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 Wanted! – Notable Americana and Roots Music Releases for 2017

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Wanted! - Notable Americana and Roots Music Releases for 2017

2016 was another great year for Americana and roots music, and 2017 shows signs that the great music will continue to come our way. As our Cream of the Crop favorites from last year makes plain we might be experiencing a new golden age of roots music/ Both as a growing influence on our contemporary culture and also as a viable, business for young and old artists to sustain themselves and thrive.

That last part is crucial as it provides economic and influential seed corn for the future ‘Cream of the Crop’ year-end best of collections.

The list below is a collection of known 2017 notable Americana / roots releases. Some anticipated releases from artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell and The Secret Sisters have no release dates yet, but when I become aware of them and others I will be updating the list throughout the year and will send word through my twitter account when I do.

If you know of a release not listed yet please leave it in the comments.

One thing is for sure, it’s going to be a great year folks.

January 13th –
The Band of Heathens – ‘Duende’
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings – ‘Kings and Kings’
Otis Gibbs – ‘Mount Renraw’

January 20th –
Kasey Chambers – ‘Dragonfly’
The Show Ponies – How It All Goes Down’
Rayna Gellert – ‘Workin’s Too Hard’

January 27th –
Delbert McClinton – ‘Prick Of The Litter’
Tift Merritt – ‘Stitch of the World’
Valerie June – ‘The Order of Time’
Bankesters – ‘Nightbird’
Dead Man Winter – ‘Furnace’

February 3rd –
Ags Connolly – ‘Nothin’ Unexpected’
Gurf Morlix – ‘The Soul & The Heal’
Mitch Dean –‘Suburban Speakeasy’
Rose Cousins – ‘Natural Conclusion’
Caroline Spence – ‘Spades & Roses’

February 10th –
Kris Kristofferson – The Austin Sessions (Expanded Edition)

February 17th –
Alison Krauss – ‘Windy City’
Nikki Lane – ‘Highway Queen’
Pegi Young & The Survivors – ‘Raw’
Son Volt – ‘Notes Of Blue’
Son of the Velvet Rat – ‘Dorado’
Blair Crimmins – ‘You Gotta Sell Something’
The Gibson Brothers – “In The Ground”

February 24th –
Curtis McMurtry – ‘The Hornet’s Nest’
Rhiannon Giddens – ‘Freedom Highway’
Old 97s – ‘Graveyard Whistling’
Scott H. Biram – “The Bad Testament”
Shinyribs – “I Got Your Medicine”
Aaron Watson – “Vaquero”

March 3rd –
Grandaddy – ‘Last Place’
Beth Bombara – ‘Map With No Direction ‘

March 10th –
Sunny Sweeney – “Trophy’
Pieta Brown – “Postcards”

March 24th –
Jessi Colter – ‘The Psalms’
Samantha Crain – ‘You Had Me At Goodbye’

March 31st –
Rodney Crowell – ‘Close Ties”
David Olney – “Don’t Try To Fight It”
Dead Soldiers – “The Great Emptiness”
Shoddy Blacktooth — “Don’t Forget To Die”

April 7th
Malcolm Holcombe – ‘Pretty Little Troubles’
Andrew Combs – “Canyons Of My Mind”

April 14th
Evening Darling – “Evening Darling’

April 21st –
Angaleena Presley – ‘Wrangled’

May 5th
Chris Stapleton – ‘From a Room: Volume 1’

May 19th
Builders and the Butchers – ‘The Spark’
Pokey LaFarge – ‘Manic Revelations’
Tom Russell – ‘Play One More: The Songs Of Ian And Sylvia’

May 26th
Justin Townes Earle – ‘Kids in the Street’

June 2nd –
Bobby Osborne – ‘Original’

June 9th –
The Secret Sisters – ‘You Don’t Own Me Anymore’
Shannon McNally – ‘Black Irish’

June 16th –
Sammy Brue – ‘I Am Nice’

June 23rd –
The Deslondes – ‘Hurry Home’
Slaid Cleaves – ‘Ghost on the Car Radio’

