Music Review – Red Eye Junction – In The Shadows (Self-Released)

If you like your country music steeped in the sound of Bakersfield and honky-tonk that reeks with the aroma of beer and sawdust rathe than hair mousse and celebrity fragrances then San Luis Obispo California’s Red Eye Junction’s second release In The Shadows might be your cup of shine. The ghosts of Lefty Frizzell, Buck Owens and Hank Williams Sr. haunt every groove of this fine release. Featuring songs that appear deceptively simple that on closer listen manifest a musical craftsmanship reverent for music made for Saturday-night sinning and Sunday-morning salvation.

Red Eye Junction features a crackerjack band on this release as led by the Benevolent Dr. Cain (as he is billed) who possesses a high-lonesome keen only at home in country music, and most associated with Bill Monroe, Hank Williams Sr. and Jimmy Dale Gilmour, and Jackpot Jonny Clarke who can pick slicker than a greased pig on a July night.

Tonight is a boot-skootin‘ tunes about good times and good lovin‘. These Five Strings and Gone Again are boudoir bawlers that feature pedal Steel by master Tommy Butler and Talk of the Town and Home Ain’t So Sweet are cheating (and potentially murder) songs featuring Jonny Clarke on slightly gruffed vocals and Greg Clarke’s fine fiddle work. A stand out for me is the title cut, an simmering atmospheric minor-chord lament with Buck Dylan’s midnight train harmonica. Anytown is a rollicking road song praising small town life and Two Part Blue features both Dr. Cain and Jonny Clarke sharing vocals on this light-hearted barroom confessional.

Pick up In The Shadow, crack open a brew and celebrate the enduring spirit of country music.

MySpace | CD Baby

“It’s All Over” – Red Eye Junction (from thier first release “Outlaws And Heroes”)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvB0W0-qdBQ[/youtube]


Panning for Gold – Elton John – Tumbleweed Connection

Before he became the modern equivalent of Liberace and creator of Disney Soundtracks (1994’s The Lion King with Tim Rice) Sir Elton John (Reginald Dwight to his mum) was the reigning king of 70’s adult pop. Odds were if you tuned into an FM rock or pop station  (often they were the same station as genre segmentation was less rigid back then) within 5 minutes you’d hear one of his omnipresent truckload of singles.

Riding a wave of success his self-titled album (Elton John) had brought him Elton, and his writing partner and primary lyricist Bernie Taupin, released Tumbleweed Connection in October 1970. Though neither Elton or Taupin had ever been to America many listeners believed that the album reflected thier travels there but was in reality a convincing work of Taupin‘s fascination with the American old west. Taupin was inspired by hearing The Band’s Music from Big Pink, Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, and The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, as well as numerous country songs such as Marty Robbins’ classic  El Paso (the song Taupin claims made him want to write songs) to create a somewhat thematically unified take on his own idea of the mythical American west. The sepia tinted album cover says it all. A picture of John on the front, and Taupin on the back, kicking back on an old western town’s boardwalk.

Tumbleweed Connection
was the first time a road band had been used in the studio, making it more the Elton John band rather than just Elton on his own, and the bigger sound comes to life immediately on the blues-rock opener Ballad of a well-known Gun, the story of a gunslinger reaching the end of the road (though I prefer the more country-rock version found on disc 2 of the Legacy edition of TC) and My Father’s Gun a moody study on a Southern son’s legacy of avenging his father’s Civil War death that builds to a dramatic finale’. Both songs feature the soaring backing vocals of Madeline Bell, Tony Burrows and blue-eyed soul diva Dusty Springfield.

Country Comfort is a bustling tune about John and Taupin’s love for the countryside complete with pedal steel, harmonica and fiddle. John re-released the song in 2001 as part of the ‘Earl Scruggs and Friends’ album released by Earl Scruggs. Earl Scruggs played banjo on the song. The song was also covered by Rod Stewart and Juice Newton.

