Drive By Truckers’ The Fine Print Cover

  • 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.

Band Round-Up – Dirty Sweet

Do you like your rock with a side of sleaze? Then San Diego’s Dirty Sweet might sate your hunger. Their name is taken from T. Rex’s 1971 Glam-rock classic Bang a Gong (Get It On), but the band comes off as less Electric Warrior and more Faces mashed-up with The Outlaws.

Sure there are the lazy Black Crowes comparisons (especially with Ryan Koontz’s 70’s classic rock wail), but the Black Crowes were themselves a pretty linear derivative of sources they now take pains to distance themselves from. Dirty Sweet wears their influences on their sweat-stained sleeves and make you yearn for a time when rock was hard and exciting.  Is there Twang? yeah, in the Slithering Southern Rock of Marrionette, the hot licks in Goldensole and in the lyrics of Kill or Be Killed, but the real treat with thier sound is, like many bands they obviously worship, they just take off the break and gun it.

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

Ryan Koontz

Drive By Truckers Ready Odds and Sods, Austin City Limits Live CD / DVD

Over their 13 years performing together the Drive By Truckers have produced a mess of great music, but not all of it made it onto their final 7 studio albums. The mighty DBT and their soon to be ex-label New West Records dug into the vaults and with guidance from longtime producer Dave Barbe, put finishing touches on a selection of songs that were never quite completed. “For me, it’s been a fun stroll through memory lane and a chance to tie up some loose ends” says Patterson Hood.

The result of the collaboration is The Fine Print (A Collection Of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008) featuring songs written by band members past and present, including Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell. 7 of the twelve songs come from The Dirty South era… a highly creative time for DBT. Hood explains “That was an especially fertile period for the band, as we more or less wrote that album and the one before it, Decoration Day, as well as my first solo album all in a three year period as we were recording and touring behind Southern Rock Opera.”

The record also contains four covers including “Rebels” by Tom Petty, which the band recorded originally for the TV show “King Of The Hill” and “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan which provided Shonna Tucker with her first ever lead vocal performance on a DBT recording. The Fine Print  will be available September 1, 2009.

This summer New West will also release Drive-By Trucker’s entire Austin City Limits performance as a CD / DVD combination pack as a part of the Live From Austin, TX line. The Drive-By Truckers graced the Austin City Limits stage on September 26, 2008 while touring for their last studio album Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.

A CD/DVD combination package featuring the entire performance will be available on July 7th, 2009. The 13 songs, which were filmed in Hi-Def and recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound for the critically acclaimed PBS show, include a mix of new songs from Brighter Than Creation’s Dark alongside the classics “Let There Be Rock” and “18 Wheels Of Love” (off their second album Gangstabilly) and “Marry Me” (from Decoration Day). The band line-up featured is Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Shonna Tucker, John Neff, Brad Morgan and Jay Gonzalez.

The DBT are currently in the studio working on the next album for an early 2010 release.

THE FINE PRINT TRACK LIST:
1. George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues
2. Rebels
3. Uncle Frank (alternate version)
4. TVA
5. Goode’s Field Road (alternate version)
6. The Great Car Dealer War
7. Mama Bake A Pie (Daddy Kill A Chicken)
8. When The Well Runs Dry
9. Mrs. Claus’ Kimono
10. Play It All Night Long
11. Little Pony And The Great Big Horse
12. Like A Rolling Stone

LIVE FROM AUSTIN, TX Track List:
1. Perfect Timing
2. Heathens
3. A Ghost To Most
4. The Righteous Path
5. I’m Sorry Huston
6. 3 Dimes Down
7. Puttin’ People On The Moon
8. Space City
9. The Living Bubba
10. Zip City
11. 18 Wheels Of Love
12. Let There Be Rock
13. Marry Me

Hard Times

These are tough times for America. Wall Street and board room crooks, unnecessary wars, mounting national and personal debt, massive unemployment, terrorists threats.. These are not the toughest times we’ve faced in our history,I think the fisr depression and the civil war were much tougher, but they are hard relative to the lives most people have lived today.

The silver lining is that from hard times comes great music, and country music taps into the populist zeitgeist better than any other genre beside blues. Much has been made about John Rich’s Shuttin’ Detroit Down and Hank William Jr’s Red White and Pink Slip Blues but it’s hard for me to buy populist empathy from a guy that parades around  in mink coats and a guy that puts hotel employees in a choke hold and demands a kiss.

Here is a list of songs that I believe exhibit the best of what it sounds like to live through the worst.

