Song Premiere: Lera Lynn Covers “Ring Of Fire”

Athens GA-based Americana songstress Lera Lynn follows up her debut full length (Have You Met Lera Lynn?) with a seven inch, which includes a cover of June Carter Cash penned and Johnny Cash renowned Ring of Fire.

Lynn says of the cover “I always thought June Carter’s “Ring of Fire” was written as a dark song, maybe it’s just where I was when I heard it one dark day. It’s been a lot of fun to rearrange it, almost making it my own. I hope we’ve done it justice. I hope they [the Cash Family] would be proud.”

I never understand when people do cover songs, especially of iconic songs, and then don’t interpret them personally. Lynn does exactly that with her take smolders (heh) punctuated with discordant peaks in the chorus. Look for Lera Lynn  on tour in Texas and up the East coast this March and April.

Lera Lynn – Ring of Fire

 

 

Music Review: Lyle Lovett – Release Me [Curb/Universal]

As a part of what Steve Earle called “Nashville’s great credibility scare of the mid ’80s.” Lyle Lovett, along with Earle, k.d. Lang, Dwight Yoakam and others took up the traditionalist Outlaw mantel of the 70’s and reinvigorated country music from it’s soft-rock and Urban Cowboy influence the times.

Lyle Lovett’s new album “Release me,” exhibits pun in name as well as aesthetic. The album is the last for the Curb Records, the label for his entire 26-year. 11-album, career. And in case you missed that the cover art depicts Lyle tied up head-to-ankle in a lariat.

Though Lovett continues a late career trend of including cover songs. But this adios to Curb raises the stakes as it contains only two Lovett originals among the album’s 14 tunes. You might conclude that this last release would be a weakened collection to meet contractual obligations. You would be wrong in that assessment.

Sure Lovett may not be the most prolific songwriter on the planet but he is one of the best interpreters of classic country. There is no one fit to polish Lovett’s boots when it comes close to serving as a diplomat for the eclectic music styles of the Lone Star State.

“Release me” wastes no time offering a burning interpretation of the classic instrumental breakdown of  “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom.” The number made popular in the 1930s by Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith sounds both timeless and spirited in the hands of Lovett and his band.

The title track became a hit for both Jimmy Heap and Ray Price, both in 1954. Here it’s done as a duet with Lovett and k.d. lang, who is so far down in themix her soaring vocals are lost. That quibble aside it’s a great tear-in-my-beer standard well done.

The cover of Michael Franks’ “White Boy Lost in the Blues” slinks in with the funky blues accentuated by Arnold McCuller harmony vocals.The gospel/R&B and Memphis horn-sound of “Isn’t That So” works to a rousing effect and will probably kill live.

Understand You channels beautifully the tender-hearted cowboy Lovett has portrayed many time in his career. The cover of Brown Eyed is looser that Chuck Berry’s original or the covers by covered by many including fellow Texans Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings. But the song still carries the weight Berry intended after being inspired by witnessing a Hispanic man being arrested by a policeman.

The Ragtime-inspired  “Keep It Clean” dares you not to cut a rug and William Moore’s One Way Gal is a fine-time front porch testament to a good woman.
“Dress of Laces” is an achingly lovely Daughter-Father twist on the classic murder ballad. White Freightliner Blues is one of the few up-tempo songs penned by the late, great Townes Van Zandt and Lovett plays it to it’s full open-road greatness.

The two originals Lovett contributes to the album, The first is “The Girl With the Holiday Smile” (also on his 2011 holiday EP “Songs For the Season;”) came from a real-life 1978 encounter young lady hiding out from the cops inside a Houston 7-11. This is my second favorite Christmas/hooker song (Tom Waits’ Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis being the first.)  The second cut  “Night’s Lullaby,” which features Nickel Creek’s Sara and Sean Watkins, was penned for a 2011 run in the Shakespeare Center Los Angeles’ production of “Much Ado About Nothing” that the three appeared in.

I look forward to the work Lovett is free to explore in his new world as a free agent and am thankful he has left us with something this great to tide us over until the nest batch of surprises comes along.

