Wanted! – Notable Americana and Roots Music Releases for 2016

Ghosts of Highway 20 - Lucinda Williams

2015 was another bumper crop year for Americana and roots music, and 2016 show vast signs that the great music will continue to come. As our Cream of the Crop favorites from 2015 makes plain we might be experiencing a new golden age of roots music as a growing influence on our contemporary culture and as a sustainable , and viable, business for young and old artists alike.

That last part is crucial as it provides seed corn for the future of this music we truly love.

The list below is a collection of 2016 notable Americana / roots releases. Some anticipated releases from artists like Sturgill Simpson, Elizabeth Cook, Robbie Fulks, Lydia Loveless, Al Scorch and Brandy Clark have no release dates yet, but when I’m aware of them and others I will be updating the list through the year and will send word through my twitter account

If you know of a release not listed leave it in the comments and I might add it.

Look for new things coming in the 2016 at Twang Nation. With your help it’s going to be a great year folks.

January 11th
Keegan McInroe – “Uncouth Pilgrims”

January 15th
Dylan LeBlanc – ‘Cautionary Tale’
Randy Rogers Band – “Nothing Shines Like Neon”
Hank Williams Jr. – “It’s About Time”
Dawn Landes And Piers Faccini – ‘Desert Songs’

January 22nd
The Cactus Blossoms – ‘You’re Dreaming’
Simon Linsteadt – Self-Titled
Aoife O’Donovan – “In the Magic Hour”

January 24th
Michael Chapman – ‘Fish”

January 26th
Brad Armstrong – “Empire”

January 29th
Buddy Miller and Friends – ‘Cayamo Sessions at Sea’
Sierra Hull – ‘Weighted Mind’
Aubrie Sellers – ‘City Blues’
Miranda Lee Richards – “First Light of Winter”

February 5th
Lucinda Williams – “The Ghosts of Highway 20”
Dori Freeman – ‘Dori Freeman’
Luther Dickinson – ‘Blues & Ballads (A Folksinger’s Songbook: Volumes I & II)’
The Infamous Stringdusters – ‘Ladies & Gentleman’
Freakwater – ‘Scheherazade’
The O’s – ‘Honeycomb’

February 12th
Vince Gill – “Down to My Last Bad Habit”
Wynonna Judd – “Wynonna & the Big Noise”
Lorrie Morgan – ‘Letting Go … Slow’
Joey + Rory – “Hymns That Are Important To Us”
Malcolm Holcombe – ‘Another Black Hole’
Wheeler Walker Jr. ‘Redneck Shit’
Alex Dezen – ‘Alex Dezen’
Matt Patershuk – ‘I Was So Fond of You”
Applewood Road (Emily Barker, Amber Rebirth and Amy Speace) – ‘Applewood Road’

February 19th
Lake Street Dive – ‘Side Pony’
Austin Lucas – ‘Between The Moon and the Midwest”
Mike June – ‘Poor Man’s Bible’

February 26th
Shooter Jennings – ‘Countach (For Giorgio)’
Waco Brothers – ‘Going Down in History’
Kathryn Legendre – ‘Don’t Give A Damn’
Michael Daves – ‘Orchids and Violence’
Jane Kramer – ‘Carnival of Hopes’
Paul Burch – ‘Meredian Rising’
Bonnie Raitt – ‎’Dig In Deep’‬
Caleb Caudle – ‘Carolina Ghost”
Jen Lane – ‘This Life of Mine’
Ashley Monroe – ‘Live At Third Man Records”

March 4th
Loretta Lynne – ‘Full Circle’
Chris King – ‘Animal’
Anielle Reid – ‘Love Song’
Dead Tongues – ‘Montana’

March 11th
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real – ‘Something Real’
Waylon Jennings – ‘Return of the Outlaw: The Abbott, Texas, Broadcast 1973’

March 18th
Various – Dave Cobb’s ‘Southern Family
Grant Lee Phillips – ‘The Narrows’
Sean Watkins – “What To Fear”
The Roosevelts – ”The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn’

March 25th
Parker Millsap – ‘The Very Last Day’
Margo Price – ‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’

April 1st
Elephant Revival – ‘Petals’
Robbie Fulks – ‘Upland Stories’
Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones – ‘Little Windows’
Left Arm Tan – ‘Lorene’

April 8th
Hayes Carll – “Lovers and Leavers”
Tim McNary – ‘Above the Trees’ EP

April 15th
Hackensaw Boys – “Charismo”
Pauline Andres – “The Heart Breaks”
The Lowest Pair – ‘Fern Girl and Ice Man’ / ‘Uncertain As It Is Uneven’

April 19th
Crow Moses – “Nightshades”

April 22nd
Nate Leavitt – “Someone Send a Signal”
Derek Hoke – ‘Southern Moon’

April 29th
Larry Hooper – ‘No Turning Back’

May 3rd
Robert Ellis – ‘Robert Ellis’
Jeremy Nail – ‘My Mountain’

May 6th
Mary Chapin Carpenter – ‘The Things That We Are Made Of”
Jimbo Mathus – ‘Band of Storms’ EP
Vaudeville Etiquette – ‘Aura Vista Motel’

