Tag Archives: Loretta-Lynn

Loretta Lynn Hospitalized With Pneumonia, Cancels Shows

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Country music legand and Hall of Fame member Loretta Lynn was hospitalized over the weekend with the early stages of pneumonia, according a release from the AP quoting a representative of Lynn.

The 76-year-old Lynn was scheduled to perform Saturday at the Performing Arts Center in Ashland, Ky. and Sunday in Durham, N.C., but the Kentucky center issued a news release saying she is in the hospital and would be unable to perform. The Kentucky theater says the show will be rescheduled.

Loretta Lynn Enterprises posted a statement on her website Saturday night that confirmed the cancellations due to illness.

“Doctors have diagnosed her as the beginning stages pneumonia, and will continue to need rest. Loretta is doing well and is disappointed but feels confident she will be ready for upcoming November dates.”

Or wishes and thought go out to the Coal Miner’s Daughter for a speedy recovery.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eHp7JJgq8&feature=related[/youtube]

News Round-Up: Dwight Yoakam Cast in Upcoming Lone Ranger Movie

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  • Looks like Dwight Yoakam will adding to his acting resume which currently includes excellent turns in Sling Blade, Panic Room and Crank. Yoakam has been cast to play Butch Cavendish, the villain of Disney’s The Lone Ranger joining Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale and director Gore Verbinski.
  • Loretta Lynn’s 2004 LP Van Lear Rose will be released on Jack White’s Third Man Records.The album will be available on August 9 on standard black vinyl, there will also be a special blue version limited to 300 copies. A hundred of these limited editions will be sold on release day at the Third Man store in Nashville, TN. The label hasn’t yet revealed where the other 200 will be available, but the announcement said, “We haven’t done a contest in a while… Hmmmm…”

Music Review: Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest [Acony]

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If there is such a thing as a superstar in the Americana genre then Gillian Welch is one. Her debut album, Revival, came out in the height of Nashville stylized indulgence – hitherto known as the Garth years – and reached so far back in style and subject matter that it couldn’t be called old school, it predated the school itself. This New York City born and Berklee College of Music educated woman became a gabardine-clad personification mountain holler laments and sepia drenched Dust Bowl yarns. Like Duluth, Minnesota’s Bob Zimmerman she embodied the ancestral ghosts of mythology and willed herself into a contemporary symbol of a bygone era by exhibiting a respect for the cultural legacy and  ingenuity to work within the confines to create music that sounds not only timeless but new.

To further distinguish herself , at the time of her debut many of Welch’s contemporaries were approaching their work from a folky, more Lilith-like, direction. Welch was rougher, darker, and delivered her talws with grit. Like Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, she appeared to be a woman that could drink you under the table and hold herself in a fight.

After an 8-year stretch, where Welch battled writer’s block and provided a supporting role for performing partner David Rawlings solo undertaking, By plan or happenstance The Harrow & the Harvest has been released  to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a move that in many ways reflects to neo-rustic forms crafted by Welch. The movie’s multi-platinum soundtrack was a watershed moment for the Americana music genre and featured Welch performing alongside better-known contemporaries Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. Welch also has a cameo in the film requesting a copy of the best-selling single from the movies fictitious group Soggy Bottom Boys.

On The Harrow & the Harvest Welch heeds timeless advice and doesn’t try and fix what’s not broken by offering up 10 songs of want and worry in many varieties. Scarlet Town opens with the protagonist visiting a town calamity and deception that would make Dr. Ralph Stanley bow his head in woe. The darkness of the songs subject is countered dazzlingly by David Rawlings deft guitar picking.

The murder ballad Dark Turn Of Mind carries a sinister undercurrent that belies it’s lulling cadence with a come-on / threat “take me and love me if you want me, but don’t ever treat me unkind. ‘cause I had bad trouble already, and he left me with a dark turn of mind”

The Way It Will Be is a smooth-folk Crosby, Stills and Nash-like that takes the associated SoCal groove to darker regions and The Way It Goes is a jaunty ode to weary fatalism that comes from a worn soul.

