Wanted! – Notable Americana and Roots Music Releases for 2017

Wanted! - Notable Americana and Roots Music Releases for 2017

2016 was another great year for Americana and roots music, and 2017 shows signs that the great music will continue to come our way. As our Cream of the Crop favorites from last year makes plain we might be experiencing a new golden age of roots music/ Both as a growing influence on our contemporary culture and also as a viable, business for young and old artists to sustain themselves and thrive.

That last part is crucial as it provides economic and influential seed corn for the future ‘Cream of the Crop’ year-end best of collections.

The list below is a collection of known 2017 notable Americana / roots releases. Some anticipated releases from artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell and The Secret Sisters have no release dates yet, but when I become aware of them and others I will be updating the list throughout the year and will send word through my twitter account when I do.

If you know of a release not listed yet please leave it in the comments.

One thing is for sure, it’s going to be a great year folks.

January 13th –
The Band of Heathens – ‘Duende’
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings – ‘Kings and Kings’
Otis Gibbs – ‘Mount Renraw’

January 20th –
Kasey Chambers – ‘Dragonfly’
The Show Ponies – How It All Goes Down’
Rayna Gellert – ‘Workin’s Too Hard’

January 27th –
Delbert McClinton – ‘Prick Of The Litter’
Tift Merritt – ‘Stitch of the World’
Valerie June – ‘The Order of Time’
Bankesters – ‘Nightbird’
Dead Man Winter – ‘Furnace’

February 3rd –
Ags Connolly – ‘Nothin’ Unexpected’
Gurf Morlix – ‘The Soul & The Heal’
Mitch Dean –‘Suburban Speakeasy’
Rose Cousins – ‘Natural Conclusion’
Caroline Spence – ‘Spades & Roses’

February 10th –
Kris Kristofferson – The Austin Sessions (Expanded Edition)

February 17th –
Alison Krauss – ‘Windy City’
Nikki Lane – ‘Highway Queen’
Pegi Young & The Survivors – ‘Raw’
Son Volt – ‘Notes Of Blue’
Son of the Velvet Rat – ‘Dorado’
Blair Crimmins – ‘You Gotta Sell Something’
The Gibson Brothers – “In The Ground”

February 24th –
Curtis McMurtry – ‘The Hornet’s Nest’
Rhiannon Giddens – ‘Freedom Highway’
Old 97s – ‘Graveyard Whistling’
Scott H. Biram – “The Bad Testament”
Shinyribs – “I Got Your Medicine”
Aaron Watson – “Vaquero”

March 3rd –
Grandaddy – ‘Last Place’
Beth Bombara – ‘Map With No Direction ‘

March 10th –
Sunny Sweeney – “Trophy’
Pieta Brown – “Postcards”

March 24th –
Jessi Colter – ‘The Psalms’
Samantha Crain – ‘You Had Me At Goodbye’

March 31st –
Rodney Crowell – ‘Close Ties”
David Olney – “Don’t Try To Fight It”
Dead Soldiers – “The Great Emptiness”
Shoddy Blacktooth — “Don’t Forget To Die”

April 7th
Malcolm Holcombe – ‘Pretty Little Troubles’
Andrew Combs – “Canyons Of My Mind”

April 14th
Evening Darling – “Evening Darling’

April 21st –
Angaleena Presley – ‘Wrangled’

May 5th
Chris Stapleton – ‘From a Room: Volume 1’

May 19th
Builders and the Butchers – ‘The Spark’
Pokey LaFarge – ‘Manic Revelations’
Tom Russell – ‘Play One More: The Songs Of Ian And Sylvia’

May 26th
Justin Townes Earle – ‘Kids in the Street’

June 2nd –
Bobby Osborne – ‘Original’

June 9th –
The Secret Sisters – ‘You Don’t Own Me Anymore’
Shannon McNally – ‘Black Irish’

June 16th –
Sammy Brue – ‘I Am Nice’

June 23rd –
The Deslondes – ‘Hurry Home’
Slaid Cleaves – ‘Ghost on the Car Radio’

July 7th –
Randall Bramblett – ‘Juke Joint At The Edge Of The World’

July 14th –
Cale Tyson – ‘Careless Soul’

July 21st –
Whiskey Shivers – ‘Some Part of Something”

August 4th
Tyler Childers – ‘Purgatory’

August 18th
Loretta Lynn – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Great’ POSTPONED
Ray Wylie Hubbard – ‘Tell the Devil I’m Getting There as Fast as I Can’