Official Site | Buy

 

The White Buffalo – The Great American Music Hall -San Francisco, CA – 2/15/12

The White BuffaloThe Great American Music Hall is a post-earthquake 105 year-old 5,000-square-foot, guilded French motif performance hall that has
been a restaurant, a bordello and a host to fan dancers and a stage for golden Jazz era greats like Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie and relative newcomers Van Morrison and the Grateful Dead.
But on this night the back stage of the great American is more like a living room at a friends or relatives’ house. I came to meet Jake Smith, who performs solo and with a band under the moniker The White Buffalo. There in the dimly lit room Smith along with Matt Lynott (drums) and Tommy Andrews (bass) offer smiles, handshakes and beverages. After the hellos and intros the talk moves to influences. I tell Smith about a video I saw on You Tube of him covering the Highwaymen’s theme of world adventure  “Highwayman.” “Oh yeah.” Smith cracks a smile “Waylon, Willie, Kristofferson and Cash. You can’t do any better than those guys.” He then tells me about the music of his Southern California childhood. “We listened to a lot of things. Country, like Loretta, classic rock I guess they call it now. Blues. Gospel.”
The influences show on Smith’s songs if you look for them. Like the best craftsman of songs he makes them sound easy. Effortless. Like they couldn’t be any other way then the way he’s spinning them out. Then I bait him with the question most musicians hate to answer, “How would you label your music.” “I don’t” he says straight. “I spend my time writing them and that’s hard enough. If I spend time on “Is this country” or “if the Americana” I think the song will suffer.”
Smith and the band then starts to list up the night’s songs. Three musicians, three clean, white sheets of paper. One sharpie. then the discussion begins. “What about the Pilot?” “How about Darkside of Town?” “Might be too slow and bring things down.” “How about Love Song #2.” “Okay but you’ll need to sing backup in my mic.” The process is reminiscent of charting an emotional course of stage logistics,crowd physiology and sonic dynamics. What will take them where we want them to go?
The moniker came about through need and happenstance. Smith once wore a sweat shirt that had the title emblazoned on it and some his friends recalled it when he emailed them ideas for a name. White buffalo are extremely rare. The National Bison Association (yes, there is such a thing) has estimated that a White buffalo only occur in approximately one out of every 10 million births. Smith is a living testament to his moniker standing around 6′ 2″ , solid as a wall and stylistically embodying a rare mix of grit and nuance that you couldn’t squeeze out of a dozen neo-folk acts.
Born in Oregon and raised in Southern California, he moved to the Bay area from Huntington Beach to pursue college on an athletic scholarship. He then made his way to L.A. where he now calls home. Because of his local Smith has had his songs crop up in movies and T.V. A bootleg tape of his music made it into the hands of pro surfer Chris Malloy, and his song, “Wrong,” was featured in his surf movie, Shelter. That led to further film scoring and composing work, with three of his songs featured in FX’s Sons of Anarchy and HBO’s Californication.
With 3  EPs and one fill-length out and one more , Once Upon a Time in the West , set to release February 28th Smith has seen thousands of miles over the last few years opening for acts like Ziggy Marley, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and tonight the Texas blues man Gary Clark Jr. His brooding songs of America’s topological and emotional landscape, “mini-movies” he calls them, transforms on the stage. The darkness, whiskey and gunpowder is still there in narrative but the sound shifts to urgency and electricity. Lynott and Andrews expand the dynamics and work off Smith like a fright train veering off the tracks. They are one of the best rhythm sections I’ve seen live.
Over a beer after the show I ask Smith about his fans and whether online piracy worries a working man with a wife and two kids. “People are buying ticket and I’m selling merch. I can’t do anything about the new world I am working in. I have to trust people.”
In true DIY fashion they set their own gear on stage, sell their own merchandise and pack it all up in a van at the end of the night. Off to the nest show miles away across the dark night of America.
I didn’t take, nor did I find, clips from this show. But I couldn’t post without a taste of what I saw. Here The White Buffalo at Bonaroo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ca2LcaGBJQ&feature=related

Music Review: Gretchen Peters – Hello Cruel World [Scarlet Letter Records]

I became aware of Gretchen Peters when I heard One to the Heart, One to the Head , a covers album she released with one of my favorite singer/songwriters Tom Russell. I was impressed by their take on many great country-folk songs, from Bob Dylan to Townes Van Zandt, and Peters’ smoky vocals contrasting with Russell’s dusty growl.

