Tag Archives: Hank Williams III

BBC Lost Highway: The History of American Country

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Lost-Highway-The-Story-of-Country-Music-Cover

If you haven’t seen the BBC’s “Lost Highway: The History of American Country’ then you’re in for a treat.

This four-part, four-hour documentary follows the musical lineage from the Bristol Sessions to Nashville, from Texas to Bakersfield, and brings it all together in a beautiful story of heritage and style any songwriter would love.

The history of it’s roots in mountain music, through bluegrass it’s first super star Hank Williams and honky tonkers. From the jazz fusion of Western Swing to the dominance of the adult-pop Nashville Sound through the extraordinary and game-changing emergence of female performers and the evolution of newer forms of the genre – country rock to alt.country and Americana.

Featuring contributions from Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Hank Williams III, Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam and Dolly Parton among others. Lost Highway: The Story of Country Music is produced by William Naylor; the series editor is Michael Poole.

Sit back with your favorite drink and enjoy.

Country Music Is Not Dead

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waylon

If you were one of the 15.4 million viewers of last Sunday’s 48th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards show you might have been, like me, wondering “When’s the country going to start?” I’ve never been branded a purists , but I prefer my country on the Lefty Frizzell / Buck Owens / Willie Nelson side of the fence rather than the Fleetwood Mac / Jack Johnson/ Def Leppard style that’s in vogue right now

Music City continues to chase the money by burying it’s legacy as it has since nearly it’s start. Fortunately for us that honor songs over celebrity we have a safe haven, Americana music. Below are a few performers that are keeping heartfelt and real. Post your suggestions in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJt3oHYmKcQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcJml72K1HQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrqdhA1_C5U

Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Michael Martin Murphey To Appear at the Americana Music Association Conference

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  • The newest additions to the Americana Music Association Conference is Texas Legend Jimmie Dale Gilmore backed by the critically acclaimed Wronglers (featuring Hardly Strictly Bluegrass benefactor Warren Hellman in banjo) and are iconic American songwriter Michael Martin Murphey.
  • Speaking of The Americana Music Association Conference, day panels have been postedat the AMA site. I’m most looking forward to seeing a live broadcast of Mojo Nixon doing his SiriusXM Outlaw Country with  the Bottle Rockets, North Mississippi Allstars and Kenny Vaughan. The Americana Music Association Conference is held October 12th – October 15th in Nashville, TN. Look for my reports for the conference while I’m there.
  • How is it that a Texas legend like Dale Watson hasn’t appeared on another Texas legend, Austin City Limits? Head over to the “We Want Dale Watson on Austin City Limits” Facebook page . “Like” it and get Dale on there!

Dale Watson & The Texas Two “My Baby Makes Me Gravy” (from the Sun Sessions)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnyYwdFQJgk[/youtube]

 

Among the artists making plans to perform in Nashville during the annual Americana Music Association Conference are Iconic American Songwriter Michael Martin Murphey and the critically acclaimed Wronglers with Texas Legend Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

New Compilation Unheard Hank Williams Songs To Be To Be Released

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Rollingstione.com posts that a compilation of unheard Hank Williams songs will be released on October 4th. The songs come from a rescued from notebooks of  lyrics and song ideas  left behind in a leather briefcase by Williams after he died in 1953 at the age of 29. These notes and fragments were then finished by the 13 artists who contributed to the disc. These artists include Americana music and rock music greats – Bob Dylan (who’s  imprint Egyptian Records is putting out the album)  Levon Helm, Alan Jackson, Lucinda Williams, Merle Haggard and, and this is where my concern arises, Jack White . Norah Jones and Sheryl Crow. What? Was Kid Rock busy?

And though William’s granddaughter Holly Williams is included where is her brother Hank Williams III? For that matter where is Bocephus?  I would have scratched the last three, who are here for sales purposes only, and added new traditionalists like Wayne Hancock and Joey Allcorn that truly reflect the spirit of ol’ Hank.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKPHJslYNkk[/youtube]

 

 

News Round Up: New Guy Clark and Hank Willams III Coming Soon

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  • On August 16thlegendary singer/songwriter Guy Clark will release Songs And Stories, a live album recorded at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. Clark runs through his extensive collection of classics – L.A. Freeway, The Randall Knife, The Cape, Homegrown Tomatoes, and Stuff That Works – complete with stories and casual asides that should make this a must-have.
  • In other Clark news – In time to coincide with his 70th birthday This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, is set to drop November 1 on Icehouse Music. Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas with a rotating cast of other musicians including multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, bass players Glenn Fukunaga, Mike Bub and Glenn Worf, and drummers Kenny Malone and Larry Atamanuik. The release will feature Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett and many other singer-songwriters that have performed with and been influenced by Clark over his extensive career.
  • Bringing prolificacy to a new level Hank Williams III will celebrate his freedom from his well-documented contract disputes with Curb Records and his own new label , Hank3 Records, in a grand fashion – by releasing four records on September 6th. That’s right — four. Ghost to a Ghost/Guttertown,’ a double-album set,will be a country collection fusing Hank’s trademark hellbilly sound with Cajun influences and will feature special guests including Tom Waits. The other two releases are ‘Attention Deficit Domination’ and ‘3 Bar Ranch Cattle Callin,’ are metal-driven records on which Hank 3 plays all instruments. ‘Cattle Callin’ will explore a proposed genre entitled “cattle core” sound, featuring Hank 3’s speed metal woven around actual cattle auctioneering. Hmm, something about that makes me very happy. All three projects were recorded at The Haunted Ranch, Hank 3’s home and studio on the outskirts of Nashville.

