Garth Brooks To Finally Make New “Time Traveler” Album Available on Amazon
64 Comments
The latest Garth Brooks album and his 17th overall will finally be made available on Friday, September 6th … for streaming only … exclusively on Amazon Music. No word on if physical standalone copies will ever be made available.
Ke$ha Will Be A Force In Country Music (& work w/ Hellbound Glory?)
70 Comments
Hellbound Glory just finished up a big 6-week tour, and behind them they left a trail of rumors that a future album might have a contribution from electro pop star Ke$ha. Pop stars positioning themselves for a country move by claiming they’ve always been into the music is nothing new. The difference with Ke$ha though is her references to her country roots and influences are actually true.
Recap – Farmageddon Music Festival 2012
27 Comments
So first of all, for all of you that couldn’t make it to the Farmageddon Fest, I’m sorry. Don’t worry though, since it went so well you will probably have another chance to catch it next year. But to give you an idea of what the music festival was like, this is the story of my experience down on “The Farm.” All I can say is, it was the best four days of my life.
Album Review – Old Crow Medicine Show “Carry Me Back”
26 Comments
Following Old Crow Medicine Show over the years has been a journey. If you were anything like me, when you first heard their 2004 album O.C.M.S it sounded like music you’d been waiting your whole life for. Then somewhere along the line sentiments began to sour a bit. That leads us to their latest album Carry Me Back. This is the boys returning to their roots of being a roots band.
Review – Bucky Covington & Shooter Jennings “Drinking Side of Country”
122 Comments
This is a classic materialistic, chauvinistic, image driven song and video with positively no soul, relatively no story, and absolutely no attention paid to message or artistic appeal. It’s fluff. The only difference between this song and one from Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, or Brantley Gilbert is … well … nothing.
Album Review – Sara Watkins “Sun Midnight Sun”
6 Comments
I come to the Sara Watkins world admittedly from the outside looking in. I wasn’t along for the ride when her previous band Nickel Creek blew up and made stars of its principals, principally mandolin maestro Chris Thile who now heads The Punch Brothers. Since Nickel Creek split into forks, some folks have been laying their silver down on which player will outmatch the other.
Anderson Family Bluegrass Is Inspiring Beyond Music
8 Comments
“People first, then music” is the mantra on this site, and it is such a blessing when you discover people who are just as inspiring as the music they make. Such is the case with the Anderson Family Bluegrass Band from Grass Valley, CA. The music is excellent, but this is just the excuse to get you to pay attention to the profound warmth and by-gone family strength the Anderson Family conveys.
Really Shooter Jennings? Bucky Covington?
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, your hero, the lord of underground roots, the savior of independent music, Shooter Jennings, is releasing a duet single and video with the most pop-ity pop of pop country uber doches, the “Nickelback of Country Music”, American Idol’s Bucky Covington. The song is called “Drinking Side of Country” and all indications is that it will suck hard enough to send a golf ball through a garden hose.
Viacom: Purveyors of Cultural Filth
16 Comments
I’ve often wondered, why is it always the music channels that get hijacked from their original formats to become the preeminent purveyors of cultural filth? They start off by showing music videos, and somehow that organically translates to showing realty TV that displays the most vile of stereotypes. Every time the story is the same, whether it is MTV, CMT, VH1 or BET.
How Don Maddox Helped ‘Revolutionize’ American Music
11 Comments
It’s not too often that 90-year-old entertainers experience a resurgence in their careers, but that is exactly what Don Maddox of Maddox Brothers & Rose finds himself in the midst of. After 50 years of being hidden away in the town of Ashland, OR where he was known only as a cattle rancher, Don has the spotlight shining down on him once again.
Review – Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires “There’s A Bomb in Gilead”
10 Comments
This is an explosively-energetic album with influences and styles pulling from a wide range of American music. Lee Bains is well-versed in Southern modes from both sides of the tracks, and shows tremendous versatility in being able to conjure up the smoky mood of a blues singer, and the sweaty twang of a Southern rocker in the space of a breath, with The Glory Fires right on his heels with their authentic interpretations.
Hank Williams Jr.’s “Old School New Rules” = Rank Political Rancor
90 Comments
Old School, New Rules is a self-important, self-promoting, self-gratifying opus of an American doofus offering no real depth, wisdom, originality, or creative engagement. It is the Shock n’ Y’all of 2012; a political album that relies on the same old tired Hank Jr. modes, and marks a moment of egotistical grandstanding future generations will look back on with embarrassment.
Kellie Pickler: “I Don’t Need To Be Manufactured”
25 Comments
Think what you want about former American Idol contestant Kellie Picker’s latest album 100 Proof and its striking traditionalist approach, but what may be even more interesting and inspiring than the album itself is the story behind it. After recently parting with her label, Kellie’s narrative is becoming similar to the one of Waylon Jennings, the country music Outlaw that Kellie cites as a primary influence.