• Head over to Elizabeth Cook’s Facebook page to see inside pics of EC working on her new album with her ace live band (including her guitarist and husband Tim Carroll),  producer Don Was and engineer Krish Sharma. Also sitting in with Cook was the producer of her lest record, Balls, Rodney Crowell.

• USA Today talks to John Fogerty about making his new 36-years in the making roots-rock album The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again.

• Today only you can get Lyle Lovett’s New Album for $3.99 at Amazon.

• If you’re in the Bay Aarea head over to the Elbo Room for Hang Jones, Casey Prestwood & the Burning Angels and Misisipi Rider.

• The winners of the 20th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards went to: Dailey & Vincent : Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper : Instrumental Group of the Year, Dan Tyminski – Male Vocalist of the Year, Dale Ann Bradley – Female Vocalist of the Year, Wheels : Dan Tyminski, (artist/producer) Album of the Year, Don’t Throw Mama’s Flowers Away : Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass (artist) – Song of the Year (via BlueGrassJournal.com) See photos from the award show, held at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn (The Bluegrass Blog)

• The 9513 sits down with a Q&A with Canadian Country Music artist Corb Lund.

• London-based Americana (Euro-Americana?) band The Dog Roses have a new EP, Just Another Saturday, scheduled for release next month. It is discribed as “foot tapping country-bluegrass mix with hints of celtic thrown in for good measure.” Download Let the Bottle Take the Heartache from the forthcoming EP: Let The Bottle Take The Heartache Away.mp3

• Go pick up the new podcast from NineBullets.net featuring tracks from upcoming cds by Lucero,  Strawfoot and Micah Schnabel (Two Cow Garage) as well as new material from Drivin’ & Cryin’ and Chuck Ragan.

• Sounds Country takes a look back at Jerry Jeff Walker’s 1975 release Ridin’ High

• Hardly Strictly Bluegrass begins today and goea on until Sunday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Speedway Meadow. The 9th year of this free annual Americana and roots festival features 5 stages featuring John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Billy Joe Shaver, Elizabeth Cook, Buddy Miller and many, many more. You can follow HSB on twitter. And you can follow Twang Nation tweets from the festival all weekend.

• Vince Vaughn is not only hilarious, and tall, but he loves country music. Or is it Americana music…hell I can’ keep up.

• The Americana extravaganza that is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is next weekend people. John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Boz Scaggs, Steve Earle, Ricky Scaggs, Gillian Welch, Booker T and the Drive By Truckers as his backing band, Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Aimee Mann and Little Feat. And it’s FREE!

• Chet Flippo traces country’s heritage through new releases by Roseanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Lynyrd Skynyrd. (CMT.com)

• Taylor Swift showed up at the Ryman last night to watch Texas’ own Miranda Lambert play her new release Revolution (I wonder if she has to pay Steve Earle royalties on that too?) That’s right Taylor, that’s how it’s done! During her performance Lambert knelt down and kissed the historic wooden stage of the hallowed Mother Church of Country Music. No mics where taken from any performers as far as I know…

• The Wall Street Journal has a great article on Alison Brown, Missy Raines and Dale Ann Bradley (The Sisterhood of Bluegrass.)

• Lyle Lovett will combine both originals and songs “by some of my favorite Texas singer-songwriters” on his next album, which is due out Oct. 20. (Billboard)

• And in more Texas legends news; Guy Clark’s new album, Sometimes the Song Writes You, will drop on Sept. 22 on Dualtone Music Group. Clark collaborats with Shawn Camp, Rodney Crowell, Joe Leathers, and more on the album . He also follows Steve Earle’s recent release and covers If I Needed You, written by his late friend, Townes Van Zandt. (CMT)

Just when you needed more evidence that you’re getting old and aren’t accomplished very much I give you Ruby Jane.  Ruby is a 14 year old native Texan (born in Dallas, now resides in Austin) and is a premiere junior fiddler and a fast-rising star in country and bluegrass-Americana music scene.

She has shared the stage with Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Asleep at the Wheel, Rhonda Vincent, Mike Snider, Jesse McReynolds, Jim Brock, James Monroe, Carl Jackson and Big & Rich (hey, a girls gotta make some bank!) In true old-school country entrepreneurial style  Ruby even has her own pancake mix for sale!  When not sawing wood and hawking flapjacks Ruby Jane is also an actress and a model Kids today and their virtuoso Blugrass playing!

• Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt will appear on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight (2/4.)

• This morning the Country Music Association announced that Roy Clark, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie McCoy will become the 105th, 106th and 107th Country Music Hall of Fame members. The official induction will take place this spring, during the Hall’s Medallion Ceremony.