May 20th
Crystal Yates – ‘The Other Side’

May 27th
The Lowest Pair – ‘Fern Girl and Ice Man’ and ‘Uncertain As It Is Uneven’
Bonnie Bishop – ‘Ain’t Who I Was’

June 17
Sarah Jarosz – ‘Undercurrent’
Kris Kristofferson – ‘Cedar Creek Sessions’

June 24
The Felice Brothers – “Life in the Dark,”

July 1
Sara Watkins – ‘Young In All The Wrong Ways’

July 4
James Scott Bullard – “Box of Letters”

July 8
Mark Chesnutt – ‘Tradition Lives On’
Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley – ‘The Country Blues’

July 15
The Earls Of Leicester – ‘Rattle & Roar,’

July 22
High Bar Gang – ‘Someday the Heart Will Trouble the Mind’

August 5
Chelle Rose – ‘Blue Ridge Blood’
Summer Dean – ‘Unladylike’

August 12
Kelsey Waldon – ‘I’ve Got a Way on’
Boo Ray – ‘Sea of Lights’

August 19
Lydia Loveless – ‘Real’
John Paul White – ‘Belah’

August 26
The Devil Makes Three – ‘Redemption & Ruin”
Dietrich Strause – “How Cruel That Hunger Binds”
Waiting for Henry – ‘Town Called Patience’

September 9
Blue Highway – ‘Original Traditional’

September 16
Amanda Shires – “My Piece Of Land”
Jesse Dayton – ‘The Revealer’
The Buffalo Ruckus – ‘Peace & Cornbread’

September 30
Drive-By Truckers – ‘American Band’
Jim Lauderdale – ‘This Changes Everything’

October 7
Shovels and Rope – ‘Little Seeds’
Hiss Golden Messenger – ‘Heart Like a Levee’
The Dexateens – ‘Teenage Hallelujah’

October 28
Aaron Lee Tasjan – “Silver Tears”
Various Artists – ‘Highway Prayer – Tribute to Adam Carroll”
Jasmine Rodgers – ‘Blood Red Sun’

November 4
Kent Eugene Goolsby – ‘Temper Of The Times’

November 18
Miranda Lambert – “The Weight of These Wings”

News Round Up: Country Music Is Dead (RIP Johnny Cash)

  • The 9513’s Matt Griffin draws comparisons to Levon Helm’s newest release, Electric Dirt,  and  Johnny Cash’s latter career reviving American Recordings.
  • The Academy of Country Music has chosen the The Ryman Auditorium as the Venue of the Year. Special awards to be presented at the 2nd Annual ACM Honors, scheduled for September 22 at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, will be the Jim Reeves International Award to Dolly Parton, the Mae Boren Axton Award to David Young, the Poet’s Award to Merle Haggard and Harlan Howard. Lee Ann Womack will host the evenand there will be special performances by Bobby Bare, Vince Gill, Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Jim Lauderdale and Patty Loveless.
  • The Country Music Association Awards announced the nominees for their 43rd annual awards ceremony. All the usual suspects, Paisley (leading with 6 nominations),  Chesney, Swift, Urban. A nod to tradition  – George Strait. Some black horses added – Joey + Rory for Vocal Duo Of The Year and The Raconteurs with Ricky Skaggs and Adhely Monroe performing the song Old Enough as the Musical Event Of The Year (?) Duller than the Grammys I say. Tune in to see Jamey Johnson perform and try to refrain throwing things at the TV when Kid Rock takes the stage.
  • Johnny Cash dies On this Day, 2003, at Nashville’s Baptist Hospital, of complications from diabetes, 4 months after death of wife, June Carter.

The Best of 2008 (For Reals)

Propaganda has been honed to a fine art in the last half century. Americans have been convinced to fight wars, hand over civil and employee rights and consume ever crappier beer, food and, alas, music.

Mainstream Country Music is one of the few genres in the 21st century that tolerates no real deviation from certified Music Row and mainstream radio product. Sure there are exceptions, the Outlaw Movement cooped a largely ignored youth movement, Garth tweaked the business model and stage production and Big and Rich and their “MuzikMafia” was a painfully lame attempt to emulate Hip Hop’s concept of crews. But when it comes to altering the DNA of the music the image driven slickness and paint-by-numers narritives seem as tightly mandated as the McDonald’s Big Mac cooking process. If you don’t fit the hat act mold you are cast into the slums of Americana, folk, roots, alt.country or, if the sins were severe enough, rock!

Into this unyielding environment stepped artists that discovered that Cash, Willie and Hank were speaking to them in ways larger then the flavor of the week bands being crammed down their throats. That’s where the wild hillbilly muse dances. That way real beauty and art lay waiting.

Americana/roots/alt.country is attracting new talent that bravely straddles the cultural divide between trad sepia-toned country circa Jimmie Rogers and Carter Family and the current attitudes, sounds and stories of our times. New artists like O’Death, The Felice Bothers, Justin Townes Earle and Star Anna and road-tested warriors like Dale Watson, Eleven Hundred Springs and Tom Russell have Inject new blood, whiskey and adrenaline into a largely lifeless form of music that refuses to be embalmed.

