Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
The Village Voice has a Q&A with Jon Langford of the Waco Brothers and the Mekons (playing the Highline Ballroom this evening.) Langford talks about the Waco Brother’s beginnings, his time on Bloodshot Records and their recent release Waco Express: Live & Kickin’ at Schuba’s Tavern.
Waco Brothers, “Death of Country Music”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-jNu4mHxE[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rogo-EsYezY[/youtube]
From the Associated Press – Dwight Yoakam will make his 24th appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” this week, breaking the record for most musical performances by any artist. Yoakam, 51, is currently tied with Lyle Lovett for the show’s most musical performances with 23. Besides his appearances with Leno, Yoakam also was on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” six times, beginning in 1986.
Some of the appearances that stand out the time he and his late friend and mentor Buck Owens went on together to sing “Streets of Bakersfield.” Or when he flew 20 hours nonstop to entertain troops with Leno in the Middle East during the holidays.
“The great thing about everybody there is they’ve always been very willing to allow me the latitude to do what I wanted to do. I did things like ‘Back of Your Hand,’ which was a very low-key track. One time I went on with a (Latin) brass section and did ‘Silver Bells.'”
Yoakam’s latest album is “Dwight Sings Buck,” a musical tribute to his friend. When he does the show Thursday, one of the tunes he plans to perform is the Owens classic “Act Naturally.”
Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens – Street of Bakersfield – The Tonight Show
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niberYoJako[/youtube]
Country Music Hall of Fame member in (1966) Eddy Arnold died on May 8, 2008, in Franklin, Tennessee, just one week short of his 90th birthday.
Arnold brought country music into the 1940’s pop world then inhabited by crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby
was second only to George Jones in the number of individual hits on the country charts and is the all-time leader
in an overall ranking for hits and their time on the charts. From 1945 through 1983 he had 145 charted songs, including 28 number-one hits.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3alnvcAZ50[/youtube]
The man is a mad genius in a world of tin-eared fools. Pehdtsckjmba people, pehdtsckjmba.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOrG1r3S6ZA[/youtube]
CMT’s Chet Flippo again shows his impeccable taste by using his current Nashville Skyline to shower deserved accolades on this year’s Hall of Fame inductee Emmylou Harris.
“I can’t think of a person who has done more good for country music than Harris.” says Flippo. Amen brother. I don’t know how you keep such great taste amidst the land of $500.00 jeans and glittery guitars.
Harris’ new release All I Intended To Be (June 10 – Nonesuch Records) will be her first solo release since 2003’s Stumble Into Grace and was recorded in Nashville over a four-year period with her longtime producer Brian Ahern. Te release will contain both original material and some of Harris’ all-time favorite songs, featuring guest vocals by Dolly Parton, Vince Gill and Buddy Miller.
(via 9513)
PopMatters.com has a nice review of George Strait’s newest release Troubadour. It’s another huge release from the gentleman mega star and PopMatters appears to agree.
If there’s something Troubadour is about, it’s songs. Strait performs them in an efficient, un-flashy way. His humble singing imparts more depth than is first apparent, but at the same time is utilitarian. The mission is communicating these songs to listeners.
PopMatters gives Joe Nick Patoski’s book Willie Nelson: An Epic Life a middling review of 5 out of 10. I’ve just started to book and will withhold judgment until finishing.
– Chet Flippo at CMT’s Nashville Skyline features thoughts on the new Wilie Nelson bio “Willie Nelson: An Epic Life” by Joe Nick Patoski. From the post:
Patsoki has ascribed his fascination with Nelson to his own decades-long quest to discover a way to write the real Texas book, the one that finally captures the giant sprawling state and its larger-than-life characters. He says he finally realized the answer lay right before him in the form of a Texas superstar he had already interviewed many times before. Willie Nelson was Texas.
– Ryan Adams has written on his blog that the Ryman Auditorium is a “shit hole in Nashville”and that he hates, HATES country music. And always has. And he “references†it when he makes music that sounds like that, the way a director would use water as a backdrop for a svcene (sic) with a shark in it.
And here I thought that sobriety would make Ryan less of a sniveling self-absorbed prick.
– Plans were announced today for this year’s 25th Annual International Country Music Conference.
“The International Country Music Conference is the premier academic event for those studying and writing about country music,†stated conference co-chair Don Cusic. “It is appropriate that ICMC is held at Nashville’s Belmont University.â€
This year the conference is set for May 22 to 24, 2008.
As part of the all month celebration that is Willie Nelson’s 75th birthday I got my hands on an extra copy of the just released biography on the Texas Yoda “Willie Nelson: An Epic Life” by by Joe Nick Patoski. The book will go to the first peron to correctly answer the following:
We got a winner. Congratulations Patricia! Way to know your Willie!
Can you match Willie’s duet partner with the songs below (in order)?