Take the insane punk blues of the two-piece Left Lane Cruiser, add the shirtless, sweat-drenched James Leg from the Black Diamond Heavies, and then put them in charge of reviving some of the most legendary songs in blues music, and you’ve got an album dangerous enough to require a prescription. Painkillers, the new cover album due out 6/26/12 on Alive Natural Sound Records.
It’s pretty simple,” explains CMT spokesperson Harold Frankenfurter. “You can’t have a ‘Male Video of the Year’ winner who is in fact of the opposite gender. We want to be very respectful of Luke Bryan’s sexual persuasion and life choices, but we do feel it is unfair to the other nominees to give him the award with ‘Male’ in the title when he is in fact a woman.”
This is what Saving Country Music is all about. This is the reason I put my pants on every morning. Everything else is just fluff, filibustering, treading water until I come across that one artist, that one album that embodies everything true country fans are looking for but have yet to find. That is what you have with Eric Strickland and his band The B Sides, and their album Honky Tonk Till I Die.
Neil Young’s Americana, his first album with backing band Crazy Horse in 9 years, embodies the full range of feelings I have about Neil Young in general. You see, I hate Neil Young. Positively can’t stand the dude. At the same time I think he is a mad musical genius that deserves all the rights and privileges the moniker “Music Treasure” can bestow.
This week NBC’s reality TV show “America’s Got Talent” showcased a country singer named Tim Poe. Poe claimed to be an 14-year military veteran who had been injured by a rocket propelled grenade in Afghanistan that gave him stuttering disorder. The problem is, according to numerous reports, Tim Poe’s story is a sham.
There’s never been a question in anyone’s mind if Johnny Cash actually shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. But that lyric, and Johnny’s song “Folsom Prison Blues” have gone on to become an iconic piece of country music history. This language was nothing new in 1955. Murder ballads and gunslinger tales trace back to the very roots of country music and America’s Gothic, violent identity.
If 90% of the stuff they play on country radio these days is crap, then Alan represents the 10%. He’s the one respite when the Mrs. or kiddos flip over to 98.1 you don’t want to reach for a 9mm and point it at either your audio interface or your own pie hole. And unlike George Strait, Alan has the skins on the wall of writing a lot of his own material and other memorable achievements for real country fans.
Quick to discount the young songstress, this is the first accusation you will see to why Taylor Swift’s success is a sham. Does Taylor Swift’s dad own Swift Trucking? Did he buy a bunch of albums and park them in a warehouse to artificially bloat sales numbers? Did her dad along with Scott Borchetta con Taylor’s first manager? Or is this all a side show to Taylor’s simple success and appeal?
2012 so far has been a remarkable year for top flight albums throughout the country world. That compelled me to tweak my regular mid-year format to not just include any album that has received a positive review (though these are all listed at the bottom), but instead highlight the ones that I think have a serious chance to be considered for Album of the Year.
Last week The Grand Ole Opry, along with its parent company Gaylord Entertainment, were purchased by Marriott International for $210 million. Though Gaylord reportedly will remain in charge of most of the day-to-day operations of the Opry, some fans are afraid of what may happen. So Saving Country Music reached out to Marriott to find out what effects new ownership will have on the Opry experience.
Today the nominees for the 2012 Americana Music Awards were announced. What struck me as I watched the presentation was how overtly cliquish the Americana Music Association has become, or continues to be, as they narrowcast out awards to the same pool of networked-in, dramatically-familiar, and specifically-focused artists that all tend to know each other, and carry the same politics.
As first theorized here in late April, Gaylord Entertainment, the parent company of the iconic Grand Ole Opry and radio station WSM, has been sold to Marriott International for $210 million. According to a press release by Gaylord about the sale, the company will retain its Grand Ole Opry holdings for now, however will be reorganizing into an REIT, or Real Estate Investment Trust.
Do we really think legions of her fans are going to gateway from her music to Waylon Jennings, or even Alan Jackson, or even Justin Townes Earle? And for as many people she may convert to the pop version of country, may she scare just as many away from the traditional side? What are the ratios here? For all the good she may do enticing young fans to the genre, is she chasing away the older ones?
So what makes one of these albums worth checking out more than the others? It’s hard to say, but what I can say is that JP Harris and the Tough Choices’ I’ll Keep Calling is one of the best of the breed. This is an excellent album, and remarkably so because there’s really nothing new here. It’s how JP Harris separates himself from the crowd is by striking that difficult balance between being familiar, but not cliche.
Doc Watson’s family has been called to his bedside at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC. The 89-year-old folk and bluegrass guitar legend’s heath issues started on Monday (5-21) after a fall at his home. No bones were broken, but the incident exposed other health problems. Watson’s condition never improved from “critical” and he remains in Wake Forest Baptist’s Intensive Care Unit.
The long-awaited movie about the last days of Hank Williams called The Last Ride has finally been granted a theatrical release. It will begin to be shown in select theaters June 22nd, and in a series of historic theaters starting June 1st. The Last Ride is not meant to be a historic portrayal of Hank’s final days, but focuses on the interaction between Williams and his young driver.
Saving Country Music is pleased to bring you the official Muddy Roots Festival 2012 Performance Schedule! It includes a whopping 10 new additions for the previously-released lineup, including Grand Ole Opry icon and Country Music Hall of Famer Little Jimmy Dickens, and Texas country music legend James “Slim” Hand.
Over the years I’ve been a big Bob Wayne proponent, and to some folks he’s been a very hard sell. I’ve always counseled to look beyond the persona to the songwriting. With his new album Till The Wheels Fall Off, Bob Wayne frankly makes that task much harder. At the same time, he’s put out his most enjoyable album yet.
Mississippi blues legend T Model Ford, who became a roots icon along with R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and many other older blues artists from Mississippi through Fat Possum Records, has suffered a stroke and remains in the hospital. This is not the first stroke T Model has suffered, but the people around him are describing the always-jovial, 90+ years-old blues player’s spirits as “uncharacteristically low.”
Yesterday Tim McGraw announced in a press conference that he had signed with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records after a 20-year career and protracted legal battle with Curb. The symbolism and significance surrounding the signing was striking, and spoke to the titanic shifts that are rearranging the country music landscape in Nashville at this very moment.
From Nashville to New York , from Detroit to Seattle, fans will be getting together to raise funds for diabetes research and to pay tribute to one of country music’s biggest Outlaws. From Whitey Morgan & The 78’s to Shooter Jennings, from Rachel Brooke to Jackson Taylor, bands and artists will be giving of their time to help out a good cause.
This album is good both because it is Willie, and because it is good. After years of navigating through a gray area in his career and having to dabble with some record labels probably less able to do a Willie release justice, he’s back with the same company who released Red Headed Stranger, and back to making albums worthy of the world stopping down to pay attention to.
On Tuesday (5-22-12) Bob Wayne will be releasing his brand new album through People Like You Records called Till The Wheels Fall Off, and Saving Country Music is excited to premier for you the EPK introduction video for the album. It was shot at the house of Andy Gibson, Hank Williams III’s steel guitar and dobro player, and the man who recorded Till The Wheels Fall Off and all of Bob Wayne’s albums.
As first theorized by Saving Country Music on April 30th, The Grand Ole Opry and its parent company Gaylord Entertainment could soon be up for sale according to Bloomberg. What escalated the potential sale of The Opry from a theory to a very real possibility was a procedural vote earlier this week by Gaylord shareholders to let what’s called a “poison pill” in the company’s bylaws expire.