Tennessee is a character study in temptation and willful sin in the best Puritan tradition of the Southern Gothic form. The arch leads us from Sunday School to carousing, dancing and gambling all leading to the sweet bye and bye. The Way The Whole Thing Ends fittingly as it saunters and offers up hillbilly existential nuggets like “That’s the way the cornbread crumbles. That’s the way the whole thing ends.”

All in all The Harrow & the Harvest is a, paraphrasing from the song Scarlet Town , a deep well and a dark grave of an album brimming with hard truths as plainly told stiff as a pull of mash. It’s a fine return to form from an crafts-person that has been sorely missed.  It’s the feel bad album of the summer

official site | buy

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjlgyy_gillian-welch-the-way-it-goes-conan-2011_music[/dailymotion]

Father’s Day – Songs for Daddy

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For Father’s Day I rustled up some greats singing songs for their dads. I know it’s not an even 10 but I think you’ll like what I have. Share your favorites in the comments or just leave some memory or sentiment for your own dad. Thanks for all the great suggestion from my friends and followers in twitter.  This is dedicated to my own father Jerry Max Lane, and my daughter Isobel and my step-father Joe Herbert whose been more than a father to me in my life.

Jerry Max Lane – Swinging Doors – A snippet of a leaving and drinking song by my dad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QphvJhBKUho

Conway Twitty – ‘That’s My Job’- For such a macho genre Country Music has never been shy about it’s sentimentality. And nobody could deliver the heartstrings yanking goods like Mr. Conway Twitty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGstAcxrl7I

George Strait – ‘Love Without End, Amen’ – King George gives Twitty a run for his money. Love Without End, Amen is Cat’s in the Cradle with a better ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTidoW2Erc

Guy Clark – ‘Randall Knife’ – Storytelling get’s no better than Clark’s use of a battered knife as a metaphor for life and a conduit for letting go.

Loretta Lynn – ‘They Don’t Make ‘Em Like My Daddy Anymore’ – The ultimate daddy’s girl! The Coal Miners Daughters sings the praises and quiet grace of her daddy

Charlie Louvin – ‘See the Big Man Cry’ – The jaunty tone of Louvin’s famous “See the Big Man Cry” belies the heartache of a man that sees his boy while walking on the sidewalk on day but can’t approach him and his ex-wide due to court orders.

Reba McEntire – ‘The Greatest Man I Never Knew’ – The darker side of Loretta’s tune. A man’s quiet grace leads to isolation and alienation from his daughter.

Shooter Jennings – It Ain’t Easy – Shooter relays some wisdom on career and manhood handed down from his daddy.

Brad Paisley – ‘Anything Like Me’ – Brad Paisley is a cut above the typical Music City hat acts and his performance of this song on impending fatherhood shows as much.

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

Jamey Johnson – ‘The Dollar’ – Even early in his career and with all the production sheen Johnson is a great songwriter. This is a tale of a boy that saves his change to buy time with his overworked father. An anthem to family challenges in these tough economic times.

John Prine – My Old Man – Tell ’em you love ’em while they’re on this side of the ground.

News Round-Up: Kris Kristofferson Steps In For Loretta Lynn at Stagecoach Country Music Festival

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  • Loretta Lynn has had to cancel several upcoming shows due to recuperation from recent knee surgery and at one canceled performance another legend is able to help out. Next weekend’s Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio, California will feature Kris Kristofferson in the April 30 and May 1 at the Empire Polo Field slots Lynn would have played. The veteran singer-songwriter-actor has tuned into the a kind of a country music reliever. Last fall he stepped up to a solo performance since his gig partner, Merle Haggard, began suffering from blood pressure-related issues and had to miss their scheduled performance at Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit concerts in Mountain View, California.
  • Who says nothing good comes out of Music City? Nashville’s Infamous Stringdusters, have announced the We’ll Do It Live,a 5 city  tour to record their first official live album. People that purchase tickets in advance will receive an exclusive lib EP of bonus material not to found on the final album.
  • At 84 Dr. Ralph Stanley is an American icon and cultural treasure and an original pioneer of bluegrass music. His new gospel album A Mother’s Prayer (Rebel) captures this artist at the peak of his wisdom and artistic power. The album is produced by his son Ralph Stanley II  who also plays in the band. Songs include John the Revelator and What Kind of Man by Stanley and Larry Sparks.

