Doyle and Debbie (Bruce Arntson and Jenny Littleton), comedy’s answer to George Jones and Tammy Wynette, will return to national television  appearing on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien tonight, Monday, January 5th . The Late Night appearance will kick off a two night run in New York  at Joe’s Pub January 7 and 8.

Doyle and Debbie Show - Fat Women In Trailers

CMT.com reports that country music legend, Country Music Hall of Fame member and  Medal of Arts and  Kennedy Center Honoree has a museum in the works to display memorabilia- stage clothes, instruments, photos, fan created objects - he’s collected over his 50-plus year career. In addition to the items he keeps in his basement, his wife checks eBay for other memorabilia. He told CMT:

“We have a bit of a museum down in our basement right now, with all kinds of things from throughout my career — early records, guitars, clothes, various things that fans have made for me. We have a lot of framed photographs from throughout my career with other singers. I have a player piano from Gene Autry and a bunch of other stuff from him. One day, we’ll put all this stuff in a museum.”

I wonder if there will be a bar?

The 77-year-old member Possum is still going strong and will spend much of 2009 on tour, beginning Jan. 16 in Reno, Nev., and continuing through the spring and summer. For a full list of tour dates, visit GeorgeJones.com.

I’ve just  ran across the web site for “folksinger Michael Johnathon’s WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour” which bills itself as a “multi-media celebration of grassroots, Americana music” and “airs on 491 radio stations worldwide, XM Satellite Radio, online and on public television stations across the nation.” Cool! That said the site does offer some great audio archives featuring the likes of artists loke Chris Knight, The Grascals, The Del McCoury Band, James McMurtry, Justin Townes Earle, Kathy Mattea, Cadillac Sky, BR549 and Elizabeth Cook. Great stuff!

From the Tennessean : Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Walter Haynes died Thursday in Tyler, Texas at the age of 80. Haynes was known for working with Jimmy Dickens, Del Reeves, The Everly Brothers and Jeanne Pruett and for producing Pruett’s “Satin Sheets” and Cal Smith’s “Country Bumpkin,” and other production work with artists including Reeves, Marty Robbins and Bill Monroe.

San Luis Obispo. CA.’s home-grown honky-tonkers Red Eye Junction gets some local ink (pixels?) on a release party (Saturday, Jan. 03, 2009 - Downtown Brewing Co.) for their current work “In the Shadows” and their upcoming  8-day tour of Belgium and Holland .

Road and Track’s Peter Egan and Richard Mayer set out to cover Hank Williams last ride in a ‘53 Powder Blue Cadillac on what they christin a “Near Miss Tour of Historical Authenticity.” (Hank’s Caddy was a ‘52) (via 9513.com)

Apparently Jack Black has discovered Bluegrass and sings the traditional ditty “Old Joe Clark” on his father-in-law Charlie Haden’s Grammy-nominated CD “Rambling Boy.”

The fine folks at the 9513 have a couple of great posts I wanted pass along. First Vanessa Grigoriadis at Rolling Stone writes that aside from Willie Nelson’s project with Asleep at the Wheel, he has another album slated for early ‘09 titled Naked Willie. Like the Beatles 2003 release  Let It Be…Naked sans the original release’s Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” orchestral overdubs and embellishments, Naked Willie will contain Nelson’s RCA recordings from 1966 to 1970 without the original’s strings and “embellishments.” The release will be produced by Willie’s long time harmonica player Mickey Raphael.  “For the album cover,” says Raphael, “Willie took a picture of himself with his iPhone while he was in the bubble bath, and sent it to me.” (originally posted at Still Is Still Moving)

Second, after searching in vain for an original recording of Buck Owens’ 1979 duet with Emmylou Harris, “Play Together Again Again” the Whooping Llama blogger bought the original 45 online and made it available as a spacial Christmas gift to his (her?) readers.

It’s been 56 years that Hiram (Hank) King Williams, the man commonly referred to as the King of Country Music and the hillbilly Shakespeare,  lost his life on an unseasonably cold road somewhere between Knoxville, TN and Oak Hill, West Virginia in the back of a ‘52 Cadillac being driven by a hired college freshman to a scheduled show in Canton, Ohio. The official cause of death was attributed to acute right ventricular dilation.

The only items found in the backseat of his car were a few cans of beer and the hand-written lyrics to an unrecorded song.

Williams’ final single was ominously titled “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive”.

Since his death many have imitated, none have surpassed.

Hank Williams and June Carter - Hey Good looking

Propaganda has been honed to a fine art in the last half century. Americans have been convinced to fight wars, hand over civil and employee rights and consume ever crappier beer, food and, alas, music.

Mainstream Country Music is one of the few genres in the 21st century that tolerates no real deviation from certified Music Row and mainstream radio product. Sure there are exceptions, the Outlaw Movement cooped a largely ignored youth movement, Garth tweaked the business model and stage production and Big and Rich and their “MuzikMafia” was a painfully lame attempt to emulate Hip Hop’s concept of crews. But when it comes to altering the DNA of the music the image driven slickness and paint-by-numers narritives seem as tightly mandated as the McDonald’s Big Mac cooking process. If you don’t fit the hat act mold you are cast into the slums of Americana, folk, roots, alt.country or, if the sins were severe enough, rock!

Into this unyielding environment stepped artists that discovered that Cash, Willie and Hank were speaking to them in ways larger then the flavor of the week bands being crammed down their throats. That’s where the wild hillbilly muse dances. That way real beauty and art lay waiting.

