News Round Up: Bruce Robison Video Diary, E.C. and Orna Ball Tribute

  • 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.
  • Check out the excellent videos of Casey Driessen’s 5-string fiddle hunt video over at Bluegrass Blog.
  • Steel guitarist Robert D. Norred, one-time member of Hank Williams’ backing band for a short period in the late 1940s, died Sunday, Oct. 25.
  • Face A Frowning World (Available 12/8 – Tompkins Square) is a tribute to the old-timey and gospel music of  E.C. Ball and his wife Orna. The couple were lesser known contemporaries of the Carter Family and seldom ventured far from their home on the Virginia-North Carolina boarder (in Rugby, VA) where they owned a general store and service station. Featured performance by  Jon Langford,  The Handsome Family (offered as a download below),  Michael Hurley, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the Health & Happiness Family Gospel Band of Louisville, Kentucky, and many others.

Jenny Jenkins by The Handsome Family

When I Get Home I’m Gonna Be Satisfied by Jon Langford

Steel guitarist Robert D. Norred, one-time member of Hank Williams’ backing band for a short period in the late 1940s, died Sunday, Oct. 25.

#c0c0b4

Charlie Louvin Reviewed on Pitchfork.com

  • Pitchfork.com reviews legendary country singer Charlie Louvin‘s two recent Tompkins Square releases, the Grammy nominated Steps to Heaven and Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs. The 81-year-old Louvin will start a Spring tour starting at Los Angeles’ Spaceland on Feruary 7th.
  • PopMatters.com asks 20 questions of roots/jazz fiddler Casey Driessen where Driessen recounts taking his fist sip of beer, furnished by his then Berklee College of music roommate and fellow fiddler Carrie Rodriguez at the tender age of 21.
  • Roots singer/songwriter Patty Griffin was spotted at the Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church working on her Buddy Miller produced new release which is expected soemtime in 2009. (The Tennessean)