It is with great excitement that we, the Stringdusters, announce our first official collaboration with you, the people. This is a live album that’s long overdue. Four of our favorite rooms (and one soon to be) in five great cities–we set up the mics, together we set up the celebration. It’s a record for all the world to hear, but some of you will actually be a part of it, partying down in the control room, singing backup while we dance across the recording studio stage. This is what we love to do. This is where our music comes to life. Join us, and this time WE’LL DO IT LIVE. 

As a big thanks to each of you that join in the experience, EVERYONE WHO PURCHASES TICKETS IN ADVANCE for these shows will receive and EXCLUSIVE LIVE EP (by email) of BONUS MATERIAL off of the live album

Much love,
The Infamous StringdustersIt is with great excitement that we, the Stringdusters, announce our first official collaboration with you, the people. This is a live album that’s long overdue. Four of our favorite rooms (and one soon to be) in five great cities–we set up the mics, together we set up the celebration. It’s a record for all the world to hear, but some of you will actually be a part of it, partying down in the control room, singing backup while we dance across the recording studio stage. This is what we love to do. This is where our music comes to life. Join us, and this time WE’LL DO IT LIVE.

As a big thanks to each of you that join in the experience, EVERYONE WHO PURCHASES TICKETS IN ADVANCE for these shows will receive and EXCLUSIVE LIVE EP (by email) of BONUS MATERIAL off of the live album

Much love,
The Infamous Stringdusters

News Round Up: T Bone Burnett Discusses Crazy Heart Collaboration with Stephen Bruton

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  • The Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame plans to update their main exhibit space to devote an area to Americana and contemporary bluegrass music. The new exhibit will feature artifacts from Alison Krauss, Jim Lauderdale, Dell McCoury and Buddy Miller. Also to be included  in the the second floor gallery’s theatre (in front of the Hee Haw exhibit)  a new video exhibit will be featured showing about how topical events and social political issues are reflected and country music. The exhibit will feature examples like Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill,” the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” and Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American).”
  • For that Americana rock lover you need a gift for Billy Reid has offers a hand-made and -finished wooden box from Ross LeBlanc containing rare t-shirts inspired by the roots artists Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, and the Drive-by Truckers, and also includes a DVD of Old Crow Medicine Show’s live performance at the Tennessee Theater.
  • T Bone Burnett discusses his personal story of singer/songwriter Stephen Bruton. Thier collaboration and friendship led to the music selections for the upcoming Jeff Bridge’s movie about a down but not quite out country singer Crazy Heart. Burnett also mentions upcoming production duties with Jakob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Gregg Allman, Robert Randolph and John Mellencamp, and overseeing an all-star recording of music written by Mellencamp and horror-writer, and Americana music fan, Stephen King for “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a play with music. And then there’s “Tough Trade,” a new series about three generations of country music stars, for which he’s serving as executive music producer. It’s set to premiere next year for EPIX, Viacom’s new multiplatform entertainment service. (LA Times)
  • Paramount Pictures has begun an open casting call to find a Caucasian girl between the ages of 12 and 16 to play the lead role of Mattie Ross in the upcoming Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of True Grit. (Cowboys and Indians blog)

New Round Up: Austin’s Rusty Wier Dies

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  • Austin singer-songwriter Rusty Weir died October 9, after two years of struggling with cancer. Wier was considered a country legend and he was inducted into the Austin Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.
  • The New York Times reviews the Jamey Johnson show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Johnson played two new songs, Back to Macon and Nothing Is Better Than You from hos upcoming release.
  • The New York Times also features a review of the Roseanne Cash’s sold-out concert at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Cash performed many songs from her stellar career as well as from her newest album, The List.
  • Peter Cooper at the Tennessean celebrates geezerdom by detailing the steller and ongoing careers of country music legends Kris Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare, Loretta Lynn, Bill Anderson, Tom T. Hall, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. What other genre  has artists over 70 making some of the best music of their careers? I mean besides Blues, R&B, Gospel and Jazz that is
  • As you can see there have been some changes here at Ranch Twang. Not all the kinks are ironed out so I will be working on them this week. Let us know what you think of the new look and , as the sign says, pardon our mess.

