• Check out the video tour diary from Bruce Robison as he Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider proceed up and down the East Coast and back into Texas on their Barstool Tour.

• Linda Lee at the super Willie Nelson blog StillIsStillMoving.com interviews Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck.

• Check out the excellent videos of Casey Driessen’s 5-string fiddle hunt video over at Bluegrass Blog.

• Steel guitarist Robert D. Norred, one-time member of Hank Williams’ backing band for a short period in the late 1940s, died Sunday, Oct. 25.

• Face A Frowning World (Available 12/8 – Tompkins Square) is a tribute to the old-timey and gospel music of  E.C. Ball and his wife Orna. The couple were lesser known contemporaries of the Carter Family and seldom ventured far from their home on the Virginia-North Carolina boarder (in Rugby, VA) where they owned a general store and service station. Featured performance by  Jon Langford,  The Handsome Family (offered as a download below),  Michael Hurley, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the Health & Happiness Family Gospel Band of Louisville, Kentucky, and many others.

Jenny Jenkins by The Handsome Family

When I Get Home I’m Gonna Be Satisfied by Jon Langford

• Country music legend George Jones seems to be popping up on all the TV shows recently to promote his new Cracker Barrel exclusive album, A Collection of My Best Recollection. This Sunday morning the Possum will make another appearance on CBS Sunday Morning this Sunday October 11, 2009. Host and interviewer Bob Schieffer visits George’s Nashville home and stops by Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium late this summer to talk about life, love and a lot of musical history, as well as all that he  is up to today. Jones has said that the new release might be his last album and has tour dates through the rest of the year and early next.

• The follow up to last year’s Mother’s Best radio show recordings Hank Williams: Unreleased Recordings will be released November 3rd. Revealed: Unreleased Recordings will feature 50 new tracks including some new songs and dialogue between Hank and the emcee of the show and his band. The release will also include the first public performance of  Cold, Cold Heart.

• Collectors’ Choice has chosen six of Waylon Jennings’  RCA albums from 1966-’70 and will release them as three double CDs: Folk Country/Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan, Love of the Common People/Hangin’ On and Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs. The CDs will be available on November 24. Grammy Award-winning annotator/historian Colin Escott wrote the liner notes.

• Rosanne Cash will premieres her new album, The List, live at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY October 9th and 10th as part of  the St. Ann’s Warehouse 30th Anniversary Season.

• Cash also discuses her new release with Chet Flippo at CMT.com’s Nashville Skyline.

• Ranch Twang now has a LastFM group. Join up and help share great music with other folks.

• Country Rapper, Colt Ford,tweeted (twittered?) that he “… sat down today with DMC from the Iconic Group RUN-DMC. We are gonna do a song together. He is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Wow.” I hope Colt Ford can do for country/rap what RUN-DMC and Aerosmith did for rock/rap…oh wait. (Twang Nation review of Colt Ford’s  Ride Through the Country)

• I’m a fan of Alabama native Allison Moorer (AKA sister of Shelby Lynne and better-half #6 for Texas legend Steve Earle as well as his opening act if you’ve been to any of his shows the last few years) and her earlier, more country flavored work. Moorer makes the song A Soft Place to Fall, off 1998’s Alabama Song a transcendental experience. The news that Moorer is coming back to Nashville at the end of the year to make a new album with producer R.S. Field is great news! Earle, how about you?

• Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood returning as co-hosts of the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville this fall is not news. Call me when Caitlin Rose and Mojo Nixon are on the bill.

• Mainstream Country Music, and its technologically laggardly fans,  continue to put their favorite artists on the top of the charts.

I was directed to this great video of  Kim Deal (The Pixies/The Breeders) and Kelly Deal (The Breeders) doing a cover Hank Williams’ I Can’t Help It (if I’m still in love with you)

• Dolly Parton will be on hand for the 75th Anniversary Rededication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2nd, joining Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue and several other dignitaries. Dolly serves as Ambassador for the Park’s 75th Anniversary,  she is a Sevierville, Tennessee native and donated the first year profits from her album, Sha-Kon-O-Hey (Land of Blue Smoke) to the organization, “Friends of the Smokies”.

• On her new album, The List,  Roseann Cash will cover 12 classic songs culled from a list given to her by her legendary father, Johnny, gave her in 1973, and interpreted through her own unique style. Produced and arranged by Grammy Award winner John Leventhal (Cash’s husband), the album includes Cash’s covers of songs written and/or recorded by The Carter Family, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Cochran/Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard and Bob Dylan. (via Country Standard Time)

• Washingtoncitypaper.com features a Q&A with Ray Benson from Austin’s Alseep at the Wheel. Benson discusses the Wheels’ role as Texas dignitaries and whether they will be playing the White House again.