And then there are the genre-crossing big-wigs like  Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Chrissie Hynde and Robert Plant (who is currently nominated for 6 grammys and forgoing a Led Zeppelin reunion to continue Raising Sand with Bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss) that are moving toward a the wildser lands attracted by its proclivity for authenticity and celebration of  experimentation. The only sin is mediocrity, the only transgression is bovine conformity.

There’s no reward for compiling a “best of” list. People will quibble with the selections, the order of said selections will displease many and whether the writer is at all qualified to compile such as list will be questioned. Ridicule and contempt is sure to follow.

I do this to celebrate those that are willing to look past the wanna-be-celebrity choked road paved with pyrite. The Great Ones bent Nashville to their ways or took refuge in other regions far from the industry, Bakersfield California,  Austin Texas, to ply their wares. The Music Row road is not an easy one, it’s just crowded with sheep and the destination is less interesting.

Here’s to the on’ry, ragged, dusty dreamers.

——————————————————————————————-

10) Hank Williams III – “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” (Sidewalk Records) -The man with a country music royalty pedigree, and an arguable entitlement to the moniker “Man In Blacker,” burns the middle-of-the-road with another custom hot-rod release. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

9) Jamey Johnson – “That Lonesome Song” (Mercury Nashville) -  Jamey Johnson does more than redeem himself for helping to pen Trace Adkins maga-seller Honky Tonk Badonkadonk with this brilliant release born of hard living and a love of Waylon Jennings and George Jones.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

8)  Sara Cahoone – “Only As The Day Is Long” (Sub-Pop) – Former rock drummer Cahoone has created a melancholy-shoegaze-Americana masterpiece with her rainy-day ready debut release.  Amazon | MySpace | Sub-Pop

7)  Star Anna – “Crooked Path” (Malamute Records) -  On this smoldering debut of Americana-noir Ellensburg, Washington’s Star Anna Krogstie proves she can hold her own with Lucinda Williams and Neko Case. Her voice seems to be the shear definition of longing and heartache.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

6) Hang Jones – “The Ballad of Carlsbad County” (Self Released) – Hang Jones is the alias for Stephen Grillos and his concept album, set in 1887 New Mexico, takes the typical elements – lust, jealousy, whiskey, gunpowder and blood – and works his gritty magic to deliver a great album.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

5) Luke Powers – “Texasee” (Phoebe Claire) – Powers stated in an interview that Texasee is a study of a mythical place that lies between Nashville and Austin and is done in a style reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah. Sign me up! Writers in the Western genre celebrate a few that are seen as more “literary.”  Powers like Tom Russell, James McMurty, John Prine and Joe Ely, occupies the mirror space in music.  CD Baby | MySpace | Pheobe Claire Site

4) Felice Brothers (Team Love) -From from the Catskill Mountains to the subways of New York city these actual brothers (and a bass player named Christmas) channel the Basement Tapes and spin  magnificently dark tales of desperation and violence. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

3) O’Death -  “Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin” (Kemado) – New York’s O’Death is a concoction of parts that if mixed any other way would result into a noxious mess.  Appalachian Mountain music,  Gypsy music, Gothic punk, funk and metal, it all just shouldn’t play nice together. On Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin the sounds meld magnificently in a dark and volatile masterpiece.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

2) Justin Townes Earle – “The Good Life”  (Bloodshot) -Before technology allowed us to cheat, musicians were the source of musical synthesis, or what is referred to by the hipsters today as mash-ups. Justin Townes Earle harkens back to these aural alchemists and has created a potent blend of 19th century folk, country swing and hillbilly boogie. Overcoming his Daddy’s long musical shadow (and his inclination towards illicit substances) Justin Townes Earle’s first full length release rejoices in heritage while transcending its creators youth.  Amazon | MySpace | Bloodshot Records

1) Eleven Hundred Springs – “Country Jam” (Palo Duro Records) – If you want a crash course in the best Texas country music over the last half-century the 2008 release from Dallas’ ESL would be a great place to start. From the hillbilly poetry of Mickey Newbury and Joe Ely to the Western Swing of Bob Wills to the pop and rock of  Doug Sahm and Buddy Holly all the influences are there.  And though the sounds are reflective of the Texas greats  ESL makes it distinctly their own on this superior homage to the Lone Star State. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

Honorable Mention:

Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creations Dark
The Whipsaws – 60 Watt Avenue
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – Cipher
Caitlin Rose -  Dead Flowers
The Power of County  – See You In Rock and Roll Heaven
Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
Kathy Mattea – Coal
The Wildes – Ballad of a Young Married Man
Hayes Carll – Trouble In Mind
Joey + Rory – The Life Of A Song
Kasey Chambers and Shane – Rattlin’ Bones
Ashton Shepherd – Sounds So Good
The Steeldrivers – Self-Titled
Whitey Morgan and the 78’s – Honky Tonks and Cheap Motels