Record Store Day’s Black Friday 2013 – Americana and Roots Music Picks

BLACK FRIDAY

The day after Thanksgiving, November 29 – ominously named Black Friday (if you’re in the rush at Wal-Mart it kinda makes sense) – is the busiest shopping day of the year.

The good folks that organize Record Store Day have provided music fans with a holiday treat to make Black Friday more festive.

This year part of the retail bounty special exclusive releases from some of the most popular artists in almost every genre. Of course my focus is on Americana and roots music. Some dandies are being released from The Civil Wars, Blackberry Smoke, Blind Boys Of Alabama, Jason Isbell & John Paul White, Dawes, Uncle Tupelo and more. Some of these realeses are completely exclusive to the record store, some of them making their appearance at a record store before you’ll find them anywhere else.

Head to the official Record Store Day site to get a complete list of releases and participating stores.

Blackberry Smoke / Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd &
Blackberry Smoke Live 12″
Vinyl Split
Label: Southern Ground
A live compilation featuring six previously unreleased tracks.
Side A Lynyrd Skynyrd Live Slovesburg, Sweden 6/9/12 – “Whats Your Name”, “That Smell”, “Simple Man” – Side B Blackberry Smoke Live Winston-Salem NC 4/12/13 – “Six Ways To Sunday”, “Pretty Little Lie”, “Ain’t Music Left Of Me”

Blind Boys Of Alabama/Jason Isbell & John Paul White
Christmas In Dixie/Old Flame
Format: 7″ Vinyl
Label: Lightning Rod Records/Thirty tig
7″ Silver and White Swirled vinyl
Exclusive 7″ single featuring covers of Alabama classics. These and others on the Tribute to Alabama album.
Side A – Blind Boys of Alabama “Christmas in Dixie” Side B Jason Isbell and John Paul White “Old Flame”

Brandi Carlile/The Lone Bellow
Live Split
Format: 7″ Vinyl
Label: Descendant Records
Brandi Carlile recorded live on the Hard Way Home Convoy Tour in 2013; The Lone Bellow recorded at SXSW March 2013 at the Paste Magazine Stage on Sixth Party, sponsored by Record Store Day
Side A Brandi Carlile – “Raise Hell” Side B The Lone Bellow – “You Never Need Nobody”

The Civil Wars
Between The Bars
Format: 10″ Vinyl
Label: Columbia Records
10″ single containing exclusive studio versions of four cover songs which have been part of The Civil Wars live repertoire
“Sour Times” (Portishead cover), “Between The Bars” (Elliott Smith cover), “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson cover), “Talking In Your Sleep” (Romantics cover)

Dawes
Stripped Down At Grimeys
Format: LP/CD
Label: HUB Records
Orange LP Version – Recorded live at Grimey’s in March of 2013. Contains songs from the acclaimed Stories Don’t End album and a few classic Dawes tracks. Set is a plugged in yet intimate approach as opposed to the typically bombastic Dawes live experience.
1. “From A Window Seat” 2. “Someone Will” 3. “Time Spent In Los Angeles” 4. “Most People” 5. “Something In Common” 6. “A Little Bit of Everything”

Bob Dylan
Side Tracks
Format: LP
Label: Columbia Records
A compilation of tracks that have never appeared on a formal Bob Dylan album. 180 g, numbered, triple LP package.

Harry Nilsson
Rarities Collection
Format: LP
Label: Columbia Records
RARE Nilsson tracks on 1 LP, 180g and indivually, numbered. A collection culled from the 17 CD Box Set which includes all of Harry’s original RCA albums, previously unreleased demos and radio spots.

Various Artists
A Musical Tribute To The Songs of Shel Silverstein
Format: LP
Label: Sugar Hill Records
Vinyl release of the 2010 star-studded tribute to Shel Silversein. On 45 RPM double white vinyl.
My Morning Jacket–“Lullabies, Legends and Lies”, Andrew Bird–“The Twistable, Turnable Man Returns”, John Prine–“This Guitar is For Sale”, Dr. Dog–“The Unicorn”, Kris Kristofferson–“The Winner”, Sarah Jarosz with Black Prairie–“Queen of the Silver Dollar”, Bobby Bare, Jr. with Isabella Bare–“Daddy What If”, Black Francis with Joey Santiago–“The Cover of the Rolling Stone”, The Boxmasters–“Sylvia’s Mother”, Ray Price–“Me and Jimmie Rodgers”, Todd Snider–“A Boy Named Sue”, Lucinda Williams–“The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”, Bobby Bare–“The Living Legend”, Nanci Griffith–“The Giving Tree”, My Morning Jacket–“26 Second Song”

Uncle Tupelo
I Wanna Be Your Dog / Commotion
Format: 7″ Vinyl
Label: Columbia Records
Side A – Stooges cover (studio, outtake from No Depression sessions)
Side B – Credence cover (previously unreleased studio outtake from No Depression sessions)
“I Wanna Be Your Dog”/”Commotion”

Townes Van Zandt
Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions & Demos 1971-1972
Format: Vinyl Box Set
Label: Omnivore Recordings
The vinyl version of this release housed in a 3 LP box, on clear vinyl. Includes 28 unheard versions of legendary songs by one of our most treasured songwriters. All songs drawn from his most prolific period, 1971-1972. Liner notes by Colin Escott.
This will be exclusive to indie stores for 90 days.

