Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival – Sunday10/2 Recommendations

As I wait patiently for my last-minute backstage access I give to you Sunday Recommendations. Sunday will be a travel day for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival stages. The great stuff is scattered like medicinal Mary-Jane smoke in the Golden Gate Park wind. As in HSB in the past.The most fun by far will be on thePorch Stage at 1:25pm with Those Darlins.  Ms. Emmylou Harris closing the event is the place to be at the Banjo Stage 5:45.
Banjo Stage

11:00am Dry Branch Fire Squad
1:20pm Bela Fleck & Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer
2:45pm The Blind Boys of Alabama
4:15pm Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
5:45pm Emmylou Harris

   Rooster Stage
11:00am Jessica Lea Mayfield
12:05pm Kevin Welch & Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin
1:20pm Brokedown in Bakersfield (featuring Nicki & Tim Bluhm, Scott Law, Lebo, Steve Adams & Dave Brogan)
2:10pm Ollabelle
4:15pm Justin Townes Earle
5:45pm The Jayhawks

Star Stage
11:45am The Low Anthem
1:20pm Dr. John & The Lower 911
3:05pm DeVotchKa
4:50pm Elbow

Towers of Gold Stage

11:00am Abigail Washburn
12:30pm Buddy Miller

Arrow Stage

11:00am Joe Purdy
1:10pm The Devil Makes Three
4:00pm Mother Hips

   Porch Stage
12:10pm Dive Bar Dukes
1:25pm Those Darlins
2:40pm Frank Fairfield
3:55pm The Swanson Family Band
5:10pm Over The Rhine

News Round Up: Steve Earle Talks “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive”

  • Steve Earle talks to Billboard about his upcoming T Bone Burnett produced album I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (titled from Hank Williams’ posthumous single) featuring Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins and, his novel of the same name and working on HBO’s ‘Treme.
  • Punk honky-tonk sweethearts Those Darlins are set to release their sophomore album, Screws Get Loose, on March 29. Ahead of that they are releasing a vinyl 7-inch featuring album tracks Be Your Bro and Let U Down on Feb 1st. The Murfreesboro-bred band will be test-driving  songs from the album on a long run of dates that keeps them busy into June, performing alongside Dallas alt-country rockers Old 97’s and rising blues-rock outfit Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.
  • Country music  legends George Jones, Oak Ridge Boys, Charlie Daniels, Josh Turner, Heidi Newfield, Chuck Wicks, Jack Ingram and many more are participating on The Boot Campaign to help Americans give back and say thanks you to the armed forces.
  • The New York Times talks to Wanda Jackson about her storied career as the queen of rockabilly and her new Jack White produced album The Party Ain’t Over.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoAQz4KLa2g&feature=fvst[/youtube]

News Round Up: New Releases by John Prine, Johnny Cash Art Collective

  • In true DIY fashion The Johnny Cash Project is a “global collective art project” that allows fans from all over the world to contribute to a arrogated, user-generated video for the title track from the latest Johnny Cash recording American VI: Ain’t No Grave. The single images are then threaded together into a one-of-a-kind labor of love. I only wish the Man in Black has lived to see this.
  • John Prine fans are about to hit pay-dirt. On May 25th, 2010, Oh Boy Records (founded in 1981 by Prine and manager Al Bunetta) will release the live In Person & On Stage, which will draw from performances spanning the past several years and covering songs from as far back as Prine’s 1971 debut and as recently as 2005’s acclaimed Fair & Square. Then Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine will be released on on June 22nd (Oh Boy) and will feature Prine compositions interpreted by devotees such as My Morning Jacket, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, The Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, Lambchop, Drive-By Truckers, Deer Tick featuring Liz Isenberg, Justin Townes Earle, Those Darlins, and, reprising their respective tracks from In Person & On Stage, Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins and Josh Ritter. Oh Boy will begin a pre-sale for In Person & On Stage on April 20thand for Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows on April 27th at www.musicfansdirect.com.
  • The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has announced it will pay tribute to the legendary Tammy Wynette with an exhibit titled Tammy Wynette: First Lady of Country Music. Presented by Great American Country (GAC) the exhibit will open in the Museum’s East Gallery on August 20, 2010, and run through June 2011.
  • More news from the The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. An upgrade to the Hall’s core collection, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music, are expected to be completed next month. The updates, which focus on country music’s last five decades, will bring the story of country music forward in time and conclude with a glimpse of the future. They will highlight the country-rock, pop-country, southern rock, full-strength classic country and the “Urban Cowboy” craze. The upgrade includes new oversized portraits, video clips and artifacts such as Dolly Parton’s handwritten lyrics to Jolene, Tom T. Hall’s acoustic guitar he purchased from songwriter Merle Kilgore, and items from Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, Mel Tillis, and Tanya Tucker. Other updates focus on the mid-1980s arrival of artists like Dwight Yoakam, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Randy Travis and Steve Earle. New exhibits celebrate contemporary bluegrass and Americana artists, ranging from Alison Krauss and Del McCoury to Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale.