July 7th –
Randall Bramblett – ‘Juke Joint At The Edge Of The World’

July 14th –
Cale Tyson – ‘Careless Soul’

July 21st –
Whiskey Shivers – ‘Some Part of Something”

August 4th
Tyler Childers – ‘Purgatory’

August 18th
Loretta Lynn – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Great’ POSTPONED
Ray Wylie Hubbard – ‘Tell the Devil I’m Getting There as Fast as I Can’

September 8th
Caroline Reese – ‘Two Horses’ EP

September 15th
Willie Watson – ‘Folksinger Vol. 2’
The Lone Bellow – ‘Walk Into A Storm’

September 22nd
Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers – “The Long-Awaited Album”
Billy Strings – ‘Turmoil & Tinfoil’

September 29th
Anna Tivel – “Small Believer”

October 6th
Whitney Rose – ‘Rule 62’
JD McPherson – ‘Undivided Heart and Soul’
Becca Mancari – ‘Good Woman’

October 13th
Hellbound Glory – ‘Pinball’
Caleb Cladry – ‘Invincible Things’

October 16th
Gill Landry – ‘Love Rides A Dark Horse’

October 20th
Turnpike Troubadours – ‘A Long Way From Your Heart’
Dori Freeman – ‘Letters Never Read’

October 27th
Lee Ann Womack – ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’
Ronnie Fauss – ‘Last of the True’
The Wailin’ Jennys – ‘Fifteen’
The Deep Dark Woods – ‘Yarrow’

October 31st
Year of October – ‘Trouble Comes’

November 3rd
Samantha Fish – ‘Belle of the West’
Anna St. Louis – “First Songs’
Scott Miller – ‘Ladies Auxiliary’

November 17th
Mavis Staples – ‘If All I Was Was Black’

December
Chris Stapleton – ‘From a Room: Volume 2’

December 8th
Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman – ‘Dear John’

Slaid Cleaves’ New Release ‘Still Fighting The War’ to Benefit Returning Soldiers

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Slaid Cleaves' New Album Still Fighting The War

Slaid Cleaves’ new song, Still Fighting the War, was inspired in part by Denver Post photographer Craig F. Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo essay about a soldier trying to reconnect with civilian life as he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cleaves said he began the song before seeing Walker’s work, but “when I came across the photo essay, it helped me feel closer to the experience of what a vet goes through when he comes home. I don’t have anybody in my family who served, but I used that photo essay to find out what it was like for those people.”

Still Fighting the War, co-written by Ron Coy and featuring the legendary Jimmy LaFave on harmony, is the title song for the acclaimed Texas singer/songwriter’s forthcoming album. Cleaves tells USA Today “As I was putting together all these songs that I had recorded, this song was one of the strongest, and I saw a little bit of a theme,” Cleaves says. “They’re songs about perseverance and holding your head up through hard times, so I decided to use it as the title.”

Cleaves has is using the song as a vehicle to help raise money for Operation Homefront, an organization that provides emergency financial relief for service members and their families.

“Operation Homefront raises funds for people, whether they’re in need of car repair, help with their rent or help getting to their job,” Cleaves says. “It’s a very personal, easy-to-understand way to help people.

“I had a song that speaks to an issue of the day, and I’m thrilled when my songs connect with people. That’s the main reason I write songs. But with this one, I could go a step further and do some good with it, use it to get more attention to this cause.”

Head to Cleaves’ website and donate a minimum of 99 cents for the single. 100% of proceeds from the download will go to Operation Homefront.

Still Fighting the War, produced by Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Lloyd Maines and Mark Hallman, is out June 18 on Music Road Records.

Visit Operation Homefront for more information.

Gurf Morlix – Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream [Rootball Records]

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“He’s only gone crazy once. Decided to stay.” – Townes Van Zandt about Blaze Foley

For Gurf Morlix to create a tribute album for his Austin running buddy and fellow singer-songwriter, the late, great Blaze Foley, was a tricky endevour. Foley wrote songs with such singular originality edging toward cloying sentimentality and corny humor and instead delivering songs of heart-wrenching honesty and dry wit. Once hear Foley do a Foley song you can’t really imagine anyone else doing it.

