Mile 0 Fest Announces 2026 Lineup
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Both USA Today and Saving Country Music have declared Mile 0 Fest to be the best festival in the United States. Happening every January in Key West, Florida, it features some of the best music in Texas/Red Dirt music and beyond.
Saving Country Music’s Best Albums of 2013 So Far
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2013 has come on strong here recently for quality albums, with some real contenders for the coveted “Album of the Year” distinction released just in the last week. Any “Best Of” album list for 2013 is also going to reflect the leadership and creativity displayed by country music women, which has become one of the year’s underlying themes so far.
The Carper Family’s “Old-Fashioned Gal” is a Family Affair
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The Carper Family is at it again with a brand new album called Old-Fashioned Gal, and it’s a family affair featuring The Carper Family troika of Melissa Carper, Beth Crisman, and Jenn Miori, right beside some of the brightest talents of Austin, TX’s old-school country scene. The Carper Family girls can shift from Western Swing, old-school country, folk, covers and originals, embellishing it all with exquisite three-part harmony.
Joe Diffie & Jawga Boyz Country Rap “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun” (A Rant)
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Yes ladies and gentlemen, Joe Diffie—the mulleted, cop mustached 90’s semi-star—has released an “answer” song to what many consider the worst song in country music history, Jason Aldean’s country rap “1994.” Diffie’s new song is called “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun,” and it is as embarrassing as puberty. This is a prayer for relevancy guaranteed to go unanswered.
Album Review – Jason Isbell’s “Southeastern”
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If there is such a thing as a superstar in Americana music, then right now, Jason Isbell is it. What we very well may be witnessing is a songwriting legend in the making. He’s the songwriter that in the future songwriter-philes will hearken back to as proof of how the craft is lost. He’s the guy right now making sure that it isn’t.
1952: Country Music’s Original “Year Of The Woman”
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The general consensus amongst country music pundits in 2013 is that we are in the midst of the ‘Year Of The Woman.’ But this isn’t the first year in country when the women deserved the lion’s share of attention. Rose Maddox of The Maddox Brothers & Rose, Goldie Hill, and the woman who would later rise to be known as the Queen of Country Music, Kitty Wells became pioneers for women in country.
Eddie Spaghetti Is Back with “The Value Of Nothing” (Album Stream)
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Notorious Supersuckers front man Eddie Spaghetti is back with a brand new solo country rock record out 6/18 on Bloodshot Records called The Value of Nothing, and for the first time for one of his loner country projects it includes all original tunes. The West Coast country punk rocker recorded the new album in his adopted hometown of Austin, TX with help from musician/zombie killer Jesse Dayton.
Kravitz Flips Off Country Crowd, Hank Williams Marked “DUMMY”
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Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is a picture of Hank Williams performing live on The Grand Ole Opry with the word “DUMMY” emboldened in all caps across his chest from the CMT Awards. Later in the week, Lenny Kravitz chided the crowd for “not being able to get with love” before, ironically, exited the stage while flipping double birds with his back turned to the crowd.
Album Review – Sturgill Simpson’s “High Top Mountain”
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The front man for the wanton and reckless Sunday Valley project is all growns up, and lays down a fiercely traditional, hardcore honky tonk album slathered with steel guitar, country keys from Hall of Famer Hargus “Pig” Robbins, and whatever else is called for and in ample measure to give life and color to Sturgill’s blue ribbon offerings.
No Playboy, We Did Not “Claim” Luke Bryan Has A Vagina
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So this weekend we were reading the June edition of Playboy Magazine. You know, for the articles. And lo and behold, Saving Country Music is cited in a feature on Eric Church entitled “The Badass” that proclaims the performer from North Carolina the “new face of country music.” You know, I could almost like Eric Church if he would quit so doggedly pursuing his persona as product.
Saving Country Music’s Best Songs of 2013 So Far
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I’m not sure if how light the selection is for potential Song of the Year candidates at the halfway marker says how anemic 2013 has been so far for top flight songs, or how fortunate we were in 2012 to have such a strong field. I could only find five true candidates. But despite the lack of quantity, quality is certainly represented in these five songs, and 2013 promises to come on strong…
Movie Review – “The Last Ride, A Story of Hank Williams”
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“The Last Ride” takes you on the ill-fated road trip beginning in Alabama, and ending in West Virginia where Hank Williams passed away on New Years Day, 1953. Though Hank’s name is never spoken in the movie, it’s taken as a given that you know who he is, and what fate awaits him. The relationship between the superstar on death’s door and the confused young man is the centerpiece of “The Last Ride.”
Charlie Rich “Burns” John Denver at the 1975 CMA Awards
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There may not be a more notorious moment in the annals of country music lore than when a drunk and disorderly Charlie Rich set fire to the piece of paper announcing John Denver as the Country Music Association “Entertainer of the Year” for 1975. For years the moment has set the high water mark for the rebuke of the pop world infiltrating country, but there was no public video of the incident.