Tag Archives: Billie Joe Armstrong

Twang Nation Podcast Episode 17 – Amy Black, Jimbo Mathus , Jason Eady and Lucinda Williams

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Twang Nation Podcast

Step right up ladies and gents. What you have before you is the latest Twang Nation podcast with the latest and best of Americana and roots cuts.

It’s also the last podcast of 2013 and the last to be done exclusively in San Francisco. Number 18 will be a cross-country effort.

This episode has some gems from the ending year by an unlikely and excellent collaboration of Norah Jones and Billy Joe Armstrong doing Everly Brothers covers. There is also new cuts from Doug Balmain and Ocean Carolina.

There are also some choice cuts from upcoming releases by Jason Eady, Jimbo Mathus and a new live cut from the upcoming reissue of Lucinda Williams’ self-titled 1988 album.

I hope you like this episode of the Twang Nation Podcast. if you do tell a friend and let me know here at my site, Google+, Twitter or my Facebook.

Happy holidays and thanks to all of you for supporting great music! Remember band shirts and show tickets to shows make great gifts.

Dale Watson – A Real Country Song

1. Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong – Song: “Long Time Gone ” – album: “Foreverly” Out now on Reprise Records
2. Doug Balmain – Song: “I’ll Lay Down in the Rain ” – album: “Troubled Mind” Out now Released Independently
3. Amy Black – Song: “Layin It Down ” – album: “This Is Home” Out now Released Independently
4. Grace & Tony – Song: “Layin It Down ” – album: “November ” Out now via Rock Ridge Music
5. Jason Eady – Song: “OK Whiskey” – album: ‘Daylight And Dark’ Out Jan 21
6. Lori McKenna – Song: “Take Me With You When You Go” – album: Massachusetts on 1-2-3-4-go records – out now
7. Ocean Carolina – Song: “Women and Wine” – album: “All The Way Home” Old Hand Records 1/14/14
8. Star Anna – Song: “Mean Kind of Love ” – album: “Go To Hell” Spark & Shine out now
9. Jimbo Mathus – Song: “Hawkeye Jordan” – album: “Dark Night of the Soul” Fat Possum Records out February 15.
10. Lucinda Williams – Song: “Something About What Happens When We Talk (Live at KCRW) ” – album: “Lucinda Williams,” to be released on January 14

Listen Up! Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones – “Long Time Gone” (The Everly Brothers)

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Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones

After seeing the live many years ago at Lollapalooza I quickly became a Green Day Fan. not a record buying kind, but the kind that when the subject of punk came up I weighed in on their side. Of course making a jillion $$ and a Bradway shows doesn’t help with punk cred, but none of that mattered to me anyway. I never bought into punk purity. Green Day could put on a show and hold an audience. I was a fan.

When I heard that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong was collaborating with my Dallas home-girl Norah Jones i was amused. Then I heard it was a track-for-track tribute to the Everly Brothers’ 1958 classic, “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.” Then I was intrigued.

The album, “Foreverly,” originated when Armstrong, who says he’s a longtime Everly Brothers fan, discovered the pop-Americana/folk 12-song collection a couple years go.

So why Norah Jones? “I thought of Norah because she can sing anything, from rock to jazz to blues,” he says, “and I knew her harmonies would be amazing.” Armstrong tells Rolling Stone.

The duo recorded the album in nine days at the Magic Shop studio in Manhattan with Engineer Chris Dugan at the boards. Armstrong and Jones split vocal duties (along with guitar and piano),  and were accompanied by fiddle player Charlie Burnham, bassist Tim Luntzel, drummer Dan Rieser and pedal-steel guitarist Johnny Lam.

Armstrong and Jones told Stereogum that the process of making the album was similar to a “blind date.”

“We sang together with Stevie Wonder and his band and a whole bunch of people, that’s how Norah and I first met,” Armstrong says. “Then, well, I got into the Everly Brothers’ record a couple years ago, and I thought it was just beautiful. I was listening to it every morning for a while off and on. I thought it would be cool to remake the record because I thought it was sort of an obscure thing and more people should know about it, but I really wanted to do it with a woman singing because I thought it would take on a different meaning – maybe broaden the meaning a little bit – as compared to hearing the songs being sung by the two brothers. And so my wife said, ‘Why don’t you get Norah Jones to do it?’ and I was like, ‘Well, I kinda know her.’ Well, I mean, we had Stevie Wonder in common. And so I called her and she said yes.” Armstrong tells Rolling Stone.
 
“The average listener might be like, ‘Well, that’s not punk rock’ or whatever in regards to this record, but I like doing different things – it’s fun, it makes life more interesting,” he said.

“Foreverly” will be released November 25th on Reprise Records. In the meantime, check the stream of the lovely and softly twangy “Long Time Gone.”