Category Archives: Rock and Roll

News Round Up: Lucero Releases New Videos ; RIP Amy Ferris

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  • I learned yesterday from a post on Twitter by Austin singer/songwriter Kelly Willis alerted me that Austin native fiddle player Amy Farris had been found dead at her residence in Los Angeles at the age of 40. Suicide is suspected, but an investigation is currently underway. Farris was a talented fiddle player and had recently been part of the group Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women. Her only solo release, Anyway, was produced by Alvin in 2003. Farris was scheduled to play Saturday with the Guilty Women at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. As of this writing her name is still on the schedule.
  • Hear Rosanne Cash’s new release The List at NPR, including an iTunes exclusive cut featuring Neko Case, Satisfied Mind.
  • Miranda Lambert will appear on the Jimmy Fallon show tonight. Lambert also tweets that Jimmy Fallon is cute and sweet. Aww!
  • PopMatter’s Bob Proehl posts a nice piece on the legacy of Kris Kristoffersson.
  • Memphis, Tennessee-based Alt.country band Lucero commissioned a music video for each song on their upcoming record 1372 Overton Park– making 12 videos total. The level of sophistication of each fan-turned-videographer ranged from “some holding only handy-cams, others with years of training under their belt.” Ceck out the first two videos for What Are You Willing To Lose? and Goodbye Again.

News Round Up: Taylor Swift Attends Miranda Lambert’s Revolution

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  • Vince Vaughn is not only hilarious, and tall, but he loves country music. Or is it Americana music…hell I can’ keep up.
  • The Americana extravaganza that is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is next weekend people. John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Boz Scaggs, Steve Earle, Ricky Scaggs, Gillian Welch, Booker T and the Drive By Truckers as his backing band, Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Aimee Mann and Little Feat. And it’s FREE!
  • Taylor Swift showed up at the Ryman last night to watch Texas’ own Miranda Lambert play her new release Revolution (I wonder if she has to pay Steve Earle royalties on that too?) That’s right Taylor, that’s how it’s done! During her performance Lambert knelt down and kissed the historic wooden stage of the hallowed Mother Church of Country Music. No mics where taken from any performers as far as I know…

Drive By Truckers’ The Fine Print Cover

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  • Sony Music Entertainment Photo Archives, ICON Collectibles has just released some new Johnny Cash prints for the summer, ICON is offering Cash fans a 20% discount on all Johnny Cash framed and unframed fine art prints (including limited editions) when fans use promo code ICON6PAK at checkout. Offer ends July 31st. Check out the new prints now at the ICON website.
  • Wayne Hancock has  Summer tour dates posted. Hancock will be taking his Texas honky-tonk around the West Coast, back down to Texas and then back up the East Coast. Opening the show will be Joe Buck.
  • 83 year-old country-pop singer Ferlin Husky is in Tennessee hospital in critical condition with an accelerated heart rate and possible pneumonia. Husky topped the charts from the 50’s to the 70’s under various names, including Terry Preston and Simon Crum, a comic alter ego. (via the 9513.com)
  • Chet  Nashville Chet Flippo draws comparisons to the death last week of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams. Flippo posits that Williams’ death at the age of 29 in the back seat of his Cadillac on New Years Eve 1953 might have been preferable to the drawn-out publicized deterioration of Elvis and Jackson.
  • A while back I posted that New West records would be releasing The Fine Print, “a 12-track album of previously unreleased and rare songs”by the Drive By Truckers on September 1st. The album will feature  “four covers including “Rebels” by Tom Petty and “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan which provided Shonna Tucker with her first ever lead vocal performance on a DBT recording.” Many of the original recordings are from the Dirty South era. The Look for a review of The Fine Print soon, but in the mean time check out the cover below painted by their long time cover artist Wes Freed.

Shooter Jennings to open Charlie Daniels’ Volunteer Jam

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Charlie Daniels has invited Shooter Jennings to open a series of Daniels’ Volunteer Jam concerts this year. April 11-12 in Harris, Mich. the bill also features .38 Special (which includes Donnie Van Zant, of the country duo Van Zant.)

The origial Volunteer Jam took place in 1972 was suppose to a one-off showcase of Daniel’s friend’s which just happed to be the best Southern Rock bands of the time which including the Allman Brothers Band and the Marshall Tucker Band.

“I’ll Love You till I Die” – Top 30 Country/Roots Love Songs

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George+Jones++Tammy+Wynette

Sure most genres deal with topic of love but few can work all the angles like country and roots music. Courting, marriage, sex, cheating, fighting, break-ups, shooting, disposing of bodies… it’s all there in all its heart-wrenching glory.

