Kris Kristofferson reminisces about his days playing football. The days before he was pulled because of too many head injuries, that is.

CMT interviews the Texas Yoda, Willie Nelson about his new T Bone Burnett produced album, Country Music.

Dwight Yoakam & Merle Haggard will perform together June 18 & 19 at Oregon’s Chinook Winds Casino Resort.

Speaking of Brother Hag, the LA Times Pop & Hiss get’s on the bus with the Merle while in town for the Stagecoach Festival.

• In true DIY fashion The Johnny Cash Project is a “global collective art project” that allows fans from all over the world to contribute to a arrogated, user-generated video for the title track from the latest Johnny Cash recording American VI: Ain’t No Grave. The single images are then threaded together into a one-of-a-kind labor of love. I only wish the Man in Black has lived to see this.

• John Prine fans are about to hit pay-dirt. On May 25th, 2010, Oh Boy Records (founded in 1981 by Prine and manager Al Bunetta) will release the live In Person & On Stage, which will draw from performances spanning the past several years and covering songs from as far back as Prine’s 1971 debut and as recently as 2005′s acclaimed Fair & Square. Then Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine will be released on on June 22nd (Oh Boy) and will feature Prine compositions interpreted by devotees such as My Morning Jacket, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, The Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, Lambchop, Drive-By Truckers, Deer Tick featuring Liz Isenberg, Justin Townes Earle, Those Darlins, and, reprising their respective tracks from In Person & On Stage, Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins and Josh Ritter. Oh Boy will begin a pre-sale for In Person & On Stage on April 20thand for Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows on April 27th at www.musicfansdirect.com.

• The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has announced it will pay tribute to the legendary Tammy Wynette with an exhibit titled Tammy Wynette: First Lady of Country Music. Presented by Great American Country (GAC) the exhibit will open in the Museum’s East Gallery on August 20, 2010, and run through June 2011.

• More news from the The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. An upgrade to the Hall’s core collection, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, are expected to be completed next month. The updates, which focus on country music’s last five decades, will bring the story of country music forward in time and conclude with a glimpse of the future. They will highlight the country-rock, pop-country, southern rock, full-strength classic country and the “Urban Cowboy” craze. The upgrade includes new oversized portraits, video clips and artifacts such as Dolly Parton’s handwritten lyrics to Jolene, Tom T. Hall’s acoustic guitar he purchased from songwriter Merle Kilgore, and items from Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, and Tanya Tucker. Other updates focus on the mid-1980s arrival of artists like Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Randy Travis and Steve Earle. New exhibits celebrate contemporary bluegrass and Americana artists, ranging from Alison Krauss and Del McCoury to Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale.

• Country Music Neo-Outlaw Jamey Johnson shows his respect for the classics by covering Vern Gosdin, George Jones, George Strait and, his most obvious influence, Waylon Jennings, at the Chicago Country Music Festival.

• Break out a jar of granny’s skull rattle folks, Juli Thaki at the 9513.com has given us her top 26 songs about moonshine.

• Tom Russell has written what could be considered a companion piece to his new release Blood and Candle Smoke at the Rumpas (Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso.) The dispatch reflects Russell’s style he cultivated by hanging with American underground great Charles Bukowski and similar threads from this and previous releases about his home in El Paso, TX,  the culture, people and the drug wars.

• The Los Angelas Times’ Ann Powers reviews the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum benefit featuring Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Dwight Yoakam among others (including the spirit of Townes Van Zandt.)

• The Flower Pickin’ festival (October 16-19)will feature Carlene Carter, Justin Townes Earle, Jimmy Tittle, John Francis and more. The festival celebrates the day that Johnny Cash was arrested for public drunkenness in Starkville, MS in the early morning of May 11, 1965 following a performance at Mississippi State University. He spent one night in jail and paid a fine of $36. Cash sang about his run-in with “the law” in Starkville on his album, “At San Quentin (The Complete Live Concert),” recorded in 1969.

• Tune in tomorrow night to catch Emmylou Harris and Vince Gill perform together Wednesday’s Jay Leno Show. The pair on the West Coast participating in a series of All For the Hall benefit shows. Proceeds from the all-start line up, which also includes Melissa Etheridge, Dwight Yoakam, Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, Faith Hill and Taylor Swift, will allow Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to expand. (The Boot)

• Dr. Ralph Stanley’s autobiography Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times will be released on October 15 (BluegrassJournal.com)

• The Americana brand continues to grow! Legendary radio station, WSM 650-AM, will launch a weekly Americana program called Music City Roots: Live From The Loveless Cafe. The on Oct. 14 debut show will feature  the legendary Emmylou Harris,  acclaimed duo Pam Rose and Mary Ann Kennedy, and emerging artists Annie Crane and Robin Ainger. Artists slated to performing in the coming months include Sam Bush, Radney Foster, John Cowan, Dexter Romweber, Dale Ann Bradley, Peter Bradley Adams, Mike Farris, Scott Miller and Webb Wilder. Each Wednesday evening broadcast will feature three to four artists in 30-minute segments, followed by a free-form “Loveless Jam” where all the artists and their bands will be invited to collaborate on the fly. WSM will air the show Wednesday nights from 7 – 9 p.m. live from the Loveless Barn in Nashville, TN. Ticket are on sale for performances.

