ensemble.
“Luka” is a slow-simmering tale of a woman attempting to escape an abusive father that slithers toward a dark en. Violins cry siren-like and meld into the high register singing that balances piqued emotion and harmonic beauty. “Pocket Knife†also employs violins to further turn up the heat. Flanked by a whinnying slide guitar and tribal drums the song builds an environment of the claustrophobic world that the women headed towards an unwanted marriage is living in.
“Lonely Island†is a lovely showcase for the sister’s more relaxed style. It lulls you into weeping in your umbrella drink. “If I Don’t” swings into a different take on Tammy Wynette as standing by your man comes with caveats that things better change and fast.
T Bone Burnett beings his sophisticated ear to shade the arrangements with just the right amount of funky antiquity. His direction and the extraordinary band build an atmosphere of parlor room intimacy that sounds like the best house concert you ever attended.
Listening to a Secret Sisters release is a crash course in the great American songbook. There’s more grit and heat in these performances than on their previous effort. They seem more assured. Less winsome demeanor and more poised audacity.
The 12 songs on “Put Your Needle Down,” many self-penned, proves the Sisters are no mere extraordinarily talented throwback novelty act. They are now interpreting the ages in their own impeccable style and making their own way.
Looks like the late legendary singer/songwriter/producer Cowboy Jack Clement isn’t quite done yet.
Clement’s last musical work, and only his 4th studio release, “For Once and For All” produced by Dave “Fergie†Ferguson and Matt Sweeney with T Bone Burnett as executive producer — will be the debut release on John Grady’s new I.R.S. Records Nashville label. Street date is July 15.
From the release:
“What an honor it is to be involved with Cowboy’s final record. This is the perfect way to start I.R.S. Nashville,†Grady says. “All the producers and musicians set the tone for this record. Sometimes we should all get together and do the right thing. I hope Jack is proud of us.â€
He was 82-years-old when he died on August 8, 2013 and 82 when he finished this song-set with help from friends including John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Bobby Bare, Duane Eddy, T Bone Burnett, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Rodney Crowell, Buddy Miller, Dan Auerbach, Leon Russell, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Dickie Lee, Shawn Camp, Dierks Bentley, Jim Rooney, Jim Lauderdale, Will Oldham, daughter Allison Clement and a bunch of others who loved Cowboy and who Cowboy loved in return. His favorite accordionist, Joey Miskulin, played on “The Air Conditioner Song†and “Baby Is Gone.â€
The whole thing is graceful and true, a primer for the unfamiliar, an anointed completion for the acolytes and a joy-filled lesson for those of us who study phrasing, musicality and soul.
Cowboy Jack was American music’s whimsical maverick. He was a singer and producer, a publisher, a best friend to Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings. He was a writer of classic songs. He desegregated country music by bringing Charley Pride to popular attention and producing Pride’s first 13 albums for RCA. He was the first to record Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison, there at the popular birth of rock ‘n’ roll at Sun Records in Memphis.
He made the greatest album of country music’s “Outlaw Movement†when he produced Waylon Jennings’Dreaming My Dreams. He created the Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa, Nashville’s first great home studio and the nerve center for what would come to be known as Americana Music.
“If you unraveled all the threads Jack wove into the tapestry of what made country music great over the last 50 plus years, the whole thing would come apart,†Harris said.
No one unraveled those threads, though, and no one will. Can’t be done. The Cowboy’s tapestry weave is secure and indelible, and his import is ratified by a plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cowboy Jack Clement sustained an unprecedented and unduplicated career outside of the public eye. He and fame saw each other across a crowded street, waved and went their separate ways.
Though he was in and around recording studios all of his adult life, he didn’t release a solo album, All I Want To Do In Life, until 1978, when he was in his late 40s. The follow-up came a quarter century later with 2004’sGuess Things Happen That Way. And he rarely toured. So while Clement impacted myriad major careers, he did little to promote his own.
“I don’t remember it being any huge letdown,†he said, recalling the less-than-platinum sales of All I Want To Do In Life. “It took a few months before you realized you ain’t gonna outdo Elvis or something, and by that time I was off into something else.â€
Hear “Let the Chips Fall” the tearjerking first single from the album below.
Texas-born and Nashville-based singer, songwriter and classically trained musician, Jane Ellen Bryant’s new cut, “Here We Are,” is a beautiful work inspired by a natural tragedy.
“I was inspired to write this song after the Haiti earthquake a few years back. Horrible natural disasters like that remind us of how little control we have over our lives. We can never understand why bad things happen to good people, but we can make the most of the here and now and remember what’s most important in life.†Jane Ellen Bryant says of the single
Drums shuffle like an open road. A dobro stretches and bends around Bryant’s soulful, expressive voice as she contemplates mortality within her poetry.
“Here we are
Loving like it’s one of our chores
Here we are
Closing every open door”
“Here We Are†is a follow up track to her sophomore album Hourglass.
Rosanne Cash’s latest completes a body of self-reflective work beginning with 2006’s dark beauty Black Cadillac, the homage to her and father’s musical bond with 2009’ s “The List†and now with “The River & the Thread†Cash get’s back to her genealogical, and spiritual, roots.
