Category Archives: Texas

News Round Up: Willie Nelson Works with T Bone Burnett

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  • For a man in his 70s Willie Nelson is showing no signs of slowing down. The Texas Yoda is reportedly working with producer T Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line soundtracks, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant – Raising Sand, Elvis Costello’ s -  Secret, Profane and Sugarcane and much more) in Nashville on his very first bluegrass album. Some of the songs being considered are Sixteen Tons, Dark as a Dungeon, and the oft covered Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes classic Satisfied Mind. (via stillisstillmoving.com)
  • Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut Whip It is about roller derby in Austin, Texas. Sound like boxoffice gold to me! Ms. Barrymore was also instrumental in choosing the music for the soundtrack which includes Dolly Parton’s Jolene and .38 Special’s Caught Up in You as well as less twangy work by the Ramones, Peaches and Go Team! (Billboard.com)
  • The Americana Music festival and conference is next week in Nashville TN (Sept 16-19) and the early bird registration price has been extended to Sept. 14th. Get in on what is sure to be a great conference and excellent showcases all over the city.
  • Congratulation to Patterson Hood from the Drive By Truckers and his wife Rebecca on the birth of their son Emmett Hood!
Willie Nelson

Music Review: George Strait- Twang [MCA Nashville]

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GS_twangAnybody that’s read this blog for more than five minutes knows that the style of country music that I champion is typically not represented on the flavor of the week  “country” charts. I’m not in the business of puffing up entertainers that have more in common with REO Speedwagon than Hank Williams and my M.O., my brand if you will, has always been cream doesn’t necessarily rise to the top, sometimes it’s found around the edges.

George Strait is the type of rare bird that can sit on last week’s  #1 Billboard 200 and Country Chart spot and yet finds it’s place in my heart. It’s not that I hate popular country music per se, it’s just that most popular country music is made for, and consumed by, people that wouldn’t be caught dead with a Merle Haggard or Loretta Lynne CD in their collection and their idea of classic country is Alabama or Kenny Rogers.  George Strait is an neo-traditional alchemist that can please both the arena-filling masses and the discerning and grumpy critics like myself.

Maybe it’s his residence in Texas and his perceptible love of his (and my) home state’s regional flavor and away from the syrup factory of Music City, maybe it’s his sharp instincts for picking just the right songs to cover, whatever it is it’s been like a sound as a classic truck for over three multi-platinum decades.

Twang is Strait’s 25th studio album and his follow up to 2008’s excellent Troubadour and as subdued that earlier release was Twang is more like a celebration. The boisterous Bakersfield vibe of the Kendall Marvel, Jimmy Ritchey and Mr. Americana Jim Lauderdale penned title song comes right from the Buck Owens school of songwriting and lets it be known that Strait is not about to shy away from some hillbilly hell raising.  Where Have I Been All My Life and  Living For The Night are pure coming of age and heartache schmaltz (complete with string section), but Strait’s authentic delivery drives it right to the heart.

On Twang Strait steps up to the songwriting plate again for three songs co-written with his son, George “Bubba” Strait, Jr. The aforementioned  beer-soaked bawler Living for the Night,” the Ray Price-style crooner Out of Sight, Out of Mind and the frothy-lament He’s Got That Something Special. On his own Bubba penned the excellent Marty Robbins-style tale of the outlaw and gunfighter Dave Rudabaugh, Arkansas Dave.

Strait pays tribute to Texas’ neighbors with both the rollicking Gordon Bradberry and Tony Ramey penned Hot Grease and Zydeco and the José Alfredo Jiménez classic ranchera song El Ray that he does completely in Spanish.

Once again Strait proves that he’s the most consistent talent going and the current King of Country Music.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

4_rate

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9EJWIeNzIs[/youtube]

News Round Up: Johnny Cash Graphic Novel & Do You Look Like Tanya Tucker?

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  • PopMatters.cam has 20 questions for Austin’s neo-trad honky-tonker Wayne “The Train” Hancock.

I for one am glade that Terri Clark is back in action on the country music landscape and releasing a new album, The Long Way Home, this Tuesday. If the new single Gypsy Boots is any indication it’s going to be a great one!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ay-mXP-UU[/youtube]

