If you’re not down in Austin yourself participating in the biggest music festival / music conference / music convention in the world known as South by Southwest (SXSW), it can almost seem like social media is working to taunt you for not participating as the event transpires between Tuesday and Saturday. We don’t want to revel in what you’re missing, we want to make it an opportunity to discover new music…
Part promotional tool for these showcases and artists, part tips to SXSW goers, part personal itinerary, part letting folks know what I’m clued in about so other folks can let me know what’s cool that I am missing, this is Saving Country Music’s SXSW 2013 living itinerary. SXSW is so expansive and so convoluted, there is no way one person can know everything, or let alone see and hear it…
Bob Everhart, a traditional country musician, and the President of the National Traditional Country Music Association since 1976, along with Maggie Penn at the Traditional Music Foundation have banded together with other organizations and individuals to launch an initiative to attempt to remove Blake Shelton from the Grand Ole Opry, and get more traditional country played on the radio.
The comments at the concert beginning a Dixie Chicks world tour sparked off possibly the biggest black balling in the history of American music. Spoken 10 days before the beginning of the Iraq War, the backlash took the Dixie Chicks from the biggest concert draw in country music to relative obscurity in country music in a matter of weeks.
Like A Rose is a short and sweet, classic country album that encapsulates Ashley Monroe’s skills as a formidable traditional country songwriter with a sweet voice embellished with sincere pain. The approach to Like A Rose is traditional, but light in the way the rhythm is laid back and some of the textures are ambient, making it in some respects a cross between country and Americana, broadening the appeal of the record.
Ladies and gentlemen, Caitlin Rose has arrived. The Stand-In is frighteningly good. It’s an enterprise in the evocation of rich human emotions, interwoven with delicious hooks and intelligent riffs, stirring vocal performances delivering meaningful, elevated lyricism, and a towering production performance that may go down in the history books. Just simply… Wow.
The pop country megastar that never was, but still may be someday named Michael Jackson Montgomery is finally releasing an album called The Bleeding Cowboy on April 9th. He has also just released the second single from The Bleeding Cowboy called “I Support The Troops More Than You.” Michael Jackson Montgomery spoke to Saving Country Music in this exclusive interview.
It’s not that JD McPherson does anything different than many other artists have done before him. It’s just that he does it better. Good music will always be relevant, and JD McPherson is living proof of this. A strict revivalist of the 1950’s rock & roll blues, his music has branched out and burrowed into the consciousness of many folks not regularly susceptible to the pull of a straight-laced throwback rock & roll show.
Willie’s life has run the full gamut of the American experience. That’s why we love him and give him a pass even when we may not agree with some of the things he says or does. Or at least most of us do. Those fans jump to conclusions that Willie is some limp-wristed softy that has no respect for the 2nd Amendment, maybe they should look back at a couple of incidents in his past.
In direct violation of every single rule of country music and the State Department’s South American travel warning, Florida-Georgia line flies down to fake Mexico to participate in a music video that becomes one of the most “WHAT THE HELL?!?!” moments in country music history. This music video is only a couple of quaaludes away from a tasteless Girls Gone Wild installment.
Hank Williams III has been on extended touring hiatus, one of the longest of his career, as his drummer Shawn “McNasty” Williams had surgery to repair a rotator cuff, reattach his bicep tendon, and remove bone spurs. But the grandson of Hank Williams has apparently been using the time well, writing and recording a big chunk of new material.
It’s not that the impressive voice, the use of wit, and solid country instincts were still not evident in Nellie Wilson 1.0, but in no way were you expecting the level of depth, composition, artistry, and just downright immediate and long-lasting appeal for the songs she slays the audience with in Not This Time. Nellie Wilson shocks the world, and puts out one of the best, and most intelligent country music works in 2013 so far.
Samantha Crain emerges from Shawnee, OK with her 3rd full length offering and 5th release overall called Kid Face–a delightfully sparse project, but deliberative and in-depth in its forays into the mind’s inner dimensions and ulterior tendencies. Kid Face is despondent by nature, but prone to tangents of frolicking melodies that pull you into the project to later get lost in its complexities.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not becoming very engrossed in the idea of Kacey Musgraves getting big, and very big, and doing it with fresh, new, exciting, substantive material that could shake up the current stagnant climate of country radio and the mainstream in general. All the dominoes seem to be aligned for Kacey
“Wild and Lonesome” from Shooter’s upcoming album The Other Life is a sparse, fiercely classic country tune with great country instincts and arrangement. It’s not great because of its classic country flavor, it’s great because Shooter had the wisdom to get out of the song’s way an allow it to pick its own path and tell its own story, and that happened to lead it down the classic country road.
The White Trash Song” reveals that it wants to be considered one of these up-tempo, extended country jams. The problem is there’s positively no space on this track for any individual performance to breathe. Meanwhile the rhythm sways to and fro and never finds the groove from the delay on Shooter’s voice and the phasing of the rhythm guitar, combining to make a wonky, muddy audio blob.
Wayne Hancock has more handles than a chester drawers: The Train, The King Of Juke Joint Swing, The Father of Underground Country, The Viper of Melody. He deserves every single one of them, yet none of them nor all of them combined seem to do justice to the enjoyment and influence his music has dispensed over the years.
The only thing better than a Caitlin Rose song is a Caitlin Rose video. Then again I lost all objectivity long, long ago when it came to judging this girl. She could serve up a flaming cowpie and I’d be twisting words around to convince you to drop .99¢ on it at iTunes. I’ve been compromised by Caitlin’s spellbinding ability to embed the most sincere, most deep personal emotions into her music.
You don’t understand, this is not about taste, and it really isn’t even about music. We have an obligation to ourselves as humans to seek out the best and brightest of any pursuit or vocation, and shine a bright light on them in hopes that their achievement will inspire us seek out our true calling and bravely pursue it until it reaches its fulfilling end.
The comments by Marcus Mumford were made to Rolling Stone in a feature posted today that includes comments from all four members of the UK-based roots rock band. A recurring criticism of Mumford has been that many of the songs on their two albums Sigh No More and Babel sound very similar. According to front man and main songwriter Marcus Mumford, a new direction could involve hip-hop and rapping.
If he’s not playing music, there’s no other place Wayne “Train” Hancock would rather be than riding on the back of his 2006 Harley Davidson Super Glide motorcycle. The new album Ride out 2-26 from the “King of Juke Joint Swing” in many ways is a nexus between these two passions, and a very personal work with songs reflecting the current state of his life and career.
Tonight is the annual Academy Awards, and during the presentation, you won’t see anybody judged on looks or popularity. You will not see the most commercially-successful endeavors given exclusive billing and opportunity for accolades. No, what you will see is the best and the brightest of the industry highlighted based mostly on the creativity and artistic integrity of their works.
In Music Row’s everlasting quest to train all of its resources on scouring America to unearth only the finest, most purest form of audio diarrhea, they have struck the mother of all motherloads originating from the unholy bowels of Macon, Georgia’s Jason Aldean. Yes Nashville, pat yourself on the back, you have officially discovered the worst country music song to ever touch the human ear drum.
The 2013 NASCAR season officially starts this Sunday in Daytona, and one of the sport’s most well-known car owners, a former NASCAR driver named Richard Childress, may not be around today if it wasn’t for the heroics back in the day by none other than country music’s Marty Robbins. Here’s the story:
