Last night David Letterman continued championing Americana and roots music in the New Year by inviting Lera Lynn (“From Nash-VEGAS Tennessee!” Letterman announces as a inside joke with his maestro sidekick Paul Shaffer ) to the Late Show stage.
Lynn may make her home in Nash-Vegas now, but she’s a Houston, TX girl by birth.
Lynn and her band deliver a simmeringly lush yet low-key version of “Out to Sea” from her sophomore offering “The Avenues,” which made our 2014 year-end list at #12.
“I think the…Western swing, or whatever you want to call it, will slack off for a little while and then I think some of these younger boys will come out here one of these days with a golden voice and it’ll build again.â€â€”Bob Wills
After attending the Bob Wills Festival and Fiddle contest in Greenville, TX over the winter I developed a deep love for the Western Swing genre and for it’s creator, Bob Wills.
But I’m ready for more.
Luckily early in the new year Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel will again honor the legendary Bob Wills with ‘Still The King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys,’ out March 3 on Bismeaux Records.
Exemplary Americana and country artists like The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Buddy Miller, Elizabeth Cook, Lyle Lovett, Shooter Jennings, Brad Paisley and George Strait join the band on new interpretations on classics on, what looks like, a release that will best the previous two Will’s tributes from the band.
For over 40 years, Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel have been the deft practitioners and caretakers of Western swing craft, carrying Wills’ traditions across generations and the into the 21st century.
This release will be band’s third full-length Bob Wills tribute following 1998’s ‘Ride with Bob’ and 1993’s ‘A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills,’ with four GRAMMY awards and over half a million copies sold collectively.
From the press release:
“The new album features genre-spanning collaborations with critically acclaimed artists, old friends and new favorites including Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, Jamey Johnson, Merle Haggard, George Strait, The Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Old Crow Medicine Show, Lyle Lovett, Kat Edmonson, Robert Earl Keen and Tommy Emmanuel, among many others. The album is available for pre-order via PledgeMusic and iTunes with the track “Tiger Rag,†featuring Old Crow Medicine Show, delivered in advance of the release date as an immediate download. Asleep at the Wheel will be performing at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on March 4 with spring tour dates to be announced. Watch the exclusive video teaser HERE. Please see the full track listing below.
Widely considered “The King of Western Swing,†Bob Wills (1905-1975) and his Texas Playboys performed thousands of shows across the United Sates for nearly six decades and recorded prolifically in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s. Early stars of American country music, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys were a dance band with a country string section that played pop songs as if they were jazz numbers. “After 45 years of traveling and playing, it still amazes me how well this music, born in the 1920s and ‘30s, thrives in the present day,†says Benson. “The artists playing and singing on this collection range in age from folks in their 20s to former Texas Playboys 92-year-old Billy Briggs and 86-year-old Leon Rausch…certain evidence that Western swing music is alive and well as it cruises through the next millennium.†Bob Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Fiddler Hall of Fame in 2007.
Based in Austin, Asleep at the Wheel formed in Paw Paw, West Virginia in 1970. Since their inception, the band has won nine GRAMMY awards, released more than 20 studio albums and charted more than 20 singles on the Billboard country charts. In 1971, the band signed their first record deal after Van Morrison mentioned they “play great country music†in an interview in Rolling Stone. Their debut record, Comin’ Right At Ya, was released in 1973 on United Artists. The release of Texas Gold in 1975 brought the band national recognition, with the single “The Letter That Johnny Walker Read†becoming a top-ten country hit. The band has been awarded “Touring Band of the Year†(CMAs, 1976) and the “Lifetime Achievement in Performance†(Americana Music Awards 2009). In 2010, they earned a GRAMMY nomination in the newly minted Best Americana Album category for their critically acclaimed Willie & The Wheel, on Bismeaux Records.
Owned by Ray Benson, Bismeaux Records has won “Best Local Record Label†three years consecutively in the Austin Music Awards. Between 2005 and 2012, Ray Benson wrote, produced and starred in the Bob Wills musical A Ride With Bob. The production sold 70,000 tickets in 18 cities nationwide including the Kennedy Center in 2006. In 2007, Benson performed with Carrie Underwood & Johnny Gimble on the GRAMMY Awards Telecast in a special GRAMMY Salute to Bob Wills.”
