If your in the 5 boroughs next Tuesday head on over to the Rockwood Music Hall to catch singer/songwriter Joe Whyte and his band. Whyte won’t be playing these parts until May so ya’ll head on over!
Tuesday, March 11
Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen St., NYC
8pm
FREE!!
The New York Times has a nice piece on something I’ve seen first hand. the rising popularity of Roots Music here in New York. The city that gave you the smoky Greenwich Village folk clubs from the 60’s seems posed to offer the same proving ground for roots and Americana music.
From the article: “There’s another generation of people who want to hear music that’s accessible, that’s not a prefab product, that’s lyric based but not preachy,” said Adam Levy, a guitarist and singer-songwriter who has played on all of Ms. (Norah) Jones’s albums. “If there’s a roots movement in New York now, I think of it in those terms.”
Austin’s Yard Dog Gallery will host a showing by El Paso resident and renowned singer/songwriter and painter, Tom Russell.
The majority of the paintings in the show pay tribute to a group of jazz musicians from Juarez, Mexico. They were premier musicians who played in the top night spots of Juarez in its heyday, even backed Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, but lost their lives when their bus went off a cliff in 1953.
Opening reception is Friday February 15th 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Tom will play a few songs at the opening. Afterward, he will be playing at the Cactus Café.
Yard Dog
1510 S Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78704
512.912.1613
Okay, so the Grammys didn’t completely blow, just about 97% did. There were some greats - Aretha, Tina, John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, some damn good - Foo Fighters, The Time, some suprises (Amy Winehouse was good and seemed SOBER!) And then there was the crap, well that would make my hand cramp to write it. Some stand outs for me:
Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album: Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade [New West Records]
Best Traditional Folk Album: Levon Helm - Dirt Farmer [Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard Records]
Best Southern, Country, Or Bluegrass Gospel Album: Ricky Skaggs & The Whites - Salt Of The Earth [Skaggs Family Records]
Best Bluegrass Album: Jim Lauderdale - The Bluegrass Diaries [Yep Roc Records]
Best Country Instrumental Performance: Brad Paisley - Throttleneck from: 5th Gear [Arista Nashville]
Best Country Collaboration With Vocals: Willie Nelson & Ray Price - Lost Highway from: Last Of The Breed [Lost Highway Records]
Best Country Album (and best on camera slam of Kanye West!): Vince Gill - These Days [MCA Nashville]
Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) [Rounder Records]
Best Historical Album: Woody Guthrie - The Live Wire [Woody Guthrie Publications]
And Uncle Tony, you were robbed! Next year, man….
If you like your music nice and neat and fitting within a particular predictable genre or style, then stay far, far away
from Canadian roots-rock duo Twilight Hotel.
Brandy Zdan (vocals, electric/acoustic guitar, accordion) and Dave Quanbury (vocals, electric/acoustic guitar) hail from Winnipeg on the Eastern edge of the prairie region of Western Canada (eight hours north of Minneapolis via 9513). I don’t know much about the region, but if Twilight Hotel’s new release “Highway Prayer” is any cultural barometer of the area, it seems to be chilly, desolate albeit fertile terrain.
Twilight Hotel are no newcomers to the game. After recording their first self-titled LP in 2003, Zdan and Quanbury have been a hot item in Canadian roots circles and have played more than 200 North American dates in 2007.
Highway Prayer finds Zdan and Quanbury putting all those dues paid on full display as they artfully craft a pan-American
world placed somewhere between Andrew Bird’s jazz-gypsy-folk and and Johnny and June’s soulful-earthy duets. Halfway between the cafe’ and the roadhouse. The stories on “Highway Prayer” unfold like a dark map of the heart and carries on the fine folk/country tradition of storytelling from the point of view of those inflicting or bearing hardships.Recorded in Nashville, TN, Highway Prayer, features noable guest musicians including the late Richard Bell (Janis Joplin, The Band), Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits), and Dave Roe (Johnny Cash).
Things blasts to life with “Viva la Vinyl,” a rave-up-scat-duet ode to the joy of analog music recordings which sounds as joyous and as impromptu porch jam session with plenty of sour mash being passed and hoisted.
On “No Place for a Woman” MS. Zdan belts out a reverb-draped lament about a family’s rough life in the coal mine. “Impatient Love” is a yearning duet that highlights the couples harmony and shimmers in it’s beauty. The title cut takes us out to the dark, desolate dirt roads made familiar by Neko Case and is made even more forbidding by Richard Bell organ work.
Slumber Queen is a a hard-coiled cha-cha in the gypsy-jazz vein of Andrew Bird and Iowalta Morningside follows hot on it’s trail with a chilly night-life narrative that Nick Cave would be proud of. On Shadow of a Man Zdan moves us into the gritty junk yard baroque jazz were Tom Waits reigns supreme and she does a fine job of marking her territory.