Cash’s early success hinged tacking country music and giving it a fresh pop spin that allowed her to break into the charts dominated by Willie Nelson, Conway Twitty and Ronnie Milsap.
The River & the Thread, she does much of the same. Americana’s expansive style fits well with her current range of material. Reflecting a deeper level of artistry and honesty those qualities shine brightly on songs like opening track “A Feather’s Not a Bird,†where a Creedence-style swamp groove runs deep into the Southern art of blurring fact and myth, reminiscent of Bobbie Gentry‘s “ode to Billy Joe.â€
The songs continues to travel across space and time. To cotton fields in “The Sunken Lands,†where back-breaking work parallels the humiliation of a woman suffering under a cruel man. Then down a hot, reverb-shimmering asphalt road to Memphis where the achingly beautiful “Etta’s Tune,†where a Southern summer simmers across past regrets.
“World of Strange Desire” is a boot-stomper that echoes the mythology gumbo of the album opener
Part of her journey that led to this sterling release were actual travels. One stop was to the famed Muscle Shoals recording studio and Greenwood Mississippi where Robert Johnson’s grave is located.
I only have these nits to pick. The album, at 38 minutes, is too good to be this brief. Also the arrangements fill the space with excellent instrumentation to a point that there’s little room for Cash to settle in a quiet place and let her expressive voice build any level of intimacy.
Quibbles aside “The River & the Thread†is a bountiful work from a soulful traveler.
One of the most memorable scenes from James Szalapski’s extraordinary “Heartworn Highways” is at the end of the country/folk documentary Christmas Day song-along. Fueled by cigarettes and wine Steve Young, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Jim McGuire and others are shown having a raucous guitar pull at Guy and Susanna Clark’s Nashville home. Near the end Rodney Crowell leads the gathered in beautifully delivered “Silent Night.” Crowell renders a tone of beauty that brings a hush to this seasoned (and buzzed) band of new outlaws.
Now a veteran of the country/Americana field he’s hardly coasting. Crowell along with his old Hot Band collaborator, Emmylou Harris won a Best Americana Album Grammy for last year’s “Old Yellow Moon.” He also performed at an Everly Brothers tribute will in LA to pick up the prize. He most recently held court a few well-received sets at South By Southwest.
One track on Crowell’s upcoming album, Tarpaper Sky (April 15) offers a gumbo-flavored track, “Fever on the Bayou.â€
The song has been decades in the making. It began as a collaboration between Will Jennings. But, says Crowell “Due to our inability to come up with a suitable last verse, the song lay dormant for twenty-plus years. An off-chance conversation with a friend of mine in which the word Franglais—an improper synthesis of the French and English languages as I understood it—gave me the idea that the last verse should echo the Cajun French I’d heard working on construction crews along the Texas-Lousiana border. Once I had that last verse the recording was a snap.â€
Check the lyric video for “Fever on the Bayou†below. Tarpaper Sky will be out April 15 via New West. Pre-order here.
Austin City Limits (ACL) announced today the launch of the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in conjunction with the iconic television series’ upcoming 40th Anniversary. This Hall of Fame’s Inaugural Induction Ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2014 at ACL’s original home, KLRU’s legendary Studio 6A. Recognizing both artists and non-performers who have made the long-running show a music institution, the ceremony will honor the first class of inductees, featuring two legendary music acts, Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, and a pair of individuals who have played an invaluable role in the genesis of the series, show creator Bill Arhos and longtime University of Texas football coach Darrell K. Royal.
Performers for this intimate evening include inductees and Doyle Bramhall II, Mike Farris, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Lukas Nelson, Robert Randolph and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Former University of Texas football head coach Mack Brown will participate in the inductions, as well as special guests. More information about performances and additional guests will be announced prior to the event. Details about the physical ACL Hall of Fame will also be unveiled at the ceremony.
Guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan and “Coach†Darrell K. Royal will be inducted posthumously during the ceremony. Willie Nelson, ACL show creator Bill Arhos and Vaughan’s longtime band Double Trouble, featuring Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon and Reese Wynans, will be inducted at the event. The Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be an annual event, honoring a new class of inductees each year. This year’s Inaugural ceremony will be an invitation-only benefit for ACL parent station KLRU-TV, Austin PBS.
“There are other Halls of Fame, but none quite like this,†says ACL Executive Producer Terry Lickona. “Austin City Limits has become a unique American institution, in both the worlds of popular music and television. It has such a rich history and legacy that we decided it was time to celebrate and honor the artists and individuals who made it what it is today.â€
ACL began broadcasting in 1976 as a live-music show that served to showcase musicians; it has since grown to feature performers of all genres from all over the globe. Since its inception, the Peabody Award-winning series has become an institution that’s helped secure Austin’s reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World. ACL continues its mission of producing great television with the debut of its 40th Season in October 2014. The program airs weekly on PBS stations nationwide and episodes are made available online at http://acltv.com/watch/.
Brandy Clark took time from her busy touring schedule to play the The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Clark played a spirited and tight version of her neo-trad country song “Stripes,†from gher debut “12 Stories.” (watch below)
Said Clark: “Performing on ‘Ellen’ was a bucket list item for me, and I was thrilled to be there,†said Clark. “I appreciate her support of new artists and music from all genres, and hope to have the opportunity to return to her show some day.â€