The Best of 2009

best-09

It’s been a bumper-crop year for Americana and roots music. There are many reasons for this sonic bonanza but I believe the main drive results from an aging generation used to genre defying music now looking for something a little more comfortable, but no less challenging, as they move from their 20s to their 30s. A generation that grew to see mash-ups as a newly formed musical expression are much more comfortable with genre bending acts like The Drive By Truckers and Deer Tick, and the success of recent T. Bone Burnett stewarded projects, the O’ Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand brings older performers and songs to a new audience and shows that the music is not only interesting and exciting, and in a culture steeped in hipster irony something emotionally authentic, but it can make money as well.

Maybe part of the boom was the newly added Americana Grammy category (yeah, I don’t buy that either), or maybe this aging population are used to the internet and discovering music their way instead of having pre-fabricated crap shoved down our throats by the big labels whose only business plan over the last decade is to sue the fans and squeeze musicians tighter, and the commercial radio stations that enable them. As a grassroots cultural correction Americana, like punk rock in the 70’s, is a response to this environment of mediocrity. Only this time it’s with a banjo instead of a Fender Jaguar and a Mohawk (though some of these musicians do sport Mohawks) and wielding the power of social media that does much of the jobs the big labels used to do a generation ago. Whatever the reason for all the music, I’m just happy to be a recipient and humble purveyor of all the goods, and I hope some of you readers find some of this stuff interesting as well.

I’ve expanded my top 10 list to 20 this year to make room for this great embarrassment of riches. By doing this I’ve also done away with my addendum Honorable Mentions, which was always kind of like a cheat anyway.

I was honored to be included with 29 of the best music blogger compadres around in the top 20 Bird List, but I have to admit that the list I submitted for that list has changed about 10 more times ultimately resulting in the list you now see before you….enjoy, disagree, fume and fret ,leap for joy, whatever…just get me some of that spiked Nog while you’re up.