Americana/roots/alt.country is attracting new talent that bravely straddles the cultural divide between trad sepia-toned country circa Jimmie Rogers and Carter Family and the current attitudes, sounds and stories of our times. New artists like O’Death, The Felice Bothers, Justin Townes Earle and Star Anna and road-tested warriors like Dale Watson, Eleven Hundred Springs and Tom Russell have Inject new blood, whiskey and adrenaline into a largely lifeless form of music that refuses to be embalmed.

And then there are the genre-crossing big-wigs like  Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Chrissie Hynde and Robert Plant (who is currently nominated for 6 grammys and forgoing a Led Zeppelin reunion to continue Raising Sand with Bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss) that are moving toward a the wildser lands attracted by its proclivity for authenticity and celebration of  experimentation. The only sin is mediocrity, the only transgression is bovine conformity.

There’s no reward for compiling a “best of” list. People will quibble with the selections, the order of said selections will displease many and whether the writer is at all qualified to compile such as list will be questioned. Ridicule and contempt is sure to follow.

I do this to celebrate those that are willing to look past the wanna-be-celebrity choked road paved with pyrite. The Great Ones bent Nashville to their ways or took refuge in other regions far from the industry, Bakersfield California,  Austin Texas, to ply their wares. The Music Row road is not an easy one, it’s just crowded with sheep and the destination is less interesting.

Here’s to the on’ry, ragged, dusty dreamers.

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10) Hank Williams III - “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” (Sidewalk Records) -The man with a country music royalty pedigree, and an arguable entitlement to the moniker “Man In Blacker,” burns the middle-of-the-road with another custom hot-rod release. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

9) Jamey Johnson - “That Lonesome Song” (Mercury Nashville) -  Jamey Johnson does more than redeem himself for helping to pen Trace Adkins maga-seller Honky Tonk Badonkadonk with this brilliant release born of hard living and a love of Waylon Jennings and George Jones.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

8)  Sara Cahoone - “Only As The Day Is Long” (Sub-Pop) - Former rock drummer Cahoone has created a melancholy-shoegaze-Americana masterpiece with her rainy-day ready debut release.  Amazon | MySpace | Sub-Pop

7)  Star Anna - “Crooked Path” (Malamute Records) -  On this smoldering debut of Americana-noir Ellensburg, Washington’s Star Anna Krogstie proves she can hold her own with Lucinda Williams and Neko Case. Her voice seems to be the shear definition of longing and heartache.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

6) Hang Jones - “The Ballad of Carlsbad County” (Self Released) - Hang Jones is the alias for Stephen Grillos and his concept album, set in 1887 New Mexico, takes the typical elements - lust, jealousy, whiskey, gunpowder and blood - and works his gritty magic to deliver a great album.  Amazon |  MySpace | Official Site

5) Luke Powers - “Texasee” (Phoebe Claire) - Powers stated in an interview that Texasee is a study of a mythical place that lies between Nashville and Austin and is done in a style reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah. Sign me up! Writers in the Western genre celebrate a few that are seen as more “literary.”  Powers like Tom Russell, James McMurty, John Prine and Joe Ely, occupies the mirror space in music.  CD Baby | MySpace | Pheobe Claire Site

4) Felice Brothers (Team Love) -From from the Catskill Mountains to the subways of New York city these actual brothers (and a bass player named Christmas) channel the Basement Tapes and spin  magnificently dark tales of desperation and violence. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

3) O’Death -  “Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin” (Kemado) - New York’s O’Death is a concoction of parts that if mixed any other way would result into a noxious mess.  Appalachian Mountain music,  Gypsy music, Gothic punk, funk and metal, it all just shouldn’t play nice together. On Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin the sounds meld magnificently in a dark and volatile masterpiece.  Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

2) Justin Townes Earle - “The Good Life”  (Bloodshot) -Before technology allowed us to cheat, musicians were the source of musical synthesis, or what is referred to by the hipsters today as mash-ups. Justin Townes Earle harkens back to these aural alchemists and has created a potent blend of 19th century folk, country swing and hillbilly boogie. Overcoming his Daddy’s long musical shadow (and his inclination towards illicit substances) Justin Townes Earle’s first full length release rejoices in heritage while transcending its creators youth.  Amazon | MySpace | Bloodshot Records

1) Eleven Hundred Springs - “Country Jam” (Palo Duro Records) - If you want a crash course in the best Texas country music over the last half-century the 2008 release from Dallas’ ESL would be a great place to start. From the hillbilly poetry of Mickey Newbury and Joe Ely to the Western Swing of Bob Wills to the pop and rock of  Doug Sahm and Buddy Holly all the influences are there.  And though the sounds are reflective of the Texas greats  ESL makes it distinctly their own on this superior homage to the Lone Star State. Amazon | MySpace | Official Site

Honorable Mention:

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creations Dark
The Whipsaws - 60 Watt Avenue
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club - Cipher
Caitlin Rose -  Dead Flowers
The Power of County  - See You In Rock and Roll Heaven
Lucinda Williams - Little Honey
Kathy Mattea - Coal
The Wildes - Ballad of a Young Married Man
Hayes Carll - Trouble In Mind
Joey + Rory - The Life Of A Song
Kasey Chambers and Shane - Rattlin’ Bones
Ashton Shepherd - Sounds So Good
The Steeldrivers - Self-Titled
Whitey Morgan and the 78’s - Honky Tonks and Cheap Motels

Merry Christmas Y’all!