Texas Monthly Features Five Texas Music Legends

  • 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.

Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar Collaborate on Jack Kerouac Inspired Album

  • Gothic-roots band Builders and the Butchers premier their first ever music video Golden and Green (and they used one of my favorite fonts, Bleeding Cowboy,  for the opener. Cool!) The song is great and the video is an odd mash-up of an early 20th century gang post-heist, the 1963 film Children of the Damned and Narnia. (Spinner)
  • Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile‘s third album, Give Up The Ghost, will be released on Columbia Records this fall.  The album is produced by Rick Rubin. Carlile has announced the dates for her Give Up The Ghost Traveling Show beginning September 10th at The Depot in Salt Lake City, UT.   The tour will make stops at legendary venues across the country including Chicago’s House of Blues, New York’s Beacon Theatre and The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
  • Ricky Skaggs  will honor the man who introduced him to bluegrass. On Sept. 15, Skaggs will release Ricky Skaggs Solo (Songs My Dad Loved) on his own Skaggs Family Records featuring 13 tunes he was introduced to by his father, Hobert Skaggs. (Billboard)
  • Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Son Volt’s Jay Farrar are collaborating on an album inspired by legendary Beat writer Jack Kerouac. (Spinner)