The Pickathon Festival just outside of Portland, Oregon has just announced the initial lineup for their 20th Anniversary season, and like most every year, numerous important luminaries from the effort to help save country music have made the cut.
If Sturgill Simpson is today’s country music equivalent to Kurt Cobain, then perhaps a similar parallel can be drawn between Cody Jinks and Soundgarden/Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell. It’s no longer a matter of if, but when Cody’s name is included as a default in the conversation with guys like Sturgill, Isbell, and Stapleton.
The 2nd Annual Tumbleweed Festival set to transpire on the Missouri River in Sugar Creek, MO on July 28th and 29th, 2017 has just added to their already-impressive lineup. And the festival is not done there. Soon they will announce a contest to fill a final after hours performance slot for the fans of emerging Outlaw country artists to vote on.
Not since maybe Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic in 2015 have we seen this beefy of an assemblage of true, hard-driving country music talent compiled in one place for the public’s listening edification. It’s called the Tumbleweed Festival, and with this lineup, they live up to the title of “America’s Outlaw Country Music Festival.”
Saving Country Music has just added some fresh horses to its recently-launched Top 25 Current Spotify Playlist meant to be a centralized destination for top recommended songs and artists currently setting the pace in country, Americana, and the greater roots realm.
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.
One of the most difficult undertakings for a music reviewer is to share your opinion on a record that you ultimately favor more than fault, but happen to have more critical observations for than positive ones, especially when public sentiment is tilting so favorably towards it already. It just becomes a recipe for misunderstanding.