September 8th
Caroline Reese – ‘Two Horses’ EP

September 15th
Willie Watson – ‘Folksinger Vol. 2’
The Lone Bellow – ‘Walk Into A Storm’

September 22nd
Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers – “The Long-Awaited Album”
Billy Strings – ‘Turmoil & Tinfoil’

September 29th
Anna Tivel – “Small Believer”

October 6th
Whitney Rose – ‘Rule 62’
JD McPherson – ‘Undivided Heart and Soul’
Becca Mancari – ‘Good Woman’

October 13th
Hellbound Glory – ‘Pinball’
Caleb Cladry – ‘Invincible Things’

October 16th
Gill Landry – ‘Love Rides A Dark Horse’

October 20th
Turnpike Troubadours – ‘A Long Way From Your Heart’
Dori Freeman – ‘Letters Never Read’

October 27th
Lee Ann Womack – ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’
Ronnie Fauss – ‘Last of the True’
The Wailin’ Jennys – ‘Fifteen’
The Deep Dark Woods – ‘Yarrow’

October 31st
Year of October – ‘Trouble Comes’

November 3rd
Samantha Fish – ‘Belle of the West’
Anna St. Louis – “First Songs’
Scott Miller – ‘Ladies Auxiliary’

November 17th
Mavis Staples – ‘If All I Was Was Black’

December
Chris Stapleton – ‘From a Room: Volume 2’

December 8th
Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman – ‘Dear John’

Listen Up! Ronnie Fauss Covers Slobberbone’s “Lumberlung”

Portrait of musician Ronnie Fauss, photographed in Brooklyn, NY
Portrait of musician Ronnie Fauss, photographed in Brooklyn, NY

There are few songs that move me quite as much as Slobberbone’s “Lumberlung.” I’d put it up there with Ryan Adams’ ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ and Drive-By Truckers’ ‘Goddamn Lonely Love’ on my ‘melancholy tales of faded love’ list

Nortex troubadour Ronnie Fauss wisely agrees. He pays honorable tribute on this fine rendition picking up the pace and little giving it an a slightly jauntier spin without losing any of the emotion-wrenching punch.

Of his relationship with the band and recording the song Fauss says “I first heard Slobberbone over the speakers at a now defunct record store on lower Greenville in Dallas. It stopped me in my tracks – I went to the counter and said “what in the hell is this?!?” The album was “Everything you thought was right was wrong today” and the song was “Lumberlung”.

I bought the CD on the spot, and listened all the way home. When I got home I went straight to the guitar that was under my bed (and had not been played in years) and started working on a song of my own. It was just my natural response to hearing Slobberbone for the first time – I had to make something of my own.

I became a superfan. I went to see them many times around Deep Ellum and other parts of Dallas…I introduced my buddies to them and they became superfans as well, we bonded like brothers at their shows. Also, I kept on writing my own songs. A few years later, I had a batch of material that I felt good enough about to record. I had read that (Slobberbone lead singer) Brent Best was recording local artists in his spare time in his home studio, so I went to see him at a solo gig he was playing at the Barley House…after a few shots of whiskey I mustered up the courage to approach him, introduce myself, and ask if he would be open to helping me make a record. He gave me a once-over and said “sure”, and that was that.

We recorded my first EP in his house in the Spring of 2008. It was very surreal to be recording with the songwriter who had encouraged me to start writing songs in the first place! It’s an intimate, stripped down recording…tracked over his linoleum kitchen floor. He would stand up between takes, go to the stove and stir something in a pot, and then return to the control board. He said he was cooking a goat. I’m proud of the record we made together, it’s called “New Songs For The Old Frontier Volume 1”.

When I was invited to pick a Slobberbone song to record for this project, I was elated. What an honor! But then a sort of creative atrophy took over. As I listened through their entire catalog in search of a song to cover, I came to realization – I could not improve on anything they had ever done. I only want to offer my own version of someone else’s song if I think I can bring something unique and meaningful to the table…but how could I improve on perfection???

And then it hit me – don’t try to do it better, just do it different. So I went back to “Lumberlung”…the first song I heard by Slobberbone in that record store more than a decade earlier, and an idea hit me. Speed it up a bit, change the tempo, bring in a banjo and a mandolin and a fiddle and turn it into a back porch picking number. Their original verison is perfect and beautiful and haunting, mine is something different.

I’m proud of how it turned out. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. I mean come on, I had about the best source material to work with that a man could ask for.’

Fauss joins Luther Dickinson and others that have recorded Slobberbone songs to celebrate the release of Bees and Seas: The Best Of Slobberbone

Ronnie Fauss Official Site | Slobberbone Official Site