Fans of singer/songwriter and one man band Possessed By Paul James my be surprised to find out that playing music is not his only passion. Though he inexplicably finds the time to make appearances all over the US and Europe throughout the year, down in the Texas Hill Country he’s in charge of an elementary school special education classroom, teaching children with intellectual disabilities.
The underground country movement initially formed around the mid 90’s not because somebody launched a website or a record label. It wasn’t because of a festival or because someone came up with a special name for a new genre. It came from the songs artists were writing, recording, and performing; songs that spoke very deep to the hearts of hungry listeners.
On November 6th, the 2013 Country Music Association Awards will transpire once again on ABC, with the nominees being announced this morning. Most surprising was that Kacey Musgraves, along with Taylor Swift, lead all nominees with six total nods. Here is a complete list of nominees, along with thoughts, picks, and prognostications.
Two guns up for Vince Gill, who yesterday (9-8-13) emerged from the Muriel Kauffman Theatre in Kansas City to accost a slew of Westboro Baptist Church protesters outside, apparently protesting his appearance because he is married to Christian music artist Amy Grant. Both Vince and Amy Grant are divorced after previous marriages.
For generations we’ve accepted that it is the social norm in Western civilization for children to gravitate away from the music of their parents. But a recent study by the Cornell University of Psychology seems to refute this generational music gap, and reinforce other studies that have previously stated that adolescence and the teenage years are the most important and influential time in forming musical knowledge and tastes.
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Seth James has announced today that he has decided to leave The Departed, a band he helped form with former members of Cross Canadian Ragweed Cody Canada and Jeremy Plato. He will continue to play with the band until his final show at the legendary Texas venue Gruene Hall on November 23rd.
For those of you who couldn’t bear the thought of waiting another year+ for new music from country music rising star Sturgill Simpson, the music fairy has just left you a sweet little nugget under your country music pillow. Sturgill has just released two new songs through Bandcamp, affectionately titled “Bastard Children.”
The Coal Miners Daughter and Country Music Hall of Famer Loretta Lynn has been forced to cancel a couple of weekend shows after cracking two ribs last weekend right before a big concert at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, TN. The 78-year-old was trying to get her guitar out of a closet when it apparently fell on her, forcing her into a dresser and breaking two of her ribs.
Crazy Lonesome Blue comes at you with no frills, offering up a bevy of original songs, a few covers and traditionals, and an all-star cast comprising the Nightlifer’s lineup. It’d take a DNA test to convince me that Danny Kay isn’t a cousin of Lucky Tubb in the way his lonesome drawl with a rounded cadence really pulls the emotion out of the words to a song while pulling the listener’s ear right in.
Will Hoge’s latest release is a song called “Strong,” and like so many of Will’s compositions, it demonstrates heart, depth, soul, and taste. There’s a lot of emotion in this song. It’s weighty. But just like Bob Seger’s “Like A Rock,” and John Mellencamp’s “Our Country,” it has been tapped to become the official song of the Chevy Silverado—destined to be played half a dozen times during every single football game.
Ahead of his performance at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Baltimore, Alan Jackson had some discouraging words about the current state of country music in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. Jackson’s last album, 2012’s Thirty Miles West sold moderately well, but did not produce the type of radio hits Jackson enjoyed earlier in his career.
If you’ve been wishing for a print magazine that would cover cool up-and-coming country artists right beside the big names, and not just focus on the here and now but take the time to look back on the past greats of the genre, well you may just have received your wish. The inaugural issue of “Country Music Magazine presented by Classic Rock” is being released September 11th.
Texas singer/songwriter, one man band, multi-instrumentalist, Teacher of the Year, and dedicated husband and father Possessed by Paul James has announced that he will be releasing his next album Nights When I’m Lonely on October 29th through Hillgrass Bluebilly Records. The follow up to his 2010 Independent Music Award-winning Feed The Family features 13 brand new original tracks recorded in Austin, TX.
Luke Bryan’s music has the nutritional value of notebook paper, and is the clinical result of when an entertainer spreads his arms wide in a submissive pose and relents his entire will to the country music industrial complex, saying “Do your worst.” Luke Bryan has no soul. He is more machine than man. He has the integrity of a Guatemalan mule bridge with a squadron of M1 tanks trying to cross it.
A big battle ground in country music right now is the presence of so many songs about trucks. Though this recent popularity trend seems especially sinister in its simplistic, incessant nature, it is not necessarily unprecedented in country. From the early 60’s into the mid 70’s, songs about semi-trucks and truck drivers were all the rage, with big names like Merle Haggard, Del Reeves, and Buck Owens getting in on the action.
“The country format is more pop than pop was when I came up two decades ago,” Sheryl explained to Reuters late last week when being interviewed about her new album, illustrating the degree of country’s move to pop in recent years. Of course Sheryl isn’t saying anything that some country fans haven’t been clamoring about for years, but Crow’s perspective and honesty speaks to the degree of change in country.
With a gift for poetry like Townes Van Zandt, and a penchant for the whimsical, progressive approach to bluegrass akin to John Hartford, Robbie Fulks releases a stunningly entertaining, brilliantly-balanced, deep, yet instantly-engaging comeback album called Gone Away Backward through longtime associates Bloodshot Records.