The altercation happened after Coe hit the jackpot on a slot machine. There was confusion as security guards gave him orders that he did not comply with because, as he states, he couldn’t understand them because of hearing loss. The situation escalated until Coe was tackled by two sheriff’s, detained, and eventually jailed for a brief period.
Country Music Hall of Famer Charley Pride will be portrayed in a new biopic about his life by former pro wrestler turned actor/comedian Dwayne Johnson, aka “The Rock”. Though many outlets will love to portray that “The Rock” is “Going Country”, in truth he is just signing up to play a role in a movie (though current Saving Country Music/Las Vegas odds of The Rock parleying the role into a country music career are a very generous 3 to 1) .
Schnabel has the bravery to delve to places in the human soul most folks are way too afraid to go; the shit that we all push down and compartmentalize in ourselves, the ugly parts and the fears that we are unwilling to acknowledge. That stuff is Micah’s commodity. He expels it into a big bucket, and then with wide, careless swaths, paints huge, chaotic landscapes with it…
When Justin Moore’s “Outlaws Like Me” comes out, I will listen to it with the most un-bias perspective I can muster, and try my best to judge the music beyond the marketing. But in the meantime, I am not going to look at him as the problem, I am going to look my self and ask, “What did I do wrong? How can I resolve this? What can I do to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future?”
About two months ago, Saving Country Music introduced you to a would-be pop country star named Michael Jackson Montgomery in the aftermath of drama between Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Miley. Shortly after releasing the demo, Michael Jackson Montgomery contacted SCM directly, offering to release more demo’s “when appropriate,” and yesterday he sent us another one called “The Letter ‘B'”.
Family Tradition, The Three Generations of Hank Williams, a new book by Susan Masino chronicling the lives of Hank Williams, Hank Jr., and Hank III, was just released today via Backbeat Books…she was given “unprecedented access” to Hank III, and being the first print book to deal with his story in detail, it carries a lot of before unknown facts and information about the youngest Hank Williams.
Old Highs and Hellbound came into my music world at the same time, so attention for their first major release from 2008, Scumbag Country, got pushed aside for the more up-to-date project. But having recently seen the band at South by Southwest, it spurned me to go back and really delve into the recorded versions of these songs. And I dare say, as much as I’ve showered Old Highs with praise, Scumbag Country might even be better…
Though the Johnny Cash Project has been a darling of technology types since being launched in full on Sept. 30th, 2010, it seems to be virtually unknown within the music world. The best way to describe it is a collaborate art project with the goal of creating a living, breathing, evolving video for the great Johnny Cash’s song “Ain’t No Grave” that we can all contribute to.
If you want to listen to a true, creative meld of hip hop and country, go listen to some Beck or some Paul’s Boutique-era Beastie Boys. But this Colt Ford stuff is garbage, despite a few catchy lines, and as far as I’m concerned, lending your name to a Colt Ford project lands you a card carrying membership to the “Colt Ford Collaboration Blacklist”. Here’s the names I’ve amassed so far…
The situation with Tim McGraw has gone from dysfunctional, to immoral, to ironically funny, to now outright insane. The country music star and part-time perfume magnate’s troubles started with Curb in 2008, when the label decided to release a Greatest Hits album instead of new music McGraw had sitting on the shelf. Now Curb is refusing to put out his last album on his record deal, called Emotional Traffic…
Whitey Morgan and his bass player Jeremy Mackinder have a very similar symbiotic relationship that made the pairings of Waylon Jennings and his drummer Ritchie Albright, Willie Nelson and his drummer Paul English, into such successful, productive duos: a working relationship that just works, where creativity can flourish while nuts and bolts tasks still get done. During SXSW I sat down with the pair for a chat.
For all the harmonizing and gospel and good old-time vibes, the heart of the Marty Stuart show is still high-octane, Outlaw-era, rock n’ roll-inspired hard driving country music. This is what Marty Stuart is doing. He’s slinging guitars, he’s kicking ass, and he is doing it with class. If anybody, no matter what stripes they wear, walks out of a Marty Stuart show shrugging their shoulder with a “meh” attitude, they don’t deserve the right to have an opinion.