Ryan Bingham – Hard TimesA new artist with an old voice . The name says it all.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg428ZfOMsA[/youtube]

The Drive By Truckers – Puttin’  People on the Moon A stiff shot of old-school Southern rock chased withed populist rage.

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

Jimmie Rodgers  – Muleskinner Blues – A classic of down-on-your-luck and lookin’ for work poetry.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXV9_WilcHs[/youtube]

Johnny Cash – BustedHarlan Howard’s 1962 penned song of working man’s woe was aa hit for Johnny Cash in 1962 on his classic At Folsom Prison live album and was an even bigger hit for Ray Charles the following year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rnAYYh8gGQ[/youtube]

Merle Haggard – Workin’ Man Blues – Classic Bakersfield rocks this ode to the laborer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEstJ98TcM[/youtube]

Frankie Miller – Blackland Farmer – A paen to the 1958 farmers that were just starting to get a glipmpse of the industrial farms that were to change thier professions and lives forever.

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

Levon Helm – Poor Old Dirt Farmer -  Helm, the only American in the Americana/rock group The Band, tells the story of his Dad’s farm inTurkey Scratch, a hamlet west of Helena, Arkansas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU[/youtube]

Johnny Paycheck – Take This Job and Shove It – it’s not all hand-wringing and woe is me in country music. Paycheck’s cover of  David Allan Coe’s song was a huge 70’s hit and a raised finger to The Man.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knetbVx5A-Q[/youtube]

Merle Haggard & Kris Kristofferson – April 1 ’09 – Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa

While living in New York City I was lucky enough to see George Jones play Carnegie Hall in a venue the Possum last played 44 years prior on a bill that included Johnny Cash and Mother Maybelle Carter. On that crisp Halloween evening Jones headlined and the opener was a solo acoustic performance by the relative youngster Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson said of the opening spot “I can’t believe I get to open for George Jones.” That same wide-eyed, reverential innocence was also there as member of the country music “supergroup” The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kristofferson), he said of  being included in the lineup that he felt like a kid won the lottery.

That same, now 72 year-old, wide-eyed kid was again struck by awe as Wednesday night as he shared that stage with a man only one year his elder – the Bakersfield Sound legend Merle Haggard. This opening performance of a three-night tour was held at ,the Wells Fargo Center in the sleepy bedroom community of Santa Rosa, CA. 50 or so miles due North on US 101. Loaded up into my favoriteZipcar Toyota truck I hit the rolling hills specked with grazing cows on a beautiful sunny day. First stop was Russian River brewery in Santa Rosa to partake of my favorite kick-you-in-the-head IPA -Pliney the Elder. The -night started off well.

The Wells Fargo Center is a nice subdued type of seated theatre where the tony locals come to relive their glory with classic rock bands or catch some culture from the local symphony. I was surprised by the age of the crowd which skewed into the 60’s , but the lack of body searches was a nice change from the big city shows I’ve become accustomed to.

Later as I was standing near the touring bus hoping to catch a glimpse of Merle or Kris and shooting the shot with a mother and daughter that each brought their guitars to be signed I saw what surely signaled this as a great event. I saw Cher. The Gypsy herself  had come to catch the show and was sneaking in the stage door after a brief visit on the bus. My dream to utter the words “So, Cher and I were at this event, and…” can finally be fulfilled.

Clad in black with worn boots,  Kristofferson had just finished Shipwrecked in the Eighties and was introducing Hag when the man his-self walked out on stage. No need for formality here son -  and broke into the small-town living lament Big City, Hag’s voice was strong but still that of a 72 year old man that had recently undergone surgery to have part of his lung removed. There was still too much onryness and pride in the grizzled elder statesmen to allow any trace of frailty, though the adoring audience would have forgiven any if shown.

As a pioneer of the electric Bakersfield sound Hag has worked with a band his whole career and the publicized “acrostic set” between these musicians was not quite what it seemed to be. “I feel like an old stripper without a G-string,” said Merle Haggard before kicking off the intro to “Back to Earth.” Merle was not quite naked as he had brought along a stripped down version of his Strangers touring band which included his 16 year-old son Ben who played as proficiently as someone ten years his elder.

The pattern ran one song Kristofferson, two songs Haggard. Which sat just fine with the sold-out crowd and covered a lot of ground in the nearly two-hour long performance. Big City, Silver Wings, Me & Bobby McGee – each artist graciously relegating the floor to the other for a wealth of music. Collaborations were more democratic when other performers songs were performed – Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues and Jimmie Roger’s T.B. Blues, which givenHaggard’s health was colored with even more poignancy.

