It’s the intimate nature of the approach to “Lonely Mountain Town” that brings the emotion of the songs to the surface, and centers the attention of the audience upon the story.
Are the Turnpike Troubadours post hiatus truly an arena act? Down in the Ark-La-Tex, the answer has definitely been certified as “yes.” That all changes when they play Friday, May 5th at the Capitol One Arena in Washington D.C., with Old Crow Medicine Show and Lucero set to open.
Just like Billy Strings, the Turnpike Troubadours have weaseled their way into becoming an arena artist, at least in select markets. This week they announced they’ll be playing the immense American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX on February 25th, 2023, along with The Avett Brothers and The Wood Brothers.
According to one metric, the Turnpike Troubadours are one of the hottest tickets in all of country music when considering the prices those tickets are fetching on the secondary market. In the same company as Garth Brooks, George Strait, Morgan Wallen, and Luke Combs…
Tyler Childers might not be going bluegrass, but he is going to Telluride as one of the headliners of the 2022 Telluride Bluegrass Festival in beautiful Colorado. Along with Molly Tuttle, Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi, and others.
Nope. And that’s how you know it’s good. If you like country, and I mean country, then Jonathan Parker’s They’ll Never Play My Songs In Nashville has you covered. This guy has a country growl that’s like Waylon Jennings mixed with the DNA of a hard-nosed bulldog. This is hard country, honky tonk music in its purest incantation. No frills, just lean forward and belt it out.
Country music in 2013 feels like the best of times, and the worst of times. While a few top male performers perpetrate untold atrocities on the integrity of the genre, the rise of independent music and infrastructure in the marketplace is now almost to the point where it equals its corporate counterpart. Quality songs and worthy artists are beginning to see more and more support…
I actually come from the camp that believes that if Mumford & Sons weren’t so popular, more core roots fans would respect them. But it is really hip to hate and undervalue Mumford right now. Let’s hope that the current backlash doesn’t hurt every band with a banjo, because there’s many great string bands out there that and mix high energy and heartfelt songs into the string band concept.
In the present-day roots music realm we live in times of high cotton. With the widespread commercial success of bands like Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and the Avett Brothers, artists and bands that for many years were pushing against stones are finally getting the recognition they deserve. But history teaches that it may not be this way for long.
If you would’ve told The Avett Brothers back in 2007 when they released their album Emotionalism that in five years, the best-selling album in all of music would be from a roots band playing acoustic instruments and featuring emotional, singer/songwriter material, they’d probably call you crazy. But that is the power one album can have to launch a formidable music career…
This Saturday, April 20th is the 2013 installment of Record Store Day. 2013 has some juicy releases, including some super rare Willie Nelson demo sessions, a split with Waylon Jennings and the Old 97’s, some cool live albums from Gram Parsons and Sarah Jarosz, and a re-issue of Justin Townes Earle’s first album, the Yuma EP.
the loss of .357 String Band may go down as underground country’s greatest tragedy. I can think of no other project that was so ripe for becoming a success story of authentic American underground roots. They were brilliant, but accessible at the same time. It is a great sin of American music. They have re-issued their landmark 2008 album “Fire & Hail” on vinyl.
A while back it was brought to my attention that industrial rocker Shooter Jennings, along with No Depression blogger Adam Sheets had crafted the idea of starting a new genre of music, or more specifically, a radio format, called “XXX” after the nomenclature found on the front of moonshine bottles. The idea is to give a home to music that “is too rock for country, and too country for rock.”