Thursday, August 4, 2011 will be the inaugural run of the “Johnny Cash Music Festival”, put on by Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, with direct help and participation from members of the Cash family. The focus of the music festival is to raise funds for the “Johnny Cash Boyhood Home project” in Dryess, Arkansas. The lineup is star studded to say the least.
I’m not one to chase every single limited-release 45 rpm put out by my favorite bands–that can get expensive quite quickly–but since we are nearing Record Store Day where the 7″ limited-release reigns supreme, and this little gem was thrown in my lap, I thought I would tell you about it’s virtues, and by proxy, the virtues of the single-sized vinyl format for those still perplexed why technology has regressed to move forward.
“Mean” might be the worst track on her Speak Now album. It is the most “country” song on the album, but it is not catchy, or clever, or well-crafted. Calling someone “Mean” is just such a base accusation. This isn’t punditry, it’s name calling. Maybe this song would have worked if she delved into the psychology of why people are mean, or even created some sympathy and understanding for her bullies. But instead she descends into the same “Mean” mentality herself…
Judd Films and Neltner Creative have just launched the website louvinfilm.com in support of the upcoming documentary Charlie Louvin / Still Rattlin’ The Devil’s Cage, now targeted for a July 15th release date. In breathtaking cinematic quality, the film covers the final concert, and final days of the Country Music Hall of Famer, and interviews with notables such as Marty Stuart, George Jones, John McCrea of Cake, and Emmylou Harris.
Country music might ignore Record Store Day (RSD) this Saturday (April 16th), the worldwide event that has become an international holiday for audiofiles, but Saving Country Music won’t. Neither will Bloodshot Records, who has a number of releases and events planned for the day meant to prop up the ailing mom and pop record store.
On March 27th, 2011, Hellbound Glory made a tour stop at Will’s Pub in Orlando, FL. Down a man on the tour to begin with, then down their bass player a few nights before, with their fill-in steel player filling in on bass the day after getting beat up by a bunch of bikers, the remaining members rallied, reached down deep, and pulled out a remarkable, rememberable performance as a power trio that will forever be known as “The Concert in the Cracker Swamp”.
A New Home, In The Old World is a parade of high-caliber, heartfelt songs set to good music, with some of the most twangy and eloquent country singing you will hear from any modern artist. The depth of his soul-wrenching themes, and the breadth of his singing ability, exercising masterful pitch and control, combine to be like a rock in between the eyes, striking you down to the depths of human emotion from where the song’s inspiration sprouted from.
May 20th will be the release of the movie Bloodworth, starring Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, Hilary Duff, and Val Kilmer. The movie is based off the novel Provinces of Night by William Gay, and originally the movie was going to have the same name. The movie also contains some contributions from some lesser-known country artists.
For years, the Honky Tonk Hustlas have been a hub right in the middle of the deep South, keeping the heart of real/underground country alive in an area infected with the sickness of country pop as much as any other. Their first album Hallways of the Always (2008) was a solid offering, and though they have never been a big touring band, they have shared many bills with big names rolling through their stomping ground of Montgomery, AL.
Every few years a breakthrough discovery in science will immediately make everything we thought we knew previously completely useless, rendering textbooks, teachers, and training obsolete; like the discovery that Pluto is not a planet, or some physics breakthrough that debunks all previous theories. This is what seems to be happening in music on almost a weekly basis these days…
Shooter Jennings, son of country music Outlaw legend Waylon Jennings, along with his long-time partner and fiance, Drea De Matteo, most famous as “Adriana” from The Sopranos have given birth to a baby boy with a famous first name: “Waylon Albert “Blackjack” Jennings.
With her first self-titled album, ===> Little Lisa Dixie <=== is helping make the case that in independent/underground country, 2011 might be the year of the woman. With surprisingly good, classic songwriting, excellent use of texture, and solid instrumentation, she has made the album that her fans have waited years for be one that is well worth the wait.
