• Country music legend George Jones seems to be popping up on all the TV shows recently to promote his new Cracker Barrel exclusive album, A Collection of My Best Recollection. This Sunday morning the Possum will make another appearance on CBS Sunday Morning this Sunday October 11, 2009. Host and interviewer Bob Schieffer visits George’s Nashville home and stops by Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium late this summer to talk about life, love and a lot of musical history, as well as all that he  is up to today. Jones has said that the new release might be his last album and has tour dates through the rest of the year and early next.

• The follow up to last year’s Mother’s Best radio show recordings Hank Williams: Unreleased Recordings will be released November 3rd. Revealed: Unreleased Recordings will feature 50 new tracks including some new songs and dialogue between Hank and the emcee of the show and his band. The release will also include the first public performance of  Cold, Cold Heart.

• Collectors’ Choice has chosen six of Waylon Jennings’  RCA albums from 1966-’70 and will release them as three double CDs: Folk Country/Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan, Love of the Common People/Hangin’ On and Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs. The CDs will be available on November 24. Grammy Award-winning annotator/historian Colin Escott wrote the liner notes.

• Rosanne Cash will premieres her new album, The List, live at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY October 9th and 10th as part of  the St. Ann’s Warehouse 30th Anniversary Season.

• Cash also discuses her new release with Chet Flippo at CMT.com’s Nashville Skyline.

• Ranch Twang now has a LastFM group. Join up and help share great music with other folks.

• Country Music Neo-Outlaw Jamey Johnson shows his respect for the classics by covering Vern Gosdin, George Jones, George Strait and, his most obvious influence, Waylon Jennings, at the Chicago Country Music Festival.

• Break out a jar of granny’s skull rattle folks, Juli Thaki at the 9513.com has given us her top 26 songs about moonshine.

• Tom Russell has written what could be considered a companion piece to his new release Blood and Candle Smoke at the Rumpas (Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso.) The dispatch reflects Russell’s style he cultivated by hanging with American underground great Charles Bukowski and similar threads from this and previous releases about his home in El Paso, TX,  the culture, people and the drug wars.

• The Los Angelas Times’ Ann Powers reviews the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum benefit featuring Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Dwight Yoakam among others (including the spirit of Townes Van Zandt.)

• The Flower Pickin’ festival (October 16-19)will feature Carlene Carter, Justin Townes Earle, Jimmy Tittle, John Francis and more. The festival celebrates the day that Johnny Cash was arrested for public drunkenness in Starkville, MS in the early morning of May 11, 1965 following a performance at Mississippi State University. He spent one night in jail and paid a fine of $36. Cash sang about his run-in with “the law” in Starkville on his album, “At San Quentin (The Complete Live Concert),” recorded in 1969.

Portland Oregon’s Michael Dean Damron, or Mike D. as he was known when fronting his former hell-raising roots-rock band I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, isn’t your garden variety sensitive, market tested, conveyor belt type of singer/songwriter. The emotion, fear and anger is laid out on his third solo release Father’s Day for all to feel. He’s not just singing, he’s testifying.

The youthful flame-thrower intensity of ICLASOBITH has been condensed into a focused,  welding torch constructing a dark and twisted terrain of one mans life and soul.

The lost love songs here – Dead Days, Boy With A Car and the provocatively titled I Hope Your New Boyfriend Gives You Aids (do NOT judge the album based on the title of this song, it doesn’t show up once in this beautifully heart wrenching cut.) display just as much defiance as they do remorse. Love songs are welcome, whining is not.

The specter of the Damron family patriarch is summoned and exorcised in the title track. The song tells of Damron’s father’s life as a hard, violent, and lonely one. The song is both a celebration and an unflinchingly cautionary tale. The excellent Angels Fly Up carries on the divisional theme, devils and angels, suicide and celebration- that seems to run through Fathers Day.

Tornado Song is a chugging blues-Gospel number veined with wailing harmonica and I’m A Bastard has Damron unmitigated affirmation of his place among the best of the worst in the troubadour trade.

As if the original songs weren’t enough to make this a fine album the three covers Damron has chosen to include speak volumes, fit nicely and are done with deftness and deference. Drag the River’s Beautiful And Damned is a solemn pedal-steel laced number and a ’round the campfire treatment of Thin Lizzy’s Dancing In The Moonlight are wonderful. The real courage, as with anyone willing to cover the Late Great Townes Van Zandt, comes with the inclusion of an accomplished rendition of Towne’s bleak tale of perseverance Waiting Around To Die.

Damron’s whiskey-and-dust vocals  brings to mind modern day contemporaries like Ryan Bingham, Drive By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, William Elliot Whitmore and Lucero’s Ben Nichols. The worn nature of the delivery adds another depth of ragged beauty to each of these gems. Damron sites Steve Earle, Alejandro Escovedo, Townes Van Zant and Waylon Jennings as heroes. But I believe that the true Patron Saint to his unique style of edgy storytelling, with a penchant for tenderness might well be David Allen Coe.

