Kris Kristofferson’s latest is actually some of his earliest. Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends: The Publishing Demos 1968-72 is a collection of raw demos made to shop his songs around to singers while sweeping floors at Columbia Studios in Nashville (where he later first met Johnny Cash.) I listened to 16 cuts [...]
Kris Kristofferson reminisces about his days playing football. The days before he was pulled because of too many head injuries, that is. CMT interviews the Texas Yoda, Willie Nelson about his new T Bone Burnett produced album, Country Music. Dwight Yoakam & Merle Haggard will perform together June 18 & 19 at Oregon’s Chinook Winds [...]
In true DIY fashion The Johnny Cash Project is a “global collective art project” that allows fans from all over the world to contribute to a arrogated, user-generated video for the title track from the latest Johnny Cash recording American VI: Ain’t No Grave. The single images are then threaded together into a one-of-a-kind labor [...]
In a case that will go down in Country Music Outlaw history, a Waco, Texas jury has acquitted 70-year-old Texas Country Music Hall of Fame member Billy Joe Shaver of aggravated assault in the shooting of a man outside a Lorena, Texas bar in 2007. the incident came after Shaver had played a show.Willie Nelson [...]
The extraordinary Elizabeth Cook talks to the Utne Reader about her irreverent career, influences and her upcoming Don Was produced album Welder. Jim Lauderdale takes time from his South-By-Southwest appearance talk to Spinner.com about, well, his career, influences and her upcoming album Patchwork River, which was produced by longtime production partner Tim Coates and Doug [...]
Happy birthday to Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer and the “Paul” of the Willie’s song “Me and Paul,” Paul English. Happy birthday also to legendary Texas singer/songwriter Guy Clark. The latest installment of Popmatter.com’s excellent Torch & Twang series Juli Thanki delivers a post exploring ithe intersecting careers of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and musician and [...]
The pride of Lindale, Texas continues to defy all expectations. When every other country artist on the chart is a chirpy little blonde singing lines from her 9th grade journal. Lambert, writing or co-writing all but four of the album’s 15 tracks, waves her classic country pride flag but amps it way up instead of [...]
Check out the video tour diary from Bruce Robison as he Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider proceed up and down the East Coast and back into Texas on their Barstool Tour. Linda Lee at the super Willie Nelson blog StillIsStillMoving.com interviews Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck. Check out the excellent videos of Casey Driessen’s 5-string fiddle hunt [...]
Birmingham Weekly sits down with Mr. Americana himself – Jim Lauderdale. Jim discusses hosting the Americana Awards ceremony at the Ryman auditorium, having the first single off the George Strait new album Twang and at one point Jim pauses the interview to help push a car to a station for a lady that ran out [...]
The crowds were large an estimated 750,000 – more than Coachella, Lollapalooza and All Points West combined – urbane, hippies, street buskers and hipsters all in Golden Gate Park and under mostly warm Indian Summer skies. The bill on all 6 stages (one more added this year) were all impressive and walking from stage to [...]