Some old, some new, all guaranteed to get to you some when mixed with tequila and memories.

I’m sure I let some beauties sip so feel free to add your own.

1. He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones
2. I Walk The Line – Johnny Cash
3. Angel Flying Too Close the Ground – Willie Nelson
4. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain – Willie Nelson
5. Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
6. Valentine’s Day – Steve Earle
7. Still I Long For Kiss – Lucinda Williams
8. Marry Me – Drive By Truckers
9. Arlington – Ridley Bent
10. Dale Watson – Every Song I Write For You
11. Before The Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender
12. Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich
13. Oh My Sweet Carolina – Ryan Adams
14. Carrying Your Love With Me – George Strait
15. Cowboy Take Me Away – Dixie Chicks
16. Crazy – Patsy Cline
17. Gentle on My Mind – Glen Campbell
18. Lovin You Against My Will – Gary Allan
19. Golden Ring – George Jones and Tammy Wynette
20. He’ll Have To Go – Jim Reeves
21. Hello Darlin – Conway Twitty
22. Melissa – Allman Brothers Band
23. Hello Walls – Faron Young
24. Help Me Make It Through the Night – Sammi Smith
25. I Cross My Heart – George Strait
26. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’ – Charley Pride
27. It Only Hurts When I Cry – Dwight Yoakam
28. Please Break My Heart – Thad Cockrell and Caitlin Cary
29. Lovesick Blues – Hank Williams
30. I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry – Hank Williams

The Deadstring Brothers Do the Streets of New York

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The Village Voice and Rob Trucks feature Bloodshot Records recording artist and 70’s sleaze revivalist, the Deadstring Brothers in their feature “Possibly 4th Street” expositions. This is a piece where musicians are invited to perform live and impromptu somewhere in New York City and to experience the immeadiacy and electricity of being ignored by snooty pedistrians.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x05BOHbUR_w[/youtube]

Review – Chicowater: Country Pajamas

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Baltimore, Maryland’s Chicowater‘s newest release “Country Pajamas” echoes the early gossamer days of pop, country and folk. The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and first 4 album Beatles is spot welded onto a Uncle Tupelo alt.country sound that twangs up power-pop and provokes an even impulse to weep and dance.

“Hold on” kick things off with a sound reminiscent of the fledgling Beatles rockabilly era. The energy just flies off the song. The hooks are infectious and the plunder of Ryan William Bender drums are crisp and unrelenting. Sweet mercy what a beginning.

The next cut “Jagged Hearts” a love-gone-wrong pop song riddled with Jason Lee Ashby’s banjo in the vein of a better Fleetwood Mac tune struggling with a serious Southern jones. “Stuck In The Mud” sound like a trudging, lumbering big rock song that it’s name suggests. This is the song you scream the chorus ’til you’re horse and fist pump to at the Chicowater live show.

“December” and “My darling Girl” are minor-chord weepers that channels Ryan Adams at his most heart wrenching with a sweet honey chorus provided by Jeb Stuart Johnston (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica) and Samantha Lee Johnston (upright doghouse and electric basses, vocals), but does Adams one better by not sounding like they deserve being screwed over for being a pretentious prick. “Learn to Let Go is another heart-broken take done as a blistering rave-up sounds like BR5-49 freebasing the Replacements.

“Ballad of a Fighting Man” serves up a great CCR style guitar lick Civil War lament, the trials of lose, war and the cost of memories with blood on your hands. The harmonica laden “Hard Times” sounds strikingly like Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers without the jarring fear-shifts.

This is a great release that shows an honor for tradition as well as the courage to take chances. I hope the band has a long life ahead of them and doesn’t let internal drama and strife tear them assunder as has been reported. We would all be the poorer if that happens.

Nine Pound Hammer to Release Sex, Drugs & Bill Monroe 2/12/08

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After assulting the pop-culture by having a song on Tony Hawk’s latest video game and penning a theme song for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s new feature “12 Oz Mouse!”

Lexington, Kentucky’s cow-punk powerhouse “Nine Pound Hammer” is coming out with their long awaited follow up to Kentucky Breakdown.

“Sex, Drugs & Bill Monroe” drops on Feb.12, 2008 from Acetate Records. Just in time to get the album along with a six-pack of PBR and pork rinds for your sweety.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3vz0LNPbgw[/youtube]