Engine 145 - A Roots Music Publication

• Carrie Underwood has donated $1 million to the Red Cross for tornado relief efforts.

• Paul Thorn has announced that anyone who attends his May 30 concert in Oklahoma and brings items to help aid the relief efforts will receive a free CD.

• Bill Kirchen talks about his Telecaster in this nifty video.

• On June 15, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will salute Bergen White as part of its Nashville Cats series. The event will be streamed on the HoF website.

• If being on a boat with a bunch of bluegrassers sounds like fun for you, the 2014 Mountain Song at Sea lineup has been announced.

• Or you could go on the Alabama & Friends Festival at Sea cruise in late October.

• Hunter Hayes’ Encore, coming out June 18, is a mix of songs from his debut album and new material, including a duet with Ashley Monroe.

• There’s an excellent interview with Murphy Hicks Henry, author of Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass, posted on Music Tomes.

• Paste premiered “Cover Me Up” from Jason Isbell’s forthcoming record.

• From Billboard: With a 12th week at No. 1, Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” breaks the record for the most chart-topping weeks for a title by a duo in the 69-year history of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. “Cruise” also extends the list’s longest reign by any act since Buck Owens ruled for 16 weeks with “Love’s Gonna Live Here” in 1963-64. 

• John Lingan wrote about Patsy Cline and her legacy in Winchester, Virginia for TheMorningNews.org. It’s a lengthy article, but one that’s well worth your time (as is a trip out to Winchester).

• Mark Chesnutt’s got plans to record a new album this year.

• Jewly Hight interviewed Frank Solivan for CMT Edge.

• Conan O’Brien takes on Taylor Swift’s “22.”

• Jonathan Bernstein reviewed Ray Wylie Hubbard’s recent NYC show for American Songwriter.

• Patty Griffin was on Tavis Smiley last week. Watch here.

• Kellie Pickler is shooting for an autumn album release.

• Little Big Town helped raise $115K for Blood:Water Mission, a nonprofit “committed to empowering communities to work against the HIV/AIDS and water crises in Africa.”

• Jo Dee Messina launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the recording and release of her next album. She’s looking to raise $100,000 in 30 days.

• Dale Watson is also trying to raise money; he wants to help fund the Ameripolitan Music Awards.

• The June issue of Kentucky Monthly has some neat Bill Monroe artwork on the cover.

• Here’s a recent Holly Williams video that was shot as part of the War Memorial Auditorium’s Attic Sessions.

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on this date in 1941. Narrowing down the thousands of Dylan covers that have been recorded over the past fifty years down to just five songs for this week’s post was no easy task. In fact, this easily could have been a Friday 500–and your favorite probably still wouldn’t be on the list–so we compiled a few more favorites in the Spotify playlist below. What’s your favorite Dylan cover?

5. Neko Case – “Buckets of Rain”

Case often covers this song from Blood on the Tracks during her shows. Or, at least the shows I’ve been to. Perhaps it’s sacrilege, but I like her vocal on this song better than Dylan’s.

4. Garth Brooks – “Make You Feel My Love”

Brooks’ version of the song topped the country charts and earned him a Grammy nomination.

3. Rosanne Cash – “Girl From the North Country”

Johnny Cash sang this song with Dylan on the Nashville Skyline album; 40 years later, his daughter recorded it for The List.

2. Tim O’Brien – “Forever Young”

O’Brien’s Red on Blonde is a damn fine record. This song is one of the highlights.

1. The Band – “I Shall Be Released”

Hands down, my favorite Dylan song, no matter who’s singing it.

• Darius Rucker’s version of “Wagon Wheel” has been certified platinum. Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” has gone triple platinum, and Taylor Swift’s “Mean” is now double platinum.

• Sierra Hull visited the WAMU Bluegrass Country studios to play “I’ll Be Fine,” a cut from her upcoming album.

• Roots rock band Mount Moriah was on the World Café.

• There’s a David Ramirez sampler available for download on NoiseTrade.

• The newest Tennessean music podcast features David Olney.

• Stream Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally’s House & Garden album at American Songwriter.

• Harrianne Condra passed away on Monday. From the press release: She began her career at WSM radio, and it was she who proposed the idea of an annual Disc Jockey Convention to commemorate the Grand Ole Opry’s birthday celebration. This, in turn, became the foundation for Fan Fair, which has morphed into the CMA Music Festival. She retired from Sony ATV (Tree Publishing) where she spent 20 years. Harrianne was one of the first recipients of the SOURCE Award, honoring women who have made vital contributions to the music industry.

