Yeah Jamey Johnson likes to play the tough guy, making you think he chugs motor oil and eats used tires as the honorably discharged Marine corporeal whose now the big and burly face of traditional country music for many. But he showed a softer side at a recent concert at the Egyptian Room in Indianapolis.
The amount of premium festivals with stacked lineups for you to salivate over as the target for your discretionary music budget are starting to get downright overwhelming, and a new festival set to take place August 10th and 11th in Lexington, Kentucky will only add to your dilemma.
Jamey Johnson will be heading out on a tour staring February 1st sponsored by SiriusXM Outlaw Country, and select dates will feature a couple of worthy openers. The 24 dates are part of a total 38 dates Jamey Johnson has planned for 2019 so far that will take him through the South, Midwest, Texas, and out to the West Coast.
Jamey Johnson pulled his band into Bismarck, North Dakota on June 24th for a show at the city’s historic Belle Mehus Auditorium, and then decided to pull his belt off to teach a lesson to a few unruly concertgoers about halfway through his performance.
Kentucky has always been the fertile crescent of country music. It just happens to be that lately it has kicked its output into overdrive, and more than any other state at the moment, it’s Kentucky’s sons and daughters fueling the country music insurgency turning the mainstream on its head.
The small yet mighty, meticulously-curated, and expertly-planned festival just outside of Portland, OR known as Pickathon continues to be the local festival with international implications in how talent presented at the festival is given the possibility to break out onto the national stage.
Not caring whether his music earns him any notoriety or financial gain is what gives an artist like Justin Dean Payne the power and latitude to explore the inner depths of his own soul like the deepest regions of a coal vein until a mother lode of the purest, most lucrative strains of human expression are discovered, and unearthed for the world’s benefit.
Cale Tyson has been one of the hottest names in independent country and Americana for the last couple of years, yet with no full-length album to back it up. Usually it’s the other way around—an independent artist riding rave reviews of a debut LP to big opportunities.
The biggest takeaway from SXSW 2017 will be that for the first time since the very inception of the idea over 30 years ago, the annual music gathering experienced a palpable draw down in attendance and industry participation to a degree that it fundamentally changed many of the dynamics and rigors one must endure to attend.
Not one, not two, but three nominees for Saving Country Music’s 2016 Album of the Year have made the cut for the lineup of the 2017 Pickathon Music Festival just outside of Portland, Oregon in August. And that’s just where the list of distinguished country-oriented artists for the 2017 season starts.
2016 was a difficult year to be a traditional country music fan in many respects, and not just from the death of so many legends. In independent circles, it was a year of having to settle for albums prefaced with explanations of why the artist decided to move away from their country influences, even if it was just slightly, or just on a temporary basis.
Country throwback traditionalist and east Nashville music organizer/rebel rouser J.P. Harris has announced a unique duets project with Nikki Lane, Kelsey Waldon, Leigh Nash, and Kristina Murray called ‘Why Don’t We Duet in the Road.’ This vinyl-only gatefold double 7″ 4-song project will consist of classic country duets.
It has once again come that time of year for reflecting back on some of the best albums released in the last 12 months or so, not to treat country music as competition per se, but as an exercise undertaken with the intent of expanding your musical knowledge in hopes the gaps that formed due to the busy lives we all live get filled in with joyous little music projects.
To decide that classic country music is the way you’re going to make it through life is like choosing the toughest of all paths to climb to the top of a mountain, with steep inclines and sharp drop off’s and all manner of obstacles and wild dangers besetting your course on every side, all while an inviting elevator to the top sits with open doors waiting to spirit you to the same apex.
If you’re rounding out a list of the current artists who are helping to save country music, you better damn well make sure Kelsey Waldon makes it on there or the whole enterprise is bunk. Her 2014 record The Goldmine was a badass collection of classic country tunes that had fans of traditional country singing her praise.
Henley’s been out there outwardly criticizing the state of country music and the state of music in general, though doing so with a lot more of a thoughtful and informed tone than many others, including tracing the problem back to the disappearance of the agrarian way of life that was once prevalent throughout America, and now finds itself quickly receding.
2014 has revealed itself as the “Year of the Dark Horse” when it comes to compiling the greatest albums released in the last 12-month span. Tami Neilson, Karen Jonas, Charlie Parr, Matt Woods? Who’s heard of these people outside of their respective fan bases? And meanwhile the realm of mainstream music can’t field one candidate, unless you want to count First Aid Kit.
If you’re looking for the country music female revolution’s representative for true neotraditional country, Kelsey Waldon might just be your perfect match. If this album was released in the 70’s, it would have birthed a slew of indelible country standards. Such inconsolable heartbreak, such sorrow-drenched insight is captured on these tracks and then embellished with tasteful production…