Americana Music and the Big Tent

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This morning the Americana Music Association  shared a link to an online Spin.com (Meet the New Stars of Americana) past covering the Americana scene in Red Hook Brooklyn and touching on the Americana genre in general.

I take a view much like I believe Jed Hilly and the AMA do, since they sent this article out via twitter and their own official email blast, that any press is good press and it helps to lift all Americana boats in the ocean of mass-media and National consciousness.  It takes a real aberration of opinion, like calling Robert Plant the King of Americana or declaring the predecessor to Americana, alt.country to be dead , to rile my feathers enough to take use this blog as a virtual soap box..

But the article is pretty much what i would expect from Spin magazine. A 20-something speaking using context of indy-rock and language of 20-somethings to establish shared taste and like-mindedness. Ever generation does this. Have you listened to most 20-somethings on the  train talking to one another? It’s like razor wire, like, for your, like, ears. Right?!

I’m just glade that in this instance Uncle Tupelo , Whiskeytown and Bill Monroe are the topic of conversation instead of the whatever skinny-jean and hoodied is the flavor of the week.

If there’s anything in the article that peeves me it’s the reference to Americana pioneer Gillian Welch, who co-produced of the 9 million unit selling O, Brother, Where Art Thou and Alison Krauss, the most awarded woman in Grammy history (26 awards of  38 nominations) as “niche acts.” I think most musicians would love to have that niche. there is also the painfully ham-handed application of sub-genre definitions – “chillbilly, bootgaze, artisanal rock, outhouse, tin can alley, or hobohemian.”

Fans of Americana share, aside from band-wagoners, share a lot of the same attributes as folk, blues and jazz fans. there is a reverence to a purity and reverence to an idea of “tradition” that sometimes gets in the way of innovation and creativity. But in the case of Americana, a mongrel genre at best, the litmus of genre purity, or as I like to call it the “more authentic than thou” argument, makes no sense for a field that can claim genre-bending acts like Those Darlin’s , Hank Williams III and the Legendary Shack Shakers as members.

Washboard lessons held in Brooklyn, John Deere caps and pearl-snap shirts from Urban Outfitters  and a vague grasp of bluegrass history is no threat to Americana.  Age, geography, wardrobe or other litmus tests aside from the musical variety which I partake in ad nauseam, is pure horseshit.

No More Kings

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The other day I     saw a tweet from  the American Songwriter site a story title that caught my eye, like many of the tweets from excellent @AmerSongwriter. Writer Austin L. Ray story on Robert Plant and his new musical venture Band of Joy “The Unlikely King Of Americana.” It’s an excellent take on how a once rock-god followed his muse from the amped-up Blues side of the tracks to where the American genre flourishes wild.

Though it is a great story of a learned musical journeyman I take exception to the title of the piece. Please allow be to indulge the petty grievance of a genre blogger.

My first quibble is with the method of Americana regal ascendancy. Plant was not born into a legacy of Americana lineage, like say Rosanne Cash or Justin Townes Earle, that would align him in a place in whatever a genre monarchy we might imagine. So his crown must be earned.  Putting aside the concept of a violent coup I will focus on the work to goal.

Granted Plant has released two excellent Americana albums, Raising Sand and the current Band of Joy, and Led Zeppelin sometimes infused their sound with an Americana  spice (Black Country Woman and Bron-Y-Aur Stomp are great examples of this) his body of original Americana material is scant. Aside from the few Zeppelin pieces, Raising Sand and Band of Joy are comprised primarily of covers. Though excellently interpreted; these covers do not mount an argument toward an Americana crown
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If we weigh personal legacy and quality, original material a list to regal ascendancy would be long – Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, Marty Stuart, John Mellencamp, Gram Parsons, Townes Van Zandt etc. And why not a queen? Emmylou and Lucinda come to mind. And it’s not a Nativism issue. I believe Plant’s fellow English countrymen Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson have more of a right to any imagined throne.

Like America itself the Americana genre is a work in progress. And like America many of the settlers in this new land are from another land – rock, country, folk, hip-hop – and the borders are porous and the genre is stronger for it. Not all of these emigres are going to be in simpatico.  Guy Clark fans may have very little in common with Hank Williams III fans, but the bloodline that ties them are there for those who take the time to look.

