Music Review – Chris Knight “Heart of Stone” (Red Distribution)

Before he became the equivalent of a hillbilly Che Guevara Steve Earle was the king of roots-rock. Since moving to New York City, and shunning his redneck past, the roots-rock division seems open for the next singer/songwriter able to blend introspective, populist narratives  fueled by an amped-up rock sound. Slaughters, KY’s Chris Knight‘s “Heart of Stone” makes a convincing run at that title.

Small people in small towns with little to hope for populate Knight’s landscapes. Enduring and overcoming economic and cultural obstacles that would make lesser souls crumble and succumb.

The classic tale of the road is told on the opener “Home Sick Gypsy.” Though there is a series of sexual liaisons alluded to it’s made clear that it’s rough and lonely going out there for the working musician.

“Hell Ain’t Half Full” is a raucous morality tale that cuts just as deep against the meth cooker as it does the preacher with nothing good to say. The song ends on a note of stark humanistic self-reliance for our moral salvation since “Up in Heaven above, God ain’t paying much attention at all.” Another Dollar is another moral tale, this time on greed, that is far too busy rocking to become sanctimonious.

“Something To Keep Me Going” is an electrified country song about love gone wrong where memories do as much to call him back to his ex-lover as they do to remind him why he needs to keep heading on down the road. The tile cut sets a story of rural abandonment of family and how hardships can shape a man for the worse. Knight uses the chorus to caution the listener to persevere and overcome and “Don’t break yourself on a heart of stone.” “Crooked Road” is introspection of a man that is, like Knight himself, from a coal mining town and trying desperately to leave the hard, dangerous work behind to save himself and his family.

“Hear of Stone” returns Knight with producer Dan Baird of Georgia Satellites (who produced Pretty Good Guy and The Jealous Kind) and Baird has the good sense to let well enough alone. With a vocal style reminiscent of a Southern Randy Newman Knight taps into what made country music (and later folk) great since the days of Jimmy Rogers and the Carter Family. Walking that delicate line that balances sentimentality with an iron core of earnest character to make it through another day.

In Nashville last year I was fortunate to catch Knight in a round table that included Southern fiction writers and song writers on how story-telling through the different mediums were alike. Like the great writer on the panel William Gay, Knight’s takes are stark in their telling and elusive in their seeming simplicity. It’s there that the common can become extraordinary.

Chris Knight – Heart of Stone

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qk6Rv2bN38[/youtube]

Country Music Hearts Obama!

I remember the comedian Chris Rock on a cable filmed stand-up special saying something like what is the world coming to when the top  rapper in the world is white (Eminem) and the top golfer in the world is black (Tiger Woods)?

I felt sort of like that the other night when Sen. Barack Obama’s historic speech at Mile High Stadium was capped off by  ”Only in America” by the NashVegas version of Hall and Oates, Brooks & Dunn. This is the same song George Bush used at the Republican Convention last election. One half of the duo, Ronnie Dunn is a staunch Republican but the song’s co-writer, Don Cook, is a founder of the Music Row Democrats so I guess it’s a Nashville pop-country equivalent of bi-partisanship.

Here’s a note to the DNC and Democratic candidates everywhere, there are great artists that make country music that actually LIKE you and stand for at least some of what you advocate. Ever hear of Steve Earle or the Dixie Chicks?

If that wasn’t enough I read that Mr.”Boot in the ass” Toby Keith has thrown his support behind Obama (though it seems it’s only because Obama is able to act white.) Keith states that he’s a life-long Democrat but he appears to be more like the right-wing Dixie-crats I remember when I was growing up in Dallas. Mr. Keith apparently gets peeved when people accuse him of being a GOP fan. I wonder where they might have gotten that idea?!

Thank goodness there’s some things you can still count on with Nashville pop-country music and uased as a backdrop for patiotic symbolism- John Rich. the shorter half of the insipid duo Big and Rich, and raging homophobic weasel, penned a love song to John McCain cleverly entitled “Raisin’ McCain,” The song will be featured at the GOP convention and it predictably sucks.

Toby Keith’s Pro-Obama Anthem (a parody)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm-wI5PGBE[/youtube]

Martin M-21 Steve Earle Custom Edition

Matt Umanov knows a thing or two about guitars.

