The Americana Music Association (AMA) will partner with the Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) to present two premiere screenings during the 10th Annual Americana Music Festival and Conference, September 16-19, 2009 in Nashville.

“Americana on Film” will take place at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Ford Theatre and include screenings of Behind the Confessions: Radney Foster’s Revival on Thursday September 17 from 12:00-2 p.m. with Foster in attendance and the Southeast Premier of 35 Years of Austin City Limits: Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel, Saturday, September 19, 1:30-3:00 p.m. with Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona in attendance. (Thanks to Cybergrass)

• PopMatters.cam has 20 questions for Austin’s neo-trad honky-tonker Wayne “The Train” Hancock.

• Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, ia a new comic book/graphic novel by Abrams ComicArts based on the life of Johnny Cash. It will be available in November. (thanks to the 9513.com and That Nashville Sound)

• San Jose Mercury News is just one of many offering praise for Willie Nelson’s new release of classic pop standards – American Classic.

• Are you a Tanya Tucker look alike?

• DC Country Music Examiner’s Steve Stegman continues his feature on the themes of country music (Heroes, villains and the mythology of country music) with #7 Bad ass, heroes and villains and mythology.

I for one am glade that Terri Clark is back in action on the country music landscape and releasing a new album, The Long Way Home, this Tuesday. If the new single Gypsy Boots is any indication it’s going to be a great one!

• Check out the “twitterview”  – a cute way of describing an interview conducted on twitter -  between TheBoot.com and Willie Nelson as was gearing up for his MySpace free secret concert in Maui, Hawaii.

• Speaking of the twitterverse (yeah, I’m gonna get mileage out of this), Charlie Robison won’t have to travel far to play a private living room concert for the winner of his twitter concert. The winner lives in Austin.

• The Grand Ole Opry will bring back it’s special Opry Country Classics program this fall for an eight-week run beginning Thurs., Sept. 10. Already scheduled to perform are Moe Bandy, Terri Clark, Jimmy Dickens, Larry Gatlin, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, George Jones, Ray Price, Joe Stampley, Marty Stuart, Mel Tillis, Pam Tillis, and Tanya Tucker.

• Rosanne Cash will be the subject of the Americana Music Association’s Festival and Conference 2009 Keynote Interview. The interview will be conducted by author/journalist Michael Streissguth – who has written books on Rosanne as well as her father Johnny, Eddy Arnold and others – will take place Thursday, September 17 from 10:45 until noon at the Nashville Convention Center.

• Jack Ingram established a new Guinness World Record – most radio interviews in a 24-hour period. Ingram was  promoting his new disc “Big Dreams & High Hopes.” Ingram recorded 215 radio interviews within 24 hours, hitting most of the 50 states, Canada, Ireland and Australia. The previous record was 96.

• Langhorne Slim’s forthcoming release is titled  Be Set Free (Kemado Records, Sept 29.) and containes this shimmery slice of heartache:  I Love You, But Goodbye  (I_Love_You_But_Goodbye.mp3). Check out Langhorne Slim’s MySpace page for more information and upcoming tour dates.

• Charlie Robison

• Canada.com posts a feature on the upcoming album of classics by Willie Nelson, American Classic – Willie Nelson returns to ‘the good songs’ (release 8/25)

• The New York Times also features a piece on Willie Nelson’s American Classic.

• The Boston Herald posts a feature on honky-tonk neo-traditionalist Paul Burch- Looking for authentic country soul? Burch is ‘Still Your Man’ – about his new release and the music business.

• I have come to the acceptance step of the grief cycle, bit Todd VanDerWerff’s excellent and exhaustive re-review of the HBO Western series Deadwood at The Onion’s TV Club brings a smile to my face.

• Check out Kim Ruehl’s interview with Santa Cruz’s roots band The Devil Makes Three from the Bumbershoot music festival.

• Tom Russell posts a new addition to his blog giving context and back stories to the songs on his upcoming Calexeco-backed album Blood and Candle Smoke.