‘Still The King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys’ tracklist:
1. Intro—Texas Playboy Theme (with Leon Rausch)
2. I Hear Ya Talkin’ (with Amos Lee)
3. The Girl I Left Behind (with The Avett Brothers)
4. Trouble In Mind (with Lyle Lovett)
5. Keeper Of My Heart (with Merle Haggard and Emily Gimble)
6. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (with Kat Edmonson)
7. Tiger Rag (with Old Crow Medicine Show)
8. What’s The Matter With The Mill (with Pokey LaFarge)
9. Navajo Trail (with Willie Nelson and The Quebe Sisters)
10. Silver Dew On The Bluegrass Tonight (with The Del McCoury Band)
11. Faded Love (with The Time Jumpers)
12. South Of The Border (Down Mexico Way) (with George Strait)
13. I Had Someone Else Before I Had You (with Elizabeth Cook)
14. My Window Faces The South (with Brad Paisley)
15. Time Changes Everything (with Buddy Miller)
16. A Good Man Is Hard To Fine (with Carrie Rodriguez and Emily Gimble)
17. Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas (with Robert Earl Keen and Ray Benson)
18. Brain Cloudy Blues (with Jamey Johnson and Ray Benson)
19. Bubbles In My Beer (with The Devil Makes Three)
20. It’s All Your Fault (with Katie Shore)
21. Three Guitar Special (with Tommy Emmanuel, Brent Mason and Billy Briggs)
22. Bob Wills Is Still The King (with Shooter Jennings, Randy Rogers and Reckless Kelly)
It’s a bumper year for Willie Nelson fans. The best selling ‘Band of Brothers” was released over the summer and as reported earlier, his second album of 2014, December Day, a collection cut with his sister and longtime musical partner Bobbie Nelson will be released next week .
Nelson has just releases a video for an updated version of his song “Who’ll Buy My Memories,†from his 1992 ‘IRS Tapes’ which helped pay of his well-publicized tax debt at the time.
The video is a quiet and intimate look at the Nelson siblings doing what they’ve been doing for over 40 years. Playing in beautiful harmony.
On November 25th, 1976, Thanksgiving Day, San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom was the setting for the end of an era. One that had started seventeen years earlier when Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson aligned as The Hawks, a backing band for rockabilly pioneer Ronnie Hawkins.
The concert most famously known as ‘The Last Waltz,’ from the Martin Scorsese documentary and resulting best-selling soundtrack, was part fan’s, friend’s and peer’s celebration of a legendary band and a grand and final statement mandated by Robertson, who unilaterally wanted to end The Band as a touring entity.
Through Scorsese’s studied gaze, and his love of music, the film delivers an intimate and exuberant slice of music history But off-screen business maneuvering, lawyers and a fair amount of paranoia and hubris tainted the celebration and drove a wedge between Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson that time, and lawyers, never remedied.
As Helm recalled in his book ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’ Robertson “… was saying he was sick of it all. He wanted to keep on recording with us, but not go on the road. ‘We’re not learning anything, man. It’s not doing anything for us, and in fact it feels dangerous to me. Look what’s happening, Levon. I’m getting superstitious. Look at Dayton Stratton (a friend and associate of The Band who had died in an air crash). Every time I get on the plane I’m thinking about this stuff. The whole thing just isn’t healthy anymore.’
Set designer Boris Leven lent a deft hand in creating a cozy yet grand stage aesthetic. Using stored props from Opera Company of San Francisco’s production of Verdi’s opera ‘La Traviata’ – columns, chandeliers, crimson wall hangings – Leven grandly melded lavish pomp with living room comfort to set a fitting au revoir.
Contrast this with the ‘Cocteau Room.’ A backstage space painted white walls to ceiling, with white carpeting. Also furnished was a glass table strewn with razor blades for the express purpose of cocaine use for the gathered guests. Helm remembers Scorsese being so wired that “he talked so fast I barely understood a word he said.”