• George Strait’s Love is Everything debuted atop the Billboard Country Albums Chart (and at No. 2 on the Top 200), selling more than 119,000 copies in its first week. (via press release)

• Trisha Yearwood sang “So Far Away” at a White House event honoring Carole King last night. The concert will air on PBS on Tuesday.

• Coming out June 18: Phoebe Hunt’s Live at the Cactus Café. Hunt was formerly with the Belleville Outfit.

• Jen Chapin (daughter of Harry Chapin) has a new music video for “Go Away.” Her new album, Reckoning, comes out next week.

• Little Big Town will host CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock on ABC August 12.

• Speaking of LBT, their video for “Your Side of the Bed” debuted this morning. (warning: autoplay)

• The Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville is holding a Grand Opening event on May 30.

• Australian bluegrass band Mustered Courage has a new video.

• Coming out June 25: Live From the Archives, Vol. 1, a collection of live performances broadcast on WSM over the years. The Time Jumpers, Darrell Scott, and the Del McCoury Band are a few of the acts on this first release.

• CMT Edge premiered “The Value of Nothing,” the title track from Eddie Spaghetti’s forthcoming record.

• Nu-Blu kicked off their tenth anniversary tour.

• John Fogerty played “Mystic Highway” on Letterman earlier this week.

• Scott Miller & The Commonwealth have started a fundraising campaign for their next album release.

• Miranda Lambert’s MuttNation Foundation is aiding animal rescue efforts in Moore, Oklahoma.

• Brandy Clark, Hunter Hayes, and Kacey Musgraves are among the nominees for the MusicRow Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year Award.

• Stephen Trageser of the Nashville Scene wrote a feature on Winston Yellen (Night Beds).

• Also in the Scene: Jon Weisberger’s piece on Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, and The Steep Canyon Rangers.

• Patty Griffin was on Later…with Jools Holland. Robert Plant joins her for the second song in this video.

For many of us, Eric Brace and Peter Cooper never went away. Wasn’t it just two years ago that they produced a stellar cast of musicians on the Grammy-nominated I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow? And it’s only three years ago that Brace and Cooper released their acclaimed Master Sessions, featuring pedal steel master Lloyd Green and dobro master Mike Auldridge. Brace is a constant presence on the Nashville music scene through his Red Beet Records label, and Cooper pens highly regarded musings and meditations on music in the Tennessean. This album is not so much about coming back as it is about going back, revisiting places and memories that haunt us.

The album’s opening track, “Ancient History,” kicks off brightly with a snare drum roll that recalls momentarily that opening rim shot on Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” and gallops along, driven by jangly Byrds-like guitars, Jen Gunderman’s soaring B3 organ and pop-inflected Wurlitzer, and producer Thomm Jutz’s straight-ahead electric guitar solo. Taking a cue from the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine,” Brace and Cooper ponder the ways that we constantly reinvent ourselves. Of course, we’re always coming back to a defining moment in the past—ancient history—when we recognize, with Brace and Cooper, that “It is what it is/Not how it’s gotta be/From my point of obstructed view/We are who we are/Not who we’re gonna be/Every passing moment/Is ancient history.”

Like Tom T. Hall, Brace and Cooper tells expansive stories that plumb the human condition, wryly commenting on our foibles, lamenting our lack of wisdom, celebrating and grieving what we’ve lost. In “Ponzi Scheme,” the narrator bemoans his gullible character, all the while blaming the “confident girl in a confidence game” for hoodwinking him. Like all of us, we’re willing to believe a beautiful package holds promise, but we’re quick to blame someone else when the glitter fades and we’re looking at “rust and rubber/Hard concrete/That’s the view from under the bus.”

We often come back to those places that are part of our youth, and Cooper and fellow Hub City (and Wofford Terrier) musician Baker Maultsby recall a Spartanburg slum in the New Orleans jazz inflected “Thompson Street” where “You got your good fried chicken at the Woodward’s Café/Good fish at the Hamburg Delight/And the white folks come in the middle of the day but they stay away at night.” On “Johnson City,” Lloyd Green’s moaning steel underscores Brace’s mournful lament about a beautiful town with a terrible jail in which he’s spending more time than he ever intended to spend.

