• Hearya.com has posted four great live cuts from Justin Townes Earle. The cuts are “Lone Pine Hill,” “Who Am I To Say,”
  “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me” and “Turn Out My Lights.” The session was recorded along with his live show
  accompaniment and friend Cory Younts.
• Tickets for the July 5, 2008 Hootenanny in Orange County CA are on sale now.Some of the artists scheduled to appear are Mike Ness,BR549’s Chuck Mead,Royal Crown Revue, Cadillac Tramps, Grant Lee Phillips, Big Sandy, James Intveld, Guana Batz, Throw Rag, Blood on the Saddle, Roger Allen Wade, Russel Scott, Powerflex 5, Chris Schiflet, Dusty Rhodes, Rickey Warwick, Sh*tkickers, Hellbound Hayride and Wil Ridge
• Aquarium Drunkard has a great post on a two-volume Dirty Laundry compilation that rounds up a collection of black country-soul cuts from the sixties and seventies. Samples offered are James Brown doing Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart” and Bettye Swann doing  “Just Because You Can’t Be Mine.”
• CMT’s Unplugged at Studio 330 has Shooter Jennings playing some cuts off his latest release The Wolf.”

Galleywinter holds a Q&A with Matt Hillyer, lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of Texas’ best country band working today Eleven Hundred Springs. Hillyer talks about his influences, Texas musicians and juke joints, the stories behind some of EHS songs and the band’s upcoming Lloyd Maines produced release Country Jam (Palo Duro Records)

20. What do you see as the main difference between the music you’re making and the stuff you hear on mainstream radio?

We’re trying desperately to get back to the heart and soul of country music. You’ve got to get the blues back in to it. That heartfelt feeling that rings true for everyone. We’re trying to keep the formula simple in hopes it will be classic…or at least pay tribute to something classic.

(via the 9513)

If you find yourself in the Dallas area on May 31st get over to the Granada Theater to catch EHS for their CD release party and 10 year anniversary.

The Texas Yoda will appear in hip hop artist Snoop Dog’s latest video for his country-tinged song (co-wriiten by Everlast) “My Medicine”

Snoop says of the video “It has a country-music feel to it. I shot the video in Amsterdam and Nashville during the Country Music Awards. It feels good to me to be able to make music. It’s not a typical hip-hop song, but once people listen to it and see the visual effect to it, they’re gonna enjoy it.”

“I get to be a gun-slinging cowboy with my brim on, my boots on, my jeans on, my long jacket, jumping off a horse,” he added. “Walking into a brothel, spitting game, leaving with a dame and the money, mannn.”

Country Music Hall of Fame member in (1966) Eddy Arnold died on May 8, 2008, in Franklin, Tennessee, just one week short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold  brought country music into the 1940’s pop world then inhabited by crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby
was second only to George Jones in the number of individual hits on the country charts and is the all-time leader
in an overall ranking for hits and their time on the charts. From 1945 through 1983 he had 145 charted songs, including 28 number-one hits.

The fine folks over at the 9513 are recounting the events from this years 3 day Stagecoach Music Festival at Indio CA
(right down interstate 10 from Palm Springs.)

I hope to catch Stagecoach next year because it offers a wide array of talent that country music all at one geographically beautiful venue.

If your reading this in the Charlottesville, VA area and are a Gary Allen fan you will want to head over to cvilleMUSE.com to try and win two box tickets and a free parking pass to the upcoming Gary Allan show at the Charlottesville Pavilion, this Thursday, May 8th.

Just leave a comment below on their contest page with your real email address. cvilleMUSE.com will randomly select the winner of the 2 tickets and the free parking pass at 10AM on Thursday morning!

CMT’s Chet Flippo again shows his impeccable taste by using his current Nashville Skyline to shower deserved accolades on this year’s Hall of Fame inductee Emmylou Harris.