• Norah Jone’s may be less boring on her new release (they don’t call her Snorah for nothing, people!) After bonding with producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse) for engineering one of Jone’s favorite records of all time, Tom Waits’ ‘Mule Variations (!) she hired him on for her new release. She will also feature songwriting contributions from Ryan Adams, Will Sheff of Okkervil River.

• The Green Bay Press Gazette has a great interview with Justin Townes Earle. Earle talks candidly about his past addictions and is troubled relationship with his father. as well as his excellent new release Midnight at the Movies.

• Robert Earl Keen’s Lost Highway debut “The Rose Hotel,” produced by Lloyd Maines, will be released on On Sept. 29

• Rounder Records will celebrate their 40th anniversary on Oct. 12th at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, TN with performances from Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bela Fleck and Irma Thomas will join in this momentous celebration along with musical host Minnie Driver and special guests to be announced.

• Shreveport-based , the Louisiana Hayride (1948 to 1960) will  be inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. In it’s day the country music showcase featured Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.

• The grave of the late great Texas blues musician, Blind Willie Johnson, is  finally discovered. Johnson’s songs have been covered by everybody from Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton to Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.

• Details magazine sits down with Native Texan and anti-Taylor Swift blond bad ass Miranda Lambert for some Q&A.

• Nashville Scene’s newest cover has  “Three Hot Acts Present a New Breed of Female Songwriter” featuring Caitlin Rose, Tristen Gaspadarek and Those Darlins.

It’s one thing to be Shooter Jennings or Justin Townes Earle, but being the Granddaughter of country music legend Hank Williams and the Daughter of the hard-living, hell raising outlaw and legend of sorts Hank Williams Jr., well that’s a whole other mountain to climb.

Like her half-brother Hank Williams III, Holly Williams takes the fundamentals laid down by her ancestors and burns her own brand on the work. Here With Me is much more a country record than her previous release for Universal South The Ones We Never Knew and perhaps the turn in style was a result of the automobile accident that nearly took the lives of her and her sister Hilary. Maybe, like Hank III, the primary motive for moving into the family business was the promise of a ready audience and cash.

Whatever the motive this is a great release that brings to mind the work of another blood kin of country music royalty, Rosanne Cash. Like Cash, Williams does great things with a modest vocal range and brings a sophistication to the songs (many of which she wrote) without completely smothering out the rustic charm with glossy productions and lazy paint by the numbers fluff reaching for a top charting radio hit.

Holly Williams is every bit the outlaw her destiny assumes she’ll be, she just prefers a level of uptown refinement to her country pedigree.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

• Sony Music Entertainment Photo Archives, ICON Collectibles has just released some new Johnny Cash prints for the summer, ICON is offering Cash fans a 20% discount on all Johnny Cash framed and unframed fine art prints (including limited editions) when fans use promo code ICON6PAK at checkout. Offer ends July 31st. Check out the new prints now at the ICON website.

• Wayne Hancock has  Summer tour dates posted. Hancock will be taking his Texas honky-tonk around the West Coast, back down to Texas and then back up the East Coast. Opening the show will be Joe Buck.

• 83 year-old country-pop singer Ferlin Husky is in Tennessee hospital in critical condition with an accelerated heart rate and possible pneumonia. Husky topped the charts from the 50’s to the 70’s under various names, including Terry Preston and Simon Crum, a comic alter ego. (via the 9513.com)

• Chet  Nashville Chet Flippo draws comparisons to the death last week of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams. Flippo posits that Williams’ death at the age of 29 in the back seat of his Cadillac on New Years Eve 1953 might have been preferable to the drawn-out publicized deterioration of Elvis and Jackson.
• A while back I posted that New West records would be releasing The Fine Print, “a 12-track album of previously unreleased and rare songs”by the Drive By Truckers on September 1st. The album will feature  “four covers including “Rebels” by Tom Petty and “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan which provided Shonna Tucker with her first ever lead vocal performance on a DBT recording.” Many of the original recordings are from the Dirty South era. The Look for a review of The Fine Print soon, but in the mean time check out the cover below painted by their long time cover artist Wes Freed.
  

• The legendary Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will release their first studio album in five years. The influential California country-rock  will release Speed of Life on September 22 on their own NGDB Records.

• SheKnows.com features an exclusive interview with Holly Williams. Holly is the Granddaughter of Hank Williams, daughter of Bocephus and half-sister of Hank Williams III. Nashville Scene also has a nice article on Ms. Williams.

• Holly Williams will also be will be performing, interviewing and signing autographs Friday, July 3 at 1:30pm at the Country Music Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville, which is included with museum admission and free to members. At 7pm she will make her Grand Ole Opry debut, which can be heard live on Nashville’s WSM,  and Sirius XM.

• Charlie Robison is offering a chance to win a private concert that will take place in the winner’s very own living room. You can also invite up to 25 of your friends! the contest is taking place through Robison’s twitter feed.

