Modern Outlaws to Pay Tribute to Waylon Jennings

waylon-trib

On July 6th at Austin’s Moody Theater some of country and roots music’s most independent spirits will convene to pay tribute to a musical and cultural pioneer that helped blaze a trail they all travel, Waylon Jennings.

Two days after Willie Nelson’s Picnic many in Austin for Willie’s already fantastic event will gather with others to pay tribute to Jennings who died in his sleep in 2002 of diabetic complications.

The level of talent makes the ticket prices easier to swallow, $150 to $400, which go on sale at acl-live.com at 10 a.m. on Waylon’s birthday, Monday, June 15.

Ticket buyers also have an opportunity to purchase tickets to an exclusive after-party, proceeds which benefit “the United Way and earmarked to help Central Texas residents most affected by the recent Memorial Day floods,” according to a statement on the ACL Live website.

The lineup of “Outlaw: Celebrating the Music of Waylon Jennings”:

• Willie Nelson • Kris Kristofferson • Sturgill Simpson • Jamey Johnson • Kacey Musgraves • Toby Keith • Lee Ann Womack • Ryan Bingham • Eric Church • Chris Stapleton • Billy Joe Shaver • Jessi Colter • Shooter Jennings

Stagecoach 2013 Lineup Announced

If somebody said that Justin Townes Earle and Lady Antebellum would be appearing on the same bill you would not be remiss in thinking “You’re nuts.”

Then you haven’t been to Stagecoach.

The above is indeed correct. The Goldenvoice-produced festival, now in it’s seventh year, takes a broad, historical view of country music. Contemporary country staples Toby Keith and Trace Adkins with country legends Charley Pride and Don Williams and Americana music favorites Old Crow Medicine Show and Hayes Carll are all included.

I’m a fan of this cross-influence dynamic. That a Toby Keith fan could check out Hayes Carll is good for both fan bases that tend to be a bit musically and culturally insular. Americana acts in front of these huge audiences gives them a big opportunity to grow their audience.

And if Keith and Carll break into a rendition of “Beer for my Horses” I’ll be the first to applaud.

The festival place the weekend of April 26-28 in Indio California. Tickets go on sale Oct. 20 at 10 a.m. via the official Stagecoach site. A new pricing structure is in place for 2013, and a three-day festival pass will cost $239.

Friday, April 26:
Toby Keith, Hank Williams Jr., Trace Adkins, Jeff Bridges & the Abiders, Roger McGuinn, Old Crow Medicine Show, Joe Nichols, Connie Smith, Maggie Rose, Hayes Carll, Wylie and the Wild West, Commander Cody, the Steel Wheels, Haunted Windchimes, Alissa Griffith

Saturday, April 27:
Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley, Rodney Atkins, Dwight Yoakam, Phil Vassar, Nick 13, John Anderson, Marty Stuart, Jana Krama, Justin Townes Earle, Suzy Bogguss, the Honky Tonk Angels Band, Sons and Brothers, the Westbound Rangers, Robert Ellis

Sunday, April 28:
Zac Brown Band, Darius Rucker, Thompson Square, Lonestar, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charley Pride, Don Williams, Tanya Tucker, Blue Sky Riders, John Reilly and Friends, Riders in the Sky, Waddie Mitchell, Florida Georgia Line, Brown Bird, Becky Stark, Gabriel Kelley

News Round Up: T Bone Burnett Discusses Crazy Heart Collaboration with Stephen Bruton

