Album Review – The Lowdown Drifters – “In Time”
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The Lowdown Drifters are your favorite band’s favorite band. “Big” John Cannon is your favorite frontman’s favorite frontman. If you see someone with a Lowdown Drifters shirt or hat on, you know you’ve found a friend.
Song Review – Carrie Underwood’s “Little Toy Guns”
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Told from the perspective of a young girl facing the emotional toll rendered from listening to mommy and daddy fighting, “Little Toy Guns” puts the listener in a place most any human from an American family has found themselves in, yet we seem to be unable to extricate ourselves from replicating this same foolish and unfortunate behavior with our own families as adults.
“One Asshole at a Time.” Sturgill Simpson Stops Concert Fight
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This week Sturgill Simpson embarked on a much-anticipated sold out American tour, and the third night of the tour saw him in his home state of Kentucky playing at the Madison Theater in Covington, just over the river from Cincinnati. The venue was filled to capacity, with little room for elbows or egos, and during Sturgill’s song “Sometimes Wine” a scuffle started in the crowd.
Eric Church Plays Acoustic Arena Show After Crew Gets Stomach Flu
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Saturday night saw Eric Church’s “The Outsiders” world tour make a stop in Salt Lake City at the EnergySolutions Arena, but an unexpected stomach virus sweeping through the band and crew had Church calling an audible, and performing the sold out show solo, completely acoustic, with some help here and there from the remnants of his band and crew who were still able to stand upright.
Slackeye Slim Gives His Bones to the Western Lands
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Like many of the leathered-skinned, sand-blasted, sullen and desperate characters which populate his stories, Slackeye Slim seems more apparition than man, shifting in and out of the material consciousness, showing up when you least expect him, and disappearing for years at a time in between. “Giving My Bones to the Western Lands” is delightfully ambiguous, ethereal, and sparse in its articulated concepts.
Austin City Limits Announces New Class to Hall of Fame
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As the longest running music show on TV enters its 40th season, Austin City Limits has announced its second installment of inductees into its Hall of Fame founded in 2014. The original crew of the Austin City Limits show will also be honored as the 2015’s non-performing inductee. As part of the Hall of Fame announcement, more performers for season 41 were also revealed.
DJ’s Opening for Sturgill Simpson?!? A Chat with Electric Western
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Sturgill Simpson’s current national tour has been selling out dates left and right, and has most everybody in country music talking about his continued meteoric rise. But something causing some fans quite a bit of curiosity was the inclusion of a DJ outfit called Electric Western to open some dates in the Midwest & the West Coast. Were Sturgill fans all of a sudden being asked to sit through EDM and hip-hop sets?
2015 ACM Awards Nominees, Preview, & Predictions
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The nominees for the 50th Annual ACM Awards set to transpire Sunday, April 19th were announced Friday morning (1-29) via the ACM’s social network streams. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary, this year’s awards will be held in Arlington, TX at AT&T Stadium, also known as the home of The Dallas Cowboys. Here are the nominees and some quick, knee-jerk thoughts and predictions.
Eric Church Says the Term “Outlaw” Is Being Misused
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The delineating terms that help describe country music and its subsidiaries, including the term “country” itself, are all getting lost to lackadaisical filings by marketeers looking for flashy selling points, and apparently when it comes to the term “Outlaw,” Eric Church agrees. In an interview posted with AZCentral from late last week, Eric Church distanced from the term.
Pokey LaFarge Announces New Album “Something In The Water”
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Country folky throwback Pokey LaFarge has announced the release of his latest album and his first with Rounder Records called “Something In The Water.” The old-school throwback St. Louis singing and strumming song man signed with Rounder in November of 2014 after releasing six albums since his self-released debut in 2006.
How Waylon Jennings Forever Changed “We Are The World”
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If you watch the video for “We Are The World” (see below) or look at any of the pictures from the recording session, Waylon Jennings is nowhere to be found. That’s because even though he was selected to be one of the 45 artists to participate in the recording session, he walked out in a huff in a moment what would be the most controversial and contentious junctures in the song’s recording.
Review – Lee Ann Womack Sings Chris Knight’s “Send It On Down”
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When Lee Ann Womack set out to construct her 2014 album The Way I’m Livin’, she went looking for songs that weren’t written by committee as is the norm in Nashville these days, but songs that originated from one person going through a human experience who then shared that experience through song. Such a search if it was to be thorough and prudent would almost invariably involve Chris Knight.
Is Country Music Finally Improving? Aaron Tippin Thinks So.
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As Tippin says, country music appears to be shifting away from so-called “Bro-Country” to music of a little more substance lately, and though there still seems to be much more work to be done and a few more Bro-Country hits could still materialize (or something even worse to take its place), positive signs that country is moving in a more positive direction are appearing.