Though there’s no denying the talent and magic of some of the performances, I’m left wondering if this was a bit of thunder stealing. After a spirited full set by The Band, complete with horns arranged by Allen Toussaint, the latter portion of the bill relinquished The Band to back-up positions. Not only of their former frontmen Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan but also for Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and others who performed their own songs.
Though this no doubt broadened the marketing potential for the movie and soundtrack I personally believe it was taking the spotlight from its proper focus, The Band and their musical legacy. Wouldn’t it have been more fitting, and appropriate if these artists were brought on to support the group in their own songs and them maybe then given one of their own? I believe so.
But it’s all history now, and the music remains. This was even more poignant to me after I happened across this great raw footage of the event. Footage that shows the performances like the crowd that night experienced it.
Let us give thanks that The Band was with us, no matter how briefly, and left a rich musical trail-blazing legacy still followed, and celebrated today.
On a North Texas night chilled by an early winter snap Merle Haggard and Marty Stuart brought a welcome reprieve by turning up the heat.
“I hope you didn’t come looking for some fancy show. If you did you just wasted your money!” Stuart grinned, making a reference to the lavish Ft. Worth venue typically showcasing symphonies, ballets, operas and musicals.
But not tonight. This cold night the capacity-filled Bass hall had been transformed into a rowdy roadhouse, though a tad highfalutin one.
No chairs or longnecks were thrown (and no chicken wire across the stage required) during Stuart’s set but the atmosphere created was just that. Stuart is the consummate showman – in tight leather pants and silver rooster comb of hair – as he worked the crowd into a frenzy. Well, the crowd was largely equally as sliver, so let’s say a tizzy. He and his always extraordinary band, the Fabulous Superlatives – Kenny Vaughan on guitar, Harry Stinson on drums and Paul Martin on bass, – brought a level of bluegrass-level virtuosity that Start had honed personally from his many years in country music, including his start with Lester Flatt. The majority of the brief but satisfying set was from their just-released double album, “Saturday Night/Sunday Morning.” Honky-tonk barn-burners mixed with Gospel pew-kneelers set toes-tapping and hands-clapping.
And in the case of Stuart’s astonishing mandolin solo, jaws dropping.
As Merle Haggard said later in the program “Marty likes to work in Nashville, I DON’T! But he keeps that town alive.”
Stuart introduced the 77-year-old Haggard as he strolled out on stage as nonchalantly as a living legend might.
The classics kept coming, his own hits like “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star,†Silver Wings,†“I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink†and others including Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,†Blaze Foley’s “If I Could Only Fly,†and the Townes Van Zandt he and Willie made into a radio staple “Pancho and Lefty.”
A hush fell over the crowd during his reverent rendition of “Are the Good Times Really Over.” As the song reminiscences simpler times, and better music, without resorting to saccharin tropes of as he asks teh question most of us ask whe watching a oucntry awards program, “Are the good times really over for good?â€
Not as long as Haggard and Stuart walk this earth.
Haggard appeared to be a bit winded and he mentioned several times about “Being out of breath” and feeling like he was having an “asthma attack.” Given hsi recent history with health issue there was palpable concern and calls of encouragement as he sipped some hot tea a delivered on-stage by a background singer.
The one soap-box moment of the night came when Haggard asked the audience who was in favor for legalization of marijuana? He then asked “Who’s against it?” Following rhetorically with, “Why?” (video below)
Are the good times really over for good? Not as long as Haggard and Stuart walk this earth.
Merle Haggard’s set list: “Big City,†“Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star,†Silver Wings,†“Folsom Prison Blues,†“I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink,†“If I Could Only Fly,†“I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,†“Mama Tried,†“The Bottle Let Me Down,†“If We Make It Through December,†“Are the Good Times Really Over,†“Pancho and Lefty,†“Footlights,†“Train of Life,†“San Antonio Rose,†“Old Fashioned Love,†“Working in Tennessee†(with Marty Stuart) and “Okie From Muskogee†(with Marty Stuart) No encore.
There’s nothing fancy about Denmark’s J.Tex & The Volunteers’ video for “This Old Banjo.” Just a blank wall and J.Tex strolling alone (what have you done with The Volunteers?!) against a blank wall and singing.