His New York City West Village shop has been selling new and vintage guitars since 1965 as well as doing excellent repairs and upgrades.

Steve Earle is a neighbor of the shop and eventually found his way in to sample the trade. Matt, who has been matching players with instruments for years, guided his new customer in the purchase of a few Martin guitars and along the way introduced him to the M body style, which combines jumbo (0000) size with 000 depth.

His enthusiasm for the Martin “M” jump-started development of a Martin Steve Earle guitar. Earle turned to Umanov for help with the details and together they created the Martin M-21 Steve Earle Custom Edition, a “poor man’s” M that showcases this body style’s big, balanced sound and playing comfort in an elegant, affordable package.

Delivered in a blue molded hardshell case, each Martin M-21 Steve Earle Custom Edition guitar
features an interior label personally signed by Steve Earle and Matt Umanov, numbered in sequence without a total.

Americana Music Association 2008 Honors and Awards Nominees Announced

The 2008 Americana Music Association Honors and Awards Nominees have been announced with Alison Krauss & Robert Plant getting the most nods for their moody roots release “Raising Sand.”  Some are dead on and some, like the The Avett Brothers who have come out with no new release for 2008, you just wonder if the AMA is going to have it’s own equivalent shoo-in like the Country Music Awards giving Kenny Chesney Entertainer of the Year for something like 13 years in a row (5 years in a row, actually.)

Here’s the list

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Alison Krauss & Robert Plant
Raising Sand
Hayes Carll
Trouble in Mind
James McMurtry
Just Us Kids
Levon Helm
Dirt Farmer

ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Steve Earle
Levon Helm
Jim Lauderdale
James McMurtry

INSTUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR
Buddy Miller
Chris Thile
Gurf Morlix
Sam Bush

NEW EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Justin Townes Earle
Mike Farris
Ryan Bingham
The Steeldrivers

SONG OF THE YEAR
“Broken” Tift Merritt
“Cheney’s Toy” James McMurtry
“Gone Gone Gone” Alison Krauss & Robert Plant
“Poor Old Dirt Farmer” Levon Helm
“She Left Me for Jesus” Hayes Carll

DUO/GROUP OF THE YEAR
Alison Krauss & Robert Plant
Drive By Truckers
Kane Welch Kaplin
The Avett Brothers

In more Americana Music Association news, the AMA is going to give their Lifetime Achievement in Performance Award to alt.country pioneers Jason and the Scorchers. The Awards show will be held Thursday, September 18 at the Mother Church of Country Music, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Original Jason and the Scorchers members Jason Ringenberg, Warner Hodges, Jeff Johnson and Perry Baggs will be on hand not only to accept the honor, but to perform together for the first time in more than a decade.

“I’ll Love You till I Die” – Top 30 Country/Roots Love Songs

George+Jones++Tammy+Wynette

Sure most genres deal with topic of love but few can work all the angles like country and roots music. Courting, marriage, sex, cheating, fighting, break-ups, shooting, disposing of bodies… it’s all there in all its heart-wrenching glory.

Some old, some new, all guaranteed to get to you some when mixed with tequila and memories.

I’m sure I let some beauties sip so feel free to add your own.

1. He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones
2. I Walk The Line – Johnny Cash
3. Angel Flying Too Close the Ground – Willie Nelson
4. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain – Willie Nelson
5. Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
6. Valentine’s Day – Steve Earle
7. Still I Long For Kiss – Lucinda Williams
8. Marry Me – Drive By Truckers
9. Arlington – Ridley Bent
10. Dale Watson – Every Song I Write For You
11. Before The Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender
12. Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich
13. Oh My Sweet Carolina – Ryan Adams
14. Carrying Your Love With Me – George Strait
15. Cowboy Take Me Away – Dixie Chicks
16. Crazy – Patsy Cline
17. Gentle on My Mind – Glen Campbell
18. Lovin You Against My Will – Gary Allan
19. Golden Ring – George Jones and Tammy Wynette
20. He’ll Have To Go – Jim Reeves
21. Hello Darlin – Conway Twitty
22. Melissa – Allman Brothers Band
23. Hello Walls – Faron Young
24. Help Me Make It Through the Night – Sammi Smith
25. I Cross My Heart – George Strait
26. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’ – Charley Pride
27. It Only Hurts When I Cry – Dwight Yoakam
28. Please Break My Heart – Thad Cockrell and Caitlin Cary
29. Lovesick Blues – Hank Williams
30. I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry – Hank Williams