Jed Hilly, executive director of the Americana Music Association, when asked about Plant’s possible crowning is quoted as saying “Without question.” I have no argument with Hilly’s opinion on this. Hilly heads up a trade group who’s primary objective is to raise awareness. Plant, along with his well-chosen guides, Allison Krauss, T Bone Burnett and Buddy Miller and others as well as the excellent songwriters chosen to be included on his albums, has led to the addition of a an Americana GRAMMY (which I am fortunate to be covering this year) and brought significant awareness to the genre.

But as a blogger for the cause I take exception to this coronation, or in fact any coronation. Like America we serve under no crown but for the exceptional beauty of the music itself. But I do nominate Gram Parsons as it’s patron saint.

News Round Up: Ferlin Husky and Billy Sherrill Inducted Into the Country Music Hall of Fame

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  • Ferlin Husky (84) and Billy Sherrill  (73) have been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Don Williams and Jimmy Dean will be inducted in a ceremony in September.
  • Austin’s Izzy Cox will take her bathtub gin hillbilly vibe on the road to open for Hank Williams III this summer.
  • HBO’s Southern Gothic (in the truest sense) vampire series True Blood volume 2 soundtrack features a nice sampling of Americana artists – M. Ward, Robbie Robertson, Lucinda Williams & Elvis Costello, Buddy & Julie Miller and Chuck Prophet.
  • No Depression founder, and current farmer, Grant Alden writes on the talent of Elizabeth Cook and her new Don Was produced  album Welder.
  • The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the many looks of Neil Young through his storied career in the bookNeil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History.
@rosannecash

Happy Labor Day – Top 10

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Labor Day originated in Canada from labor unions fighting for a nine-house work day. The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City as a result of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike. With our current animosity toward all things union, Labor Day has become little more than a reason for a car sale and a three-day last gasp of Summer vacation. Kind of a drag when you realize that we are working harder and getting less now than generations past…

Here are the top 10 songs I believe celebrate the working person as the backbone of America.

1.  Work’in Man Blues –  Merle Haggard – Still a staple in Merle’s set list and a must have in all the best honky-tonks and beer joints across America.

2. Can’t Make it Here – James McMurtry  – In the recent economic downturn it’s become fashionable to pen songs about tough times for a quick buck. None come  even close to the gritty heart of McMurtry’s tale of hard times.

3. 9 to 5 – Dolly Parton -This two Grammy Award winning crossover hit was the theme song to the hit film starring Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman. Leave it to  Dolly to make cubicle drudgery sound so fun.

4. Take This Job and Shove It – Johnny Paycheck – Penned by David Allan Coe about the bitterness of a man who worked long and hard with no apparent reward.  The song was also covered by the Dead Kennedys on their album Bedtime for Democracy.

5. Maggie’s Farm -  Bob Dylan – Dyman made it popular but Maggie’s Farm has a much longer history that includes Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs.Though it has been documented that Maggie’s Farm was Dylan’s declaration of independence from the constructions put on him by the folk movement, it stands just as well as an oppressed employee leaving his thankless boss.

6.  Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell – Written by by Jimmy Webb and famously covered by Glen Campbell While driving on a deserted highway in northern Oklahoma, Webb spotted a solitary lineman working high on a transmission cable and the idea for the lyric was born.  It has been referred to as ‘the first existential country song’.

7. Working Man – Hank Williams III – Shelton’s narration of the hard times and the endless struggle of blue collar work and his role in society and his family.

8. Dark as a Dungeon – Merle Travis -  Travis’ father was a coal miner in Muhlenberg County, Ky. and this classic song details the risks and drudgery of the work.

9.  Millworker – Emmylou Harris – Emmylou covers this James Taylor song in her signature sublime style.

10. John Henry – Woody Guthrie, Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, etc – The enduring American folk tale of man and machine.

Country and roots music has a long history of honoring and reflecting the dignity of work and the labor of Americans from all walks of life.  We celebrate this Labor Day, 2009  with a collection of songs as diverse and enduring as the people they celebrate.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to Release First New Album in Five Years

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  • The legendary Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will release their first studio album in five years. The influential California country-rock  will release Speed of Life on September 22 on their own NGDB Records.
  • SheKnows.com features an exclusive interview with Holly Williams. Holly is the Granddaughter of Hank Williams, daughter of Bocephus and half-sister of Hank Williams III. Nashville Scene also has a nice article on Ms. Williams.
  • Holly Williams will also be will be performing, interviewing and signing autographs Friday, July 3 at 1:30pm at the Country Music Hall of Fame in downtown Nashville, which is included with museum admission and free to members. At 7pm she will make her Grand Ole Opry debut, which can be heard live on Nashville’s WSM,  and Sirius XM.
  • Charlie Robison is offering a chance to win a private concert that will take place in the winner’s very own living room. You can also invite up to 25 of your friends! the contest is taking place through Robison’s twitter feed.