While reviewing the album I became aware of Peters’ past life as a New York-born, Nashville-based songwriter for Music City country, pop and soul. Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Neil Diamond and the late Etta James She also won the 1995 Country Music Association Song Of The Year award and turned some heads with her unflinching view of a woman’s domestic abuse with McBride’s Independence Day.

These song-craft skills, and the courage that maturity affords you to speak fearlessly, have resulted in Gretchen Peters’New release of darkly engaging Americana-pop Hello Cruel World. Recent trials and revelations in her life provide fertile soil for an collection of songs that look into the abyss and dares to laugh. Dares to love.  What could have been a very bleak album transforms brutality, indifference and the absurdity of life into jagged gems that makes you want to sing along and occasionally tap a toe. Peters co-produces along with husband Barry Walsh and Doug Lancio. they use sparse arrangements and atmosphere that made One to the Heart, One to the Head such a pleasure.

The self-titled opener is a moody study of contrast and personal perseverance. “I’m not dead but I’m damaged goods, and it’s getting late.” Followed by a chorus of “I’m a very lucky girl” sung with beautifully weary resignation backed by minor-chord strings. St. Francis was  inspired by the Gulf oil spill and co-written by Tom Russell, who often employs Catholic symbols and analogies to make corporeal points. The song engages St. Francis of Assisi to show how the divine is often overlooked or, when recognized, taken for granted.

Torn allegiances dominate The Matador as the thrill and drama of a bull ring serves as a metaphor for passion and conflict. Ordained minister Rodney Corwell performed the matrimonial ceremony for Peters’ and Walsh in 2010, on Dark Angel, Corwell plays the foil of love in  a tale of dangerous attraction and certain demise. Camille shares co-writing credits with Peters’ “Wine, Women, and Song” members Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss, is smoky loneliness and sweet despair shepherded by trumpet and barroom piano. Paradise Found has a hot summer day simmer that references Steinbeck and a play on Milton where the song derives it’s title.

From the Stevie Nicks-like album cover Peters stares at you from the dusky cool-colored cover with an orb that looks like a globe or a crystal ball. It serves as both metaphors here. These are adult songs about adult situations that in lesser hands would result in a very dull listening. In Peter’s hands poetry and the profane is balanced in a way that reminds us we are not alone and that beauty and hope, as well as songwriting that engages instead of panders,  still exists.

Official Site | Buy

Exclusive Download: Justin Townes Earle, ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now’

It’s only been 6 years since the release of his Bloodshot Records debut, Yuma,  but in the brief time Justin Townes Earle has stepped outside the formidable, shadows of his Father , Steve Earle, and his namesake, Townes Van Zandt, to carve out his own path as a  torchbearer for the Americana movement.

Earle’s new release for Bloodshot Records Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, his follow-up to 2010’s Harlem River Blues, will be released on March 27th.

The video below by Joshua Black Wilkins was filmed during the recording process at the converted church studio of Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville NC. The video shows a live feel of the recording (with Justin making changes on the fly) and features Amanda Shires. The 10-track album was recorded with no overdubs over the course of just 4 days

Describing the the new album Justin describes the sounds as “1960s-era Muscle Shoals sound accompanied by lots of brass.”  and that it’s “completely different” than last year’s Harlem River Blues. “This time I’ve gone in a Memphis-soul direction.”

Download the title track in trade for your email address from the song title link below.

Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now track list

01. “Am I That Lonely Tonight?”
02. “Look the Other Way”
03. “Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now”
04. “Baby’s Got a Bad Idea”
05. “Maria”
06. “Down on the Lower East Side”
07. “Won’t Be the Last Time”
08. “Memphis in the Rain”
09. “Unfortunately, Anna”
10. “Movin’ On”

Twang Nation Interview with GRAMMY Americana Album of the Year Nominee Linda Chorney

The GRAMMY nominees categories that I cover does not come with choreographed dancers or share the stage with Rihanna. They appear further down on the list near Best World Music Album and Best Spoken Word Album -  the Americana/folk/bluegrass and the speck of trad country that might find its way into a movie soundtrack or liner note nods. This is the the pre-telecast posse, the back of the bus and behind the gym crowd. This is where the cool kids hang out. Where Lou Reed can sit between a nominee for Best Opera Recording and Best Comedy Album. These are the rough and rowdy mongrels of music.