Not that it hasn’t been tried before. Foley’s songs have been covered by John Prine (Clay Pigeons) and Merle Haggard (If I Could Only Fly.) And Foley has inspired others as as the subject of Austin contemporaries Townes Van Zandt’s “Blaze’s Blues” and Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel.”

Foley’s legacy is ready-made for mythology. He used to jokingly claim to be the illegitimate son of Red Foley and Blaze Starr, to be a news broadcaster from Cincinnati and to have once tried to break into Caspar Weinberger’s house to “see what was on his VCR.” These whoppers are like a seeping breach between a rich source of song-craft inspiration and a need to recreate himself.

In truth Blaze Foley. Born in Marfa Texas (setting for the films Giant and There Will Be Blood and currently a thriving creative community) in l949. He performed in a family gospel act called the Fuller Family with his mother and sisters. He eventually landed in Austin, a city that prides itself on non-conformity, and with his duct-taped boots and clothing, sense of humor and stark, brutally honest songs, stood out.

Gurf Morlix is an Americana music pioneer. A New york native in1981 he moved to Los Angeles where he met a kindred spirit Lucinda Williams. He went on to lead her band for 11 years (1985 to 1996) singing, and playing guitar, and eventually producing her albums. His latter role as producer of Williams’ pinnacle Car Wheels On A Gravel Road led to their acrimonious split. Morlix then went on to play either guitar, bass, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel guitar, lap steel, banjo, piano, harmonica, and a variety of other instruments for and/or produce a literal who’s-who in the the Americana/rock field – Warren Zevon, Mary Gauthier, Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Buddy and Julie Miller, Tom Russell, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Michelle Shocked, Jimmy LaFave, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Mojo Nixon, Jim Lauderdale, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Case, Bob Neuwirth, Don Walser, Jon Langford, Steve Earle, Harry Dean Stanton, Charlie Sexton, The Plimsouls, Victoria Williams, James McMurtry, Flaco Jimenez, Rosanne Cash, David Byrne, Kevin Welch, John Prine, Dave Alvin and many more. Impressed yet?

Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream is 15 Foley originals that display the dark-to-light shadings of the man’s talent. Displaying a sense of humor and song-craft Roger Miller would envy on the cuts Baby Can I Crawl Back To You, Big Cheeseburgers and Good French Fries and No Goodwill Stores in Waikiki and the unvarnished melancholy and longing of If I Could Only Fly (featuring renowned Texas singer/songwriter Kimmie Rhodes on backing vocals) and Cold, Cold World that would make his buddy Townes Van Zandt weep. Some of the songs – Oh Darlin’ and Rainbows and Ridges combine elements of both.

Morlix ‘s arrangements and delivery are straightforward and top notch playing adds just the right amount of adornment. Aside from the excellent musicianship Morlix, unlike Steve Earle’s 2009 tribute to his mentor Townes Van Zandt, appears to have no urge to put his personal stamp on the songs.

Morlix was there on that cold February day in Austin when they put Blaze Foley in the ground as a result of being on the business end of a 22-caliber rifle. He was not content to let his songs be buried with him.

This CD is released in conjunction with the documentary film, Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah, which has been 12 years in the making.

official site | buy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFuOh2TXnHM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KwR7fk1PGQ[/youtube]

David Onley & Sergio Webb – House Concert – San Francisco, CA – 10/5/10

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I’ve heard about house concerts, intimate performances, usually acoustic performed for a limited number of people at someones residence, but until now had never had the opportunity to attend one. Then on Monday morning I received a tweet (a message on twitter for the uninitiated) from David Olney, who along with his side man Sergio Webb had recently played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, would be performing a house party. Olney and his side man Sergio Webb had recently played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. I emailed the organizer (for whom this was a first-time endeavor) and I was in.