News Round Up: Willie Twitters & A New Langhorne Slim Download

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  • Check out the “twitterview”  – a cute way of describing an interview conducted on twitter -  between TheBoot.com and Willie Nelson as was gearing up for his MySpace free secret concert in Maui, Hawaii.
  • Speaking of the twitterverse (yeah, I’m gonna get mileage out of this), Charlie Robison won’t have to travel far to play a private living room concert for the winner of his twitter concert. The winner lives in Austin.
  • The Grand Ole Opry will bring back it’s special Opry Country Classics program this fall for an eight-week run beginning Thurs., Sept. 10. Already scheduled to perform are Moe Bandy, Terri Clark, Jimmy Dickens, Larry Gatlin, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, George Jones, Ray Price, Joe Stampley, Marty Stuart, Mel Tillis, Pam Tillis, and Tanya Tucker.
  • Rosanne Cash will be the subject of the Americana Music Association’s Festival and Conference 2009 Keynote Interview. The interview will be conducted by author/journalist Michael Streissguth – who has written books on Rosanne as well as her father Johnny, Eddy Arnold and others – will take place Thursday, September 17 from 10:45 until noon at the Nashville Convention Center.
  • Jack Ingram established a new Guinness World Record – most radio interviews in a 24-hour period. Ingram was  promoting his new disc “Big Dreams & High Hopes.” Ingram recorded 215 radio interviews within 24 hours, hitting most of the 50 states, Canada, Ireland and Australia. The previous record was 96.

News Round Up: Patty Griffin & Bruce Robison News

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  • The New York Times also features a piece on Willie Nelson’s American Classic.
  • I have come to the acceptance step of the grief cycle, bit Todd VanDerWerff’s excellent and exhaustive re-review of the HBO Western series Deadwood at The Onion’s TV Club brings a smile to my face.
  • Check out Kim Ruehl’s interview with Santa Cruz’s roots band The Devil Makes Three from the Bumbershoot music festival.
  • Tom Russell posts a new addition to his blog giving context and back stories to the songs on his upcoming Calexeco-backed album Blood and Candle Smoke.
  • Bruce Robison posts on his MySpace blog that he will have a song in Texas cartoon mogal Mike Judge(Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill) film Extract and that he’ll be heading out  on tour with Robert Earl Keen and Todd Snider. (via the 9513.com)
  • Patty Griffin’s upcoming Buddy Miller produced Gospel album Downtown Church will be released in early 2010 and was recorded earlier this year in the sanctuary of the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, according to her website.

Willie Nelson Twitter Interview

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  • Willie Nelson will join TheBoot.com for a live “Twitterview” next Tuesday, Aug. 25, the same day as the release of his newest album American Classic. You can watch the live chat with Willie, starting at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesday, if you follow Willie Nelson and theBoot.com  on Twitter.
  • Joe Pug will be joining Steve Earle on his upcoming European tour. Pug’s  debut LP “Messenger” will be released in early 2010.
  • Austin’s jazz and western swing band Hot Club of Cowtown has released their new, Wishful Thinking.
  • The New York Time reviews a show at Joe’s Pub by Works Progress Administration (WPA). the expandable collective, featuring core members Luke Bulla (Lyle Lovett), Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek) and Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) and on this night featuring Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) pedal steel guitarist and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Greg Leisz (Bill Frisell, Dave Alvin, Lucinda Williams,  Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Whiskeytown, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and many more)
  • Chet Flippo sees compelling storytelling in videos by Toby Keith and Brad Paisley in his newest Nashville Skyline post. I see trite, if mildly clever,  symbolism  mirroring the trite song they represent. For shear technical and style excellence I still have to go with this one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtaJmrVfx8[/youtube]

Dolly Parton To Release 4-CD Box Set

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  • “Dolly,” a deluxe, 40CD box set covering Dolly Parton’s 4 decade spanning career to feature 99 hits , deep cuts, unreleased tracks, rarities and B-sides as well as 11 Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton duets.  The set will incude a 60-page full-color booklet including rare photography and memorabilia, plus liner notes by Laura Cantrell and by Holly George-Warren. The music selections will represent Dolly’s work with the Goldband, Mercury, Monument, RCA Victor, and Columbia labels. Available at both physical and digital retail outlets
    starting October 27, 2009, through RCA Nashville/Legacy. Available for pre-order at www.shopdolly.com
  • John Boncore, who plays a character named Predator in the upcoming Ray Wylie Hubbard’s western (co-wrote the script with Tiller Russell and provided the film’s score)  The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, let us know that the film premiered in Los Angeles on july 27th and are waiting to see if it gets picked up as a premier in the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals. No official release date has been set.
  • Watch the Avett Brothers Perform Off-Stage at the Newport Folk Festival. (Paste Magazine)
  • Apparently you have to be really drunk to enjoy a Kenny Chesney concert.
  • If you’re a touring musician or band that’s looking for a place to crash while on the road or someone with a couch or floor to offer check out the Better Than The Van website. It’s a networking site with a specific  purpose of providing  DIY support for working musicians and allowing fans to offer that support. (Austin Business Journal)

Music Review: Charlie Robison – Beautiful Day (Dualtone)

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On Beautiful Day Charlie Robison is a man wounded by love lost but with no time to bleed.

Robison stated in a recent interview that he and his then wife, Dixie Chicks’ Emily, decided to get a divorce on a day he was in the studio cutting a track for this album. The couple split in 2008 after nine years together cause given as “insupportable because of discord and or conflict of personalities.” They have three children.

