Billboard reports that Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris and Brad Paisley are among the stars appearing on the June Carter Cash tribute album “Anchored in Love,” due June 19 via Dualtone. The release will coincide with a biography of the same name penned by Cash’s son John.

With the exception of Ralph Stanley, who recorded “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” at the southwest Virginia home of the Carter Family, “Anchored in Love” was recorded throughout 2006 on the Cash family property in Hendersonville, Tenn.

On it, Costello tackles the iconic “Ring of Fire,” while Nelson and Crow team up for a duet on “If I Were a Carpenter.” Carter Cash’s stepdaughter Rosanne performs the spiritual “Wings of Angels” and Lynn offers a version of “Wildwood Flower.”

Carter Cash died May 15, 2003, after complications from heart surgery.

Here is the unsequenced song list for “Anchored in Love”:

“If I Were a Carpenter,” Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson
“Jackson,” Carlene Carter and Ronnie Dunn
“Wildwood Flower,” Loretta Lynn
“Far Side Banks of Jordan,” Patty Loveless and Kris Kristofferson
“Keep On the Sunny Side,” Brad Paisley
“Wings of Angels,” Rosanne Cash
“Ring of Fire,” Elvis Costello
“Road to Kaintuck,” Billy Bob Thornton and the Peasall Sisters
“Big Yellow Peaches,” Grey De Lisle
“Kneeling Drunkard Plea,” Billy Joe Shaver
“Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” Ralph Stanley
“Song to John,” Emmylou Harris

Molly Ivins was a true Texas hero and a voice of reason in a field that has been a cesspool for a long time. True to form she went down swinging. You’ll be missed Molly!

From The Dallas Morning News - Tom Morrell bent steel with his hands. With his agile fingers and wrists, he could coax a steel guitar to cry out a mournful melody and to laugh out a happy phrase.

Mr. Morrell died Monday of emphysema at home in East Dallas. He was 68.

His contemporaries in Western swing and jazz consider him a musical genius, while many mainstream country music listeners don’t know him. But they probably unwittingly hear his session work on recordings by artists such as Willie Nelson (The Sound in Your Mind), Asleep at the Wheel (Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys ) and many others.

“There’s nobody can even touch him,” said Leon Rausch, of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, before Mr. Morrell’s death. “He’s a stone genius.”

The Dallas native, who lived 30 years in Little Elm, left behind his 15-volume Tom Morrell and the Time Warp Top Tophands “How the West Was Swung” series on WR Records.

The collection chronicles his passion for jazz and particularly Western swing. Each CD features a roster of Texas’ best musicians such as guitarists Leon Chambers and Rich O’Brien, fiddlers Randy Elmore and Bobby Boatright, vocalists Leon Rausch, Don Edwards, Chris O’Connell, Buck Reams and Craig Chambers. Mr. Morrell was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2001.

Mr. Morrell’s next CD, Relaxin‘, is expected to be available next week at Westernswing.net, Amazon.com and some local record stores. The disc is the 15th in the “How the West Was Swung” series.

Mr. Morrell’s sisters Delores “Dodo” Boyd, 65, of Dallas and Jeanne McKinney, 59, of Garland remember their brother as a lifelong musician. Mr. Morrell first picked up a guitar when he and Ms. Boyd were students at St. James Catholic School in Oak Cliff. Ms. Boyd knew her brother was serious about music back then.

“If you lived at our house and saw every minute he spent playing with a band … music was his life, that was it,” Ms. Boyd said.

Other survivors include a son, Jerry Wayne Morrell of Monroe, La.; daughters Cheryl Denise Walker of Monroe and Laura Renée Wagner of Houston; and four grandchildren. Memorial plans are pending. Details will be posted on the guest book at Westernswing .net.

Mr. Morrell lived in Hobbs, N.M., for about a year in the 1950s. Mr. Rausch remembers seeing Mr. Morrell play in Hobbs.

