Denver, Colorado’s Suburban Home Records has released a fine compilation (Or for this roots music blogger, a convenient sonic crib sheet)  of new and classic roots rock and Americana music entitled Suburban Home Records Mix Tape Vol. 5, Someone’s Gonna Die. The title is inspired by I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House’s new album, “The Sounds of Dying (featured here as the first two cuts as well as ICLASOBITH lead singer Micahel Dean Damron ballsy solo version of Townes Van Zandt’s Waiting Around to Die.) This mix was bound for greatness. How can you not trust this kind of music to a label owned by a guy named Virgil?

Go grab this release (via You Send It)  for some fine music for your next Summer cookout or that next riveting game of whiskey-fueled Russian roulette.

1. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House – Swear to God
2. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House – Postcards and Apologies (Two Cow Garage cover)
3. Two Cow Garage – Postcards and Apologies
4. Micahel Dean Damron – Waiting Around to Die (Townes Van Zandt cover)
5. Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around to Die
6. Austin Lucas – Sleep Well (Demo)
7. Trampled By Turtles – Wait So Long
8. Oblio’s Arrow – End of the Burning Moon
9. Tim Barry – Exit Wounds.mp3
10. Slobberbone – Placemat Blues.mp3
11. John Moreland and the Black Gold Band – Bastards of the Highway
12. Jeff Rowe – Kate
13. The Replacements – Unsatisfied
14. Jon Snodgrass – Fast in Last
15. Arliss Nancy – Stella Lovely
16. Jr. Juggernaut – Another Two Weeks
17. Alexander Hudjohn – Down So Low
18. Calling Morocco – Break Your Heart
19. Tin Horn Prayer – Louis Collins
20. Jared Grabb – Devil Between
21. Lucky Old Sun – Back in Style
22. Armchair Martian – …Not Fine (Demo)
23. The Takers – Drift
24. Look Mexico – Take it Upstairs, Einstein
25. Geraldine Fibbers – Lilybelle
26. Pariah Beat – Elvis in Jerusulum
27. Drag the River – Beautiful and Damned
28. BEERS – I Love You (But I Don’t Trust You)
29. The Evening Rig – Half Asleep
30. Hank Williams, Jr. – If You Don’t Like Hank Williams.mp3

Hank Williams is being posthumously awarded a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board. The honor was revealed Monday (April 12) in conjunction with the announcement of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize recipients in journalism, drama and music. The citation was determined following a private survey among experts of popular music. It notes Williams’ “craftsmanship as a songwriter” and his “pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force.” Williams died in on New Years Day, 1953 at age 29. His songs have been recorded by hundreds of artists in a variety of genres. In recent years, the board has awarded several other special citations in music to Bob Dylan and jazz legends Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.

Now is only the Grand O’l Opry would reinstate ol’ Hank.

• 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.