I watch the nominee concert dutifully but it’s nothing to do with me or my readers.  I am waiting for the full list to be posted online. Then I run my eye over it. downward to the Best Folk Album, some nice surprises with The Civil Wars and Eddie Vedder.  Best Bluegrass Album, great to see the old guard Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley in the mix with Steve Martin and Jim Lauderdale. Next the big enchilada – Best Americana Album. Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Lucinda Williams legends all…wait…who’s this? Who is Linda Chorney?

I’m a frikkin “Influencer” for krips sake (or so Klout tells me), how is it I don’t know this person? Where did she come from and how, after 6 albums, is it that I haven’t heard of her until now? i like a to be surprised as much as the next music blogger, but sometimes there is this feeling that if you missed this artist how many others are sliding past your gaze. I needed to atone and find out who this person is.

So i did what any red-blooded Americana blogger would do – I Googled her. First off a video that appears to be centered on scuba diving in some tropical locale. She’s easy on the eyes, but how does she sound? First impression is Aimee Mann, Chrissie Hynde and Michelle Shocked on a serious Meet The Beatles! bender. I emailed her directly from her site. She can’t already have a layer of people to sift through for a conversation. I’m the the official GRAMMY folk/Americana blogger guy. I figure that that should account for something!

Maybe it did. Maybe I caught her at a vulnerable time in the wake of her nomination. Maybe she confused with with her friend Bryan Lang. Whatever…i had an interview set.

I hope the below exchange let’s you get to know Linda Chorney and you find her as charming and talented as I did. enjoy…

 

Twang Nation – So, how are you feeling?

Linda Chorney – I’m still a little but in shock but I feel great. When I told my mom and dad (about the Best Americana Album Grammy nomination) and my mom said this is one of her greatest moments since your birth for me.

TN – Wow, you can’t buy fans like that.

LC -  (laughs) When I was younger they paid for my demo tapes and have been coming to biker bars that I’ve played throughout my life. They’ve waited for me to get my big break and now it’s kind of come.

TN – Tell me a little about how you got here.

LC – I once broke the top 40 in the adult contemporary on the Friday Morning Quarterback (music industry news publication) with my song Living Alone. We thought then that something was going to happen. Then the day we had some deals on the table was on September 11th (2001) and everything sort of got put on hold. I said to myself that I didn’t die that day, and nobody I know died. How important is another song? So I didn’t take (the deals falling through) that hard. Though I took the the events of September 11th very hard and wrote a song about it on my third album.

TN – I’ve been blogging about this genre for several years and lived in New York City for 5 years, how is it I’m just now hearing about a Grammy nominated Americana artists based from New Jersey?

LC – Probably because I’ve been bopping around the whole world. I played on Bleecker Street for years, at Red Line and the Back Fence and a few other clubs. I’ve played the Hamptons. I like to travel! I’ve bartered my way around the world. I’m an avid scuba diver but diving costs a lot of money so when I travel I will write a few dive places and say “Hey I’m a singer/songwriter and will perform for your crew aboard or your place in exchange for scuba diving. Diving can easily can run you a couple of hundred bucks a day. One place that responded was the Bottom Time Bar in Palau Micronesia and that where I shot my video for my song Sink or Swim (see below) I played a weekend and was able to dive for two weeks for free.

TN – Not a bad gig.

LC – it was awesome! I also went to Mount Everest where I sang at 17,000 feet – I’ve sung below sea-level and sung 17,000 feet above sea-level.

TN – Did you know you were in the running for a Grammy nomination?

LC – From the feedback I was getting from Grammy 365 people. I said to my executive producer, “Jonathan is all the people that say I’m great and are voting for me actually do vote for me I think we might have a shot.” I had no idea what I was doing. This is my first time with the whole Grammy process, two weeks before the ballets were due I had zero contacts. My husband and I stayed up 20 hours a day and we wrote every single person we could on the Grammy 365 site to ask for their contact information. Out of the roughly 6000 emails we personally wrote – we didn’t have a staff it was just me and him – then around 2000 people responded and I asked them to consider my stuff. I was overwhelmed with responses. One guy was the historian on (Martin) Scorsese’s George Harrison documentary, he said very nice things about my stuff, he said it touched him and that he was going to talk to other people about me and get them to consider my music – this happened several time with others -  I was just blown away!

TN – Tell me the story about your executive producer and how y’all met.