Like two old friends that had seen over 100 years of country music history between them they traded witty good-natured jibs, winged a play-list of dozens of classics, screwed up, brushed it off and performed like the seasoned professionals they were. The Okie From Muskogee and the Liberal ex-U.S. Army captain and helicopter pilot . He became a helicopter pilot, like a country music détente for the sake of the song and in honor of the contributions each have made.

Sing Me Back Home, Mama Tried, The Bottle Let Me Down, Today I Started Loving You Again, Jody and the Kid, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I,SundayMornin’ Comin’ Down…it’s daunting as they keep coming at you like a crash course in country music history. Kristofferson has had the acoustic lone man show on the road for a couple of years now and performed like he was at ease and for all Hag’s pretense at being out of his element, he warmed up and eventually was just as home just doing what they both do best. Making great, timeless music. When they leave this Earth, we are likely not to see their kind again.

As is Haggard’s tradition there was no encore to the slight disappointment of the crowd. To gripe after such a banquet was served  would be to risk gluttony. Like the rest of the evening Kristofferson was more than happy to follow his lead backstage.

Setlist:
Shipwrecked in the Eighties
Big City
Silver Wings
Me & Bobby McGee
I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink
Folsom Prison Blues
Best of All Possible Worlds
If I Could Only Fly
Mama Tried
Here Comes That Rainbow Again
I Wish I Could Be 30 Again
Rainbow Stew
Help Me Make It Through The Night
If We Make It Through December
Nobody Wins
T.B. Blues
Okie From Muskogee
Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
Back to Earth
Jody and the Kid
The Silver-Tongued Devil and I
Sing Me Back Home
The Pilgrim, Chapter 33
Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star
For the Good Times
Are the Good Times Really Over
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down
Today I Started Loving You Again
Why Me Lord

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6wRfWXDlpQ[/youtube]

Jeffrey Foucault to Release John Prine Covers Album

  • There seems to be a bonanza of tribute albums coming out recently but few I’m really looking forward to, this is one of those, Jeffrey Foucault’s tribute to John Prine entitled: Moon Right Between the Eyes: Jeffrey Foucault Sings the Songs of John Prine. The album will drop on February 17th from Signature Sounds Recordings. You can hear cuts now at Foucault’s site.
  • The OCRegister.com’s Ben Wener posted a great review of the February 5th show at the Grove of Anaheim. The nights show was a make up gig that was originally to take place in early December. Hag canceled because, as he later revealed, he underwent surgery for lung cancer, ultimately having the diseased portion removed. In attendance for the performance was no other than Kris Kristofferson who was watching from the balcony.
  • Get those DVRs ready folks, The Drive By Truckers and Ryan Bingham will be tonight’s featured performers on Austin City Limits. Check you local directory for air times.
  • The mysterious guest to appear at this years Merlefest is none other than…Linda Ronstadt. Really, Linda Ronstadt? Really?

Drive By Truckers News

The Drive By Truckers are just off their start to 2009 with 3 sold-out shows for their Athens GA 40 Watt Club Homecoming, they next will be playing this weekend,  with opener Bloodkin, in Knoxville at the Valarium (Thurs Jan 29) and two nights at Asheville’s historic Orange Peel (Fri Jan 30 and Sat Jan 31). Next month they have a few more dates including a two night stand in DC at 9:30 Club and a few dates with Texas’ Hayes Carll.

On Feb. 5th Drive By Truckers Front Man Patterson Hood will play an annual benefit for Athens, GA’S The Robert Osborne Classic Film Festival.

On Feb 7th, PBS will be airing the episode of Austin City Limits starring Drive By Truckers and Ryan Bingham. Check local listings for exact time and date of airing.

April will see the DBTs backing the legendary R&B and soul and funk pioneer Booker T. Jones ANTI- Records debut Potato Hole. The band will be backing Booker T. in some dates including thier first ever New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival appearance on Friday April 24th.

The Drive-By Truckers with Kelly Hogan – I’m Your Puppet

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrUMbHhsoC8[/youtube]

Americana at SXSW

  • JamBase contributor Martin Halo  sat down with Drive By Truckers‘ front man Patterson Hood on December 29th. Aat the meeting Hood confirmed that the band would be re-entering the studio, on January 5, to begin work on the next DBT release.

Drive By Truckers – Perfect Timing

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