Sure Father’s Day is not a sunny Summer party album, who cares. It’s a great example of a  mature and excellent singer/songwriter venting his own private Winter.

Official Site | MySpace | Facebook | Buy

Father’s Day mp3

I am briefly interrupting my New Mexico rehabilitation…er..vacation to ponder the rumor around the iterwebs that Shooter Jennings has given up country music to focus on his new band called Hierophant. An ancient Greek term the role of the hierophant in religion is to bring the congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy. Hierophant has been described as John Lennon meets Radiohead.

Jenning’s website features a clock radio with the band name and the words “Wake Up!”

It is rumored that Jennings was “..tired of being something he’s not.” So based on this new band description what is he? A British experimental pop musician?

I don’t know if the abandoning country music rumor is true, but after listening to his latest studio release “The Wolf” and with the release this month of a Shooter Jennings Greatest Hits (after only three albums!) I have to acknowledge that his heart sure doesn’t see to be in it anymore.

Let’s just hope that Hierophant is better than Stargunn was.

MSNBC’s 5 Top has a list of the top 5 lies about American Idol.  And although most are obvious (AI is a popularity contest not a singing competition…uh YEAH!) lie #4, “Country music is about telling stories,” is very interesting to me. The point made in the article is that all songs – except nonsensical or instructive – are stories. But Idol, like Nashville, perpetuates the popular myth that country msuic is simple stories that are about common experiences, family and traditional values.Of course this ignores the songs of boozing, adultary, murder, drug use, fighting, sloth and war that are just as much a part of the country music landscape. I’m sure Johnny Paycheck, Waylon Jennings, Porter Wagoner and David Allen Coe would have something to say about that.

More YouTubes goodies…

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Leon Russell, and Doug Kershaw play Hank Wwilliam’s “Jambalia” – 1974 Willie Nelson’s 2nd Annual 4th Of July Picnic. Bryan/College Station, TX

• In anticipation of the upcoming Santa Rosa Merle Haggard/Kris Kristofferson show this Wednesday (see you there!) the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joel Selvin has posted a fine interview with The Hag conducted on his 200 acre ranch outside Mount Lassen, California.

• In response to the tough economy and the fees attached to her, and many others, concert tickets, the queen of alt.country Lucinda Williams will offer each fan who attends a Lucinda Williams show in 2009 standing credit on merchandise sold at the concerts. Williams adds, “I understand that this may only be a small gesture and in no way solves the problem long term, but I feel that it is important to try and do something to make it a little easier during this time.” For more information visit Lucinda’s official site.

• John Prine is slated to play a show with Steve Earle on at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center in Vienna, VA on FridayJune 5th, 2009.

Here’s a little gem from the YouTubes:

Neil Young & Waylon Jennings- Are You Ready For the Country? -  Sept 20 1984 -  ‘Nashville Now’ TV show

From JamBase – John Doe (X, The Knitters) and The Sadies join forces for Country Club, an album of classic country covers and originals due out April 14, 2009 on Yep Roc Records.

“Country Club is the result of a drunken promise or threat I made to Travis and Dallas [Good, of The Sadies] the first night we played together in Toronto. These happen all the time but it’s rare that anyone remembers them the morning after, let alone follows through and makes it a reality. I’m really glad we did,” says Doe.

By including varying yet equally beloved movements within the country music pantheon, Doe and The Sadies were able to cover their heroes while filtering the pop sensibilities of ’60s Nashville through the electric honky tonk of Bakersfield, CA.

“We’re not sure why it sounds like it’s from the sixties. Maybe that’s our favorite era of country music or maybe that’s what we listened to when we first learned how to play it,” remarks Doe. “But what was called ‘Countrypolitan’ always seemed one of the coolest hybrids of country music. But we agreed quickly and completely that there were going to be no string sections, horns or choirs. Bakersfield vs. Nashville was never a dispute . . . Bakersfield!” Dallas Good of The Sadies continues, “The songs chosen were very ambitious, and while we haven’t re-invented the wheel we have created a cohesiveness between several hit country & western singles and our own styles.”

Country Club also features guest turns from D.J. Bonebrake, Kathleen Edwards, Eric Heywood and more.

Tracklist & Credits:

1. Stop the World and Let Me Off
Songwriter: Carl Belew
Made famous by: Waylon Jennings

2. Husbands and Wives
Songwriter: Roger Miller

3. ‘Til I Get It Right
Songwriters: Red Lane, Larry Henley
Made famous by: Tammy Wynette

4. It Just Dawned on Me
Songwriters: Exene Cervenka, John Doe

5. (Now and Then) There’s a Fool Such as I
Songwriter: William Marvin Trader
Made famous by: Hank Snow

6. The Night Life
Songwriters: Paul F. Buskirk, Walter M. Breeland, Willie Nelson
Made famous by: Ray Price

7. The Sudbury Nickel
Songwriters: The Sadies

8. Before I Wake
Songwriters: The Sadies

9. I Still Miss Someone
Songwriters: Johnny Cash, Roy Cash Jr.

10. The Cold Hard Facts of Life
Songwriter: Bill Anderson
Made famous by: Porter Wagoner

11. Take These Chains from My Heart
Songwriter: Fred Rose, Hy Heath
Made famous by: Hank Williams

12. Help Me Make It Through the Night
Songwriter: Kris Kristofferson

13. Are the Good Times Really Over for Good
Songwriter: Merle Haggard

14. Detroit City
Songwriters: Danny Dill, Mel Tillis
Made famous by: Bobby Bare

15. Pink Mountain Rag
Songwriters: The Sadies

The Sadies – Flash

• MyWestTexas.com’s Jimmy Patterson  looks over the life of country music legend Waylon Jennings as a catalyst that changed the genre forever.