1. Charlie Robison – Beautiful Day (turning life’s lemons into Luckenbach lemon-aid)
2. Kris Kristofferson- Closer To The Bone (#2 this year, but career-wide nobody can touch Kristofferson for songwriting.)
3. Gretchen Peters with Tom Russell – One To The Heart, One To The Head (a brilliant Western cinematic duet)
4. Lindsay Fuller and the Cheap Dates –Self Titled (Flannery O’Connor with a telecaster)
5. Miranda Lambert – Revolution (The anti-Taylor works from inside Music City)
6. George Strait – Twang (The King of Country. Period)
7. Tom Russell – Blood and Candle Smoke (Beat poet hillbilly travels dusty roads and smoky coffee shops with members of Calexico)
8. Carolyn Mark and NQ Arbuckle – Let’s Just Stay Here (Quirky yet familiarly cozy Canadian country music)
9. Corb Lund – Losin` Lately Gambler(See Canadian reference above)
10. Grant Langston – Stand Up Man (Bakersfield is alive and well)
11. Wrinkle Neck Mules – Let The Lead Fly (alt.country is alive and well)
12. William Elliott Whitmore – Animals In The Dark (punk and folk ethos delivered with timeless soul)
13. Amanda Shires – West Cross Timbers (Winsome chanteuse travels dark and dusty regions of the heart)
14. Angela Easterling – Black Top Road (Roots/Rock sweetheart with a folk sense of cultural activism)
15. Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel – Willie and the Wheel (perfect union channels the spirit of Bob Wills)
16. Todd Snider – Excitement Plan (Steve Earle should study this release, social commentary doesn’t have to suck)
17. Justin Townes Earle – Midnight At The Movies (the younger Earle continues to make his mark by reaching into country music’s past)
18. The Felice Brothers – Yonder is the Clock (The Basement Tapes run through a dark prism)
19. Guy Clark – Somedays The Song Writes You (A Texas treasure that can do no wrong)
20. Deer Tick – Born on Flag Day (Indy spirit that uses twang as a strong driver)
21. Those Darlins – Self-titled (Riot Grrrl spunk with a Carter Sisters trad reverence)

It’s been a bumper-crop year for Americana and roots music. There are many reasons for this sonic bonanza but I believe the main drive results from an aging
generation of people used genre defying music but now looking for something a little more comfortable, but no less challenging, as they move from their 20s to their
30s. Kids that grew to see mash-ups as a newly formed musical expression are much more comfortable with genre bending acts like The Drive By Truckers and Deer Tick.
The success of recent T. Bone Burnett stewarded projects, the O’ Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand shows that the music is not only interesting and exciting but can make money as well.

Maybe it was the newly added Americana Grammy category (yeah, I don’t buy that neither), or maybe this aging population are used to the internet and discovering music their way instead of having pre-fabricated crap shoved down our throats by the big labels whose only business plan over the last decade is to sue the fans and squeeze musicians tighter, and the commercial radio stations that enable them. As a grassroots cultural correction Americana, like punk rock in the 70’s, is a response to this environment of medicocrity. Only this time it’s with a banjo instead of a Fender Jaguar and a Mohawk (though some of these musicians do sport Mohawks.) Whatever the reason for all the music, I’m just happy to be a recipient and humble purveyer of all the goods, and I hope some of you readers find some of this stuff interesting as well.

http://www.thebirdlist.org/

I’ve expanded my top 10 list to 20 this year to make room for this great embarrassment of riches. By doing this I’ve also done away with my addendum Honorable Mentions, which was always kind of like a cheat anyway.

I was honored to be included with 29 of my music blogger compadres in the top 20 Bird List, but I have to admit that the list I submitted for that list has changed about 10 more times ultimately resulting in the list you now see before you….enjoy, disagree, fume and fret ,leap for joy, whatever…just get me some of that spiked Nog while you’re up.

1. Charlie Robison – Beautiful Day (turning life’s lemons into Luckenbach lemon-aid)
2. Kris Kristofferson- Closer To The Bone (#2 this year, but career-wide tobody can touch Kristofferson for songwriting.)
3. Gretchen Peters with Tom Russell – One To The Heart, One To The Head (a brilliant Western cinematic duet)
4. Lindsay Fuller and the Cheap Dates -Self Titled (Flannery O’Connor with a telecaster)
5. Miranda Lambert – Revolution (The anti-Taylor works from inside Music City)
6. George Strait – Twang (The King of Country. Period)
7. Tom Russell – Blood and Candle Smoke (Beat poet hillbilly travels dusty roads and smoky coffee shops with members of Calexico)
8. Carolyn Mark and NQ Arbuckle – Let’s Just Stay Here (Quirky yet familiarly cozy Canadian country music)
9. Corb Lund – Losin` Lately Gambler(See Canadian reference above)
10. Grant Langston – Stand Up Man (Bakersfield is alive and well)
11. Let The Lead Fly – Wrinkle Neck Mules (alt.country is alive and well)
12. William Elliott Whitmore – Animals In The Dark (punk and folk ethos delivered with timeless soul)
13. Amanda Shires – West Cross Timbers (Winsome chanteuse travels dark and dusty regions of the heart)
14. Angela Easterling – Black Top Road
15. Rita Hosking – Come Sunrise
16. Todd Snider’s Excitement Plan
17. Justin Townes Earle – Midnight At The Movies
18. The Felice Brothers – Yonder is the Clock
19. Guy Clark – Somedays The Song Writes You
20. Deer Tick – Born on Flag Day
21. The Builders & The Butchers – Salvation is a Deep Dark Well