Son of Your Father is a blues-country rouser featuring a rare appearance by UK folk duo Sue and Sunny. Where to now St. Peter? is a pleasant if somewhat goofily-psychedelic tune that seems oddly out of place on this except the narrative seems to be about a man lost in the world and struggling for direction, so I guess it sort of fits. Love Song is the only non-John/Taupin penned tune on the album. Leslie Duncan wrote and performs acoustic guitar and background vocals on this melancholy beauty.

Amoreena might be my favorite cut on this album brimming with great cuts. Taken from the name of John’s god-daughter, this great song about a young man yearning for his distant loved one is notable not only for John’s great piano riffs but also because he is accompanied for the first time by bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, who would form the core of his rhythm section until their departure in 1975.

The album concludes with the Gospel-inspired slow-burner (pun intended) Burn Down the Mission. This simple, but vague, story of a poor and oppressed community that sees the narrator rising up to take action to deal out some personal justice. This is the most orchestrated and cinematic (thanks to a large measure to Paul Buckmaster’s string arrangements) of the songs contained here and John plays piano and sings with passion and fervor befitting its expanse.

For an album that spawned no singles Tumbleweed Connection stands as a testament to the musical greatness of John and Taupin, and is a heartfelt commendation of the mythical American west.  Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose reportedly once said he would love to own the publishing rights to Tumbleweed Connection as a work of art. I’d say this is probably the first time that Axl and my tastes are in sync.

Panning for Gold is a random celebration of classic alt.country/roots/Americana releases of the past.

Official Site | Amazon

Elton John – Burn Down the Mission

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BSBkhRZMic#sthash.3YUOobSV.dpuf

Miss Leslie and Her Juke-Jointers Offer Free CD to Fans

Texas Honky-Tonk angel  Miss Leslie Anne Sloan and Her Juke-Jointers are giving away copies of  their new release, “Between the Whiskey and the Wine” (released July 15, 2008) from their newly relaunched website. (Postage outside the US will cost $4.00)

Gobbler’s Knob has some great things to say about Austin’s own The Gourds’ release Haymaker. You can hear cuts from  the new album on the band’s MySpace page.

Craig Shelburne  at CMT.com blog shines a spotlight on his personal favorite album out of Texas, Kelly Willis’ 1999 release What I Deserve.

Go vote for my buddies the 9513.com the best music blog at the 2008 Weblog Awards. I say this because they do a great job covering the whole spectrum of country music, and because I wasn’t nominated…

Carrie Rodriguez’s New Release to Drop 8/5

  • Austin-born, Berklee trained violinist-turned-fiddler/singer/song writer, and Chip Taylor protege, Carrie Rodriguez will release her second solo album “She Aint Me.” (8/5) The album is produced Malcolm Burn (Emmylou Harris, Kaki King) and wrote with Gary Louris of the Jayhawks as well as Mary Gauthier, Dan Wilson and Jim Boquist
  • The 10th Annual Pickathon Roots Music Festival (August 1-3, at Pendarvis Farm on Mt Scott near Portland, OR.) will feature35+ artists appearing on five stages, including two late-night venues. Some artists featured are Justin Townes Earle, a reunited Bad Livers, The Gourds, Hackensaw Boys and Wayne “The Train” Hancock.
  • According to Billboard.com ZZ Top has inked a deal with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings imprint through Columbia. The veteran rock trio is planning to hit the studio with Rubin (Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond,  Slayer) producing, for an album more in keeping with “La Grange”-era ZZ Top than its pop-friendly ’80s sound, according to manager Carl Stubner. I can’t begin to express how happy this makes me!
  • Since I’ve been here in the scorched shit-hole that is Irving Texas (but hey, it’s my native shit hole) I’ve tuned into the Clear Channel owned Dallas KZPS – Lone Star 92.5 and found it’s almost completely reverted back to it’s classic rock format it had abandoned to experiment in the alt.country/roots format. So much for experimentation and those great Willie Nelson promos they recorded. Nevertheless I found my solice in the excellent KHYI 95.3 The Range. In one sitting I heard Chris Knight, George Jones. Eleven Hundred Springs. Yeah I know I’m a little late to this party but, hell, I’m just tickled to be here.