• Chris Morris, the programmer for the defunct 103.1 country, blues, roots program “Watusi Rodeo,” has found a new venue online with  “Hillbilly Deluxe” on Scion Radio 17’s Web site.  The three-hour show streams continuously, so drop in and take a listen. There will be a new show posted every month. Great luck with the show Chris!

• Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has announce the initial lineup for the eighth annual 2009 four-day camping and music festival held on June 11 – 14 on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles south of Nashville.  Some of the country and roots artist to perform are Wilco, Andrew Bird, Merle Haggard, The Del McCoury Band, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Jenny Lewis, Robert Earl Keen, Tift Merritt, Mike Farris , Todd Snider and The SteelDrivers.

Son Volt live at Bonnaroo 2006: Windfall

If you’ve attended a solo Willie Nelson show you know what’s coming. Just as sure as a Texas Summer is hot and that your enchiladas at El Fenix will begin with chips and salsa, the Redheaded Stranger will deliver a canon of some of the best and most loved American songs spanning his 40 year career. The Johnny Bush and Paul Stroud penned Whiskey River, Good Hearted Woman – written by Willie and his partner in outlaw brotherhood Waylon Jennings, Crazy – the Willie penned 1962 #2 country hit for Patsy Cline that was originally written for, and turned down by,  Billy Walker, Funny How Time Slips Away – a song Walker did record and had a hit, the Kris Kristofferson penned Help Me Make It Through The Night and Me And Bobby McGee (made famous by fellow Texan Janis Joplin), Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain – the Fred Rose penned song that was originally performed in 1945 by Roy Acuff , later by Hank Williams but made into a hit by Willie on his thematic masterpiece Red Headed Stranger. The list goes on but you get the idea.

Even after a reprieve in 2004 due to a bout with carpal tunnel syndrome (well not much of a reprieve, Willie wrote two current song list staples, Superman and You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore – during the 4 months he was supposed to take it easy) Willie still plays the weathered Martin N-20 with now defunct Baldwin pickups (aka Trigger) in his signature syncopated style that made him too jazzy for 60’s era Nashville but endeared him to an audience that weren’t typical country music fans back in Austin. Trigger bares a ragged hole in it’s body right where decades of downstrokes have landed blows – surrounded by signatures of Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Kris Kristofferson and others this singular instrument has transcended it’s original intent. It now stands as a talisman as well as, as it’s name suggests, a trusted and loyal friend.

Very few artists have achieved the status of American icon. It’s a short and select group that have one thing in common, they transcend the level of working musician and become a representation of the music itself. 40’s pop, Frank Sinatra, Jazz, Louie Armstrong – Country Music in the minds of many Americans born in the last 40 years is Willie Nelson.

After all this time the humility is still there, thanking the audience after songs or an especially dexterous turn on Trigger. The 1000 watt smile, the twinkle in his eye, the humor, the worn bandanas tossed into an adoring crowd. Except for his well-known predilection for ganja (of which some of the Bay Area’s finest found its way on stage tossed up by a fan that abides) the man could have easily had a place in politics.

Seeing Willie is like visiting the Grand Canyon or the giant Sequoias – he’s less a musician and more like a force of nature, you’re awed to be in the presence of a national treasure and, after repeated visits, subtleties arise that are only discernible after a level of familiarity is achieved. The classics begin to expose nuances, phrasing, odd time signatures – once past the initial awe there’s a lasting beauty that emerges. The audience is enthralled and vocal – “yeehaws” and “ahh-haaas” ring out between each song. Not surprising, this is as far west we you can get without getting your boots wet.

Willie’s son Lukas and his band, the Promise of the Real, opened the show with their brand of jamband psychedelic fusion. Playing in this venue where the Grateful Dead performed so many times must have been a dream come true for these guys. I’m not particularly a fan of this style of music but one thing did stand out for me; whether fronting his own band or supporting his dad Lukas Nelson is becoming a master guitar player in his own right.

The night was topped off for me meeting Linda, a fellow blogger with #1 Willie Nelson fan site Still is Still Moving. Linda’s site is the go-to place for all thngs Willie.

And then there was the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels in VIP seating within the security barrier right in front of us. The outlaw mojo was in full force on this cool, San Francisco night.

Willie Nelson : Stardust – The Fillmore – 1/17/09