While in Dallas to produce his show Conan O’Brien has had some fun indulging in some things that make the Great State, well, great. But more often than not O’Brien, and his sidekick Andy Richter, just seemed confused. And many of the jokes in a less-hardly clime might be borderline offensive.
Lucky for O’Brien Texas eats offensive for breakfast.
Besides a brisket-filled Piñata (yes, really) Team Coco had the good sense to invite Lyle Lovett and his Large Band performs his classic song of inclusion “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).
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/.
John Carter Cash, son of Johnny and June Carter and owner and operator of Cash Productions, LLC and the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, has told the Guardian that that there is enough material left in the archives of his late father for several more posthumous albums and enough outtakes from the American Recordings sessions to fill another multi-disc box set.
Carter Cash said, There are a few things that are in the works right now – probably four or five albums if we wanted to release everything. There may be three or four albums worth of American Recordings stuff, but some of it may never see the light of day.â€
Rick Rubin said: “We released the work we had been planning to release along with John [Carter Cash] and the idea of the Unearthed boxset of outtakes was his idea. We will probably put out additional Unearthed material recorded since the last Unearthed box, in keeping with John’s wishes.â€
Here a John Carter Cash interview with country925fm where he discusses more releases.
The most recent posthumous Johnny Cash album is “Out Among The Stars,” featuring 12 previously unreleased recordings from sessions in 1981 and 1984, on sale now.
If there was ever an Americana and roots music watershed recording the Basement Tapes 1967 sessions from Bob Dylan and The band was one.
Now there’s official word that that mainstay of Americana, T Bone Burnett, is working on a project “Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes.” The project has a solid (and marketable) roster – Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons.)
The event focuses on two-dozen recently discovered lyrics written by Dylan during the 1967 period that generated original legendary Basement Tapes release.
Recording is nearly complete on the project which will be released later this year by Electromagnetic Recordings/Harvest Records. The album will be accompanied by a Showtime documentary titled Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, directed by Sam Jones (the Wilco documentary, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart)
I can imagine the germ of this endeavor occurred during the “Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” held at New York City’s Town Hall last September. That one-night event featured Mumford and Giddens as well as Joan Baez, Patti Smith, Jack White, The Avett Brothers, Punch Brothers, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings Machine, Willie Watson, The Milk Carton Kids, Colin Meloy and Lake Street Dive. (see below)
Truth is I’m ambivalent about this. A sequel to The New Basement Tapes is like a sequel to Casablanca. Is it necessary and will it ever have a chance to even come close to the genius of the original. And as much as i respect the artists involved, they are hardly the contemporary versions of Dylan and The Band.
If this was Ryan Adams and the Felice Brothers I still think it would fall short, but damn it would be interesting.
Here’s to being proven wrong.
You can sign up for updates at on the project at the official site.
Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes” will be released Nov. 11. Pre-order here.
As one of the founders and principle songwriters of the mighty Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood has created a wealth of searing narratives and complex and character studies that has put him on a short list of great contemporary songwriters.
On this occasion of his 50th birthday I take a daunting task at my top 10 , in no particular order, from that bounty.
Your’s not here? Add it to the comments.
Based loosely on Ray McKinnon film short “The Accountant”, the song is about family pride, greed and vengeance.
Hood’s great Uncle encapsulates the complexity of war by remarking “I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima” while watching said movie.
Act I of the DBT’s “Southern Rock Opera,†Hood delivers HISTORICAL soliloquy ON growing up Alabama and how George Wallace, Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant shaped the environment.
Dirty South is where I fell in love with The Drive-By Truckers. Here’s one reason why.
Here’s another in acoustic version.
Hood displays his awesome storytelling chops before this excellent cut.
The title track off Hood’s latest. Inspired by the impending mortality of his Great Uncle.
Soulful and rips your heart out.
A delicate beauty that compliments hood’s voice well.
A reflection on Drive-By Truckers touring hard through rough times.
Casa Twang is proud to bring you another cut from the highly anticipated Columbia/Legacy release “Out Among the Stars,†(March 25) An album of lost songs recorded by Cash in the early 1980s and produced by Billy Sherrill.
(see the video for “She Used to Love Me a Lot†here)
Cash is in fine form joking about a conversation he had with the creator of the song , the great Hank Snow. Jerry Kennedy’s guitar, Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano and an uncredited drummer lays down a solid shuffle, The lead guitar portions sounds like classic Marty Stuart, who was tasked with “fortifying” the original recordings.
“I’m Moving On” is a 1950 country standard. The song reached #1 on the Billboard country singles chart and stayed there for 21 weeks. The song was previously covered by Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, Chuck Prophet among others.
Dave Rawlings Machine’s 2013 crackerjack lineup – Gillian Welch, John Paul Jones, Willie Watson and Paul Kowert – is back for six nights only this summer, beginning June 18 in Boulder, CO, and finishing up on June 27 at Nashville, TN’s legendary Ryman Auditorium.
The high-caliber collective is known for their shows of distinctive picking, high lonesome songs, ands some pretty great covers, like in the Live and Breathing Session below. Fan club pre-sale for the tour will begin on March 20. General on sale begins March 21. Complete tour dates are below.
June
18 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
24 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
25 – St. Louis, MO – The Sheldon
26 – Louisville, KY – Brown Theatre
27 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
Jimmy Kimmel Live broadcast the show for a week in Austin from The Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Center for the Performing Arts, The show’s week-long trip to the capital was timed with the 28th annual South by Southwest (SXSW®) Festival.
And on his last night of his stay Kimmel invited Lonely Boys as well as the Lone Star State’s greatest ambassador Willie Nelson.
Clad in black discusses his history with Austin, getting a black belt in Taekwondo and his SXSW party “The Heartbreaker Banquet.”
On March 25, Columbia/Legacy will release “Out Among the Stars,” an album of lost songs recorded by Johnny Cash in the early 1980s produced by Billy Sherrill.
You can now see a video for the album cut “She Used to Love Me a Lot”, directed by filmmaker John Hillcoat (the man behind The Proposition, The Road, and Lawless as well as music videos for Nick Cave, How to Destroy Angels, Depeche Mode, and others)
The video is a collection of snapshots of the American Cash championed in song and deed intercut with shots of the Man in Black himself.
In Hillcoat words from an accompanying statement:
The lyrics seemed to speak to America as it is now, to the nation that loved him and to the great divide he fought so hard against. This divide has only grown exponentially since he died, so we wanted to show America under this stark light and as a homage to the very reason Cash always wore black: to the shameful increase of the disenfranchised and outsiders. At the same time, we wanted to reference the great man’s own struggle and journey from the love of his life to the burnt out ruins of his infamous lake house home, personal photographs, the cave where he tried to take his life but then turned it all around, the place he last recorded in and his last photo before his passing.
“She Used to Love Me a Lot” was written by Dennis Morgan, Charles Quillen, and Kye Fleming. In 1984, David Allan Coe was recorded the song on his album “Darlin’, Darlin”. Listen to the Elvis Costello remix of Cash’s version here.
