That bastion of righteous irony, Stephen Colbert, will celebrate the impending consumer slump this Sunday with A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All.

Colbert fights the “war on Christmas” with this surreal bit of spiked nog that sxews Christmas specials of the past. Think Andy Williams in a cabin in rural Michigan and the town nearby has a gas leak that’s making eveyone act strangley. The strangeness is offered by the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, John Legend, Toby Keith, and Feist.

I have to say, I’m not a big fan of Toby Keith, but after seeing him do a send up of, well, himself singing a song about Santa dropping nukes from his sleigh on heretics who don’t believe in Jesus or Santa, who Keith explains are actually the same person, Keith might have a new fan.

PopMatters’com writer Jason Gross has a nice write up on the Legacy Edition release of the Johnny Cash classic country music milestone At Folsom Prison. Gross does a fine job of not only setting the stage for that day at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California on January 13, 1968 – which this release highlights the full Cash and the Tennessee Three work as well as that of the other players  June Carter, Carl Perkins, and The Statler Brothers – but also the recordings place in the cannon of concept records. There is also details of Cash’s attention to prison reform that led to his decision to do not only this best selling release (featured as number 88 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time) but also led to his follow up prison recording  At San Quentin in 1969.

For Western and Jimmy Stewart fans PopMatter.com’s Matthew Sorrento features a piece on the new collection of James Stewart: The Western Collection. I really liked Sorrent’s detail of Stewart’s work with Anthony Mann (Winchester ‘73, The Far Country and The Naked Spur)

David Browne writes an interesting article on the New Republic site about country music’s seeming total allegiance to the GOP, and how the lost election may cause the industry to do some back-room hashing out of the future of country music. I like how the article ends up, but doesn’t Brown know that Ralph Stanley, in many ways the living embodiment of traditional country music, endorsed Obama?

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A few dates are upcoming for country music legend Dwight Yoakam, since he’s not officially “on tour” they are scarce as hen’s teeth:

• Terrible’s Casino – Star of the Desert Arena in Primm, NV on November, 22nd 2008
• The Crystal Palace (Buck Owens Joint) New Year’s Eve December 31, 2008
• Jackpot Junction Casino Hotel – Morton, MN January, 23rd, 2009

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If you’re in my old neck of the woods, New York City, get your holidays started right and head to The Rockwood Music Hall on November 25th to catch Mr. Joe Whyte live, in concert. Whyte will be debuting so new tunes and the show is free so get on out, you’ll be glade you did.

Joe Whyte
Tuesday, November 25
Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen St., NYC
8pm
FREE
*take the F or V to the LES/2nd Ave stop and its right across the street

NoDepression.com reports that Bloodshot Records recording artists, and son to Steve Earle and namesake of Townes Van Zant, Justin Townes Earle, will be releasing a follow up to the excellent Bloodshot debut The Good Life. The new disc is called Midnight at the Movies, and is due out in March of ’09.

If you’re in Texas get yer ass out and see one of the best bar bands in America , The Supersuckers.

Nov 14 2008 – Jacks Patio Bar  –   San Antonio, Texas
Nov 17 2008  – Vortex  –   Beaumont, Texas
Nov 18 2008   – Continental Club  –   Houston, Texas
Nov 19 2008  -  Continental Club   -  Houston, Texas
Nov 20 2008   – Lakewood Bar and Grill  –   Dallas, Texas
Nov 21 2008   -  Scoot Inn  –   Austin, Texas

If you’re in my neck of the woods, San Francisco, CA. get yer ass out and see the one and only Texas Yoda, Willie Nelson at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium. Willie plays Friday, Jan 16,  Saturday, Jan 17, PM Sunday, Jan 18, Monday, Jan 19, and Tuesday, Jan 20. Must be all that good medical marijuana here in town.

• At the insistence of his family and personal physician, country music legend Merle Haggard had a malignant tumor removed from his lung Monday at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. Our thoughts are with the Hag and his family and here’s to a speedy recovery.

• NPR’s All Things Considered has a post on the Waylon and Shooter Jennings collaboration album Waylon Forever which they report “honors the outlaw legacy of Waylon Jennings. Shooter and his band complete the songs with the right combination of Southern rock with a Black Sabbath chaser. Waylon, who loved all kinds of music and even palled around with Metallica, would no doubt approve.”

• If you’re in the San Francisco area tomorrow night (11/6) head over to Amnesia (853 Valencia St.) for the Hang Jones CD Release Party

A get out to vote public service announcement featuring the great Johnny Cash. Earn your right as a citizen and VOTE!

• According to the Guardian and Paste Magazine it appears that Paul Westerberg, former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of alt-rock band The Replacements, wants to be Glen Campbell’s “next Jimmy Webb.” Webb penned 70′s pop hits like “Up, Up, and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” for Campbell. Those are reported to be the words Westerberg used when requesting his manager to make arrangements to write songs for Campbell’s upcoming album after discovering that Campbell covered the Minnesota band’s “Sadly Beautiful”on Campbell’s latest release Meet Glen Campbell.

• The New York Times addresses the legacy of Hank Williams by focusing on the excellent “Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy” currently on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (on through 12/09) and a 3 CD box-set called “The Unreleased Recordings” the first installment of unearthed radio transcriptions to be issued by Time Life.