LC – I was in Colorado playing a ski resorts, because the moneys good and I sell a lot of merch and get to keep all the money, and I would ski to my gig every day with my guitar on my back to perform at 10.000 feet. At one gig this quirky guy comes up to me after buying all my CDs I had for sale  and said “You have something special here. I’m a doctor but I wanted to be a musician, so I know how hard it can be. I’d lie to send you something.” I had no idea who this guy was or if he was hitting on me so I gave him a P.O. Box address and sure enough a few weeks later a chord-less mic and guitar pickup showed up in the mail and it contained a note that read “This is for you kid, way to go.” Over the years I got to know his family, and we became really good friends. Last year he approaches me and says “Linda, I want you to make the album you’ve never been able to make before, and I’ll pay for it.”

Every other album I’ve done has been out of my own pocket and I was always watching the clock , I didn’t have the money for live drums or more time for the engineer, I knew how to make a great album but I never had the resources. Jonathan says “I want you to do this album without compromise Linda. I’m going to give you the money for this album and I don’t want anything in return. I just want you to make the greatest album that you can and I want to be part of the process.” I was so touched by this! Jonathan also knows some musicians like Jeff Pevar (CPR) and Leon Pendarvis (band leader for the Saturday Night Live band) who is a great keyboard player. So he got them involved in the project. I knew Lisa Fischer (singer and background vocalist for the Rolling Stones, Luther Vandross, and others) because she sang background on my adult contemporary charting song Living Alone. And I knew bass player Will Lee (The Late Show with David Letterman, B.B. King, Cat Stevens, Ringo Starr, James Brown and many others), then I knew people here in my neighborhood (Asbury Park, NJ) who should be famous , like  Arlan Feiles, who has his own album coming out soon and to me is like Bob Dylan with a prettier voice. I had him sing a duet with me called Finally on the album and then I have a song on the album called Do It While You Can, with a kind of a Satchmo vocal vibe to it and Richie Blackwell (Bruce Springsteen) helped with that. So this whole thing is a passion project. There was no thought to “Let’s make this song four minutes so we can get radio airplay.”

The second CD (on Emotional Jukebox) has a symphony I fantasized about making (Mother Natures Symphony.) The 15 minute piece begins with classical to Bluegrass to folk then back to classical and then ends with a Beatles ending.

TN – Wow, you’re not one to walk the genre straight and narrow are you. You also cover Led Zeppelin’s Going to California on Emotional Jukebox.

LC – I do! I had to fight to have that on because I jammed it in the end with a  Flamenco solo by this guy Hernan Romero (Al Di Meola) who  this amazing player that was just in the Latin GRAMMYs who I met in Boston who’s been on a couple of my albums. I had this idea of the song that ended up being 7 minutes long and we still got airplay. They don’t make songs like that anymore. I like solos. On my song I’m Only Sleeping I put a whirly solo it it. I like music!

TN – Where was the album recorded?

LC – We recorded at Sear Sound in New York and Lupos Studio with Frank Wolf, who I’ve worked with in the past, engineering the project. He’s an amazing talent. I spent the most time on the album than anybody. I did all the editing and arranging myself on my Pro Tools at home at night with the master and poured over every single bar on the album to make sure I had all the instrumentation in all the right places so it was tasty, clean and interesting to me. that was my goal. I probably spent over 2000 hours on it.

TN – well your hard work is being recognized. When did you find out about your nomination?

LC – We were having a party that night and somebody gave me a mock GRAMMY because we all conceded to the fact that I didn’t stand a chance against these amazing and well-known artists – John Hiatt, Jeff Bridges, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Ry Cooder – who is one of my heros – there was just no slot open for an unknown. So all the people went home from the party and then I started getting all these emails saying “Congratulations.” “You have my support.” “I’ll see you in L.A.” I thought this has to be a mistake. This must be a chain email that I’m on and somebody else was nominated. Then I had a hard time finding the list of nominees online. Then we found the list of nominees on GRAMMY.com and there in Americana Album of the year was my name first on the list. I had to wake up my executive producer, Jonathan, at midnight to tell him about it. We freaked out.  He believed in me and my music and he’s such an amazing person.

TN – I love that you are on the nominee list, and that the GRAMMY Americana category appears to be a big tent where talent is rewarded no matter how what your profile.