Stephen King’s – Spooky Americana Fan

CMT reports that spooky author and member of the Rock Bottom Remainders band Stephen King has included new albums by Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett on his year-end list of favorite music, published in the Dec. 7 issue of Entertainment Weekly. Earle’s Washington Square Serenade topped the list, followed by Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band’s It’s Not Big It’s Large, John Fogerty’s Revival and Southern Culture on the Skids’ Countrypolitan Favorites.

New York Times Writer Champions Country Music for Insight Into America

Kurt Campbell who’s bio states that he’s  is an expert on Asia and security issues who is now chief executive of the Center for a New American Security and served in the Pentagon in the Clinton administration, in charge of Asia/Pacific issues, and earlier taught at Harvard. Mr. Campbell writes over at that mouthpiece for the Blue Sate agenda, The New York Times, that country music is a  place to gain a”…deeper insights into the soul of America even without leaving the obvious attractions of Blue State life.”

As a person enjoying the educational, cultural, culinary and economic booty of the bluest of states (New York) I agree with Mr. Campbell when he writes:

Yes, even with its love for the vehicular and alcoholic, country western is the best place to start to learn a little something   about what it means to have a family, to struggle making ends meet, to own a gun or a pickup truck, to support our troops     unquestioningly, to enlist in the military and fight our country’s wars and to generally be very proud of what America stands  for — and to profess confusion over just what all this fuss is about when it comes to our foreign policy choices.

But I urge Mr. Campbell to also pick up recent releases from Steve Earle, James McMurtry or Darrell Scott and many others to hear great country and roots music with a clear insights into foreign policy.

Lucinda Williams – Town Hall, New York – 10/02/07

It’s rare to walk out of a concert and think, “Damn I was just a witness to a piece of musical history.” On a warm, humid night last Tuesday I thought just that.

I came late to Lucinda Williams. I was introduced to Lu (as her adoringly rabid fans refer to her) in 2003 with the release World Without Tears, a mixed bag of the sublime (Righteously, Over Time) and the awkward (Sweet Side, American Dream.) This was five years after her masterpiece “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” hit the shelves. The latter was the album being covered in it’s entirety this evening.

“Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” was the the 1998 Nashville and Canoga Park CA. recorded album, with guest appearances by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, that moved Lucinda to the level of being taken seriously as a singer-songwriter heavyweight. The six year labor that produced lucid stories of Southern climes, love discovered and easily lost and the forlorn and wayward put her on the map as a sort of musical Flannery O’Connor.

Williams seems to be a living contradiction. She seems to mirror the very same schizophrenic and contradictory nature of the alt.country/folk/cow-punk etc. genre she is arguably the reining queen of, even she wasn’t sure which musical plane she currently occupies. “They say I’m country but more folk nowadays. Who knows?” She remarked later in the show.

Stopping in New York City to do a five-night retrospective, which seems to be in vogue as late with Sonic Youth on tour playing “Daydream Nation,” and Slint doing “Spiderland.” Each night featured a selection from her discography in reverse chronological order (omitting her recent release West,)

The crowd was ready be behold something special. Restless and rustling and smelling of booze and cologne this was the closest Times Square gets to a roadhouse.

As far as a country music analog, Lucinda is defiantly more Dolly than Loretta. Vulnerably childlike rather than grittily resilient.

Flanked by a top shelf band – Doug Pettibone rhythm/lead guitar, mandolin and pedal steel, David Sutton was on bass, Chet Lyster playing rhythm/lead guitar, pedal steel and keyboards, and Butch Norton There was also a guest appearance by Americana trailblazer Jim Lauderdale on guitar and backup vocals, Steve Earle (strolling over from his Greenwich Village home) was on guitar, harmonica, lead and backup vocals.

“I thought I’d talk a little bit more about the songs than I usually do, a little bonus.” Williams offered from the stage this night. As a treat for hard-core fans that know all the background on each song these were additional gems.