Thankful For The Music

Okay, I got a lot of hits and responses to my post on the dismal glitter parade that was the Country Music Awards. I’m encouraged that it was almost universally positive, though some was not (when will people get that just because I don’t like Taylor Swift’s songs or music I am not opining on her as a person? How many of these people know Taylor Swift personally? Maybe she’s a horrible diva that likes bathing in champagne and looking at her charting position and cackling “Suckers!!”), But I don’t just enjoy cursing the darkness (hilariously), I like to light a candle now and again.

The relationship of country music and Music City has been fraught with tension since Judge Hay started MCing the The Grand Ole Opry on the WSM Barn Dance from the fifth-floor radio studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company in downtown Nashville on November 1925. Music City is in the business of business.  The product they have historically offered is, at its best, a reflection n tradition and heritage of the Amerivcan human soul, the good bad and the ugly. Trouble results when the bean counters weigh in on song creation, studio production and trends are chased, not because they are interesting branches or simpatico with the music, but just to cash in. This output is mediocre if monetarily profitable. As a fan, and not a shareholder, I find this unacceptable and a damn shame and am noy t shy to say as much.

I am currently reading the Ralph Stanley’s biography Man of Constant Sorrow and am struck by how resolute the man and his brother, Carter, was about keeping their “simple, mountain music sound” and how Ralph threatened to quite the band when the introduction of the new-fangled instrument ,the dobro, was considered as an addition to a Stanley Brothers song. Stanley was about 23 at the time. Can you imagine anyone that age starting out in music having that clear and focused of a vision of their music and not just will to allow outsiders to shape them to make as music as possible? Br. Stanley had a clear idea of their brand of “hillbilly music” and what the fans wanted it that he was willing to chuck the whole thing to save it.

I believe there are a few creators still out there today creating a brand of hillbilly music, maybe a more distant cousin of Stanly’s, but it’s no less bracing in it’s allegiance to tradition even as it breaks genre grounds in other directions.  Covering the miles, often in a car or a van instead of a bus or charted plane, they bring grateful fans a sound that just can’t be found largely on commercial country radio, and willing to hang around the place afterward toseel a CD or shirt,  press some flash, sign an autograph and take a picture or two.

Off the top of my head I offer from my home state of  Texas Dale Watson, Wayne Hancock, James Hand, Jake Penrod, Junior Brown, Hayes Carll and legends like Ray Willie Hubbard and Tommy Alverson.  In other regions there is Joey Allcorn, Elizabeth Cook, Robbie Fulks, Chuck Mead and the new school with Those Darlins, Justin Townes Earle and William Elliott Whitmore, Grant Langston, Angela Easterling, the Felice Brothers , Lindsay Fuller, Amanda Shires, and many many more are out there many night of the year doing what they love telling their stories and leaving it all out on the stage.

Like i said in the original CMA post, I criticize because i come from this music. Its part of my Texas heritage and part of my family business. I love it and , like family, am not shy to pipe up when I think it’s done wrong.

News Round Up:Billy Joe Shaver / Ray Wylie Hubbard’s The last Rites of Ransom Pride

  • Country Music Prisde has a great interview with this indie sweethearts of country punk Those Darlin’s.