Hardly a day goes by that we hear about another performer leaving their chosen career trajectory and taking a swing at country music.Some of these travelers deeply feel the need to honor the history, the tradition, of the genre. They also bring something new and interesting to the sound. Then there are the carpetbaggers. The ones who’s career have a justly stalled and are looking to find a new audience in a genre they mistakenly see as an easy get. They carry with them the foul stench of mediocrity they cultivated from whence they came.

The latter category is too painful to detail here but a prime example of the former is Elvis Costello. A singer/songwriter so accustomed to straddling, hopping and distorting genres that people are surprised when he returns to his earlier literate pop-punk roots. Costello’s love of American Southern music is well documented. The established Angry Young (British) Man takes a sharp turn from edgy punk-pop to head to Nashville and cut 1981’s Almost Blue which featured songs by Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Gram Parsons. The post-divorce roots-folk of 1986’s T. Bone Burnett produced King of America. 2004’s The Delivery Man featuring duets with  Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams – who he also performed with in a CMT Crossroads. There is the Costello T. Bone Burnett penned Scarlet Tide was used in the film Cold Mountain, nominated for a 2004 Academy Award and performed by Costello it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who also sang the song on the official soundtrack. Point being his newest Americana release Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is not a hard diversion nor a lark for Mr. MacManus.

It doesn’t help that you’re sound is so distinctive that people start to harp on it like it’s a curse. Secret, Profane & Sugarcane like it’s spiritual cousins Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Neil Young’s Harvest and the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street seems to lose points some detractors because the work reflects the unique characteristics the artists brings with them when they cross the Americana tracks. If you prefer your music by outsiders to be cleansed of all traces of the performers unique earlier style, well, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is not for you.

The album took three days to create in a Nashville studio (March 31 to April 2, 2008)  thus beating out the usually fleet Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, which took 9 days (February 12, 1969 – February 21, 1969) is with producer T Bone Burnett- whos is becoming the go-to-guy when you want to do Americana – and focuses on Costello’s own work rearranged for a crack band featuring Stuart Duncan on banjo and fiddle, Jerry Douglas on Dobro, , Dennis Crouch on bass, Mike Compton on mandolin and Mr. Americana himself Jim Lauderdale lending honey harmony vocals to counter Costello’s (in)famous keen.

Things get off to a nice starts with Down Among The Wines And Spirits, originally written for Ms. Loretta Lynn, is a lolling down-and-out drinking song featuring the kind of wordplay Costello has become famous for (there’s that uniqueness again!) Complicated Shadows, first recorded for 1996’s All This Useless Beauty and originally written for Johnny Cash, gets the amped-up greasy blues treatment that would make Tony Joe White smile.

The beautifully sad I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came was penned by Costello and aforementioned Loretta Lynn is lovely but brings to mind the coldness suggested in the title. My All Time Doll is a hillbilly cabaret number featuring the excellent accordion work by Jeff Taylor and a demo from All This Useless Beauty Rhino reissue Hidden Shame gets a great rousing makeover.

How Deep Is the Red?, She Was No Good,”She Handed Me a Mirror, and Red Cotton are  from Costello’s unfinished Hans Christian Andersen chamber opera The Secret Songs (did I mention that man was eclectic?) As prolific as Costello is, he is known to rework his own songs for different occasions, and although these songs do carry trace elements of their classical origins they sound right at home here.

Sulphur to Sugarcane was written by Costello & T Bone Burnett for (but not used)  in the Sean Penn 2006 film All The King’s Men. The song sounds like a bawdy ragtime-jazz response to Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere as imagined by Leon Redbone. The Crooked line is rumored to have been an unused song for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line and Costello is reported to have said that it’s “…the only song I’ve ever written about fidelity that is without any irony.” Here the song is a Cajun-flavored duet with Emmylou Harris with Emmylou way too far down in the mix, or just right, depending on your feeling about Ms. Emmylou’s disctinctive style. Changing Partners is a more-or-less faithful rendition of a the ubber-crooner Bing Crosby’ classic  number of lost love.

Is Secret, Profane & Sugarcane a great country or Americana album as you might expect from a seasoned vet? No. Is it a great Elvis Costello record? No, it hits just about in the mid-range of his canon. But with the likes of Jewel, Miley Cyrus and Kid Rock paraded as examples of roots and country music’s future Costello has given us a lovely, lively work to brace us out of that nightmare.

Official Site | Buy

• The New York Times has a nice review of George Strait’s performance at New Jersey’s PNC Bank Arts Center. They discribe the Texas country music legend as “Sinatra with a deep tan.”

• PopMatters.com Rob Browning reviews Dale Watson’s latest The Truckin’ Sessions Vol. 2.

• In honor of the upcoming Fathers Day the fine folks at the 9513.com have posted 30 Songs About Dads.

And because eveyone needs a little something to smile about on Monday, here ya go folks: