I firmly believe that one of the problems with modern music is that there’s too much of it. So to see Gillian Welch wait 7 years to put out an album, is refreshing, and wise. But time and patience don’t guarantee a good album. What does is excellent songwriting, and that is exactly what Gillian delivers in The Harrow & The Harvest.
Townes Van Zandt’s story is one of hope, for all of music and musicians, and artists of all kinds. As much as he struggled commercially, socially, and with his own demons, somehow over time the cream still found a way to rise to the top. It is a shame that some of the greatest have such a hard time relating to life, and that Townes Van Zandt found his greatest success after death. But he found it.
I tell you, you people make me sick! How dare you accuse the doughy, huggable Gary LeVox of Rascal Flatts, so elegantly crowned as he is with exquisitely-manicured frosted tips like a Chantilly porcupine, of exploiting the poor Caylee Anthony with his new tear-jerking tribute called “She’s Going Places”.
Fans of Hank Williams III who’ve been waiting patiently for new music are now able to get a glimpse of the new material via a series of show’s he’s been playing in Nashville. The youngest Hank, now going by “Hank3” played a surprise show at Layla’s Bluegrass Inn on Lower Broadway in Nashville on Wednesday night (7-6-11), and then Friday night played a show at The Exit/In.
Over the last couple of years, the “Jekyll” to JD’s Wilkes “Hyde” from the madhouse Shack Shakers performances, has been a side project called The Dirt Daubers. They released a homespun self-titled album in 2009 but are now planning their first proper release Wake Up, Sinners! for September 13th via Colonel Knowledge Records.
This is one of the funnest, freshest, well-written, well-produced albums to come out this year. There’s good songs, good performances, and it’s bold. While still sounding relevant and un-obscure, Cody and The Departed were able to stay out of the well-worn grooves that run like tired veins through so much of mainstream music.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend the most talent-rich event I have ever been to, as the convergence of Willie Nelson’s 38th Annual 4th of July Picnic met up with the finale of this year’s Willie Nelson Country Throwdown tour at the largest honky tonk in the world, Billy Bob’s Texas, in the historic Ft. Worth stockyards.
After a one year hiatus, the legendary Deep Blues Festival will be re-emerging this year on July 16th in Cleveland, OH. This year the torch has been picked up by Jim Chilson of the blues band the Ten Foot Polecats. Chilson was kind enough to give me some of his time to talk about why he decided to rekindle the Deep Blues flame, and about the difficulty some blues-based bands find being accepted in the traditional blues music circles.
Normally when I go to review an album, whether it takes me the first listen through or weeks of listening, eventually I am able to come to some solid conclusions. With Imperial Rooster, I am stumped. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and imparts points for originality for sure, but it doesn’t make my job of describing this album, or trying to convince you whether you should like it or not very easy.
Those previous positive statements I made about Justin? Well it looks like I need to back pedal pretty hard from them, because this album is awful. In my opinion, and I appreciate the gravity and the certitude of what I’m about to say, but in my opinion, Outlaws Like Me is the worst country music album I have ever heard, EVER.
Ever since Shooter Jennings proposed labeling music that is too rock for country, and too country for rock with the letters “XXX”, the issue has been heated in some circles, causing conflict and turf wars amongst country and roots music’s underground and independent entities. Now “XXX” music has drawn the ire of a new foe, America’s $14-billion dollar-a-year pornography industry.
If you haven’t heard by now, legendary musician, songwriter, producer, and country music Outlaw “Cowboy” Jack Clement’s famous home/studio suffered major fire damage Saturday afternoon. Jack Clement is a national treasure. His whimsy and lightheartedness that is illustrated in these pictures is his key to easing the stress of the recording process, and creating albums such as Waylon’s Dreaming My Dreams, or Prine’s Pink Cadillac.
The Muddy Roots Festival in Cookeville, TN this upcoming September 3rd & 4th is just over two months away, and in preparation they are ramping up plans to have a full-on documentary of the event created by Judd Films. To help fund the film, Jason at Muddy Roots has set up a Kickstarter campaign…
Hubbard was as important as anybody in the formation of the Austin music scene, but he was unfortunate enough to record his marquee release in Nashville. In a classic story involving Music Row, once MCA was done adding their over-produced elements to Ray Wylie Hubbard & The Cowboy Twinkies, Ray and The Twinkies wanted nothing to do with it.
Take a man’s pluck, his moxy, his raw, unfettered anger at life, then concentrate it, purify it, and personify it into a root’s-based rock n’ roll outfit, and what you get is Portland, Oregon’s I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In The House. That little part of all of us that is buried deep inside, that just wants to fly off the handle and tell the whole world to fuck off, that’s this band’s muse, and their commodity.
Country rap is here ladies and gentlemen. It is a full-blown chart-topping mainstream-acceptable sub-genre of country, like it or not. So what is a country purist to do? Well I have assembled a survivor’s guide to help you rebuke some of the ridiculous claims being made by country rap apologists.
With his own new label, Hank3 Records, and the sense that he has thrown off the chains holding him back creatively, Shelton Hank Williams III, aka Hank3, is coming out swinging this year with the release of four records on September 6 – that’s right – FOUR.
Every once in a while, an album comes along that changes everything. It’s an album that inspires other albums, and dynamic shifts in tastes and approach throughout a sector of music. Slackeye Slim’s El Santo Grial, La Pistola Piadosa is one of those albums. It is a masterpiece, exquisitely produced, arranged, and performed.
We’ve been waiting for a legitimate, Larry Jon Wilson reissue for a long time, but fans of the crazy, punk-infused string band Larry & His Flask have been waiting for a full-on LP release from them for years as well, and finally got it today in the release of All That We Know in digital form, with CD’s to be ready in August.
Jason Aldean’s country-rap breakthrough hit “Dirt Road Anthem” is climbing the charts, and after the recent release of the video and his performance with Ludacris at the CMT Awards, I suspect it will remain in the Top 10, if not take one of the top tier spots very soon. So I thought it might be fun to peel the skin back and see what this puppy is made of.
As hard as I am on albums and artists, I am double hard on songs. An album can have it’s low points, a song can’t. And just like with the Best 2011 Albums So Far, the songs so far in 2011 present a weak field. But there a few good ones worth noting from Jason Isbell, James Hunnicutt, Jimbo Mathus, Amanda Shires, Austin Lucas, and Rachel Brooke.
We sit at the crossroads of the great technology paradigm. For all the music problems technology solved for artists and fans, it is now creating new ones, principally an astronomical glut in the sheer volume of music being produced, and then marketed specifically for commercial consumption on a global scale. The enjoyability of music depends on its place as a minority in the collective talents of human society.
Great songs are able to have universal appeal by the message of the song morphing to fit one’s unique life experience. In “Ghost Bird”, this isn’t just an attribute of the song, it is the foundation the song is built from. “Ghost Bird” is a progressive, new-school country roots-based song that starts with an ambient music bed, similar to how the songs on Emmylou Harris’s album Wrecking Ball are constructed.
Well, we’ve just about reached the half way point of 2011, and let me level with you folks, so far this has been a down year for music. Yes, there’s been a few good projects and some surprises as well, but generally speaking it’s been pretty bleak compared to 2010, which was such a bumper year for music.
