Shoves and Rope made their national television debut last night on the Late Show with David Letterman. Dave and his staff have been a great supporter of roots and Americana music recently having Justin Townes Earle, Jason Isbell and Tom Russell and others. I say thank you!
The band looks like they are having a blast performing their song Birmingham from their latest O Be Joyful.
Thanks to IdolXfactor3 for the video upload.
I became aware of Gretchen Peters when I heard One to the Heart, One to the Head , a covers album she released with one of my favorite singer/songwriters Tom Russell. I was impressed by their take on many great country-folk songs, from Bob Dylan to Townes Van Zandt, and Peters’ smoky vocals contrasting with Russell’s dusty growl.
While reviewing the album I became aware of Peters’ past life as a New York-born, Nashville-based songwriter for Music City country, pop and soul. Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Neil Diamond and the late Etta James She also won the 1995 Country Music Association Song Of The Year award and turned some heads with her unflinching view of a woman’s domestic abuse with McBride’s Independence Day.
These song-craft skills, and the courage that maturity affords you to speak fearlessly, have resulted in Gretchen Peters’New release of darkly engaging Americana-pop Hello Cruel World. Recent trials and revelations in her life provide fertile soil for an collection of songs that look into the abyss and dares to laugh. Dares to love. What could have been a very bleak album transforms brutality, indifference and the absurdity of life into jagged gems that makes you want to sing along and occasionally tap a toe. Peters co-produces along with husband Barry Walsh and Doug Lancio. they use sparse arrangements and atmosphere that made One to the Heart, One to the Head such a pleasure.
The self-titled opener is a moody study of contrast and personal perseverance. “I’m not dead but I’m damaged goods, and it’s getting late.” Followed by a chorus of “I’m a very lucky girl” sung with beautifully weary resignation backed by minor-chord strings. St. Francis was inspired by the Gulf oil spill and co-written by Tom Russell, who often employs Catholic symbols and analogies to make corporeal points. The song engages St. Francis of Assisi to show how the divine is often overlooked or, when recognized, taken for granted.
Torn allegiances dominate The Matador as the thrill and drama of a bull ring serves as a metaphor for passion and conflict. Ordained minister Rodney Corwell performed the matrimonial ceremony for Peters’ and Walsh in 2010, on Dark Angel, Corwell plays the foil of love in a tale of dangerous attraction and certain demise. Camille shares co-writing credits with Peters’ “Wine, Women, and Song” members Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss, is smoky loneliness and sweet despair shepherded by trumpet and barroom piano. Paradise Found has a hot summer day simmer that references Steinbeck and a play on Milton where the song derives it’s title.
From the Stevie Nicks-like album cover Peters stares at you from the dusky cool-colored cover with an orb that looks like a globe or a crystal ball. It serves as both metaphors here. These are adult songs about adult situations that in lesser hands would result in a very dull listening. In Peter’s hands poetry and the profane is balanced in a way that reminds us we are not alone and that beauty and hope, as well as songwriting that engages instead of panders, still exists.
Aesthetics aren’t the only think that separates mainstream Music City country from it’s rustic yet urbane cousin Americana , there are political themes that differentiate as well. Music City doesn’t have a lock on patriotism any more than it does mom and apple pie. Here’s some Americana/classic country greats on this day for remembrance for those that serve.
Jason Isbell – Dress Blues
Johnny Cash – The Ballad Of Ira Hayes
Bruce Robison – Travelin’ Soldier
John Prine – Sam Stone
Tom Russell – Veteran’s Day
Drive-By Truckers – Mama Bake A Pie (Daddy Kill A Chicken)
Jamey Johnson – In Color
Hank Williams – Searching For A Soldier’s Grave
Radney Foster – Angel Flight
Steve Earle – Johnny Come Lately
Tom Russell has always been a pioneer, a wander expanding his territory of influences. The L.A. native now calls the border town of El Paso home and there is much Tex-Mex grounding in his ventures. The title song from his upcoming Mesabi starts with an spare acoustic but then swings into full band including mariachi-style trumpet. The sonic imagery that greatly influences Russell is the narritive here as a Mexican kid hears Buddy Holly, Howling Wolf, Ritchie Valens, polkas and dreams of being a troubadour. To make things intereting there’s even a dash of The Who’s Baba O’riley in there if you listen
Tom Russell’s new album, ‘Mesabi’, out 9/6. The album features Calexico, Van Dyke Parks and Lucinda Williams.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUH2SDjwa0g[/youtube]
“He’s only gone crazy once. Decided to stay.” – Townes Van Zandt about Blaze Foley
For Gurf Morlix to create a tribute album for his Austin running buddy and fellow singer-songwriter, the late, great Blaze Foley, was a tricky endevour. Foley wrote songs with such singular originality edging toward cloying sentimentality and corny humor and instead delivering songs of heart-wrenching honesty and dry wit. Once hear Foley do a Foley song you can’t really imagine anyone else doing it.