Rounder Records Turns 40

  • The Green Bay Press Gazette has a great interview with Justin Townes Earle. Earle talks candidly about his past addictions and is troubled relationship with his father. as well as his excellent new release Midnight at the Movies.
  • Robert Earl Keen’s Lost Highway debut “The Rose Hotel,” produced by Lloyd Maines, will be released on On Sept. 29
  • Rounder Records will celebrate their 40th anniversary on Oct. 12th at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, TN with performances from Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bela Fleck and Irma Thomas will join in this momentous celebration along with musical host Minnie Driver and special guests to be announced.
  • Shreveport-based , the Louisiana Hayride (1948 to 1960) will  be inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. In it’s day the country music showcase featured Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.
  • The grave of the late great Texas blues musician, Blind Willie Johnson, is  finally discovered. Johnson’s songs have been covered by everybody from Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton to Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.
  • Details magazine sits down with Native Texan and anti-Taylor Swift blond bad ass Miranda Lambert for some Q&A.
  • Nashville Scene‘s newest cover has  “Three Hot Acts Present a New Breed of Female Songwriter” featuring Caitlin Rose, Tristen Gaspadarek and Those Darlins.

The History of Emmylou Harris

  • AOL’s Spinner has a nice feature on the lovely, but messy, honky-tonk riot-grrrls Those Darlins.
  • The Onion’s AV Club “head writer and hip-hop specialist”   Nathan Rabin continues his discovery of Country Music in his Nashville or Bust feature. The newest post is a nice historic summary of Americana chanteuse and Gram Parson protege Emmylou Harris. (via the 9513.com)
  • The always excellent Juli Thanki’s newest Torch & Twang column over at PopMatters.com tackles a subject near and dear to Ranch Twang’s heart – the history of Canadian artists in Country Music.
  • The legendary Ryman Auditorium will host Jim Lauderdale & Friends featuring Amy Grant, Vince Gill & The SteelDrivers. The performance will benefit Thanks USA. The concert is on Monday, November 9 at 7:30 pm and tickets on sale Friday, August 21 at 10 am ($49.50 & $39.50)
  • The Washington Post has a great feature on Loudon Wainwright III’s new release – “High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.” Wainwright created the album to bring attention to Poole’s music and that he played a key role in the history of country music. on edit- NPR did a feature on the Poole tribute.

Willie Nelson Premieres New Video for Shoeshine Man

  • Willie Nelson premiered his new video covering Tom T. Hall’s Shoeshine Man (below) The song is not on his upcoming covers album American Classics so I have no idea whay he made this video, but he seems to be having a ball. The Texas Yoda has taken a page from the DIY codger goofing around in front of a video camera recently used by Neil Young for his video Fork in the Road.
  • The Americana Music Association announced the lineup for its 2009 festival,  Sept. 16-19 at around several of  Nashville’s best venues – The Mercy Lounge, The Cannery Ballroom, 3rd & Lindsley, The Station Inn and The Basement.  On the roster is Cross Canadian Ragweed, Angela Easterling, Asleep at the Wheel, The Bottle Rockets, Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Miller, Joe Pug, Charlie Robison, Marty Stuart, Patrick Sweany, Those Darlins and many more.
  • Popmatters.com has posted an mp3 for Chain, a cut off Vic Chesnutt’s upcoming release At the Cut (Constellation) to be released 22 September (US)
  • Randy Travis, Martina McBride and Ray Price join an International  line-up of over 60 International, UK and Irish acts performing on three separate stages at the UTV CountryFest ’09  August 1st – 2nd  at the Kings Hall in Belfast.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtaJmrVfx8[/youtube]

Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss and Union Station to Play theWhite House

  • Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss and Union Station to play Obama White House for next week’s White House Art & Innovation Events: Music Series Celebrating Country Music & Smithsonian’s National Design Awards Event.
  • The Washington Post takes a look at Nashville’s Bluegrass scene and follows the high lonesome from the Ryman Auditorium’s annual Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman to one of my personal favorite The Station Inn.
  • Juli Thanki over at the 9513.com reviews the new self-titled album by riot grrrl/roots group Those Darlins.
  • Decider Milwaukee sits down with Portland’s indy Americana band Blitzen Trapper.