Grant Langston came across my path by way of a jukebox sampler sent out by Sin City a few weeks back and I made a mental note to check into him further. Well the years and beers have taken tier toll and I plumb forgot about him until the good folks over at the Gobbler’s Knob posted their own fine review (http://www.thegobblersknob.com) and brought him back to my attention. So if you don’t like this review or the artist you can blame them….Ha!

The Bakersfield is alive and well in the hands of Langston and like the the sounds forefathers – Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam – Langston’s roots are in the South. Alabama is where he took up the trombone in his grammar school band, played piano as a teen and cultivated a distaste for Nashville brand of pop-country he heard on the radio. After making the trek out to the Golden State, where in now resides, Langston discovered Haggard, Yoakam as well as Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and deeper well of country music to draw from. Stand Up Man proves he’s an astute disciple of the school of honky-tonk.

Many of the elements of the lean Bakersfield sound was a result of the rise of rock and roll in the 50′s. Aside from a popping back-beat, the other most definable sound is that of red-hot telecaster licks. Lagnston is served well by Larry Marciano on guitar as well as dobro. the rest of his crack band The Supermodels is bassist Josh Fleeger and Tony Horkins on drums and percussion.

You can almost smell the stale beer and hear the boots scoot across the wooden dance floor when the cooking title cut kicks off and you just know this is going to be a concert crowd favorite for years to come. The excellently titled Burt Reynolds Movie Brawl keeps the heat on and Shiner Bock and Vicodin is a brilliant addition to the long list of heartache resulting intoxicants documented in country music.

The Texas shuffle Pretend You Love Me is bittersweet tale of communal denial and Not Another Song About California is a playful song about heading West that satisfyingly blurs the country and rock boundary.

My favorite cut is Call Your Bluff. It slinks and shuffles along telling of a man fed up and showcasing Langton using a yodel/hiccup made famous by Yoakam. There is a Swamp Version of the same song that slows things down to a hot and humid pace and features a slow cry of Cajun s fiddle. It’s almost as good as the original.

Stand Up Man is the kind of release that revives my faith that there are artists out there keeping the tradition and spirit of great country music alive and making it dance in the here and now.

Official Site | Buy

Los Angeles roots music stalwart  Duane Jarvis,whose lead guitar work landed along side musicians like Dwight Yoakam, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Michelle Shocked and others when he wasn’t recording and touring as a respected singer-songwriter in his own right, died at his home in Marina del Rey 1:30 a.m. On Wednesday after a long bout with colon cancer. He was 51.

I’m really pleased with the recent crop of westerns that have hot the big screens as of late – 3:10 To Yuma, Appaloosa, No Country for Old Men – but there’s one in particular I’m looking forward to.

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, co-written by Texas music legend Ray Wylie Hubbard, is a violent Western (the studio says it’s going to be “Sam Peckinpah meets Quentin Tarantino” ) set in the early 1900s about a woman trying to bring her lover, a murdered outlaw, home to Glory, Texas for burial.

Scott Speedman (Underworld) plays the title character in flashbacks, country music legends Dwight Yoakam and Kris Kristofferson portray villain, W. Earl Brown (Al Swearengen’s right-hand man Dan Dority from HBO’s too-soonly defunct Deadwood), Lizzy Caplan (from HBO’S vampire series True Blood)  and Beverley Hills 90210′s Jason Priestley are all on the roster. The film is in post production and is slated to be out in early 2009.

I’ll be paying $10. for this one.

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?

—————————————–

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

—————————————–

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

From the Associated Press – Dwight Yoakam will make his 24th appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” this week, breaking the record for most musical performances by any artist. Yoakam, 51, is currently tied with Lyle Lovett for the show’s most musical performances with 23. Besides his appearances with Leno, Yoakam also was on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” six times, beginning in 1986.

Some of the appearances that stand out the time he and his late friend and mentor Buck Owens went on together to sing “Streets of Bakersfield.” Or when he flew 20 hours nonstop to entertain troops with Leno in the Middle East during the holidays.

“The great thing about everybody there is they’ve always been very willing to allow me the latitude to do what I wanted to do. I did things like ‘Back of Your Hand,’ which was a very low-key track. One time I went on with a (Latin) brass section and did ‘Silver Bells.’”

Yoakam’s latest album is “Dwight Sings Buck,” a musical tribute to his friend. When he does the show Thursday, one of the tunes he plans to perform is the Owens classic “Act Naturally.”

Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens – Street of Bakersfield – The Tonight Show

What’s it mean to have cross-genre cred? Well you could do worse than the great Dwight Yoakam who will be the only artist performing at both the Coachella indie rock festival (April 24-26) and the Stagecoach country festival (May 3-4), both held in Indio, Calif.

As if that weren’t enough , Yoakam will appear in Lexington, Ky., on Feb. 21 to be inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, along with Crystal Gayle, Florence Henderson, jazz musician Les McCann and producer Norro Wilson.

It seems Mr. Yoakam is helping out The Wrecker’s Michelle Branch on a song for her next album.

Dwight Yoakam – Guitars Cadillacs