LC – Early in the process I did put my album up for a lot of categories – best Album, and all of that. In retrospect i should have concentrated on the one category. I submitted for 8 but but as I was getting up to speed submitting my work it occurred to me that I might have been spreading myself too thin and that might not be in my best interest. So then I started concentrating on the Americana music category.

TN – Have you got your speech ready?

LC – (laughs) Not yet.I think I might have a mock one ready for You Tube and to post on my blog (lindachorney.wordpress.com) to thank the people that helped me.

News Round-Up: Kathleen Edwards Video Premier | New Album January 17th

Singer/Songwriter Kathleen Edwards will release her new album, Voyageur,  January 17th 2012 on Zoë/Rounder Records. Produced by Edwards and Justin Vernon (who provides backing vocals and plays guitar, piano, organ, bass, banjo and xylophone), the ten-track album includes hilariously titled Change the Sheets, which was featured on Edwards’ recent 7” Wapusk (video below)

The album was recorded between August 2010 and May 2011 in Fall Creek, Wisconsin and Toronto, Canada. In addition to Vernon , the album includes guest appearances by Francis and the Lights, Norah Jones, Stornoway, John Roderick, Phil Cook (Megafaun), Sean Carey (Bon Iver), Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Brian Moen (Peter Wolf Crier). Also featured is Edwards’ touring band— Gord Tough (guitar), John Dinsmore (bass), Lyle Molzan (drums) and her longtime friend and collaborator, Jim Bryson (guitars, keys).” Of making the record, Edwards comments, “I knew laying the foundation for this record would start with the songs. For the first time I was open to the idea of co-writing, and what had previously been an intensely private process became a challenge to see what would happen with an open mind to a different approach.”

Voyageur is Edwards’ first full-length album since 2008’s acclaimed release, Asking For Flowers.

Twang Nation Podcast Episode 2

I am humbled by the responses to the first episode of my Podcast and the kind and encouraging emails, tweets and conversations from readers and musicians. So before the holidays kick into full gear I bring you, friends and neighbors,Twang Nation episode 2.

Fresh off  the interview with the Civil Wars, upstairs at the historic Fillmore theater in San Francisco, I wanted to include their extraordinary title song from the current album Barton Hallow. If there is a super group and mainstream representatives for the Americana/roots music genre it’s Joy Williams and John Paul White. Also Houston’s own brings his own sweet brand of honky tonk as a chaser for those bittersweet beers. Mat D and the profane Saints and Jeannette Kantzalis were kind enough to send me some great unreleased cuts to include on the episode. Also I have also decided to end to the Podcast with a classic country song, on this episode David Allan Coe’s classic barroom number You Never Even Called Me by My Name.

It continues to be fun. Thanks for listening and please share with friends and family and leave any comments or requests below.

Dale Watson – A Real Country Song
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
Robert Ellis – What’s In it For Me
Lydia Loveless – Steve Earle
Mat D and the profane Saints – Red Ball
A Brokeheart Pro aka (Jeannette Kantzalis) – When The Killing’s Done
Porkchop Express – War W00t
Rita Hosking – My Golden Bull
Possum Jenkins – New Brand Of Misery
Joe Whyte – Please Believe Me
Somebody’s Darling – Another Two-Step
David Allan Coe – You Never Even Called Me by My Name

Twang Nation Podcast Episode 2

Music review: Dale Watson & The Texas Two – The Sun Sessions [Red House Records]

On his new release Texas country music traditionalist Dale Watson goes back to the roots of by recording in the historic Sun Studios of Memphis, TN. It was here that owner and chief producer Sam Phillips changed the face of 20th century music by manning the board for the likes Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Feathers, Ray Harris, B.B. King, Joe Hill Louis, Rufus Thomas, and Howlin’ Wolf, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis among many others.

Dale scales down his band for the sessions to drummer Mike Bernal and Chris Crepps on upright bass, or as they have been christened the “Texas Two.” This band title is not the only     testimonial to Johnny Cash’s 1954 to1958 sessions with his Tennessee Two.”   The spirit of Cash is also evoked on nearly every song with the use of his trademark boom-chicka-boom sound  as well as the class atmospheric “slap-back” production that helped make the Sun Studios famous.