• With a long career as a cracker-jack guitarist and co-hosting the hit country variety show Hee Haw with his friend Buck Owens Roy Clark is not resting on his laurals and will be hitting the road with another old friend, Mel Tillis, for a string of upcoming tour dates.

Concept albums appear to have had their time in the sun. The days when an entire story, not just a series of songs that have a sense of cohesion but a full on story reflected as a somewhat linear narrative from song to song unfolding from two sides of vinyl or a cassette tape seem numbered by a pick and choose distribution of digital downloads and the lust for hits that has plagued the music industry since day one. Still you can find purists that will sit you down in front of a turntable for a full rendition from the book of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or The Who’s Tommy.

But all that happened on the pop and rock side of the tracks, a concept albums in country and roots music has always been an even rarer creature. In 1975 Willie Nelson showed that a country music concept album not only could be created, but could be a hit with Red Headed Stranger, an unorthodox work featuring a fugitive preacher, on the run from the law after killing his wife, that went on the reach multi-platinum levels and made Nelson the icon he is today. But that was one album made over thirty years ago and the music industry and taste landscape has changed considerably.

So who in the hell would dare look at over this hostile aural landscape and plunge head first into the breach? Enter Hang Jones, pseudonym for San Francisco based singer/songwriter Stephen Grillos. His new release The Ballad of Carlsbad County tells a dark tale of a New Mexico town rife with drunken lust, envy, jealousy, deceit and finally the murder of a young woman and the wrongful conviction of a murderer that nonetheless was innocent of this specific wicked deed.

The songs uncoil this venomous tale with sparse arrangements – Grillos on lead vocals, guitar and mandolin, Matt Cunitz on upright bass, pump organ, backing vocals and Mayumi Urgino on fiddle and backing vocals – are ate less step-by-step chapters than character studies that moves the story and sets a mood.

Album opener “Mexico Line” tells the story of a man headed South-bound, on the run and armed. The song gallops and you feel the desperation in the man by Grillos’ passionate delivery and Urgino’s sawing like she’s possessed in a superb fusion of Gypsy/hillbilly fiddle. Imagine deliverance meets the Red Violin and you’re not far off.

“The Reckoning” is a lilting, beautiful song of foreboding and danger (Don’t go chasing shadows, son, you’ll only find death) “Comin’ Round” is as upbeat mandolin, washboard and fiddle tune that sound like a loose and raucous collaberation of Steve Earle and Kurt Cobain on a hot July front porch night.

“She Said” and “Wasted Time” are a soulfully melancholy tunes reflecting a man’s obsession for a woman out of reach. That obsession is given a finer point on the tune “Caroline,” which finds the subject weaving between desperate pleading and vaguely threatening.

“Red” is easily my favorite cut on the album. An emotional pique comes to a slow boil over strummed guitar and a bobbing and weaving fiddle. “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” is a dirge-like murder ballad that follows in it’s aftermath. “Arm Yourselves” is a Tumbleweed Connection-style rag addressing mob vengeance. “Hangman’s Noose” is a dark song of acquiescence and longing, a man’s view that death is a final means to an end in his loved ones arms. The album concludes with “Alive” where a man is faced with muddied morality of murder as a necessary step toward freedom.

As a concept album The Ballad of Carlsbad County is more then the sum of it’s parts. Each song stands on it’s own and the story isn’t a straitjacket on the organic nature of the whole. This dusty, dark beauty is one of my favorite releases of the year.

Hang Jones Caroline(MP3)

Buy |  Official Site |  MySpace | Facebook

Hang Jones – Caroline

• Philly.com has a Q&A with Philadelphia’s own roots group Hoots & Hellmouth.

• South Carolina’s TheState.com has a Q&A with Patty Loveless who will be performing at the Newberry Opera House this Saturdsay October 25th.

• Howe Gelb talks to 3news in New Zealand music, politics and his place as the “reluctant godfather of alt-country.”

• I recently reviewed the excellent Hank III release “Damn Right Rebel Proud.”  Some other folks seemed smitten by the release as well (here, here, here, here, and here.)

Some things just go together..rice and beans…woman and trouble and, Unkown Hinson and Halloween!

The self-proclaimed “king of country-western troubadours” will release his new live album “Unknown Hinson Live and Undead” on Halloween. Copies of this sure to be smoking (and hilarious) performance can be purchased when Hinson performs at the 3rd Annual Hallerween Extravaganze at the Grey Eagle Tavern in Asheville, NC. It will also be available at www.unknownhinson. com

Unknown Hinson has toured with Hank3 and Rev. Horton Heat. Billy Bob Thornton names Unknown as one of his favorite songwriters and a genius picker. Matt Groening (the Simpsons) labels Unknown as a guitar maniac (and funny as hell to boot!) Hank3  has Unknown’s face tatooed on his bicep! Marty Stuart introduced him as his illegitimate brother at the Ryman in Nashville, and is placing Unknown on the front cover of his upcoming book of personal photographs. Tom Petty came backstage at a Hollywood event to ask Unknown how he gets his “sound”. The Rolling Stones invited him to participate in the soundcheck session for their latest show in Charlotte, NC.

Official Site |   MySpace

Unknown Hinson Venus Bound