Album Review – Ben Jarrell’s “A Country Song”
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Country music. No qualifiers, no hyphenated terms, no squinting to make an “Americana” act appear to be country just because they have a steel guitar in the band. With “A Country Song,” there are no hijinks, and no crazy tangents.
Hank Williams Jr. Firing: Censorship Trumps Ignorance
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That’s the real problem, not Jr.’s statements or ESPN’s whiplash decision, it is the fact that mass pop media is perpetually letting us all down, and giving in to the least common denominator. Hank should be happy. His career had been reduced to a weekly punch line. And ESPN should be happy they’re lighter a 200-pound blowhard who hasn’t had anything substantive to offer for 20 years.
Vintage Album Review – John Hartford’s “Aereo-Plain”
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Simply put, John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain is one of my top 10 albums of all time. The key to Aereo-Plain was preserving the visceral elements of bluegrass, the tie to the roots and the mastery of instrumentation, while combining it with the depth of folk-inspired songwriting, intelligent humor, and then adding an enlightened sense of tempo and chord progressions.
Texas Fires Hit Close to Home for Lucky Tubb
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The fire quickly spread out of control, with residents forced to evacuate with little or no time to grab personal effects. The whole area between Austin and Bastrop became like a war zone. Lucky Tubb was . . . well . . . Lucky, and his home was not effected. However his brother and road manager Brian Kelly was.
Hellbound Glory Release ‘You Better Hope You Die Young’
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Ahead of the release of their new album Damaged Goods, Reno, NV’s Hellbound Glory has released a new song from it called “You Better Hope You Die Young”. The song can be heard in it’s entirety here. Damaged Goods will be out November 15th on Rusty Knuckles, and 500 copies will also be available in a limited-edition vinyl LP with a digital download card.
Bob Dylan Accused of Plagiarism Ahead of Hank Release
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Less than a week away from the release of one of the most controversial projects in country music in years, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, the man Sony ATV put in charge of the project is dealing with plagiarism claims for some paintings in his “Asia Series” on display right now at the Gagosian Gallery in New York.
Album Review – Husky Burnette – “Facedown In The Dirt”
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This is music to get you moving. I can’t listen to this album at home. I’ll get flying around and break things. I can only listen while driving, with a foot pumping on the gas pedal to the groove. If somebody was listening to this album and wasn’t at least bobbing their head or tapping their foot, the next thing I’d do is put a mirror in front if their mouth.
Rascal Flatts To Be Inducted Into The Grand Ole Opry
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Pop country group Rascal Flatts, the top-selling country group of the last decade, best known for their pallid and catchy tunes, prickly hair, and overt use of the pitch-correcting program Auto-tune in both the recorded and live formats, is now a member of the most sacred of all country music institutions, The Grand Ole Opry.
10 Questions for the ‘Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams’
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Next Tuesday, the ‘Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams’ will be released to the public. Completely putting aside the ethics questions for the project itself, I have drafted a list of 10 simple questions about the specifics of the Lost Notebooks that I think country music consumers have a right to be answered before they decide to purchase it.
Dale Watson & The Texas Two in “The Sun Sessions”
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Dale Watson has a brand new album coming out on October 11th, and like the name implies, it was recorded in the historic Sun Studios. Dale pairs up with drummer Mike Bernal and Chris Crepps on upright bass to imbibe his 14 original tracks with the classic Johnny Cash vibe that was originally captured at Sun in the mid-1950’s by Johnny and his “Tennessee Two”.
Hip Hop Infiltrates Nashville Through Soundland 2011
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Country and folk music have a long history of joining forces to create infrastructure to help support music, principally in festival gatherings. And as the corporate music world continues to crumble and is able to support fewer artists, while capital and infrastructure to develop upcoming acts continues to contract, hip-hop and indie rock bands have been flocking to traditional roots festivals for support.
Album Review – Lydia Loveless “Indestructible Machine”
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From Columbus, OH, the lovely and talented 21-year-old Lydia Loveless offers up her first album with international aspirations in Indestructable Machine, through the Bloodshot Records imprint. Rest assured, I like this album more than I don’t. But as legendary football coach Bill Parcells once said after one decent game by a young, promising quarterback, “Put the anointing oil away.”
A Post-Facebook Music Guide for Bands, Artists, and Fans
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Listen to me, and listen good. There is nothing more important, and no bigger challenge in music right now that the ability for artists and their fans to communicate. This takes effort on everybody’s part. Lessons must be learned from the death of MySpace on how to navigate the destruction of a social network without losing the network itself.