If nothing else, The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim continues to show their great taste in music. As Squidbillies fans can attest, Jason Isbell is far from the first cool musical artist to make an appearance on the show. The animated series’ main character is voiced by none other than Unknown Hinson (aka Stuart Baker), and Billy Joe Shaver sang the original theme song.
It’s not every day that you see the hero of what is expected to be a blockbuster movie wielding a stringed instrument as his weapon against evil, but that is the premise of the new animated film called Kubo and the Two Strings set to open August 19th in the United States. The 3D stop-motion animated feature film produced by Laika Entertainment is receiving stellar reviews.
The AmericanFest has announced their full list of 2016 performers after announcing the first 68 names in early May, another batch of performers in June. The over 200 acts will be performing at 14 separate venues across Nashville from September 20th to the 25th for the Americana Music Association’s 17th Annual gathering.
The reason so many can make so much money on the secondary market is because there is way more demand than there is supply. And by performers not ramping up their supply and only playing one, or maybe two shows in a market that could potentially support four or five, they’re allowing the secondary market to thrive.
At 2:00 a.m. Monday (8-15) morning, a total of 23 shots were fired into the crowded parking lot, with numerous bullets striking the venue, and one individual—a black man in his 20’s—being struck multiple times by the gunfire. He is currently in critical condition at a local hospital.
Released way back on September 14th, 2015, “Head Over Boots” has traced a slow but steady build until this week it was officially named the #1 song on country radio. Yet beyond some other singles that have recently been awarded this distinction, the numbers behind “Head Over Boots” speak to a true groundswell of appeal and interest.
To decide that classic country music is the way you’re going to make it through life is like choosing the toughest of all paths to climb to the top of a mountain, with steep inclines and sharp drop off’s and all manner of obstacles and wild dangers besetting your course on every side, all while an inviting elevator to the top sits with open doors waiting to spirit you to the same apex.
There will be no #1 for Texas country artist Cody Johnson’s new album “Gotta Be Me,” even though if all things were equal, he’d would be the rightful owner of the distinction. Cody is being blocked by Blake Shelton who is running a big new promotion behind his recent album “If I’m Honest,” selling it for only $0.99.
Blake Shelton is in hot water for a number of racist, sexist, and homophobic tweets posted in 2011 that have recently surfaced—or so a slew of U.K. tabloids and and American crotch-sniffing celebrity websites would have you believe without any verification of the legitimacy of these supposed tweets, or any explanation how it took them half a decade to surface.
Have you heard about the legend of Dale Watson’s “Chicken $hit Bingo”? He’s been hosting the event on Sundays since 2000 at places like Austin’s legendary Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, and now at his own bar just outside of San Antonio in St. Hedwig called the Big ‘T’ Roadhouse. If you’re ever in central Texas and want a dose of full fledged Texas authenticity…
His new album I’m Not The Devil is an ambitious, unwavering, slow and plodding volley of songwriting body blows that makes no apologies, incorporates no compromises, and gives no quarter to those with open hearts that love to listen to music that makes them swoon with one emotional onslaught after another, all served in a down home deep-fried country style.
It’s six days and five nights surrounded by mountains and music, including full band performances, and stripped-down guitar pulls and storytelling sessions that are like nothing else in the music festival landscape. Music Fest is also where many songs get written between different artist, and is just as anticipated by the performers as it is the fans.
An especially disturbing account has surfaced out of Nashville involving an individual named Keith Messner, who was posing as a representative for Warner Music Group, including using the company’s logo, and reaching out to young girls via Twitter and email with big promises.
If you’re wondering where the hell all the real country music has gone, it has joined forces and is headed towards a venue near you. Texas country singer songwriter Cody Jinks, and throwback honky tonk badass Whitey Morgan have embarked on a co-headlining tour set to roll through Texas, the South, up the eastern seaboard and into the Midwest.
If Cowboys Like Me was Cody Johnson selling out in an attempt to garner more national attention with a super-polished and radio-friendly product, the appropriately-titled Gotta Be Me is Johnson reeling it all back in and being truthful about who he is, where his sound lies, and what his prospects are. Gotta Be Me is Cody Johnson being Cody Johnson again.
If someone is apt to not pay attention to female artists, whether that’s a garden variety country fan or a major label executive, bunching female artists together is probably not going to garner their attention, it’s probably going to turn them off even more, especially if the premise of putting these artists together is an attempt to break through a gender bias.
A long overdue distinction for one of country music’s greatest songwriters will finally come to pass. Announced at a press conference Tuesday morning (8-9) in Nashville, Townes Van Zant will be inducted into the prestigious Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with fellow songwriters Aaron Barker, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Bob Morrison.
There are bigger festivals. This is for sure. And there are bigger performers and headliners. But few festivals can boast the ability to not just support worthy music from a wide swath of the American audio palette, but truly launch major careers for artists that go on to have an international impact—artists that music needs.
For those who can’t get enough Waylon Jennings, or make a habit of buying anything that involves the Outlaw country music legend, there is a new collection of rare, never-released recordings on the way from Country Rewind Records called “The Lost Nashville Sessions.”
Dawn in the Distance is Justin Wells getting it just about right. With stunning insight and honesty, Wells speaks upon the disillusion of dreams, the realization of new ones, the reality of the pitfalls of the rock and roll fantasy, and does so with cutting clarity and poetic facility.
To see folks like Florida Georgia Line crest the Top Songs chart is disturbing enough. But to not see any mention of Hank Williams in the Best Artist list has also solicited groans. So let’s run through some observations on these charts to help understand how best to gauge their usefulness (or not), and explain some of the strange wrinkles they evidence.
Now The Band Perry is lying about things that they don’t even need to lie about. And now their using their complicit friends in country music’s fawning media to rewrite history. And for the life of me, I have no idea why. They’re tilting at windmills instead of letting their music speak for itself.
What is so striking about the album listening back to it after nearly 35 years of perspective is not just the big hits, the #1’s, and the now country standards that it contains. It’s the variety in Strait From The Heart that makes it the perfect study of where country music had been, where it was in the present tense, and where it would be going.
“I can’t believe it’s already about this time for me,” William Michael Morgan said. “Right now we’re sitting at about 11 songs that’s gonna be on the album. That could change, but it’s all country, true to the EP of course, and I just can’t wait to share this with you guys. We’ve been working so hard to try and find and write to get these songs out to the public.”