“I can’t think of a person who has done more good for country music than Harris.” says Flippo. Amen brother. I don’t know how you keep such great taste amidst the land of $500.00 jeans and glittery guitars.

Harris’ new release All I Intended To Be (June 10 - Nonesuch Records) will be her first solo release since 2003’s Stumble Into Grace and was recorded in Nashville over a four-year period with her longtime producer Brian Ahern. Te release will contain both original material and some of Harris’ all-time favorite songs, featuring guest vocals by Dolly Parton, Vince Gill and Buddy Miller.

(via 9513)

EMI Music Marketing and Twangnation.com are giving you the chance to win a copy of the new CD/DVD collection Classic Chris Ledoux.

Honoring his authentic and lasting legacy of cowboy songwriting, recording and performing, Capitol Nashville/EMI will release Classic Chris LeDoux, a new CD/DVD and digital collection of his top recordings and videos, on April 29. Among the 16 audio tracks and 16 videos on the new collection are LeDoux’s “Bang A Drum” with Jon Bon Jovi, “Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy” with Garth Brooks, and the music video for “Ridin’ For A Fall,” making its commercial release debut.

Prize Details:
Three (3) Grand Prize Winners will receive a prize including: One (1) copy of the new Classic Chris Ledoux CD/DVD
Closing Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Midnight EST
Draw Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I’m drawn to music that sounds both timeless and new. It represents to me the concept of the connection in time of the past and future all running like a river with us standing right in the middle with the muddy now caking our boots. It also assures me that there are forms of innovation happening within country and roots music that stand starkly in contrast to the Nash-pop variety (which is not always bad, but I’ll post more on that later.)

I’ve come across a couple of ladies making waves in that river of time and music by showing a palpable reverence for country music’s traditional roots while bringing a refreshing shot of indie creativity and a sense of daring into the mix.

Colorado native and Seattle resident and Sera Cahoone’s early life experiments with the sax and junior high musical path that led her to the drums where she established her bona-fides as a drummer for the now-defunct indie sadcore band Carissa’s Weird (who’s members also included Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke now in the group Band of Horses) led to her surprising sophomore solo outing “Only as the Day Is Long.” the release is a country-noir landscape where Cahoone’s voice stretches sleepily over spare, atmospheric dobro, pedal steel, guitar, and fiddle backing. Like a slow-core book end to Neko Case’s Furnace Room Lullaby Cahoone’s themes of innocence, hope and dread are woven throughout. With titles like “The Colder the Air,” “Happy When I’m Gone,” and “Shitty Hotel” you know your not in for a sunny romp, but country and roots music has always mined a rich vein of the melancholy and Sera Cahoone has staked a rich emotional and musical claim.

As her early incarnation with the moniker Save Macaulay a teenager Nashville’s Caitlin Rose was able to deliver classic country tunes with respect and authority in her distinctively Dolly meetsEmmylou vocal style. After dropping alias and at the ripe old age of 20 this Waffle House aficionado has released a quirky and beautiful EP that was cut in two days in November 2007 at the Bombshelter studios in East Nashville.

The love of country’s history exhibited immediately with the EP’s packaging and on the first cut of the Dead Flowers EP. With ‘Shotgun Wedding” Rose sings the tune with a Smokey Mountain lilt over Bob Grant’s excellent mandolin . “Answer In One Of These Bottles” takes it’s place with another classic narrative of drinking to forget Rose then shows she has the pipes to take on the Patsy Cline classic Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray as she covers it with all it’sforelorn beauty. Docket is a quirky Kris Kristofferson -style solo-guitar number that is perfect Summer listening and a lone tambourine accompanies the whimsical Gorilla Man brings to mind ShelSilverstein play on words. Rose then tackles the classic Cosmic American Rolling Stones-come-Gram-Parson a;;ad of heroin overdose from which this stellar EP derives it’s title.

“Only as the Day Is Long” - Sera Cahoone

“Dead Flowers EP” - Caitlin Rose