• No Depression has posted a track (Death Don’t Have No Mercy) from the upcoming release by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott A Stranger Here. The album will drop on April 7 via Anti- Records and was produced by Joe Henry

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott & Marty Stuart – Engine 143 – SXSW 2006 Hootenanny

The Americana Music Association are auctioning significant memorabilia items and ticket offers. All proceeds will support the not for profit association’s annual Americana Music Festival & Conference, which takes place in Nashville from September 16th – 19th, 2009. Some of the things up for sales are a Jason & The Scorchers 20 Year Birthday Celebration Autographed Hatch show print and tickets to Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt in the city of your choice.

South Florida’s Metromix recounts Alejandro Escovedo’s 30-plus years long career and his brush with death in 2003 as a result of contacting hepatitis C. Escovedo also discusses how living in Aaustin helps shape his eclectic musical style: “The bulk of my material is influenced by living in the Southwest,” he says. “There are spaces here I love very much. It’s a wonderful place to meditate on all sorts of subjects and things. And music from Texas always influenced me: Joe Ely, Ornette Coleman, Junior Walker, Arnett Cobb, Lightnin’ Hopkins. And then, you’ve got people like Roky Erickson and the Butthole Surfers. It’s an amazing place musically. It lends itself to imagination. You can get lost in the dreamlike quality of it.”Escovedo is currently on tour.

The Los Angeles Chronicle has a nice post on country music legend Kitty Wells‘ influence on women’s careers  in country music, her singles and career as a refection of women in domestic relationships of post-WWII America and how Roy Acuff believed how having a woman headline a live showcase was “financial suicide. ” Wells  is currently enjoying a retrospective at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum entitled “Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music, Presented by Great American Country Television Network,” which remains open until June 14, 2009

• It seems that it’s New York Times day at Ranch Twang; the paper features a nice write up on legendary singer/songwriter John Hiatt whom they talked to just before he shared the stage with Lyle Lovett in Greenville, South Carolina.

• Is McCain supporter John Rich, the shorter, and more homophobic half of Country Music comedy duo Big and Rich, a badass? Maybe. TMZ (THE source of celebrity trash) reports that Rich “hit a guy in the face shortly after 4 a.m. Friday (Oct. 17) at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. The guy was Jerry Montano, who previously played bass in the metal band Danzig and, more recently, with another metal band, Hellyeah. According to the TMZ report, some sort of disagreement led to Rich allegedly hitting Montano in the nose with a beer bottle.” Wow. If only Rich’s compositions lived up to his off stage hell raising antics.I wonder if he messed up his big fur coat?

• Men’s Health magazine seems to think that country music is one of the “13 Things a Man Should Never Fear.” Really? The magazine says of country music”Your snobbery betrays ignorance. Some of the greatest songs in the North American canon have come out of this genre. Also, if you think you have problems, just listen to some Merle Haggard. You’ll feel a lot better.” and lists it with hot tea, yoga and allowing the lady in your life to drive. Wierd. It’s like they meant to put John Mayer or James Blunt and ended up putting in Merle Haggard. So ‘cmon guys kick back in your aromotherapy bath with that cup of Darjeeling (spiked with whiskey, natch) and crank on Mama Tried.

The ever snarky yet entertaining music site PopMatters are dropping their “Best Of…” lists by genre and their list of 2007’s Best Country is an insightful pick of the crop. My three favorite female  country crooners of the year, Elizabeth Cook, Sunny Sweeney,  and Miranda Lambert made the list as well as some typical Nashville faire. They also take time to take some cheap shots at the Eagles (Linda Ronstadt’s old backing back reinvent itself as the oldest boy band on the planet, HA! ) which always scores points with me.

And then there’s this lyrical insight to Rascal Flatts.

It’s safe to say Rascal Flatts will never make that leap across the firewire because I really don’t see any merit in an outfit that takes ostensibly good ideas, drowns them like kittens in a syrup of glossy good taste, skins them, and then drags them out over four minutes where two-and-a-half would have been more than enough. It’s all enough to make you long for an American Idol or two.

Bless you PopMatters….bless your snarky hide!

One of the most memorable show I ever attended here in New York was the CMT Crossroads featuring Rosanne Cash and Steve Earle. The pairing of artists from the country and rock/pop genre is getting harder and harder to differentiate from one another but it’s still one of the best shows on CMT. The New York Times has a nice slide-show on Crossroads featuring Joss Stone and LeAnn Rimes, Kid Rock (Bob Ritchie) and Hank Williams Jr., Bonnie Raitt and Lyle Lovett, Bon Jovi and Sugarland and Kenny (Babyface) Edmonds and Trisha Yearwood.