News Round Up: The Glossary is Giving Their 2007 Album, The Better Angles of Our Nature

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  • PopMatters.com has Juli Thanki’s newest Torch & Twang post (Louisiana Woman, Texas Troubadour)  Thanki bypasses the standard view that Loretta Lynn’s best duet partner was Conway Twitty and makes her case for Ernest Tubb.
  • Best Buy is offering an exclusive EP from Miranda Lambert today which  includes her new single “ Dead Flowers” from her upcoming album Revolution. The EP includes three bonus tracks from her prior album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The cost of the EP is $1.99, or you can pre-order Revolution and get the EP free. (via My Kind of Country and the 9513.com)
  • Kris Kristofferson, Ray Price, Bobby Bare Jr. and My Morning Jacket are some that will pay tribute to writer, artists , country music songwriter and Playboy mansion resident Shel Silverstein on Turnable, Twistable Man which is produced by Silverstein ‘s friend Bobby Bare.
  • Murfreesboro, Tennessee-based quirky indy Southern rock band the Glossary is giving their new 2007 album, The Better Angles of Our Nature, free from their official site and in different quality formats.  I’ll review it soon, but after a couple of passes on the iPod it’s a great one.
  • Happy birthday Patsy Cline  (Sept 8 1932)
  • Another use for texting? Apparently looking for the country crooner that stopped in your town and might have knocked you up is now on that list.  A certain lady with a Wisconsin phone number is currently looking for this Rodeo Romeo. (via NashvilleScene)

Dale Watson: The Titanium Fox

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  • Patterson Hood and the Screwtopians stopped by the Daytrotter Sessions to lay down some Southern fried goodness.
  • The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame have inducted Texas natives Neal McCoy, Michael Martin Murphey and Linda Davis to be added to the previous years members that includes Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker and Jimmy Dean.
  • Producer and musician and Jim Rooney will be honored by the Americana Music Association with the Lifetime Achievement for Producer/Engineer award at the 8th Annual Americana Honors & Awards ceremony, scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 17 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Rooney has worked with John Prine, Iris DeMent, Tom Paxton and Peter Rowan – as well as his work on Nanci Griffith’s Grammy-winning “Other Voices Other Rooms. Rooney’s contributions as an engineer, musician, producer and songwriter has reached almost 150 albums to date.
  • Alluding to  Charlie Rich’s moniker The Silver Fox, The Scene designates Dale Watson the The titanium fox in this great interview featting classic exchanged like this:

SCENE: You write about the trucking life in the spirit of Dave Dudley and Red Sovine with maybe a touch of Cledus Maggard. What is the allure of that subject matter?

DW: I grew up when CB was king. There was an appreciation of the open road and the usefulness of the citizens band radio. Cell phones are great to keep in touch with the ones you love, but the CB is a useful tool to avoid some hazardous situations. Back then, Conway Twitty was big, the movie Convoy was popular, and the show BJ & the Bear was on TV.

SCENE: What the hell was happening on BJ & the Bear? At the end of each show the monkey would walk away with chicks in hot pants. What was supposed to happen between a monkey and human women?

DW: (laughing) I don’t want to think about it.

Unfortunately Dale is still raising his goofy Ameripolitan flag to describe his throwback honky-tonk sound.

Elvis Costello – Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (Hear Music)

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Hardly a day goes by that we hear about another performer leaving their chosen career trajectory and taking a swing at country music.Some of these travelers deeply feel the need to honor the history, the tradition, of the genre. They also bring something new and interesting to the sound. Then there are the carpetbaggers. The ones who’s career have a justly stalled and are looking to find a new audience in a genre they mistakenly see as an easy get. They carry with them the foul stench of mediocrity they cultivated from whence they came.

