Still waiting for the resurrection.
Category Archives: Legends
Rosie Flores in the Austin Chronicle
The Austin Chronicle has a nice write up on
Rosie talks about her childhood in
Rosie Flores-You Tear me Up
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpMgGZTq5hw[/youtube]
Steve Earle Does the UK
The Brits are bonkers over Steve Earle, who headlined Brampton Live, north England’s biggest folk/roots music festival and and will release the The Dust Brothers’ John King produced Washington Square Serenade (New West) Sept. 25.
The Belfast Telegraph asks “Is Steve Earle America’s greatest living songwriter?” and The UK News & Star says Earle’s “every inch the hardcore troubadour.”
Earle also hosts the The Steve Earle Show: Hard Core Troubadour Radio on Outlaw Country, SIRIUS Satellite Radio Outlaw Country channel 63.
Porter Wagner’s Comeback in Full Swing
The Wall Street Journal and Associated Press have some nice articles on Porter Wagoner. When I saw Wagoner a few months ago at Joe’s Pub, and and a few weeks ago opening for the White Stripes and Grinderman at Madison Square Garden (both backed by Mart Stuart) he seemed at the top of his game and has gone on to do other live dates and even a stop on the David Letterman show.
All the while “The Thin Man from West Plains” seems deeply appreciative for the response this comeback has given him. Blessed as he has said.
If you get a chance, go see him. If you can’t go out today and buy his newly released “Wagonmaster” (Anti Records) and remind yourself what country music can sound like it’s performed by a legend that helped invent it.
An excerpt from the AP: “I stopped making records because I didn’t like the way they were wanting me to record,” he sighs. “When RCA dropped me from the label, I didn’t really care about making records for another label…”
That was 1981, after he had been with RCA almost 30 years. Except for the Grand Ole Opry and work on the now defunct Nashville Network, his career dried up like an old corn stalk.
His comeback began in 2004 with a series of gospel records. Soon, he and Marty Stuart, a fellow Opry member, were plotting an album that would recreate the sound and feel of Wagoner’s vintage recordings.
 Porter Wagoner on David Letterman – Albert Erving
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jptVTVMucc0[/youtube]
Dwight Yoakam on MySpace
Dwight Yoakam has finally made the MySpace plunge (or some lackey at New West Records has) and as a fine intro to the new page New West has posted a snippit of “Close Up the Honky Tonks” from the forthcoming tribute to Buck Owens “Dwight Sings Buck” (Oct. 23).
Vince Gill, Mel Tillis and Ralph Emery to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame – October
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – Country music star Vince Gill, singer-songwriter Mel Tillis and TV personality Ralph Emery will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October, an industry group said on Tuesday.
The three were introduced at a Country Music Association ceremony by stars Brenda Lee, Barbara Mandrell and others, who celebrated Tillis’ upcoming 75th birthday with a giant cake.
The trio will be inducted during the annual CMA Awards Show in October.
Gill, 50, has sold more than 22 million albums, earned 18 CMA awards and won 18 Grammy awards. Last year he released a four-disc set featuring guest performances by Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow and others.
Tillis, who struggled with a stuttering problem, wrote numerous hits for himself and others, including “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town.”
Tillis’ acting gigs included appearances in the “Cannonball Run” movies and a few episodes of “The Love Boat.”
Emery, 74, launched his career in 1957 as a late-night disc jockey on WSM Nashville radio. He became an announcer on the Grand Ole Opry and starred on The Nashville Network on a show that drew guests like former President George H.W. Bush and actor Mickey Rooney.
Billy Joe Shaver’s Bluebird Cafe 1992 Performance To Be Released On CD
On September 11, Billy Joe Shaver will release a CD featuring his 1992 concert at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe titled “Storyteller: Live at the Bluebird 1992.”
The iconic, Texan-born Shaver, now aged 67, has had his share of run-ins with the law including shooting a man in the face. The man did not retain life threatening injuries and Shaver, after turning himself in, was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a handgun. After a court hearing, he was released on a $50,000 bond.
Along with being a country singer and songwriter he has also performed in movies including “The Wendell Baker Story,” “Secondhand Lions” and “The Apostle.”
Shaver is known among his peers as a survivor having lost his mother and wife to cancer in 1999 and his son in 2000 due to a drug overdose.
The new CD will be released through Sugar Hill Records.
Billy Joe Shaver – Austin City Limits – Black Rose
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT3xxoyYlr4[/youtube]
Pop Matter DVD Review – Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music
Popmatters.com has an excellent review of Robert Elfstrom’s documentary Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, and His Music (1969). The film highlights Cash at his career pinnacle and looks back at his upbringing in rural
Arkansas.From the review: More than that, he was content to dwell in contradiction; he didn’t try to resolve all his warring selves. He was equally the outsider rockabilly and the establishment patriot, the social protestor and the Billy Graham crusader. He gave us a model of cultural ambivalence that we could all identify with. He didn’t solve America’s identity problems, he showed us how to live with them.Â
Lucinda Williams Talks to Rolling Stone
Lucinda Williams talks to Rolling Stone about her upcoming tour, getting hitched and heading back to the studio.
Currently on the road “in the hinterlands†of the Northeast — playing out-of-the-way gigs to extremely appreciative audiences – Williams and her backing trio have been prepping for the special shows, busting out rare cuts, some of which Williams hasn’t performed in over a decade. “The guys are rehearsing them at sound check and we’re tryin’ them out,†she says. “Last night we played “Big Red Sun Blues†and “The Night’s Too Long†[both from Lucinda Williams] and they sounded great.†She says she has a tendency to compare her earliest songs to her most recent. She says, “I’m thinking, ‘Boy, I’ve come a long way as a songwriter.’