If someone is apt to not pay attention to female artists, whether that’s a garden variety country fan or a major label executive, bunching female artists together is probably not going to garner their attention, it’s probably going to turn them off even more, especially if the premise of putting these artists together is an attempt to break through a gender bias.
There are bigger festivals. This is for sure. And there are bigger performers and headliners. But few festivals can boast the ability to not just support worthy music from a wide swath of the American audio palette, but truly launch major careers for artists that go on to have an international impact—artists that music needs.
Willie Nelson, along with Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews are the board members for the Farm Aid organization first launched in 1985, and all four will be performing at this year’s event being held in Bristow, Virginia at Jiffy Lube Live on September 17th. Along with the four headliners, this year’s Farm Aid features an impressive list of country music talent.
Believe it or not, you can draw a straight line between underground roots music, and Chris Stapleton becoming the most successful country music artist in the last two years in regards to awards and album sales. Let me explain how:
This year the event will be held for the second year in a row at the Austin 360 Amphitheater on the grounds of the Circuit of the America’s Formula 1 raceway just outside of Austin, and will feature an impressive list of talent, from Picnic mainstays like Johnny Bush, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and David Allan Coe, to newcomers such as Margo Price and Shakey Graves.
Early Wednesday evening (5/11), the nominees for the 2016 Americana Music Awards were announced via NPR’s live stream from the historic Mansion on O Street in Washington, DC. The event was hosted by the Milk Carton Kids, and featured performances from multiple Americana artists.
This is not another article about Chris Stapleton. This is an article about mainstream American country music radio. Yes, Chris Stapleton won big, again. But Chris Stapleton’s impact still remains paltry on mainstream country radio. The question is, will country radio listen? Or will country radio be left with anybody listening to it?
Margo Price has now officially pulled off the mother of all coup d’états for an independent country artist. Announced on Thursday (3/31), she will be the featured musical guest on Saturday Night Live on April 9th. But I have to be honest with you: this all feels like too much, too soon for Margo Price.
For the last few years, one of the fixtures of East Nashville has been country throwback singer and songwriter Margo Price. And thanks to another oddball of the Nashville music scene—Jack White and his Third Man Records—Margo was plucked out of The 5 Spot and the other East Nashville dives, and is getting her shot at the big time.
It took the death of four people and dozens of others injured after a drunken madman ran his car through a crowded downtown Austin street in 2014, as well as a completely clusterfucked permitting system by the City of Austin so mired in red tape it takes months of dedicated manpower to actually put on a show, but it appears that SXSW has finally reached a point where the annual event has stopped growing uncontrollably.
It’s not the usual train of events for a multi Grammy-winning and double CMA-awarded major label country artist to play South by Southwest for the first time some three years after first attaining major success, but that’s what Kacey Musgraves is experiencing this week as she shimmies through traffic snarls like everyone else to make appearances during Austin’s biggest annual music gathering.
The longest tenured member of Sturgill Simpson’s band has moved on. After a few weeks of chatter about how he may not be making Sturgill’s next tour, bass player Kevin Black officially announced Tuesday (3/15) that he will no longer be a part of Sturgill’s band moving forward.
With Letterman’s retirement, the concern was this once important roots music outlet on television would dry up. But since Stephen Colbert has taken the reigns at The Late Show, quite the opposite has happened. Monday night (2-1), critically-acclaimed songwriter John Moreland will be making his network television debut from the Ed Sullivan Theater courtesy of Stephen Colbert.
The only thing that sucked about Margo Price’s performance Tuesday night (1-19) on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is that her debut album is not due out until March 25th. It will be a cold, dark two months of toiling in the winter bleakness until traditional country fans will be delivered their reward for patience in the form of ‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’ through Jack White’s Third Man Records.