Can we go back to the time when the biggest worry we had with The Zac Brown Band was that his song “Chicken Fried” was a precursor to Bro-Country? Remember that moment in 2009 when he took the stage at the CMA Awards and ripped into a badass version of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” and had us all pumping our fists?
Bloodshot Records was a stepping stone, and a repository for artists who were too ornery to be signed elsewhere. And that was what was cool about them. It was a punk attitude imprinted on country, and their verbiage about leading an insurgency inspired others to pick up the charge to take country music back, including this very website.
Memphis, Tennessee was overrun this weekend with throwback hillbillies, Outlaw roughnecks, and Rockabilly Daddy-O’s/Susie Q’s as part of Dale Watson’s 6th Annual Ameripolitan shindig and awards show. The event culminated in the 6th Annual Ameripolitan Awards.
Country Music Hall of Famer, Bluegrass Hall of Famer, performer, executive, songwriter, and general country music advocate Mac Wiseman has passed away. He was 93-years-old, and was one of the last living links to country music’s golden era. He died on Sunday, February 24th.
An artist like Yola is the antidote to such a prognosis; a firewall against the free-range onslaught of cultural sameness pervading popular music. She represents a lushness of perspective, and a re-invigoration of musical diversity, beyond any shallow observances simply based upon skin pigmentation.
The heart welled up with excitement in many true country music fans when word came down that Brooks & Dunn had a new title on the way, only to be tempered by the fact that it’s a Reboot (nice double entendre there) of some of their old classics re-recorded with contemporary stars.
Ronald Todd Milsap, the son of Country Music Hall of Famer Ronnie Milsap and a man who worked behind-the-scenes in the music business, has died at the age of 49. He was found dead on his houseboat at the Four Corners Marina on Percy Priest Lake just east of Nashville Saturday morning (2-23).
In October of 2017, traditional country fans were all giddy to read that a proper museum for Merle Haggard was on the way in Nashville’s Lower Broadway district where similar museums for Johnny Cash, George Jones, and Patsy Cline hold court, finally giving fans of the Hag a Mecca to herd to after his death in 2016.
A “moment” is something that used to happen more often in music, when an artist would take the stage in front of a national audience, or have a big showing at an awards show, and completely stun audiences across traditional divides of taste and culture, capturing the zeitgeist in a way that permeated the populace […]
The ACM Awards announced their 2019 nominees on Wednesday (2-21), and it felt so liberating to not feel the need to immediately deliberate over the organization’s conclusions, and instead regard them with the tacit relevance they probably deserve.
Dale Watson is incapable of hiding his roots. He’s so damn country, he started his own genre called Ameripolitan just to get away from what country music has become. There is nobody less likely skid off the tracks and abandon their country principles on this big sphere of rock hurdling through space than Dale Watson.
Austin-based Texas/Southern/Red Dirt/Alt country rock band Reckless Kelly is probably best known for being the home of brothers Willy and Cody Braun. But if there was a third member that fans most identify with as one of the most important members of the band over the last 20 years, it would be lead guitar player David Abeyta.
You get the sense that Tyler Chiders is sitting right on the cusp. When you mention his name, there is an energy behind it that charges the air, like you know he’s someone ready to break out in the biggest way at any moment. When he releases a new record, it could be a monumental event, and have reverberations throughout country music.
“Stunning” is the only way to put this. “A shot out of the dark” might be another. “Awesome” would be a third. But however you want to put it, “King” George Strait is back on country radio, and in a big way with his brand new single “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar.”
Folk Alliance International is the annual gathering of the tribes for those individuals too stubborn-headed to worry about the major commercial applications of performed music, and instead do it for the spirit of the art, the community it creates, and/or to preserve primitive musical art forms in their most pure state.
Life rarely works out the way you plan it, and this is especially true when it comes to marriages and divorces. In the world of power celebrities, marriage is often its own occupation in leveraging the attention of the masses via celebrity gossip rags to make one’s popular culture brand more compelling to the wide population.
Though it may seem like a strange pairing on the surface, remember Marty Stuart is still currently touring behind his latest record Way Out West, which tracks the lineage of country music on the West Coast from the Bakersfield Sound to the psychedelic influences of the 60’s and 70’s.
Alt-country singer and songwriter Lydia Loveless has come out with a statement saying that independent, Chicago-based insurgent country label Bloodshot Records did not properly address the behavior of an individual associated with the company who regularly sexually harassed and groped her.
Some very big names, and some names to discover are included in the newest additions of the Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist. Fresh off her four wins at the Grammy Awards including for Album of the Year, Kacey Musgraves has released her first proper radio single from ‘Golden Hour’ in the form of “Rainbow.”
If you enjoyed Dolly Parton’s two original films based off her song “Coat Of Many Colors” for NBC (and if the ratings were any indication, you probably did), then you will get eight more chances to delve into the magic behind some of Dolly Parton’s most iconic songs in a new 8-part film anthology that is coming to Netflix.
Yes, there was yet even more drama with a Turnpike Troubadours performance, and another show that was almost cancelled. But this time it was in no way the band’s fault. In fact they were the ones that insisted the show go on, and pushed through the issues to offer attendees a full performance, and give fans a happy ending.
You have to go all the way back to 2002’s ‘Tanya’ to find the last time country icon Tanya Tucker released a proper album of new material; her classic covers album from 2009 notwithstanding. That’s 17 years to save up songs and inspiration, and now Tanya is ready to make a roaring return.
Not that daily updates upon the doings of the Turnpike Troubadours are necessary, but with the recent “touch and go” nature of their tour schedule, and the band’s timid efforts at communication, many fans and ticket holders for upcoming shows have a vested interest in staying up-to-date with just how they’re doing.
When you hear an artist like Charles Wesley Godwin sing, there is no need to power cycle your sense of disbelief. The sinewy roots of West Virginia’s hardscrabble existence seem to be intertwined with Godwin’s synapses and muscle tissue, almost as if he’s a construct of the land itself, like a scrub tree clinging to life.