Documentary on Country Music Planned

From Variety.com – Plans are in motion for documentarians David Leaf (The U.S. vs. John Lennon) and Morgan Neville (The Night James Brown Saved Boston) to chronicle the history of country music/ the series will be produced by Shout! Factory and Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The individual segments will be thematically divided. On the slate are “The Roots of Country and Bluegrass,” “The Honky Tonk Tradition,” “Outlaw Country,” “The Nashville Sound,” “The Politics of Country,” “Country Songs and Songwriters,” “California Country” and “No Depression,” a look at the alternative country music movement.

Modern country stars will be participating in the films, providing their personal connections to the past.
“We are always looking for new ways to reach and expand our audience and tell them the story of this uniquely American genre,” said Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Hall of Fame and Shout! Factory, founded by music industry vets Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos, first partnered last year to create DVD collections culled from the museum’s archive.

I hope this is half as good as the BBC 2003 four-part series Lost Highway: The True Story of Country Music.

“I’ll Love You till I Die” – Top 30 Country/Roots Love Songs

George+Jones++Tammy+Wynette

Sure most genres deal with topic of love but few can work all the angles like country and roots music. Courting, marriage, sex, cheating, fighting, break-ups, shooting, disposing of bodies… it’s all there in all its heart-wrenching glory.

Some old, some new, all guaranteed to get to you some when mixed with tequila and memories.

I’m sure I let some beauties sip so feel free to add your own.

1. He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones
2. I Walk The Line – Johnny Cash
3. Angel Flying Too Close the Ground – Willie Nelson
4. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain – Willie Nelson
5. Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
6. Valentine’s Day – Steve Earle
7. Still I Long For Kiss – Lucinda Williams
8. Marry Me – Drive By Truckers
9. Arlington – Ridley Bent
10. Dale Watson – Every Song I Write For You
11. Before The Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender
12. Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich
13. Oh My Sweet Carolina – Ryan Adams
14. Carrying Your Love With Me – George Strait
15. Cowboy Take Me Away – Dixie Chicks
16. Crazy – Patsy Cline
17. Gentle on My Mind – Glen Campbell
18. Lovin You Against My Will – Gary Allan
19. Golden Ring – George Jones and Tammy Wynette
20. He’ll Have To Go – Jim Reeves
21. Hello Darlin – Conway Twitty
22. Melissa – Allman Brothers Band
23. Hello Walls – Faron Young
24. Help Me Make It Through the Night – Sammi Smith
25. I Cross My Heart – George Strait
26. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’ – Charley Pride
27. It Only Hurts When I Cry – Dwight Yoakam
28. Please Break My Heart – Thad Cockrell and Caitlin Cary
29. Lovesick Blues – Hank Williams
30. I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry – Hank Williams

Texas Invades New York!!! Dale Watson and Wayne “The Train” Hancock

New York City Twangers, head over the the always excellent Rodeo Bar (try the mole!) on Saturday, February 9th for the Texas troubadour himself, Dale Watson.

Dale will then be dropping in the equally delicious Hill Country Barbecue on Sunday, February 10th.

Sorry ya’ll, Dale canceled his shows with no follow up plans as of right now.

And on March, 13 at the Rodeo Bar the great honky-tonk hero Wayne “The Train” Hancock will be sharing the bill with great J.B. Beverly & the Wayward Drifters.

Both show will be great and better yet, both are FREE!!!

A Conversation with Billy Joe Shaver

I am truly honored to post this very first interview for Twang Nation with the Texas singing/songwriter, original outlaw and old friend of my dad, the legendary Billy Joe Shaver. I talked to Billy Joe while he was on his tour bus headed to “Sante Fe, New Mexico” supporting his latest release Everybody’s Brother.A special thanks to Cary Baker at Conqueroo for setting the interview up.

Billy Joe Shaver – Hello? This is Billy Joe calling.

