Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
As well as being the birthday of George Jones, Sept. 12th is also the shared date of the death of a country legend, Johnny Cash. RIP J.R., there will never be another like you.
Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues – 1959
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_faH4hFwB0[/youtube]
Saratoga, Texas’ (but broUght up in Vidor) very own George Glenn Jones (AKA the Possum) is a living
embodiment of country music.
Jones’ bouts with the demon rum led to periods where Jones was too incapacitated to play shows and was branded “No Show Jones.” When his second wife, Shirley Ann Corley, hid the keys to every car they owned to keep Jones from traveling to the liquor store to buy booze Jones resorted to the only mode of transportation
available to a desperate man, a ten-horsepower rotary engine lawnmower. It took Jones the better part of an hour and a half to make it the whole 8 miles to the liquor store but get there he did.
But Jones is on his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, and been sober for many fruitful years. I had the pleasure of seeing the him two Halloweens ago at New York’s Carnegie Hall (Kris Kristofferson opened) and he was as smooth and brilliant as you might imagine. Jones is also up for a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievements in the performing arts this year and recently released a CD of unreleased duets, “Burn Your Playhouse Down.”
In tribute to George Jone’s 77th birthday New Yorks WFMU 91.1 fm has posted some tribute mp3s to celibrate.
George Jones – Too Much Water
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICJu2oeiNVY[/youtube]
One of country music’s leading class clowns (reviled only by Roger Miller) and guitar greats has died.
The Tennessean writes: Jerry Reed, country music’s howling virtuoso and a star of stage, studio and screen, has died. Born Jerry Reed Hubbard, Mr. Reed suffered from emphysema and was in hospice care. He was 71, and he leaves an unparalleled legacy of laughter and song.
By the time Mr. Reed came to popular attention as Burt Reynolds’ truck-driving sidekick “The Snowman†in the Hollywood trilogy Smokey and the Bandit, he was already a musical deity to the guitar players who admired the syncopated flurries he unleashed with a casual gleam. He was also a hit recording artist by that time, having topped the charts with “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot†and “Lord, Mr. Ford,’ and having written songs for Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner, Brenda Lee and others. Then there was his work as session guitarist for Presley, Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare and many others.
Jerry Reed And Chet Atkins – “Jerry’s Breakdown”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE[/youtube]
You like girls? You like Country Music? Well sure you do…hell you got a pulse don’t you?!
The always incorrigible Blake Clayton at the REAL country podcast “It Burns When I Pee” features Episode 18 – “Twang Aint Just A Guy Thang” and features some talented (and beautiful) ladies that are out there putting their own THANG in TWANG.
Rachel Brooke is the featured interview. She’s got an amazing voice and a style all her own. There is also featured music from Star Anna, Elizabeth Cook, Carmen Lee, and Little Lisa Dixie.
It wouldn’t be an episode of IBWIP without another great, morally questionable comedy skit. Because of the state of our litigious culture they can’t mention the title of the skit, but it doesn’t stop the brilliant legal minds at IBWIP from doing it anyway.
There is a great giveaway featuring a Rachel Brooke Giveaway Pack and the cast talks about it’s up coming road trip to Cincinnati, OH. for the Metal Farm Magazine Release Party.
Oh and by the way, the official “It Burns When I Pee” web site is up and running (still looking for those Norma Jean nudie pics)…the Net will never be the same! Go show Blake some love and get his podcast and buy a damn shirt or two.
Amanda Petrusich has interviewed Liz Phair and Feist for Pitchfork.tv, not she turnes her talents to documenting the vast and rugged territory that is Americana.
From Pitchfork.com: “It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music. (Her first book was last year’s entry on Nick Drake’s Pink Moon in the 33 1/3 series.) Part memoir and travelogue, part sociological study and piece of criticism, It Still Moves features stories and interviews that explore the history and current state of Americana, “from Elvis to Iron and Wine, the Carter Family to Animal Collective, Johnny Cash to Will Oldham,” according to a press release.”
She’s taken on quite a task here but I look forward to reading “It Still Moves.”
A few events celebrating It Still Moves’ publication are scheduled throughout the coming months.
It Still Moves events:
09-11 Brooklyn, NY – Book Court
09-18 Brooklyn, NY – WORD
09-19 Nashville, TN – Americana Music Association Festival
09-23 New York, NY – KGB Bar
10-09 Oxford, MS – Thacker Mountain Radio
10-10 Nashville, TN – Southern Festival of Books
11-01 Austin, TX – Texas Book Festival
[youtube]http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=kvfIjjIwd8M[/youtube]
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 Countryâ€) 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?
From Country Standard Time: Don Helms, pedal steel guitarist for Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, died this morning at 81. He is featured on more than 100 Williams recordings. Helms played a lap steel (also known as “Hawaiian steel”) guitar. This type of steel guitar lacks the foot pedals found on the more modern pedal steel guitar, which did not come into prominence in country music until after Hank Williams’ death in 1953.
Now go put on a Hank Sr. song (“So Lonesome I Could Cry” is a good one) and listen to the distict wail of Helms’ pedal steel.
A Smithsonian Institution exhibit on the roots of American music opens today in Shepherdsville, KY.
The Tennessean.com has a piece on a guy I like and will keep my eye on, Montgomery, Ala., native Jamey Johnson.
The New York Times reviews Loretta Lynne’s recent show in New Jersey. Even though Lynne was ailing from a recent back operation the crowd was charmed and captivated.