As instructed by the email I received from the organizer I arrived at 7 PM at the a high-end apartment building in the tony Ashbury Heights section of the city. I paid the $15. “donation” (one reason they like these gigs is that often 100% of the entrance fee goes to the performers) the small crowd milled in the make-do bar and buffet eating crackers and cheese and drinking wine and beer. After some conversations I surmised that I was probably the only one there that didn’t have a direct association with the host or the performers. I was the only outsider. Being a Texan in San Francisco, I was comfortable in this role.

Olney and his side-kick guitarist/singer Sergio Webb, set up in the living room in front of a large bay window, a grand piano (unused at this performance) and flanked by what I can only assume were large oil paintings of the relatives. Davis Olney is an artist whose name you might not recognize, but you would recognize the people who’ve worked with him or covered his songs – Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury, Lonnie Brooks, Steve Earle, Slaid Cleaves, Dale Ann Bradley, Tom Rozum, Ann Rabson, Keiran Kane/Kevin Welch/Fats Kaplin and others.  An old friend, Townes Vant Zandt, when asked who his favorite music writers are stated “Mozart, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and David Olney.” Onley is the most famous men you’ve never heard of.

Decked in a formal Nudie-style Western jacket, dark fedora and coolly playing his ‘44 Gibson hollow body Olney cuts a dapper figure. Sergio Webb is his unkempt opposite in a wide-brimmed straw cowboy hat and think, braided beard, western shirt with playing cards embroidered on summons rockabilly heat and pedal-steel sounds from his vintage Telecaster.

Relying on no set list Olney channeled performers from the past, sprinkling dark and wry early 2oth-century  America tales with humorous anecdotes and self-depreciating asides like “These guys are great, how come i don’t know about them?!” Using a mashup of rock/blues/folk/country as a framework appearances were made by John Dillinger (Dillinger),  “Dizzy” Dean
(Heaven’s Game), Socrates (Sweet Poison) and the subject of Johannes Vermeer’s “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” (Mister Vermeer.) A few covers were added (“We’re not a cover band, really.” stated Olney after their third.)  With all their 70’s gaudiness I now realize how great a band the Bee Gees since hearing Olney’s cover of their New York Mining Disaster 1941 (the miners’ isolation given added poignancy from an experience Onley had a year in a New York City jail cell.) There was also a heartfelt rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s Snowin On Raton Lyrics

Besides providing musicians a new channel to make a few bucks between gigs on the road house concerts are attended by people are there to see the music instead of to be seen or to yammer. The audience watched the intimate show attentively and reacted passionately at a clever phrase by Olney or an especially hot solo by Sergio Webb. All in all I think for the kind of music I love I think house concerts are something I’m going to seek out more often.

William Elliot Whitmore Hell or High Water Video

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  • New releases by Texas singer/songwriters Slaid Cleaves (Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away), Wayne “The Train” Hancock (Vipers of Melody) and Dale Watson (The Truckin’ Sessions Vol. 2 ) are in stores and online today.
  • HearYa.com gives thier view on Steve Earle new Townes Van Zandt covers album Townes.
  • 77square.com posts a conversation with Wayne “The Train” Hancock about his latest album Vipers of Melody.

Introducing the new video by William Elliot Whitemore for his song Hell or High Water (thanks to ninebullets.net for bringing this to my attention.) Twang Nation Review of Whitmore’s newest release Animals in the Dark.

[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=55794026[/myspace]

Gurf Morlix Last Exit to Happyland

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Austin Texas based roots musician, Gurf Morlix, is finishing up his new release Last Exit To Happyland. A noted producer of the Americana elite (Lucinda Williams, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Mary Gauthier, and Robert Earl Keen, Tom Russell, Blaze Foley, Ian McLagan, and the Hot Club of Cowtown),  delivers some great new songs. Backed by the mighty Rick Richards on drums, and with vocal support from Patty Griffin, Ruthie Foster and Barkara K, he explores the territory where folk and blues and country intersect, a place he likes to call “The Muddy”. Last Exit To Happyland will be released on Rootball Records on February 17th, and marks his evolution from sideman (Lucinda Williams’ band leader for 11 years) and producer to world class singer-songwriter in the spotlight.