Ray Davies Goes Country

Yahoo Music’s Rock’s Backpages post “Cry Me A River: The 20 Most Heartbreaking Songs Of All Time!” a while back. Aside from how ridiculous and random a list like this is, I have to agree with their #1 choice, George Jones: “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”* (thanks to my lovely wife, Barbara for this find.)

From Dave Paulson at the The Tennessean: It looks like the brit-pop legend and Kink’s front man Ray Davies is following the lead of his ex-wife, the Pretenders Chrissie Hynde’s, by channeling his inner cowpoke on his next release. Davies’ new album Working Man’s Café was recorded in Hermitage (near Nashville) with producer Ray Kennedy and a top notch teamof Nashville session players over 14 days — in what he calls “classic Nashville style.” Davies says he was taken by the musical culture of Nashville by a visit to the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium in 2001.

You know you’ve achieved immortality when you have a knife designed for you. Gerald Myatt, owner of Standing Stone Cutlery in Cookeville, Tennessee, has been commissioned to create a collectable knife for the family of A.P. Carter, the founder of the legendary country music group, the Carter Family.

Chrissie Hynde Goes Country

Popmatters.com has a review of the DVD “Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music” which they discribe as “Informative and educational, intriguing and entertaining, part American history lesson, part biography and part concert film…”

The good folks over at The 9513 brought to my attention that current Twang Nation favorite Jamey Johnson will be joining Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, and Kenny Chesney (?!) for the 2008 Farm Aid music festival in New England on Sept. 20. Nashville Scene (High Lonesome Sound) and CMT.com(Don’t Tell Jamey Johnson That He’s “Too Country”) both offer features on Johnson.

The guardian.co.uk Music Blog has a brief run down of the current state of American alt.country/Americana scene (Are you ready for (more of) the country?)

Chrissie Hynde of the bad the Pretenders states that the bands first new album in six years (“Break up the Concrete”) will be “moving in a country direction.” Of all the country music carpet bagging that has been happening recently I have to say that a musician with Hynde’s credibility makes me think she’ll do it right, but she is a vegitarian, so does this mean that Jessica Simpson has to get another t-shirt?