Kris Kristofferson is Feeling Mortal in the Third Release of His Twilight Years Trilogy

Much of this post is posted verbatim  an excellent PR email I got for this anticipated album:

Kris Kristofferson, legendary songwriter, singer, Country Music Hall of Fame member, actor, activist, Golden Gloves boxer, a Rhodes scholar, a college football player, acclaimed actor, military officer,  helicopter pilot, a saint, a sinner, a Grammy-winner and a  janitor at Columbia Records will release Feeling Mortal, his first collection of new material in four years on January 29, 2013.

The album will be released on his own KK Records will be the third Don Was-produced album in a twilight years trilogy, following 2009’s Closer To The Bone and 2006’s This Old Road.

The 76-year-old Kristofferson “Wide awake and feeling mortal,” writes on the title track. “At this moment in the dream/ That old man there in the mirror/ And my shaky self-esteem.”

“Going back to the beginning, the songs have been reflections of where I was at that point in my life,” he says. “I always try to be as honest as I can in the songwriting, otherwise there’s no point in doing it: I might as well be doing an advertising job or something. And what I’m finding, to my pleasant surprise at this age, is that I’m more inclined to laughter than tears. I hope I’ll feel this creative and this grateful until they throw dirt over me.”

That doesn’t mean Feeling Mortal works as anyone’s greeting card of soft-peddled feelings. “Just Suppose” is another look in the mirror, a negotiation with shame’s reflection. “Castaway” is a cry of the heart, and a memory of a long-ago scene Kristofferson witnessed from the air, when he was flying helicopters over the Gulf of Mexico. And “My Heart Was The Last One To Know” is a harrowing old song, written by Kristofferson and genius poet/author/cartoonist/songwriter Shel Silverstein and previously recorded by Connie Smith.

“Shel was the only person I consistently wrote songs with,” Kristofferson says. “He was a fantastic writer. We did about a dozen songs, and usually he’d write down some titles and a description of what he was thinking about, and I’d go off and come back with a song.”

The album ends with “Ramblin’ Jack,” a song ostensibly about Kristofferson’s folk-singing friend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Kristofferson approached the song as something of a self-penned co-write, inspired and begun by his younger self and finished in the present and mortal day. The second verse is the new one: “And if he knew how good he’d done/ Every song he ever sung/ I believe he’d truly be surprised.”

“Ramblin’ Jack’s one of those people whose whole life was music,” Kristofferson says. “He’s like William Blake and Bob Dylan and other people who just believed and lived for whatever poetry they could come up with. That’s probably the thing I was trying to be.”

That’s the thing he was, and the thing he is.

In the Nashville beginning, Kristofferson threw away a promising military career in favor of life as what he sometimes calls, “A songwriting bum.” He had excelled at most everything he’d ever tried, save for singing and songwriting, but it was the singing and the writing that called to him. He wound up penning classics including “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “For The Good Times,” as well as a slew of other empathetic, incisive gems. Kristofferson—along with contemporaries Tom T. Hall, Mickey Newbury, Willie Nelson and John Prine—enhanced the scope of country music songwriting, focusing on layering, nuance, empathy and emotional truth.

“A major reason for Kris’ enduring popularity is that he’s always been very honest and open about revealing his inner life,” says producer Don Was, who has worked with Kristofferson for the past 17 years. “‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ is a brutally frank, first-person narrative that just happens to hit a common nerve among millions of people, and that’s why Kris is such a great artist. I suspect a whole lot of folks will be able to relate to Feeling Mortal, now and for years to come. It’s totally in keeping with the body of Kris’ oeuvre.”

Kristofferson and Was spent three days recording Feeling Mortal, cutting 20 songs and picking 10, then bolstering the basic tracks with stellar instrumental work from guitarist Mark Goldenberg, pedal steel master Greg Leisz, keyboardist Matt Rollins, violinist and vocalist Sara Watkins, bassist Sean Hurley and drummer Aaron Sterling.

They emerged with a piece of work that Was suggests is “One of Kris’ finest albums.”

Kristofferson isn’t one to arm-wrestle with his own legacy, or to set his truths of today against the truths of his old-and-gone immortal self, but he’s pleased that a life that has been sustained by the product of his own imagination remains fruitful.

Above all, Kristofferson is happy to be happy, grateful to be grateful, and wholly unwilling to take the credit for the wondrous way it’s all worked out. In the end, Feeling Mortal is a melodic note of gratitude, from creator to Creator.

“God Almighty, here I am,” he sings. “Am I where I ought to be? I’ve begun to soon descend, like the sun into the sea/ And I thank my lucky stars, from here to eternity/ For the artist that You are/ And the man you made of me.”