Duane Eddy, Mac Wiseman, and Marty Stuart join forces with Brace and Cooper on Hall’s “Mad,” and this electrifying group captures the in-the-doghouse spirit of a man whose woman is fed up with his wandering ways: “She’s sweet and she’s nice/But when she gets mad she’s got a/voice that’ll cut through ice/You shoulda heard the cussin’ I had/When she’s mad /That’s a dangerous game/In the obituary column/They’ve already printed my name.” This comic song provides the perfect segue into the painful “She Can’t Be Herself When She’s With Me,” almost a lullaby carried by Green’s crying pedal steel in which the narrator moans, “Home to me is just the town she’s always meant to leave/I dream she’s staying here each time I chance to dream/Passing of the winter’s chill is nothing she will grieve/I am just the bank along her winding stream/She can’t be herself when she’s with me.”

The album closes with a cover of David Halley’s “Rain Just Falls,” a waltz with Jen Gunderman’s breezy accordion and vocals that recall Gram Parsons on “Hickory Wind,” in which Brace and Cooper revisit the opening track: here, resignation about the nature of life lies just beneath all we do, much as we can either accept or reject our embrace of every passing moment as defining ourselves.

Through their consummate storytelling, Brace and Cooper capture our hearts, force us to examine ourselves, laugh with us at our shortcomings, and celebrate the past. On The Comeback Album, they and the musicians they’ve gathered around them weave these elements into a colorful quilt of beautiful tunes in which we can wrap ourselves.

Preview or purchase The Comeback Album

• Kellie Pickler won Dancing with the Stars.

• Paul Franklin, Greg Leisz, Little Jimmy Dickens, Chris Stapleton, and more will appear on The Big E: A Salute to Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons, which will be released August 20. From the press release: The participating artists salute Emmons, now retired, with classic country songs written, recorded or performed by the pedal steel legend throughout his groundbreaking career. The album weaves an historical thread through Emmons’ influential career; from his breakthrough in 1955 at age 18 as a member of Little Jimmy Dickens’s red-hot backup band “The Country Boys” all the way to his September 2007 live performance of the traditional ballad “Shenandoah,” performed at his last public appearance at the International Steel Guitar Convention in St. Louis. The project, recorded with the help of crowd funding and the experiential production school Music Producers Institute, presents sixteen historic new collaborations. All proceeds from the album will be donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

• Alice Gerrard, Foghorn Stringband, and The Jumpsteady Boys are among the acts who’ll perform at the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention September 18-22.

• Abigail Washburn and Dave Liang have a “mixtape” available for download on NoiseTrade. 100% of the proceeds go toward the Sichuan Quake Relief organization.

• Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton performed “Over You” on The Voice last night. Shelton and NBC are organizing a televised benefit concert to help the Oklahoma tornado victims.

• Darius Rucker talks about his new album, True Believers, with Rolling Stone.

• Robert Kimmel of CMT Edge wrote a feature on Don Rigsby and his excellent Ralph Stanley tribute record, Doctor’s Orders.

• The Southern Folklife Collection blog is shining its spotlight on the Jack Bernhardt Papers. They’ve posted some interesting audio clips of Bernhardt interviewing Loretta Lynn and plan to post interviews with John Hartford, Townes Van Zandt, and others in the future.

• Christopher Paul Stelling has a new video for “Brick x Brick.”

• George Strait, Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood, Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, and Lady Antebellum have been added to the lineup of performers at the CMT Awards on June 5.

• Alabama Shakes have a song on the True Blood soundtrack, which will be released next week. Listen—and check out the full track listing–here.

• There’s a Shooter Jennings Q&A in the June issue of Cowboys & Indians.

• Folk Alley’s Kim Ruehl interviewed Matt Arcara of Joy Kills Sorrow.

• American Songwriter premiered the music video for Bob Schneider’s “Digging for Icicles.”

• Daniel Mullins of Bluegrass Today takes a look at Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train.”

• Blurt premiered Old Time Machine’s “All the While.”

• Give a listen to “I Saw the Light,” the new single from The Clay Hess Band.

• Ray Wylie Hubbard was on Texas Music Scene.