Not that it hasn’t been tried before. Foley’s songs have been covered by John Prine (Clay Pigeons) and Merle Haggard (If I Could Only Fly.) And Foley has inspired others as as the subject of Austin contemporaries Townes Van Zandt’s “Blaze’s Blues” and Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel.”
Foley’s legacy is ready-made for mythology. He used to jokingly claim to be the illegitimate son of Red Foley and Blaze Starr, to be a news broadcaster from Cincinnati and to have once tried to break into Caspar Weinberger’s house to “see what was on his VCR.” These whoppers are like a seeping breach between a rich source of song-craft inspiration and a need to recreate himself.
In truth Blaze Foley. Born in Marfa Texas (setting for the films Giant and There Will Be Blood and currently a thriving creative community) in l949. He performed in a family gospel act called the Fuller Family with his mother and sisters. He eventually landed in Austin, a city that prides itself on non-conformity, and with his duct-taped boots and clothing, sense of humor and stark, brutally honest songs, stood out.
Gurf Morlix is an Americana music pioneer. A New york native in1981 he moved to Los Angeles where he met a kindred spirit Lucinda Williams. He went on to lead her band for 11 years (1985 to 1996) singing, and playing guitar, and eventually producing her albums. His latter role as producer of Williams’ pinnacle Car Wheels On A Gravel Road led to their acrimonious split. Morlix then went on to play either guitar, bass, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel guitar, lap steel, banjo, piano, harmonica, and a variety of other instruments for and/or produce a literal who’s-who in the the Americana/rock field – Warren Zevon, Mary Gauthier, Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Buddy and Julie Miller, Tom Russell, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Michelle Shocked, Jimmy LaFave, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Mojo Nixon, Jim Lauderdale, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Case, Bob Neuwirth, Don Walser, Jon Langford, Steve Earle, Harry Dean Stanton, Charlie Sexton, The Plimsouls, Victoria Williams, James McMurtry, Flaco Jimenez, Rosanne Cash, David Byrne, Kevin Welch, John Prine, Dave Alvin and many more. Impressed yet?
Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream is 15 Foley originals that display the dark-to-light shadings of the man’s talent. Displaying a sense of humor and song-craft Roger Miller would envy on the cuts Baby Can I Crawl Back To You, Big Cheeseburgers and Good French Fries and No Goodwill Stores in Waikiki and the unvarnished melancholy and longing of If I Could Only Fly (featuring renowned Texas singer/songwriter Kimmie Rhodes on backing vocals) and Cold, Cold World that would make his buddy Townes Van Zandt weep. Some of the songs – Oh Darlin’ and Rainbows and Ridges combine elements of both.
Morlix ‘s arrangements and delivery are straightforward and top notch playing adds just the right amount of adornment. Aside from the excellent musicianship Morlix, unlike Steve Earle’s 2009 tribute to his mentor Townes Van Zandt, appears to have no urge to put his personal stamp on the songs.
Morlix was there on that cold February day in Austin when they put Blaze Foley in the ground as a result of being on the business end of a 22-caliber rifle. He was not content to let his songs be buried with him.
This CD is released in conjunction with the documentary film, Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah, which has been 12 years in the making.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFuOh2TXnHM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KwR7fk1PGQ[/youtube]
”Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” – Steve Earle
Though less influential than Hank Sr., Townes Van Zandt was no less innovative in his songs and Country/folk/Americana sound and destructive in his lifestyle. As one reader commented on my tweet for my Hank Sr. post “New Year’s is tough on song writers. The best ones anyway.” Indeed.
In the same vein of tribute I will post some of the best Townes Van Zandt covers I can find.
The Be Good Tanyas – Waiting Around to Die
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwumPYSHop8[/youtube]
Tindersticks – Kathleen
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYcxN9955M&feature=related[/youtube]
The Pyles – If I Needed You
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF6h0u5i0Rc[/youtube]
Alison Krauss & Robert Plant – Nothin’
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GitZD89Xrs[/youtube]
Tom Russell – Snowin’ on Ration
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuCArD7Gej8&playnext=1&list=PL197C3908C5753F12&index=58[/youtube]
Jimmie Dale Gilmore – Buckskin Stallion Blues
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ujF2sZP8O0[/youtube]
Guy Clark – To Live Is To Fly
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqxOH3Nbm0&feature=related[/youtube]
Steve Earle – Colorado Girl
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPWSoSgEZM4[/youtube]
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard – Pancho and Lefty. Certainly not the best version, but the most recognizable and profitable version. Look for a cameo by Townes in the bar scene.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzJAF1BxP4[/youtube]
Emmylou Harris – Pancho and Lefty
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRx5r32hsF4[/youtube]
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)
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