As mentioned before Richard Bell, the Canadian musician perhaps best remembered as the pianist for Janis Joplin and her Full Tilt Boogie Band, lent his considerable talent to what was to be his last work and “Highway Prayer” is made even more spectacular because of it. The last track Best Buds showcases Bell and dobro player Colin Linden is a great testament to the man and his talent.
Twilight Hotel- Viva la Vinyl
Looking for something to pass the time while you wait on that Led Zeppelin reunion tour? No Depression reports that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are taking their deliriously wonderful Raising Sand collaboration on the road beginning April 20 with a handful of dates in the mid-South.
Producer T Bone Burnett is set to lead their band, which is to include guitarist Buddy Miller. The rest of the band has not been announced. Sets will include material from their sole album together, and from their respective careers. CMT is airing a preview of sorts on February 11 as part of their “Crossroads” series.
Tickets go on sale January 25 for the four U.S. dates below. It is followed by an 11-date tour of Europe (no specifics yet), with further U.S. dates to be announced for June and July.
The tour begins here:
April 20 (Sunday) Louisville, KY (Palace Theatre)
April 22 (Tuesday) Knoxville, TN (Knoxville Civic Coliseum)
April 23 (Wednesday) Chattanooga, TN (Memorial Auditorium)
April 26 (Saturday) Birmingham, AL (BJCC Arena)
Ticket prices have not been announced.
James McMurtry is one of my favorite performers and I’m really looking forward to this release!
AUSTIN, Texas — Lightning Rod Records will release singer/songwriter James McMurtry’s new CD, titled Just Us Kids, on April 15, 2008. McMurtry’s ninth album, which features 12 new songs, is a follow-up to 2005’s critically acclaimed and award-winning project, Childish Things.
McMurtry has long been known as fine storyteller, but he has lately received nationwide attention for his role as a musical activist. On Just Us Kids, McMurtry picks up where he left off with his controversial anthem “We Can’t Make It Here.” On “Cheney’s Toy,” McMurtry once again reminds us that the war in Iraq is still going on, with veiled references to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the stark image of a soldier who returned from the conflict, blind and brain damaged. The lyrics of “God Bless America” call out the corporate profiteering and cronyism of the heads of state who led the country to war. McMurtry’s songs introduce the listener to characters that exist on the fringes of society. Drug addicts, murderers, crooked politicians, and other unsavory folks all play a part on Just Us Kids.
The self-produced album shows that McMurtry has developed a skill as producer that matches his songcraft. The songs on Just Us Kids vary widely in texture and instrumentation. The Faces’ Ian McLagan’s piano playing is all over the album while Timbuk3’s pat mAcdonald’s harmonica peppers several tracks. Austin singer/songwriter John Dee Graham contributes a wailing guitar solo to “Fireline Road.” Grammy-nominated Louisiana rocker, C.C. Adcock, adds a swampy guitar part to the album opener, “Bayou Tortous.” The rhythm section is McMurtry’s longtime road band, Daren Hess and Ronnie Johnson.
Just Us Kids will be the first release for Nashville-based Lightning Rod Records, distributed by Thirty Tigers/RED. Label president Logan Rogers previously worked as director of A&R for Compadre Records on the release of McMurtry’s last two albums. “Working with James McMurtry has been a career highlight for me. He is a phenomenal artist with tremendous integrity, and I can think of no better debut release for Lightning Rod Records,” said Rogers.
Author Stephen King described Ft. Worth native McMurtry as “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation” in Entertainment Weekly. The son of acclaimed author Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment), James grew up on a steady diet of Johnny Cash and Roy Acuff records. His first album, released in 1989, was produced by John Mellencamp and marked the beginning of a series of acclaimed projects for Columbia and Sugar Hill. In 2003, McMurtry released the universally lauded Live in Aught-Three (Compadre Records). 2005’s Childish Things garnered some of the highest critical praise of McMurtry’s career and spent six weeks at number one on R&R’s Americana Music Radio Chart in 2005 and 2006. In September 2006, Childish Things and “We Can’t Make It Here” won the Americana Music Awards for album and song of the year, respectively.
In 2007, McMurtry performed on PBS’ long running music program, “Austin City Limits,” for the second time in his career. This year, McMurtry and his band will launch a national tour in support of Just Us Kids.
The Americana Music Association has published it’s top 100 albums for 2007 based on airplay spins. Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams and Kelly Willis top the list.
As always a great group of artists are represented and it makes for a handy list for last minute shopping!
Adding to their earlier list of country, pop-country and singer-songwriter albums of 2007, PopMatters.com adds their list of 2007’s best Americana music. Or as I like to call it, the stuff that doesn’t fit the narrow country mold cast by Nashville and usually kicks that woeful genres ass. Where else could the likes of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers (who once opened for Plant on tour) and Bettye LaVette be found on the same list? Like America herself, this is a big tent. Look for Twang Nation’s list of the best of 2997 next week.