It’s hard to know when the news came from the whole body of Beautiful Day because thematically it’s very cohesive. Though a casual listen to the album leaves the impression of a breezy slice of Summer country-rock diversion a closer inspection, past the artful musical arrangements, soaring vocals and bright production, shows the work wrapped around heartbreak and loss.

Robison has stated that Emily and he ended things on a amicable note, and that he “…let her hear the songs as he finished them because he didn’t want there to be any surprises.” but it’s hard for me to believe she didn’t wince a few times at the deceptively sunny title cut with lines like “Well she’s hanging down in Venice (CA) with her Siamese cat, she’s telling everybody she’s a Democrat” and “I promise you she’s never gonna get real fat, she’ll get a little lighter underneath her hat.” Zing!

The following songs move from pointing an accusing outward finger to pointing it back at the accuser. Yellow Blues opens with psychedelic guitar noodling then cribs a pace and phrasing from Steve Earle I’m Alright for song about emotional cowardice and Down Again slows the pace but guitarist Charlie Sexton still works his magic throughout this song about introspection that never falters into bitching and whining.

Nothin’ Better To Do keeps the jaunty self-flagellation going with a song penned by Bobby Bare Jr., a man that know his way around the dark whimsy of the human soul, and offering rose thorns like “…I’m in love with you ’cause I got nothin’ better to do…I got nothin’ better to do.”

Reconsider, written by Keith Gattis and Charles Brocco, is a straight ahead plea for second chances and regret of loss, complete with weeping pedal steel. Feelin’ Good finds Robison in the fifth stage of grief, acceptance, with this devil-may-care tune he heads down the road with top down and “Willie on the radio.”

With Beautiful Day Charlie Robison gives his brother Bruce a run for his songwriting money, and shows his distinctly Texas musical style. All while mining what must have been a difficult period and recovering wry and heartfelt gems. Feeling bad has rarely sounded this good.

Official Site | MySpace | twitter | Buy

4_rate

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

http://www.charlierobison.com/

Texas Monthly Features Five Texas Music Legends

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  • Texas Monthly’s Pitch Perfect features five legendary Texas musicians—Guy Clark, Patty Griffin, Sonny Throckmorton, Robert Earl Keen, and Jack Ingram— and asks them to sgare the mystic secrets to writing a great country song.  It’s a funny, informative a great read.
  • The nominees for the 20th International Bluegrass Music Awards Awards has been announced (Yay SteelDrivers!) The ceremony will be hosted by Grammy-winning country artist Kathy Mattea and the legendary bluegrass band, Hot Rize, on Thursday, October 1, 2009, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
  • Legendary guitar pioneer Les Paul died today at the age of 94 at White Plains Hospital due to complications from pneumonia.
  • More info on Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar work for the upcoming Jack Kerouac soundtrack collaborative album entitled “One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.”  The twelve song set is due October 20 via F-Stop/Atlantic and will serve as the soundtrack to the Kerouac documentary of the same title.  Farrar and Gibbard were approached by the filmmakers in 2007 about writing music for the film, which documents the events surrounding the author’s time spent in the Big Sur region of California.

Dale Watson: The Titanium Fox

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  • Patterson Hood and the Screwtopians stopped by the Daytrotter Sessions to lay down some Southern fried goodness.
  • The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame have inducted Texas natives Neal McCoy, Michael Martin Murphey and Linda Davis to be added to the previous years members that includes Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker and Jimmy Dean.
  • Producer and musician and Jim Rooney will be honored by the Americana Music Association with the Lifetime Achievement for Producer/Engineer award at the 8th Annual Americana Honors & Awards ceremony, scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 17 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Rooney has worked with John Prine, Iris DeMent, Tom Paxton and Peter Rowan – as well as his work on Nanci Griffith’s Grammy-winning “Other Voices Other Rooms. Rooney’s contributions as an engineer, musician, producer and songwriter has reached almost 150 albums to date.
  • Alluding to  Charlie Rich’s moniker The Silver Fox, The Scene designates Dale Watson the The titanium fox in this great interview featting classic exchanged like this:

SCENE: You write about the trucking life in the spirit of Dave Dudley and Red Sovine with maybe a touch of Cledus Maggard. What is the allure of that subject matter?

DW: I grew up when CB was king. There was an appreciation of the open road and the usefulness of the citizens band radio. Cell phones are great to keep in touch with the ones you love, but the CB is a useful tool to avoid some hazardous situations. Back then, Conway Twitty was big, the movie Convoy was popular, and the show BJ & the Bear was on TV.

SCENE: What the hell was happening on BJ & the Bear? At the end of each show the monkey would walk away with chicks in hot pants. What was supposed to happen between a monkey and human women?

DW: (laughing) I don’t want to think about it.

Unfortunately Dale is still raising his goofy Ameripolitan flag to describe his throwback honky-tonk sound.