“We all were amazed at him. We saw this pimple-faced kid playing more steel guitar than anybody we knew,” Mr. Rausch said.

Mr. Morrell had an onscreen band part in the 1990 movie Daddy’s Dyin’… Who’s Got the Will? directed by Jack Fisk. Also, his music is featured on the soundtracks of the movies Savannah Smiles and True Stories.

Mr. Morrell was most recently living with his lifelong friend and partner, Jody Balfour. Ms. Balfour says that the couple talked a lot about music and Mr. Morrell’s artwork. “His biggest fear was being forgotten,” says Ms. Balfour.

Bert Winston, owner of WR Records, thinks Mr. Morrell’s legacy will be affirmed by seasoned and up-and-coming musicians.

“He was one of the greatest steel-guitar players that has ever been, really,” Mr. Winston said. “I actually think he is probably more admired now than ever.”

On Saturday, January 6, pedal steel guitarist and Emmy-winning  visual effects artist “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow died at the age of  72 from Alzheimer’s complications, according to a Reuters report. Kleinow  was born in South Bend,  Indiana but a California resident at the time of his death.

Kleinow was a founding member of the Flying Burrito Brothers,  along with country-rock pioneers (and former Byrds) Gram Parsons  and Chris Hillman. The band’s music has been highly influential  since their debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, was released in 1969.

Kleinow also contributed as a session musician to albums by John  Lennon, Joni Mitchell, and Fleetwood Mac. He founded a new group  called Burrito Deluxe (named after the title of the Burrito Brothers’  second album) in 2000, and his last public performance was in October  2005 at a Parsons tribute festival.

When he was not playing music, Kleinow also  made his mark in the TV and film industries as a multi-faceted visual  effects artist. His credits include The Empire Strikes Back, The Right  Stuff, both Terminator films, Gremlins, “The Outer Limits”, “Land of  the Lost”, “Gumby”, and miniseries “The Winds of War”, for which he shared an Emmy.

Hank Williams

Iggy Pop, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Chris Martin, Kanye West, Flea, Johnny Depp, Brian Wilson,Dennis Hopper, Keith Richards– pay tribute to Cash in the new video for the Man’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, from his 2006 posthumous release “American V: A Hundred Highways.”

I remember as a kid in Texas in the 70’s you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “Wasted days and wasteed nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” Both made it to #1 on both the pop and country charts.

Fender recently won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 2002 for “La Musica de Baldemar Huerta.” He also shared in two
Grammys: with the Texas Tornados, which won in 1990 for best Mexican-American performance for “Soy de San Luis,” and with Los Super Seven in the same category in 1998 for “Los Super Seven.”

He said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press that one thing would make his musical career complete — induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

“Hopefully I’ll be the first Mexican-American going into Hillbilly Heaven,” he said.

RIP Freddy. I hope you got there. You certainly earned it.

From the Tennessean - Burkett Howard “Uncle Josh” Graves, whose bluesy Dobro innovations helped keep that curious and difficult instrument alive in country and bluegrass music, died Saturday in Nashville after a lengthy illness.

According to his family, Mr. Graves was 79 years old, though differing dates of birth are listed in various publications.

If Mr. Graves’ age was in question, the timelessness and agelessness of his playing are not.

Three fingers on Mr. Graves’ right hand struck his Dobro strings in a rolling manner that allowed him great speed, and the silver bar that he held in his left hand produced remarkable resonance and tuneful melodies. One of only a few professional Dobro players in the 1950s when he joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, he exhibited dynamic musicianship and stage presence that reached audiences who watched Flatt and Scruggs’ TV show and came to concerts.

“Playing straight hillbilly music, which we now call bluegrass, on the Dobro back then was unheard of,” Scruggs said on Sunday. “That instrument was almost out of the picture. Brother Oswald was playing Dobro for Roy Acuff, and he was a great, great player, but Josh could also do that up-tempo stuff. Josh really had it all as a musician.”

For more follow the link above.