The sheer speed at which American pop country is devolving before our very eyes can only be described as “awesome.” It is the evolutionary equivalent of if we could witness a species of apes evolve into a new race of humans in the length of a football season. As the creatively bankrupt boardrooms of Music […]
Nashville was lucky. During the early 20th Century, many cities could have ended up with the “Music City” moniker. Tulsa had a bustling music scene, with Bob Wills playing weekly at Cain’s ballroom. Bakersfield, CA had the best recording studios west of the Mississippi and was a magnet for the Southern talent that had migrated […]
Remember back when Taylor Swift won the CMA for Entertainer of the Year? We thought it couldn’t get worse for country music. There was a lot of surmising of where country music might go next after that win. Would there be a traditionalist backlash? Would country become even more pop oriented to try to mimic […]
“New York City, April 12 The Pulitzer Prize Board has awarded a posthumous Special Citation to country music icon Hank Williams for his lifetime achievement as a musician, Columbia University announced today. The citation praises Williams for “his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in […]
Country music is a funny thing. While on the outside it seems like a pretty “Hee-Yaw!” simple, straightforward artform, country music boasts some of the best maestros that American music has ever seen. Right now there may be half a hundred fiddle players with half their teeth missing, living in the bowls of a Prevost […]
We have a few issues facing us in the Outlaw/Underground/Insurgent/True/REAL/Hellbilly/Neo-traditionalist country movement. The first is how many different words are used to describe the music and artists that have created a small, but very strong music scene with a loyal following. Not only are there many terms, but these terms mean different things to different […]
If you’re anything like me, if I want to hear some new music, you sure aren’t going to find me sniffing around CMT or burying your nose in the latest Rolling Stone. No, I’m likely going to be looking to the past, not the future. And man, what a thrill it is when you find […]
“You can see the hood ornament on the car when you go to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But if you want to look at the engine, and see what’s making it go, go to the Musician’s Hall of Fame.” –Neil Young. The Musicians Hall of Fame has been “eminent domained” by the […]
Holly Williams, daughter of Hank Williams Jr. and half sister of Hank Williams III, signed the petition to Reinstate Hank Williams into the Grand Ole Opry after a show in Paradiso, Amsterdam earlier this week. After playing a set that included the Hank Sr. songs “I Saw The Light” and “I’m so Lonesome I Could […]
The talented Texas Singer-Songwriter Brigitte London has been doing a new podcast for outlawmagazine.com, and asked me recently if I could do a PSA for the movement to get Hank Williams reinstated into the Grand Ole Opry, or Reinstate Hank. Of course I was easily cajoled into doing so, but as I was putting it […]
When Hank Williams III’s album Damn Right, Rebel Proud went to #2 in the charts last year, this was a significant development in the movement to Reinstate Hank Williams to the Grand Ole Opry because of the first track, “The Grand Ole Opry (Ain’t So Grand),” was a song protesting the Grand Ole Opry’s stance. […]
Hank Williams III continues his stint of Wednesday nights at Layla’s Bluegrass Inn, and continues to make news and debut new songs. This last Wednesday, former football player turned country artist Kyle Turley opened the show, and Hank III rolled out two new songs, “Moonshiner’s Blues” about Popcorn Sutton, and another called “Drinkin’ Ain’t Hard […]
Last week it was announced that country singer Jennifer Brantley had released a song the was written by Hank Williams, at least partially written by Hank Williams, and then finished by the request of Hank’s widow Audrey by Glenn Douglas Tubb, nephew of Ernest Tubb and a prolific songwriter. The song is called “Heratbroken, Forsaken, […]
Tis the season of ringing cash register bells and getting snowed. What is a would-be responsible consumer to do when it seems like everything you want to purchase is going to fund terrorists, polluters, or corporations that screw artists and homogenize the music? It all makes you want to get as shitfaced as a shopping […]
Well tonight is a pretty big night in podcast land. First I am happy to announce that one of my favorite podcasters, Tim Pop of Tim Pop Live is debuting a spanking new podcast tonight called Rebel Rouser Country. It is going to air weekly on realpunkradio.com, Tuesdays at 7 PM EST. And for his […]
Some criticize that there’s not enough talk around here about the Texas music scene, and I couldn’t agree more. There’s some great music going on down there, and unfortunately I just don’t have the time to sink my teeth into it all. That was one reason I set up the Saving Country Music message board, […]
Lately so much music has been coming out from oldtime artists I follow, I can hardly keep up. Hopefully in the future I will have features or reviews on all of these projects, but in the meantime here they all are to bring you up to speed. If there’s one album you like to see […]
(For details on the Hank Williams birthday contest, click here.) A lot of us involved in the Reinstate Hank Williams movement talk at length about his importance to The Grand Ole Opry and country music. But we may not emphasize his importance on music as a whole, or on American culture and even the culture […]
The birthday of the King of Country Music is coming up on Thursday (Sept. 17th), and to commemorate it I am running a contest. The winner will get a spanking new copy of the three disc set Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings. No kidding! The winner will also get a bumper sticker from Big G’s […]
The last few days has seen a small flurry of news concerning the movement to Reinstate Hank Williams to the Grand Ole Opry. The online petition is about to crest 40,000 signatures (or it might already have by the time you read this), which was a goal of the Reinstaters to reach by the end […]
You may or may have not noticed I haven’t been around much in the past couple of weeks. Thanks for all the emails of concern {actually, I receive not a one 🙁 } but no, the flying monkeys that Curb Records dispatched to silence me did not find my hideout, and Nashville’s lawyers still haven’t […]
Today was the day in 1952 that Hank Williams, the King of Country music, was fired from the Grand Ole Opry for missing rehearsals due to his excessive use of alcohol. The Opry promised that they would Reinstate Hank Williams after he sobered up, but Hank Williams died New Year’s Day of 1953, and was […]
I’ve said it many times before, when it comes to the movements to put REAL country music back in it’s proper place in the world, we all do what we can. Some make videos. Some like me take their poison pen and try to jab it in the eye of pop country. Some just use […]
Well it is May 1st, and this is the deadline that Outlaw Magazine set for everyone who wanted to have their Reinstate Hank videos in, so I figured that this was as good of a time as any to wrap up the contest I’ve been running. It goes without saying, if people still want to […]