The latter category is too painful to detail here but a prime example of the former is Elvis Costello. A singer/songwriter so accustomed to straddling, hopping and distorting genres that people are surprised when he returns to his earlier literate pop-punk roots. Costello’s love of American Southern music is well documented. The established Angry Young (British) Man takes a sharp turn from edgy punk-pop to head to Nashville and cut 1981’s Almost Blue which featured songs by Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Gram Parsons. The post-divorce roots-folk of 1986’s T. Bone Burnett produced King of America. 2004’s The Delivery Man featuring duets with  Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams – who he also performed with in a CMT Crossroads. There is the Costello T. Bone Burnett penned Scarlet Tide was used in the film Cold Mountain, nominated for a 2004 Academy Award and performed by Costello it at the awards ceremony with Alison Krauss, who also sang the song on the official soundtrack. Point being his newest Americana release Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is not a hard diversion nor a lark for Mr. MacManus.

It doesn’t help that you’re sound is so distinctive that people start to harp on it like it’s a curse. Secret, Profane & Sugarcane like it’s spiritual cousins Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Neil Young’s Harvest and the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street seems to lose points some detractors because the work reflects the unique characteristics the artists brings with them when they cross the Americana tracks. If you prefer your music by outsiders to be cleansed of all traces of the performers unique earlier style, well, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is not for you.

The album took three days to create in a Nashville studio (March 31 to April 2, 2008)  thus beating out the usually fleet Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, which took 9 days (February 12, 1969 – February 21, 1969) is with producer T Bone Burnett- whos is becoming the go-to-guy when you want to do Americana – and focuses on Costello’s own work rearranged for a crack band featuring Stuart Duncan on banjo and fiddle, Jerry Douglas on Dobro, , Dennis Crouch on bass, Mike Compton on mandolin and Mr. Americana himself Jim Lauderdale lending honey harmony vocals to counter Costello’s (in)famous keen.

Things get off to a nice starts with Down Among The Wines And Spirits, originally written for Ms. Loretta Lynn, is a lolling down-and-out drinking song featuring the kind of wordplay Costello has become famous for (there’s that uniqueness again!) Complicated Shadows, first recorded for 1996’s All This Useless Beauty and originally written for Johnny Cash, gets the amped-up greasy blues treatment that would make Tony Joe White smile.

The beautifully sad I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came was penned by Costello and aforementioned Loretta Lynn is lovely but brings to mind the coldness suggested in the title. My All Time Doll is a hillbilly cabaret number featuring the excellent accordion work by Jeff Taylor and a demo from All This Useless Beauty Rhino reissue Hidden Shame gets a great rousing makeover.

How Deep Is the Red?, She Was No Good,”She Handed Me a Mirror, and Red Cotton are  from Costello’s unfinished Hans Christian Andersen chamber opera The Secret Songs (did I mention that man was eclectic?) As prolific as Costello is, he is known to rework his own songs for different occasions, and although these songs do carry trace elements of their classical origins they sound right at home here.

Sulphur to Sugarcane was written by Costello & T Bone Burnett for (but not used)  in the Sean Penn 2006 film All The King’s Men. The song sounds like a bawdy ragtime-jazz response to Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere as imagined by Leon Redbone. The Crooked line is rumored to have been an unused song for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line and Costello is reported to have said that it’s “…the only song I’ve ever written about fidelity that is without any irony.” Here the song is a Cajun-flavored duet with Emmylou Harris with Emmylou way too far down in the mix, or just right, depending on your feeling about Ms. Emmylou’s disctinctive style. Changing Partners is a more-or-less faithful rendition of a the ubber-crooner Bing Crosby’ classic  number of lost love.

Is Secret, Profane & Sugarcane a great country or Americana album as you might expect from a seasoned vet? No. Is it a great Elvis Costello record? No, it hits just about in the mid-range of his canon. But with the likes of Jewel, Miley Cyrus and Kid Rock paraded as examples of roots and country music’s future Costello has given us a lovely, lively work to brace us out of that nightmare.

Official Site | Buy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbAHi3AegMI[/youtube]