This Is Why Tyler Childers Played a Benefit for the Blackfeet Tribe
38 Comments
Tyler Childers played a benefit concert of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation on Sunday, August 4th. This is the story of how Childers got involved in the tribe and took up the cause.
Saving Country Music 2010 Artist of the Year: Jayke Orvis
61 Comments
I know I didn’t make a list of candidates for some stupid “Artist of the Year” like I did for Album of the Year or Song of the Year for 2010. I know I didn’t even announce that there would be an Artist of the year for 2010, and up until a few days ago, the idea of doing it didn’t even cross my mind. But that is what is great about having your own website, you can do whatever the hell you want.
Will Nashville Be The Next Detroit?
64 Comments
During last week’s Super Bowl, one of the most gut-stirring commercials featured rapper Eminem in a spot for Chrysler, showing solidarity with the embattled city of Detroit which has taken the brunt of the economic downturn over the past few years, and by proxy has become the brunt of jokes that many times unfairly portray the hard work and strength that has come out of that city and its people.
Justin Townes Earle Going to Memphis via London
37 Comments
In a few recent interviews, Justin Townes Earle has let slide some tidbits about big plans for the upcoming year. It was just announced today that he would be playing The Nelsonville Music Festival in the middle of May, and Bonnaroo in June, but sometime afterward he will be heading to the old continent to make some new music inspired by Memphis.
Interview – Keith of Hillgrass Bluebilly Records
118 Comments
As the name implies, Hillgrass Bluebilly Records defines the nexus of where hillbilly, country, bluegrass, and blues meet. This rich and diverse environment that has been created in the independent/underground music world embodies all roots music as unified expressions of purity and soul, regardless of the origins. Keith Mallette and co-founder Ryan Tackett have created a burgeoning homespun record label that is getting…
Observations From 2011 Grammy Awards
93 Comments
I feel the need to iterate to you some observations for last night’s 2011 Grammy Awards, if only to get them off my chest. This is not entirely going to be a bitch fest. Every year they air the Grammy’s, and every year people are left scratching their heads and feeling hopelessness for music, and so it was to be expected that this year would be no different…
Pickathon Festival Announces Impressive Lineup for 2011
9 Comments
The Pickathon Festival, Aug 5-7 out in Portland, OR boasts of having “The best festival experience in the country.” And having been a participant of it in 2009, I can vouch personally for this bold statement. But Pickathon and others don’t throw this statement out to create a rabid desire for tickets with the idea of shattering previous attendance numbers in a yearly cash grab. . .
Saving Country Music 2010 Song of the Year is “Wish”
31 Comments
There is an alarming trend in the American culture right now. People are ashamed of who they are. People are embarrassed to be “normal”. But average people are the majority; that’s what makes them average. Modern-day mainstream music is fueling a trend of people wanting to be something that they are not, instead of being thankful for who they are.
Billy Joe Shaver & Willie Nelson Release Wacko From Waco
23 Comments
Now that the ink has dried on the acquittal of Billy Joe Shaver for shooting Billy Coker with a .22 pistol outside Papa Joe’s Saloon in Lorena, TX, (just outside of Waco) on March, 31st of 2007, he can now have a little fun with the story, and with a little help from old friend Willie Nelson.
Billy and Willie have just released a duet called, “Wacko From Waco” about the incident…
Album Review – Wanda Jackson’s “The Party Ain’t Over”
12 Comments
Despite the dissolution of The White Stripes and the Queen of Rockabilly cresting into her 70’s, this new album leaves little doubt that The Party Ain’t Over, and neither are the careers of Wanda Jackson and Jack White. Whatever criticism one can come up with for this album, it is difficult to say that it lacks vision, or scope, or that it needs fleshing out…
Super Bowl Illustrates Divisive Nature of American Music
99 Comments
In the last decade or so, music has become a vital part of The Super Bowl presentation. The halftime show and National Anthem have always been a hoopla for the event, but with the addition of a pre-game concert, a rendition of “America, The Beautiful” and countless other opportunities to cross-market music to one of the biggest audiences television boasts all year…
ACM Nominations “Fixed,” Carrie Underwood Snubbed
98 Comments
Jimmy Carter (no, not the peanut-farming ex-prez) on 96.9 “The Kat” from North Carolina in his “Wednesday Dirt Alert” segment called the recently-released Academy of Country Music awards nominations “super-political” and asserts that he was specifically told that Carrie Underwood got snubbed for nominations from her label so that fellow label-mate Miranda Lambert would get some much needed press.
Ray Wylie’s Grit & Groove Fest Lineup Speaks to Influence
10 Comments
Down here in Texas they call him Wylie Lama. Musicians flock from all around the country and world to see if some of Hubbard’s songwriting prowess or production ear can rub off on them. And musicians from all over the spectrum. People like Hayes Carll, whose new album KMAG YOYO is getting tons off buzz, to The Black Crowes front man Chris Robinson.