The first background story was when she recounted playing the song “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” at the legendary Bluebird Cafe with her dad, the poet Miller Williams, in the audience. The song of growing up poor in the South caused her father to approach her after the show and apologize. “I’m sorry.” “Why,” she said. “Because that’s you as the little girl in that song.” She admitted that until that moment she never realized it on a conscious level before.

The song “I Lost It” was inspired by an “I Found It” bumper sticker she saw everywhere while traveling in Houston in the 70’s. And like many of her songs “Lake Charles” was based on an ex-love.

Her gravel-in-velvet voice was in perfect for the event. Each syllable was nuanced and word was elevated to heady levels for all to witness.

The song “Joy” was a ferocious rocker that moved into Led Zeppelin’s “Heartbreaker” terrain when guitartists Doug Pettibone and Chet Lyster faced each other in a flurrying duel of solos. “Still I Long for Your Kiss” was said to be inspired by William’s love for 70’s R&B and “2 Kool 2 B 4-gotten”, a song written in a New Years Day hangover haze and inspired by two books of photography– Juke Joint: Photographs by Birney Imes and Appalachian Portraits by Shelby Lee Adams, floated and ached along at a beautiful pace.

My favorite song from the album “Concrete and Barbed Wire” was a nice, dusty twanged-out duet between Williams and Earle that they appeared to have a lot of fun doing.

At one moment Williams took the time to pint out Steve Earle’s contribution to the album’s production and how if he hadn’t grabbed the reins it might not have been made. In testament to his role in birthing this masterpiece Earle replied “It’s hard to fuck up great songs”. “Oh, I could find a way to fuck them up.” Williams answered.

After the album was covered there was a brief intermission and then the show was back on. A highlight was a duet with Steve Earle titled “Jail House Tears”. Steve Earle performed an a rousing version of “Ellis Unit One” a song from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.

I’ve seen Lucinda in concert before and she readily reveals a thin-skin diva’s-temperament for critical feedback. She mentioned picking up the local entertainment rag Time Out New York that seemed to give her a less then favorable feature review. She confessed to the adoring crowd “listen I’m an artist not a performer” which then elicited the predictable “We Love you Lucinda!!!” A younger Lorretta would have ignored the ignorant Yankee that wrote the damning review, or would have told them to kiss her ass. Lucinda is more delicate then that, despite her gritty literary exterior.

 Lucinda Williams – Honey Bee – Town Hall NYC, 10-3-07 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dQXiR8WVeg[/youtube]

Lucinda Williams – Town Hall, New York – New York Times

The New York Times has a nice write up on the Lucinda Williams “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” show played Tuesday night at Town Hall in New York City. This was the third of a five concert retrospective of William’s discography on in reverse chronological order. She did the same performances in Los Angeles last month. I especially like this bit from the Times:

Ms. Williams was a strong singer on Tuesday. She can radically delay a word’s delivery with her thick voice; she used that effect sparingly and beautifully. And by the middle of the show, through her phrasing she was pressing down hard on the words, drawing them out and giving them an edge of uncomfortable persistence; she enlarges them so she can live in them.

I attended the opening “World Without Tears” and the “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” shows and will post on them soon. I wish I had the Times staff but it’s just me out here!

Steve Earle Speaks on Music and Activism

Texas expat and roots rock legend will take time from promoting his latest album, Washington Square Serenade (9/25) and shooting HBO’s The Wire, where he stretched and portrays an ex-junkie, and heads uptown from his Greenwich Village residence (near where Bob Dylan’s Freewheeling cover photo was taken) to drop into the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Avenue @ 92nd Street New York, NY) on October 9th and take a spin class….er I mean talk with music journalist Anthony DeCurtis about, what else, music and activism (tickets).

Earle joins a roster of politically active artists who have appeared at the Y including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Tony Kushner and Alec Baldwin(!).The event probably won’t be as interesting (or contentious) as it might be if he held it in Lubbock Texas, but whether you agree with him or revile him, Steve Earle is anything but uninformed

Earle will also appear in concert at Town Hall on September 26 and also hosts a weekly radio show, Hardcore Troubadour Radio, on Sirius Satellite Radio.