Twang Nation – Thanks for calling, sir! Where you calling from?

I’m on a bus traveling from a show in Lubbock to a show in Sante Fe, New Mexico. If I lose you man I’m out here on the road, I don’t know what it is with these phones these days.

Understood. Then let’s get going, first off how’s your health?

I’m doing really well, in spite of it all. I’m enjoying my new-found popularity than I have before. Lot’s of kids are starting to find out about me and lots of kids are coming my shows and bringing friends.

Yeah, well I think that there is a market for authenticity in country music that crosses generations.

Oh yes, well I think the work we did did in Nashville laid a foundation for that to happen. I think right now we are laying down a even stronger foundation for country music for the future.

And you have a new generation or musicians that have taken the torch you helped pass, Dale Watson, Hank Williams III and Shooter Jennings.

Yeah, I love Dale. Shooters great, Shooter, Hank III, they’re all great.

You mentioned your new-found popularity, now in the last in the last decade you’ve appeared in movies (With Robert Duvall in The Apostle (1996) and Secondhand Lions (2003), The Wendell Baker Story (2005), and in a documentary of his life, A Portrait of Billy Joe (2004) directed by Luciana Pedraza.) you played at the Grand ‘Ol Opry (1999), performed on Country Music Television’s “Outlaws” (2005) inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2004) and the the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame (2006) as well as making your mark in contemporary pop-culture by singing the theme songs for the Television show Squidbillies (Adult Swim) so you’re finally coming into your own it seems.

Yeah, it’s funny, it might just be sympathy. I’ve been hanging around for so long (laughs). I’m 68 now but I feel better than I ever have because back when Jerry Max (my dad) and I were hanging around we was hitting everything thing in the world, man. After a while I kind of unloaded the wagon a little bit and I don’t do those things I used to do and I feel much better now.

With all this clean living you must now be being rewarded.

(Laughs) I hope my past sins don’t catch up with me, but that’s what Jesus is for.

Would you say back then you had to live in the dark to now the light?

Yeah, that’s right..that’s a great way to put it.

In your song “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train” you sing that “my grandma’s old-age pension is the reason that I’m standing here today,” how else did your grandma influence your life?

Well after by Father left us (Shaver’s father, Virgil, abandoned the family before he was born) and then my Mother got sick and they didn’t know if she was going to make it. Of course I’m inside of her, but she pulled through and she said “If this baby is a boy I’m gone.” and sure enough got a chance to work in the honky-tonks in Waco so my grandmother raised me until I was twelve-years-old. She was a real sharp lady, an Irish woman Collins was her name, and she got the job done.

Did you have any formal music lessons growing up?

No, no never did. I’m just self-taught. I started singing when I was just a kid. I used to sing and sell papers on the corner when I was just about 9 or 10 years old out there in Corsicana, Texas and I sold a lot of papers. But the big boys got ahold of me after I sold a lot of papers and they’d beat me up and take my money and stuff and I had to back off there for a while (laughs.)

You recorded “White Freight Liner Blues” which was a Townes Van Zandt song, did you know him?

Oh yeah, Townes was a real good friend of mine. I met him in the early 60’s in Houston at this old place called the Old Quarter. Back then I could stay up with him so I figured I must be pretty good, but my wife just really hated him. She’s gone on to Jesus now, but when I used to get into trouble with Townes I would lay a lot of blame on him and she would have to come pick us up a lot. She didn’t like him at all.

Back when she was dying of cancer they told me she had about a week to go and I told her, “I had a dream that Townes was up in heaven, and he was going to be greeting you when you get there.” and she said “Got-dang it now I got to live.” and She lived another year!

(laughs) Yeah she used to say somebody could make a lot of money selling razor blades at the front door of one of his (Townes) shows. But I loved him, I thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, really.

He was hard to keep up with.

Yeah, I hung with him a lot. We played a lot of places together. He was out there, but so was I, but I think he was out a little further than I was I believe.

It caught up with him.