Hell, he’s not even playing a banjo!
But what a song! J.Tex uses the banjo as an emotional proxy, reflecting melancholy memories and mourning lost opportunity. Like songs never written.
Luckily, this one was.
“This Old Banjo” will be on the new album “Old Ways vs. New Days,†out January 30th.
There’s a ferocity to Angaleena Presley’s song ‘Pain Pills.’ It’s theme of working class addiction and hypocrisy is not new, but Presley puts her unflinching spin on it with a driving hillbilly meets metal sound that is striking and fits the theme of mortality to a tee.
“A little bit of hurt surely gonna kill a lot of good people in these here hills. Lord, won’t you save us from these old pain pillsâ€
The video shows Presley singing among quick cuts of doctors satchels, DÃa de Muertos make-up, grave diggers and a man that might be Dr. Brown or, perhaps, el diablo himself.
“I started [that song] as I was on my way home from a funeral,†she told Radio.com. “A friend of mine from high school OD’d [and] at the funeral the mom was walking in going, ‘Oh they had a heart problem. It was a heart issue.’ We knew what was going on. This is when I realized, this is starting to become a problem.â€
“Pain Pills” is available on the album “American Middle Class”
First Aid Kit have the kind heavenly resonance that occurs only with sibling close harmony singing. And it shines most brightly on their song “Stay Gold.â€
The folk-pop Swedish duo have released a new music video for the song. Directed by Alex Southam and shot on the Swedish island of Gotland.
The shadowy and saturated imagery of the beautiful landscape and Klara and Johanna Söderberg singing along (and sometimes in contemplative repose) fits the shimmery arrangement shrouding a song about fleeting beauty and potential futility.
Tour Dates (w/ support from Samantha Crain):
10/28 – Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
10/29 – Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN
11/01 – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA
11/02 – Music Farm – Charleston, SC
11/04 – The Beacham Theatre – Orlando, FL
11/05 – The Ritz Ybor – Tampa, FL
11/06 – House of Blues New Orleans – New Orleans, LA
11/07 – Granada Theater – Dallas, TX
11/08 – Fun Fun Fun Fest – Austin, TX
11/10 – The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
11/12 – Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA
11/13 – Fox Theater – Oakland, CA
11/14 – Roseland Theater – Portland, OR
11/15 – Moore Theatre – Seattle, WA
11/17 – The Complex – Salt Lake City, UT
11/18 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
11/20 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
11/21 – Bradley Fine Arts Building – Plymouth, WI
11/22 – Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL
Fort Pierce, FL.- based Gravel Kings found a fitting and welcome place to film the video for their song “Boozgeois Blues,” the song’s namesake and hometown bar Boozgeois Saloon. The song is a tuneful and rollicking folk-pop gem that both celebrates and bids adieu to the place and folks featured.
From the band: “Most the lyrics for the band’s new album, “Arrows & Maps,” were written in that bar or inspired by events that took place there. On the day the album was released, 9/23/14, the band announced a free surprise show at Boozgeois Saloon. From there Lance Camp of Turtle Junk Films and over 100 friends and fans packed in to the tiny bar for an intimate performance as the band played their new album in it’s entirety.”
The Gravel Kings embrace the essence of folk and rock. In a time where auto-tune and sound effects dominate lead singer Zack Jones and Joey Johnson on banjo / dobro focused on craft and live performance with the Gravel Kings, rounding out with Douglas French on drums and James Dickens on bass.
Sure Red Molly is an all female folk/newgrass trio. That’s incidental. The more important point is that they are a great folk/newgrass trio.
Red Molly – Laurie MacAllister (vocals, guitar, banjo), Abbie Gardner (vocals, guitar, Dobro, lap steel guitar), and Molly Venter (vocals, guitar,) who’s band came from a character in the Richard Thompson song “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” echo a little Alison Krauss, a little The Mamas & the Papas, a lot of spirit.
That potent mix blended with sweet harmony has resulted in the band accumulating a sizable following of “Redheads.” as their fans are called.
“Clinch River Blues†is written by A.J. Roach the is the first track from Red Molly’s latest Red Album.
Song written by A.J. Roach. Video created by Asia Kepka.