This is not the first time Dale has gone to hallowed ground to summon the spirit of Cash. His 2007 album, from the Cradle to the Grave was recorded in a cabin near Nashville formally owned by Cash and  graciously loaned to him by his friend and current owner Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame.

Wason and his Texas Two peer from the cover with the iconic beaming sun set above them. These days Watson is looking less like Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos and more like an older Unknown Hinson.

Also in line with Cash’s Sun Studio sessions is each songs brief duration. The 14 songs here clock in at less than a half-hour overall with the longest song, an ode to love and Southern cooking My Baby Makes Me Gravy, at 2:45. A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach but apparently it doesn’t take long to get there.

The songs are mostly all new with the exception of Johnny at the Door from Watson’s album People I’ve Known, Places I’ve Been (1999) and Elbow Grease, Spackle And Pine- Sol, which is a renamed version of Holes in the Wall from the Watson’s first album Cheatin’ Heart Attack (1995)

The genesis of the album began on Watson’s 16-ton Eagle tour bus bus after learning that the gig they were headed to in Memphis had fallen through. He then called up Sun Studios to see if they had an opening and they said “Come on in.” Watson then used his iPhone to record his voice as he worked out some songs while sitting behind the wheel.

Down, Down, Down, Down sets the pace with a boom-chicka-boom fright-train-like opening as Watson’s baritone breaks down a song of a life misspent on woe, sorrow and hell-raising ultimately asking for redemption. The Cash vibe is strong on Johnny at the Door, a tribute to a “good ol boy” Austin-area bar doorman and Drive, Drive, Drive that often echos Cash’s own Cry, Cry, Cry. Elbow Grease, Spackle And Pine- Sol is a guide to man’s reaction to being served divorce papers by his wife through aggression, he apologizes but sound like he does it with a smirk and doesn’t sound like he’s sorry at all for the “holes in the wall.”  Her Love has Watson conjuring one of the other ghosts of Sun Studio. The sentimental , heartfelt ballad has the mark of Elvis Presley running all through it.

Watson continues to be the cure for the contagion of  Music City pop-country.

Be sure to check out the Facebook campaign to get Dale Watson on the legendary Austin City limits show.

Official Site | Buy

Dale Watson & The Texas Two- My Baby Makes Me Gravy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnyYwdFQJgk[/youtube]

Music Review: Wagons – Rumble Shake & Tumble

When I first saw The Proposition, the 2005 Australia-based Western about an outlaw (Guy Pearce) forced to kill his older brother, I was taken by what Vincent Vega (to mix movie metaphors) is the “little differences.” The narrative was familiar and there were cultural parallels (at least cinematic)  between late nineteenth century Australia and the American West and Southwest.

This is the feeling I get when listening to the Australian roots-rock band Wagons recent fourth release Rumble, Shake & Tumble. There are elements of the familiar that are then twisted and elevated to strange and inspired places. the album kicks off with Downlow,a tale of clandestine romance done in as a jangly Tom Petty-style number complete with scorching lead and 80’s-era humming synths. I Blew It is thumping rockabilly tune that has Henry Wagons careening his baritone growling a lost-love lament. Moon Into The Sun is a front-porch ditty that shimmers with pedal-steel and hillbilly Buddhist pronouncements like  “Everybody’s as happy as they want to be.”

Willie Nelson is a slinky-stomp ode to the Texas Yoda, well to the idea of him anyway since there’s really no details in the song relating the the legendary icon. It’s more testament to great music and a reason to jam. Love Is Burning channels fellow Aussie (and script writer for the aforementioned movie, The Proposition.) Nick Cave and is smoldering with lust and menace like a ,well, a Nick Cave song.  My Daydream is a spacey country-tinged number that sound like a collaboration of Gram Parsons and David Bowie ( Singer Henry Wagons’ voice even sound eerily like the Thin White Duke at times.) Save Me is a Civil War-style and honky-tonk mash-up telling a tale of dispare and redemption

Henry Wagons  drummers/bassists Mark Dawson and Si Francis, guitarists Chad Mason and Richard Blaze, and keyboardist Matthew Hassett made a big noise at the 2011 SXSW a nd it’s easy to hear why. Rumble, Shake and Tumble  is a study in American music from an Australian bands perspective. the album will have you coming back again and again to peel back layer after layer of influence and nuance served with an edgy modern twist.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQN3-Ik7znM[/youtube]