Yeah it did, yeah it did and I’m sorry it happened because everybody loved him so much. I guess he died right on time. They used to say that he was unmanageable. They used to say that about me. But now Mathew Knowles (head of Compadre Records and father of Beyoncé) is managing me now and things are going real good for me. I’ve stuck with that little label for some time now and now things seem to be rolling along.

So will we see Beyoncé on your next album?

(Laughs) I don’t know about that but it wouldn’t hurt! She’s quite a talent, and beautiful too.

You paid your dues and went through a lot and came out pretty good on the other end.

Yeah, I was lucky. I always had Jesus in my heart all the way and I got born again when I wrote “I’m Just An Old Lump Of Coal” now I’m wondering if a born-again Christian needs to be born-again-again! (laughs) It took me a time of two for it to stick but now I’m in good shape.

You think you’ll ever quit your day job and become a full-time actor?

No man, I did a little of it, but I really admire actors they really have to be on the ball. I did a little bit of it myself in “The Apostle” with Robert Duvall, I played his best friend Joe in that, and then “The Wendell Baker Story” and “Secondhand Lions” but if you blink you’ll miss me in that one.

With 3:10 to Yuma and Duvall’s success with “Broken Trail” it looks like Westerns are making a resurgence.

He’s (Duvall) at the top of the list on those (westerns) ’cause he know ’em inside out. I think for a while he was raised on his Uncle’s farm or ranch down here in Texas, that’s the reason he’s got down that Texas drawl and all that stuff. It’s kind of amazing really cause I think he was an Army brat and lived all over but he was down there at his Uncle’s working with horses.

I know Tommy Lee Jones has a ranch in his birthplace in San Saba, Texas and does some work with horses.

Yeah man, he does it to play polo.

That’s what I heard. Seems kind of hot to play polo.

I’ll tell you what that’s a hard thing to do but he’s quite a horseman, I’ve seen him play. I like Tommy, I really think the world of him.

How was it to be in Nashville when Waylon and Willie started to shake things up and what part did you play?

It kind of got started in the late 60’s, I had written all these songs and I thought they were great. There was this music festival called “The Dripping Springs Reunion” (later called the Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic) back in 1972 and of course in was in Dripping Springs, Texas which sounds like a venereal disease (laughs). Anyway, I was down at this festival in a trailer and there was a few of us sitting around passing the guitar, well I did a song and Waylon come busting out and says “I gotta have that song!” so he wanted to record it and wanted me to come to Nashville and he said “You got any more songs?” and I said “Yeah, I got a whole sack full of them!” ad he said “Well come on over and I’ll do a whole album of them.” Well I chased him around for about six months out there and I finally caught him at RCA at their big studio and Captain Midnight (Radio Personality in Nashville radio in the late ’60s and early ’70s) let me in, and it was late at night. Waylon and the band was recording and there were groupies and hangers-on all there in the hall and everyone was hanging around knowing that they were going to do something they just didn’t know what or when. When (Waylon) heard I was there he sent Captain Midnight to give me a hundred dollar bill and told me to “Take a hike.” I told him to take that hundred back to him and stick it where the sun don’t shine. (laughs)

Then Waylon comes down with one of these bikers, and he says to me “What do you want hoss?” and I said “Waylon, you better listen to one of my songs or else.” and the biker starts coming towards me but he stopped him. Well, he took me into the studio and Waylon said “You start playing and if I say that’s it, you leave and that’s it and we never see each other again and that’s the end of it.”Well I played “Ain’t No God in Mexico” and “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” and by the time I got to “Honky Tonk Heroes” he slapped his leg and started getting things together. He got his own band in there and he really stuck his neck out for me.

These were the right songs for him because they were too big for me and he could sing circles around me and these song were so huge they needed someone like him to sing them.
Well Chet Atkins (then vice president of RCA) screamed bloody murder and said it wouldn’t work but we stuck it out. I had been in Nashville since ’66 so I think I have paid my dues. At first the (music) community didn’t want me in their circle but I got accepted after a while and everybody started to write (songs) that way, it’s kind of raw and it changed everything around. You had to have a tie to go to a lot of places in Nashville back then and we were more like rock and roll. We laid down a foundation and changed things for the better I think. Nashville fought it all the way, they thought it was going to hurt them but it helped them.