  • The Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame plans to update their main exhibit space to devote an area to Americana and contemporary bluegrass music. The new exhibit will feature artifacts from Alison Krauss, Jim Lauderdale, Dell McCoury and Buddy Miller. Also to be included  in the the second floor gallery’s theatre (in front of the Hee Haw exhibit)  a new video exhibit will be featured showing about how topical events and social political issues are reflected and country music. The exhibit will feature examples like Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill,” the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” and Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American).”
  • For that Americana rock lover you need a gift for Billy Reid has offers a hand-made and -finished wooden box from Ross LeBlanc containing rare t-shirts inspired by the roots artists Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, and the Drive-by Truckers, and also includes a DVD of Old Crow Medicine Show’s live performance at the Tennessee Theater.
  • T Bone Burnett discusses his personal story of singer/songwriter Stephen Bruton. Thier collaboration and friendship led to the music selections for the upcoming Jeff Bridge’s movie about a down but not quite out country singer Crazy Heart. Burnett also mentions upcoming production duties with Jakob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Gregg Allman, Robert Randolph and John Mellencamp, and overseeing an all-star recording of music written by Mellencamp and horror-writer, and Americana music fan, Stephen King for “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a play with music. And then there’s “Tough Trade,” a new series about three generations of country music stars, for which he’s serving as executive music producer. It’s set to premiere next year for EPIX, Viacom’s new multiplatform entertainment service. (LA Times)
  • Paramount Pictures has begun an open casting call to find a Caucasian girl between the ages of 12 and 16 to play the lead role of Mattie Ross in the upcoming Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of True Grit. (Cowboys and Indians blog)

Willie Nelson Twitter Interview

  • Willie Nelson will join TheBoot.com for a live “Twitterview” next Tuesday, Aug. 25, the same day as the release of his newest album American Classic. You can watch the live chat with Willie, starting at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesday, if you follow Willie Nelson and theBoot.com  on Twitter.
  • Joe Pug will be joining Steve Earle on his upcoming European tour. Pug’s  debut LP “Messenger” will be released in early 2010.
  • Austin’s jazz and western swing band Hot Club of Cowtown has released their new, Wishful Thinking.
  • The New York Time reviews a show at Joe’s Pub by Works Progress Administration (WPA). the expandable collective, featuring core members Luke Bulla (Lyle Lovett), Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek) and Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) and on this night featuring Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) pedal steel guitarist and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Greg Leisz (Bill Frisell, Dave Alvin, Lucinda Williams,  Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Whiskeytown, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and many more)
  • Chet Flippo sees compelling storytelling in videos by Toby Keith and Brad Paisley in his newest Nashville Skyline post. I see trite, if mildly clever,  symbolism  mirroring the trite song they represent. For shear technical and style excellence I still have to go with this one.

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

Colbert Christmas to Feature Willie Nelson and Toby Keith

That bastion of righteous irony, Stephen Colbert, will celebrate the impending consumer slump this Sunday with A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All.

Colbert fights the “war on Christmas” with this surreal bit of spiked nog that sxews Christmas specials of the past. Think Andy Williams in a cabin in rural Michigan and the town nearby has a gas leak that’s making eveyone act strangley. The strangeness is offered by the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, John Legend, Toby Keith, and Feist.

I have to say, I’m not a big fan of Toby Keith, but after seeing him do a send up of, well, himself singing a song about Santa dropping nukes from his sleigh on heretics who don’t believe in Jesus or Santa, who Keith explains are actually the same person, Keith might have a new fan.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTzbm5E_qq4[/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]

Blue Mountin Releases “Midnight in Mississippi”

  • One of the original alt.country bands (they appeared on the cover of No Depression’s second issue), Blue Mountain, are back together after trials and tribulations and have just released their sixth studio album “Midnight in Mississippi” (Produced by Grammy winner Stuart Sikes) along with a re-recorded greatest hits album, “Omnibus.” I saw these guys for the first time about two years ago in Nashville and they are great live.
  • It seems that Toby Keith is an Barack Obama fan and John Rich can hear Johnny Cash’s vioce from the grave (if that were rues I’m sure The Man In Black would have adviced Rich not to release his dreadful love song to John McCain. Not because it supports a Republican, but because it, well, sucks.
  • The good folks over at the 9513 think the new George Jone’s release of duets “George Jones – Burn Your Playhouse Down: The Unreleased Duets” doesn’t live up the the Possum’s legacy.
  • Pitchfork.com has a Q&A with David Berman of the band the Silver Jews.

