• Hearya.com has posted four great live cuts from Justin Townes Earle. The cuts are “Lone Pine Hill,” “Who Am I To Say,”
  “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me” and “Turn Out My Lights.” The session was recorded along with his live show
  accompaniment and friend Cory Younts.
• Tickets for the July 5, 2008 Hootenanny in Orange County CA are on sale now.Some of the artists scheduled to appear are Mike Ness,BR549’s Chuck Mead,Royal Crown Revue, Cadillac Tramps, Grant Lee Phillips, Big Sandy, James Intveld, Guana Batz, Throw Rag, Blood on the Saddle, Roger Allen Wade, Russel Scott, Powerflex 5, Chris Schiflet, Dusty Rhodes, Rickey Warwick, Sh*tkickers, Hellbound Hayride and Wil Ridge
• Aquarium Drunkard has a great post on a two-volume Dirty Laundry compilation that rounds up a collection of black country-soul cuts from the sixties and seventies. Samples offered are James Brown doing Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart” and Bettye Swann doing  “Just Because You Can’t Be Mine.”
• CMT’s Unplugged at Studio 330 has Shooter Jennings playing some cuts off his latest release The Wolf.”

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will present an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of a great American musical dynasty in Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Co-Presented by SunTrust and Ford Motor Company, a more than 5,000-square-foot exhibition opening on Friday, March 28, 2008, and closing on December 31, 2009.

“The Williams family story may seem familiar,” said Museum Director Kyle Young. “However, this exhibit will take the visitor inside the family to revisit the life and impact of Hank Williams, examine the struggles and musical successes of his only son, Randall Hank Williams, and study the direct descendants, who are now striving within a new generation of artists, all measuring themselves by the example of Hank Williams.”

The exhibition has benefited enormously from the blessing and cooperation of the family, including Randall Hank Williams, now known as singer-songwriter Hank Williams Jr.; Lycrecia Williams Hoover, Hank Jr.’s older sister and the only member of the family with clear personal memories of Hank Williams; and singer-songwriter Jett Williams, who discovered her Williams parentage in the 1980s. Lending their own stories and family mementoes are Hank Jr.’s eldest children, singer-songwriters Shelton Williams, now Hank III, and Hilary and Holly Williams.

New York City’ - Christie’s November 30 sale of rock and pop memorabilia at totaled $864,938 and was sold 95 percent by value and 87 percent by lot. The top lot was Hank Williams’ notebook of 13 lyrics, which posted a world auction record for a Hank Williams manuscript at $145,000.The 18-page composition notebook is creased down the middle, most likely because Williams carried it in his back pocket for handy use to jot down songs when the mood struck him.

55 years ago, at 3 am Eastern Standard Time, on a cold road somewhere between Knoxville, Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia, the King of Country music, Hank Williams died in the back of a Cadillac on the way to a New Years Day show in Canton, Ohio. Let’s keep the spirit of Hank Sr. alive and rejoice in the simple beauty of his legacy.

Sometime between New Years Eve 1952 and New Years Day 1953 Hank Williams Sr, died
in the back of his new cadillac as a hired a chauffeur was taking him to a scheduled show on Canton, Ohio, on Jan. 1. The weather would not permit flying.

Every New Years Eve for the past few years the faithful from all over the world gather at the Hank Williams museum in Montgomery, Alabama, which is home to the Cadillac in which Williams died, to honor the music, legacy and life of Hiram “Hank” King Williams.

September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953

How stupid do the major labels think their customers are? The Wall Street Journal’s front page detailed a plan to deceive customers by passing off a signed talent, a 24-year-old singer and guitarist named Marié Digby, as a DIY YouTube using amateur cover-artist trying to get a deal.

Are the labels so bereft of ideas and hard up for the good old days when they printed money and screwed the customers and the artists that they are now willing to squander any shred of remaining good will they might still have with fans, well, at least the ones they haven’t sued? For an unknown cover artist? I mean where is the frikkin upside here? Are they trying to build a more justifiable moral case for musical piracy?

Country music’s soul remains it’s authenticity. Nashville has been very effective peddling pop-country hat acts to people that wouldn’t know Hank Williams from Robbie Williams, but this is a level of calculated fraud that would embarrass even the most hard-bitten music row veteran.

Good for the Journal for exposing this sham. I hope this level of coverage of business misconduct doesn’t diminish under the new ownership by media mogul and FOX News steward, Rupert Murdoch. I won’t be holding my breath.

Country Standard Time reports - Marty Stuart will host his annual Late Night Jam to benefit MusiCares during CMA Music Fest on June 6 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives (Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson, Brian Glenn) will perform and host the unstructured marathon of live music with guest performances this year by singer/songwriter Neko Case, Muzik Mafia founder John Rich (Big & Rich), Eric Church and Ashley Monroe,Charley Pride, Pam Tillis and Porter Wagoner.

“I try never to lose sight of the fact that Nashville is considered Music City,” said Stuart. “When it is time to book the Late Night Jam, it is always my goal to make every form of music welcome. That’s why the Ryman is such a great setting for this concert. It is the Mother Church. Every year, I always feel like its the best we’ve ever had, and this year proves to be no different.”

Marty Stuart’s 6th Annual Late Night Jam has raised more than $70,000 to date for MusiCares, the philanthropic arm of The Recording Academy.

That same week, Stuart will release “Compadres: An Anthology of Duets,” which includes a lifetime of musical collaborations with friends such as Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Steve Earle, George Jones, BB King, Mavis Staples and others. He will also debut an historic museum exhibit titled “Sparkle & Twang: Marty Stuart’s American Musical Odysse” at the Tennessee State Museum that week featuring treasures from the late Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Elvis and more.