Hear samples from Kris Kristofferson’s “Feeling Mortal”

Concert Review: Hayes Carll – Slims – San Francisco, CA – 5/14/11

The first thing I noticed about the near capacity crowd at Slims was the lack of Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys. The brew de rigueur of the skinny jeans and tattoo set has been a main staple for big city shows of the twang variety since I first saw the Drive-By Truckers in New York City in 2006, but the cheap suds were nowhere to be seen. There was the occasional Bud light, local micro-brew (served in plastic cups as not to be too fancy)  and whisky neat but the ubiquitous PBR was oddly out of place. The crowd also skewed older and working stiffs decked out in the pro-shops finest with their blond wives were mixed with a few that looked like extras from HBO’s Deadwood. This was not the hoody and cap set herding to a scene, these people were here for great music.

With a voice pitched somewhere South of Dylan and north of Kris Kristofferson Carll began he show surprisingly with the tearjerker Chances Are but the crowd stayed quiet and ate it up. We were then rewarded with the long-haired honky-tonk road song Hard Out Here. things were less quiet with the “Hell yeahs” and “Yee -haws.”

Carll was in town supporting is excellent new release KMAG YOYO which is an Army acronym for Kiss My Ass, Guys, You’re On Your Own,. He introduced the song as a “Young soldier in Afghanistan, then get’s into the heroin trade and is then injured by an IED. In a morphine induced hallucination imagines he’s working for a secret Pentagon program that feeds you acid and send you in space. Look for it on country radio!” The song is a (fast) talking blues number in the spirit of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues or Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere and it drove the crowd into a frenzy.

About 30 minutes into the set shots of tequila was delivered to the stage. “We played L.A. the other night and not one drink was bough for us. Here we are 37 minuted in the set and we have shots. Thanks San Francisco!” Four more rounds of drinks followed.

Carll took the time to praise the legendary Texas singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard and explained how when they met to write a song together that Hubbard was in his phase of using animals as subject matter to great success with the song Snake Farm, which Carll sang the chorus of with a surprisingly simpatico crowd. He said they wrote a song called Chickens but had overestimated the poultry-folk movement of 2006. Carll then sang a song he and Hubbard wrote, and was released on Carll’s Trouble in Mind and Hubbard’s lengthily titled A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C). With lines like “There’s some money on the table and a pistol on the floor. Some old paper back books of Louis L’Amour…” It’s a natural and perfect result from a a Carll/Hubbard collaboration.

There was also a song from a Carll collaboration with Bobby Bare Jr. and Corb Lund entitled One Bed, Two Girls and Three Bottles of Wine about a Southern California tryst gone limp. The song has a honky-tonk heart of the absurd found in the best Roger Miller or Shel Silverstein numbers.

After about two hours of great song after next Carll and his sizzling band who moved through every instrument  but bag pipes, encored with a rousing version of the Possum’s White Lightning which was a great chaser from a musician cast in the same dry-witted and tuneful mold as Guy Clark and Terry Allen.

Fathers Day Playlist

I know I haven’t been posting much lately. Besides the uptick in my  frequency of the Twang Nation twitter feed and preparing for a move (down the street) but I wanted to do a quick list for Fathers Day. Being a dad it’s close to my heart and there are some great songs out there. Please I saw Darrell Scott  is giving away a free download of his song, A Father’s Song for the occasion so It moved me to get something done. Here’s some of my favorites, got one of your own? Post it below. Thanks for reading.

The Drive By Truckers : Oufit – Jason Isbell shows Southern soul telling a tale of a  man giving sage advice to his son.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTKrtftHCv4[/youtube]

Drive-By Truckers: Daddy Needs A Drink – Yeah, I’m showing my DBT bias here, but great songs are where you find them. Patterson Hood embodys a man worn out by life and seeking liquid refuge.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5OiZ9C8zU[/youtube]

Dixie Chicks: Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) – Sure Natalie Maines sings this beautiful song, written by Austin legend Radney Foster, but the sentiment of parental love is transcendent. Emmylou Harris ‘ vocals near the end seal the deal.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwfaTcBNtWo[/youtube]

Elton John: My Father’s Gun – From the excellent Americana classic Tumbleweed Connection. A boy inherits his father’s firearm as well as his hatred of the Yanks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_p0lbEuKzk[/youtube]

Lee Canner: Distant Father – One of my twitter followers sent me this as an anti-Father’s Day song from the Victor Mourning’s Stephen Lee Canner. Chilling and lovely Gothic Americana.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlT8tZS1xyE&fmt=18[/youtube]

Michael Dean Damron: Father’s Day – Love this guy and this song from his latest.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imPLOdMQGe4[/youtube]

A Boy Names Sue – Johnny Cash sings Shel Silverstein’s wry tale about a father’s peculiar form of character development.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89c3hWx3RQ[/youtube]

Stephen Lee Canner