Bob Lefsetz Does Country

I usually hang on every acerbic and insightful post from music business gadfly Bob Lefsetz. He’s a no bullshit guy that sees the bloody writing on the wall for the big labels and pulls no punches. I hope this blog allows me to do 1/16th of what he’s been able to do in exposing the hypocrisy and crap in the music industry and also point the way to a great talents that are trying make a difference and do great work.

But recently Mr. Levitz was caught in L.A. Traffic and came across Sirius radio Channel 60, “New Country” who, by the blurb on their web site states they play ” Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney.”

Lefsetz writes that while listening to the station that:

“…every one of (the) words rang true and glowed like burnin’ coal, pourin’ off of every page like it was written from me to you, but I was not tangled up in blue, I was laughing, I was alive, I was ECSTATIC! This was a joy I hadn’t experienced in oh-so-long!

But I don’t know shit about country. Maybe this is the crap. Maybe this is the stuff those deep into it rail about. Then I realized, I was the target audience, I was fucking IGNORANT!”

I’m here to tell you Bob, you are listening to the crap, and allow me to school you.

You are a fucking genius savant when talking about rock and pop of the past, present and future, but when you stray into country music, I won’t say “fucking ignorant”, but I will say sadly naive.

What you were listening to was the country equivalent of listening to Beyoncé or Fallout Boy. Sad, shallow reproductions of artists that came before that did it not just do it better, but did it in a way that was breathtaking and dangerous. What you were listening to was formula, contrivances and confection.

You pine for the days of the Beatles, Stones and Hendrix. When the Velvet Underground and the Stooges were punching sonic holes in the cultural malaise of the 70’s. If you’re looking for the contemporary country equivalent of that, then you’re not going to find in on Channel 60, “New Country.”

The country equivalent to these ground-breaking artists, the giants that the current talent of country artists are standing on the shoulders of is Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. It’s the Allman Brothers and The Band. It’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, X, Jason and the Scorchers. Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam.

You’re more likely to find these artists on the Dallas area station Lone Star 92.5 that, despite being a Clear Channel station, is taking risks and plays artists that better represent the spirit you crave. Bands like The Drive By Truckers and the Bottle Rockets. Artists like Hank Williams III and Shooter Jennings. But Lone Star 92.5s are hard to find just as great rock stations are. The playlists are still the most common framework for commercial radio, and playlist are driven by sales.

Shooter Jenning’s band, the .357s comes closer to Led Zeppelin than the comparison you draw between Zeppelin and Tim McGraw. Tim McGraw is less Led Zeppelin and more Peter Frampton.

There is great country music out there and Bob Lefsetz, with a little counseling, is just the gauge that will recognize it. I for one would love for him to turn his laser eye on the Nashville money machine and the way it takes great talent and churns out dull, gray sausage.

Dale Watson’s “Justice For All” #1 video on last weeks CMT Pure 12 Pack

“Justice For All” is currently #1 video on last weeks CMT Pure 12 Pack video count down. If their not careful I’ll start saying nicer things about them. Oh, Bucky Covington and Toby Keith are numbers 2 and 3 respectively. Forget about the nice things. And congratulations to Dale for his recent marriage.

Miranda Lambert Makes The Cover of No Depression – Hell Reports Snow

I don’t know what it is, the end times, global warming, whacked mojo…but Miranda Lambert seems to be winning the hearts and minds of Nashville pop lovers as well as the alt.country crowd. I mean she’s on the cover of the yall’ternative bible “No Depresssion” for crips sake! (Yeah that her swinging her hair all rocking out like.) First the white trash American Idol (I mean that in a good way), a performance at the ’05 CMA Awards and now ND?
I mean ND has indy darlings The Shins on the last cover. What are they trying to do? Rise from relative obscurity and sell magazines?

I mean what’s next? Toby Keith on the cover of Spin? Carrie Underwood on the cover of Playboy? Okay, I could actually imagine that last one.

Good on the fellow Texan on all the good vibes and good on No Depression for risking their hipster cred to feature great music!