The Hangover & Daily Show star (and amateur banjo player) Ed Helms is launching the LA Bluegrass Situation festival (March 18th – 22nd) featuring Steve Martin, Emmylou Harris, The Steep Canyon Rangers, Nickel Creek. See the somewhat silly video introduction of the festival from Helms.
Canadian roots/surf rockers The Sadies will release their new album, Darker [...]
Ray Wylie Hubbard my have been born in Oklahoma, but he will forever be associated with the uniquely peculiar and distinguished title Texas songwriter. Whether he’s throwing off an ironic lark like Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother, which his buddy Jerry Jeff Walker turned into a monster hit in the 70’s – a song [...]
Jack Riley at London’s The Independent interviews Indy-Honky-Tonk sweet heart Caitlin Rose about her recent tour of Britain, her influences and her upcoming full release.
Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison (born Erwin) will record an album together without their Dixie Chick partner Natalie Maines. Manine’s father reports that the split is “temporary.”
the as Angeles Times [...]
The big for fans of the Man In Black is that Rick Rubin’s American Records will release American VI: Ain’t No Grave, the final volume in the American series that helped revitalize Johnny Cash’s career beginning in the early 90’s, after he was unceremoniously dropped from Mercury Records. February 26 would have been Cash’s 78th [...]
The Rick Rubin produced American recording done by Johnny Cash near the end of his life featured some inspired covers (most famous being the cover of Trent Reznor’s Hurt on 2002’s album, American IV: The Man Comes Around) Paste.com lists 10 songs they wished Cash had lived to cover featuring works by Joe Strummer, The [...]
Longtime member of Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys passed away at the age of 72. (Billboard)
The End Times Opry stops into New York City’s Lower East Side cozy Living Room on December 20th 7-10PM. The End Times Opry is a result of a group of artists who performed at the Pumpkintown Opry, in Pumpkintown South [...]
Texas country music legend and friend of Twang Nation Billy Joe Shaver is closing out a great career year with a slew of concerts including a a sold-out show with the Texas Yoda Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Billy Bob Thornton and Kris Kristofferson on Wednesday, December 16 at famous (in Texas anyway) Carl’s Corner Truck [...]
Rosanne Cash talks to the Wall Street Journal about her new release, The List, and joins George Jones by stating her views on the homogenization of mainstream country radio.
The Who’s Roger Daltrey says Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium is the “That’s the best bloody place for a musician to play in the whole —— world.” You [...]
“Everybody get’s their own take on a song. They find something that they can tap their foot to or clench their fist to. Hopefully it’ll be somewhere in between.” Malcolm Holcombe
Malcolm Holcombe is like a myth. A backwoods character in a Southern Gothic novel with a voice filled with a grave-dirt rattle and telling tales [...]
Happy birthday to Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer and the “Paul” of the Willie’s song “Me and Paul,” Paul English. Happy birthday also to legendary Texas singer/songwriter Guy Clark.
The latest installment of Popmatter.com’s excellent Torch & Twang series Juli Thanki delivers a post exploring ithe intersecting careers of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and musician and folklorist [...]