Before you guys shook things up Atkins and the other label heads would wheel in the strings and the Jordanaires and that was just the way it was, like it or not.

Yeah, that was about it, yeah. they’d say “You don’t know how to do this part of it.” but we did and it worked out.

Seems they were embarrassed about their history. the hillbilly roots of country was shaming them.

Yeah, I think that’s right. They tried to be sophisticated for some reason or another. And if someone was a college graduate or he flew an airplay or something they’d grab him up and trying to get some class in there, but I think they were going thewrong way because me, I got an eighth-grade education and I guess they didn’t want me shining too much. But I got my G.E.D. doggone it! (laughs)

Well, I don’t know about that. One of your breed was a Rhodes Scholar (Kris Kristofferson) and he ain’t chopped liver!

Oh man, I love Kris! He’d be one of my favorites. The firs song he’d done of anyone elses
was “Good Christian Soldier” (written by Shaverand Bobby Bare) on that album “The Silver Tongued Devil and I.” His family tried to disown him because he was suppose to go to West Point but instead he went to Nashville and was a bartender and a janitor and stuff, and he cut that Silver Tongued Devil album and we all knew it was going to be a big hit. Well, he put my song on there and had to borrow some money to get the record done ’cause he wasn’t getting any from his family.

Well it takes about a year for the money to get to you, but then after his first hit he took his own money and produced my first album (1973’s Old Five And Dimers Like Me.) That’s the kind of guy he is, he’s just the best songwriter anywhere I don’t see how anybody could be better than him. I love to see him perform live, it’s like going to see a preacher or something, man.

It seems to me that you, Kris, Willie, Waylon and Johnny (Cash), you all had each others back when the chips were down with the Nashville status quo, were you all aware at that time the impact you were having?

Not really, we never really felt like outlaws, more like outcasts. Nobody wanted to let us in and we had to bust in.

There seems to be a lot of new artists coming up and paying homage to the work you guys did.

Oh yeah, they’re doing my songs these young kids. Like Jackson Taylor and Todd Snyder and ..gosh..there’s so many of them that are just dangerously good.

Now let’s spend a little time on your new release, it’s called “Everybody’s Brother,” it’s a gospel album but it’s not a typical gospel album.

Yeah it’s got a honky-tonk feel to it because that’s what I play and I don’t offend anybody with the songs I play on there, as a matter of fact I get bikers and lots of people getting saved come to my shows and crying with me….and it’s a good thing! We’re all sinners and we all need help.

How was it working with John Carter Cash (son of Johnny and June and producer of “Everybody’s Brother”)?

Man that was like a dream cause I’ve known him since he was eight and he’s just a big wonderful person. He’s really easy to work with and he gets so much done so quickly. It’s kind of miraculous the way he does it. He had so much time watching his daddy in the business. My wife worked for 14 years as a hair-stylist for Cash, we’re all part of the family really.

We talked a little but about song you’ve covered, any other favorites?

I covered a Mere Haggard song called “Ramblin’ Fever” and I still think that that might be the best opening line I ever heard, it’s ” My hat don’t hang on the same nail too long” (laughs) man that knocked me flat! He’s a great one I tell you.

Okay, just to wrap up, I wanted to ask you about the Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon incident.

Yeah that was just an unfortunate incident. Anybody else would have done the same thing I did, this guy (Billy Bryant Coker) was a real big bully and he pulled a knife and cut my arm and I let it go at first but then he insulted me so bad we just had to go outside and one thing led to another and , he already had a gun, and I had time to go out to my car and get one. He took so long to aim his little ‘ol 22 and I got lucky and hit him in the face and he dropped everything and then he said he was sorry!

I bet he was. Thanks for your time.

Adiós brother.