• Bruce Robison posts on his MySpace blog that he will have a song in Texas cartoon mogal Mike Judge(Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill) film Extract and that he’ll be heading out  on tour with Robert Earl Keen and Todd Snider. (via the 9513.com)

• Patty Griffin’s upcoming Buddy Miller produced Gospel album Downtown Church will be released in early 2010 and was recorded earlier this year in the sanctuary of the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, according to her website.

• 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.

• Speaking of the Texas Yoda, The L.A. Times has a nice piece on him (Willie Nelson in jazz country)

• 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.

• 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.

• Chet Flippo over at CMT’s Nashville Skyline and Miss Leslie at the 9513.com are strolling down the mine-laden path of “What is country music?”

• Classical Americana? Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Buddy Miller will be among the musicians who will perform with the Nashville Symphony on Sept. 12 during the inaugural Classical Americana concert at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. The concert is one of the events leading up to 10th annual Americana Music Festival and Conference taking place Sept. 16-19 in Nashville.

• Lost Highway Records will release a compilation of music Willie Nelson has made on their label. Willie Nelson’s Lost Highway will be released on Aug. 11 with three previously unreleased songs. The 17-track album features Grammy-winning duets with Ray Price (”Lost Highway”) and Lee Ann Womack . Other guests on the album include Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and Lucinda Williams.I;m not sure that the work Willie has done while on Lost Highway really warrents the compilation treatment but I will hold judgment until I hear it.

• Bob Schneider teamed up with Dixie Chick Martie McGuire for a  sold-out show at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, CA. SPINearth.tv (SPIN Magazine’s new global music site) recently published an exclusive photo collection from the DVD taping of the show.

• The New York Times posts a great review of the riot grrrl-trad country group Those Darlins show at the lower East-Side’s Mercury Lounge.

• Willie Nelson’s Facebook page is posting hints where this year’s Farm Aid will be held. So far we have:  The city for this year’s concert has a professional sports team named after an animal,  the concert will be in a state that is in the top 12 for number of farms  and it will be in a city & state where Farm Aid where Farm Aid has never been held.

• Speaking of the Texas Yoda – Head over to Texas Music Matter to listen to Amazing Grace: The Willie Nelson Story – a winner of two National Headliners Awards including this year’s Grand Prize for Radio. Nearly a year in the making, the program features rare music plus interviews with, among others, Kris Kristofferson, Norah Jones, John Mellencamp, Ray Price, biographer Joe Nick Patoski, Willie’s best friend and closest confidante (his sister, Bobbie), and the Yoda  himself.

• Country music legend (and daughter of country music legend Mel Tillis) Pam Tillis talks to the Vancouver Sun about the state of country music.

• Austin’s Ray Benson and Asleep At the Wheel will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance at the 8th Annual Americana Awards ceremony, September 17th at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Just when you needed more evidence that you’re getting old and aren’t accomplished very much I give you Ruby Jane.  Ruby is a 14 year old native Texan (born in Dallas, now resides in Austin) and is a premiere junior fiddler and a fast-rising star in country and bluegrass-Americana music scene.

She has shared the stage with Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Asleep at the Wheel, Rhonda Vincent, Mike Snider, Jesse McReynolds, Jim Brock, James Monroe, Carl Jackson and Big & Rich (hey, a girls gotta make some bank!) In true old-school country entrepreneurial style  Ruby even has her own pancake mix for sale!  When not sawing wood and hawking flapjacks Ruby Jane is also an actress and a model Kids today and their virtuoso Blugrass playing!

• Austin360.com has a nice story on the recently deceased Poodie Locke, Willie Nelson’s stage manager of 34 years. There is also a nice tribute video on YouTube.

• Jay Bennett, a former Wilco member, is suing band leader Jeff Tweedy in Cook County Circuit Court, claiming Tweedy owes him money from the band’s 2002 documentary and royalties on songs written during Bennett’s seven years with the group.

• PopMatter.com’s Joseph Carver posted a review of the new Flatlanders Hills and Valleys.

• Can musicians use iPhone apps as a channel for their brand? Alison Bonaguro at the CMT blog has a post about that possibility.

• Americana Roots has posted an interview with Wayne “The Train” Hancock. Wayne talks about band changes,  his time on the road and his new release Viper of Melody.

William Elliott Whitmore made a stop on the Jools Holland Show in England to perform Old Devils.