• Today we’re thinking of our friends in Oklahoma who’ve been affected by the tornado. Here are a few ways you can help. (h/t Farce the Music)

• George Strait made a brief video thanking the fans for helping him achieve his “Sixty for Sixty” goal. He’s got the most #1s in music history; you can listen to all of them here. Which one’s your favorite?

• Joe Ely, Terry Allen, Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, The Dixie Chicks, and more helped celebrate Lloyd Maines at a gala to benefit KLRU.

• Remember the news item last week about the BBC Radio 4 broadcast that got interrupted by a clip of someone yodeling? Today there’s an article on the BBC site all about Kevin Connolly’s effort to find the “mystery yodeler.” Turns out the song snippet that aired was Beverly Massegee’s recording of Wanda Jackson’s “Jesus Put a Yodel in My Soul.” It also turns out that Massegee is a very interesting woman: she was allegedly the “Babushka Lady” on the scene in Dallas when JFK was shot and subsequently overcame a heroin addiction and marriage to a “Dixie mafia” hitman. Then she began a yodeling-and-ventriloquism act to bring people to Jesus.

• Alan Jackson will tour Australia beginning in late September.

• Thompson Square will debut their new single on Leno tonight.

• The Virtual Strangers are hosting a three-part bluegrass lecture and concert series beginning tonight at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, Cali.

• NPR’s Robin Hilton asks, “Do You Really Listen to Full Albums?”

• On Saturday, Chely Wright and her wife welcomed twin boys.

• Edgar Loudermilk released a new single from his upcoming album, which will be released in July. Listen to “Shady Green” here.

• On Thursday, Little Big Town will debut their video for “Your Side of the Bed” on Good Morning America. (via press release)

• On May 29, GAC will premiere the concert special Brad Paisley Spins the Wheelhouse: Live in Vegas. Musical guests include Dierks Bentley, Carrie Underwood, and John Fogerty.

• Dana Krangel counts down Steve Martin’s Top Five Musical Moments.

• Sam Amidon’s got a new video for “As I Roved Out.”

• Hank Williams III and David Allan Coe have a new song, “The Outlaw Ways.”

• Dierks Bentley talks about his forthcoming record, Riser, in this video interview. Bentley says the album will have party songs, heartbreak songs, songs inspired by his late father, and “more depth.” (warning: autoplay)

• Bluegrass Today’s Richard Thompson writes about the story behind “Crossing the Bar.”

• Jim Caligiuri of the Austin Chronicle profiled The Whiskey Sisters.

• Darius Rucker on his new album, True Believers: “I think we wrote close to 60 or 70 songs and worked on the sounds we wanted. The first two records sounded a lot alike; this time we just wanted to sound a little different. It’s always going to be my voice and all that, but we just wanted the songs to shine a little brighter, maybe do a couple things that were a little more country.”

• The Dancing with the Stars finale is tonight in case you want to tune in and see if Kellie Pickler takes home the trophy. Wynonna will appear on the show as well, singing “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

• Bobby Tanzilo of OnMilwaukee.com takes a look back at the “coolest record of the ‘60s folk revival:” Blues, Rags, and Hollers, by folk blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover.

• This week’s album releases:

Jude Johnstone – Shatter

Don Rigsby – Doctor’s Orders: A Tribute to Ralph Stanley

Darius Rucker – True Believers

JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound – Howl

Townes Van Zandt – High, Low and In Between / The Late, Great Townes Van Zandt

Mike Scott & Friends – Home Sweet Home

Red Dirt Rangers – Lone Chimney

Mac Davis – A Little More Action Please: The Anthology 1970-1985

Various Artists – Classic Harmonica Blues

Various Artists – Swamp People

• Jennifer Nettles is working with Rick Rubin on a solo album that will be released in the fall.

• Randy Travis is suing the Texas attorney general’s office and the Texas Department of Public Safety to prevent the release of all evidence, including the dash-cam video, from his 2012 DWI arrest.

• Taylor Swift won eight Billboard Music Awards last night.

• Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck’s son was born last night. As of this morning, the nine-hour old infant had already mastered “Cripple Creek.”

• Dan DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a feature on Blue Note Records president Don Was, who has produced albums for Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth Cook, Willie Nelson, and many, many more.

• Sam Adams of the Philadelphia Inquirer reviewed Tim McGraw’s Friday night show in Camden.

• Time for a new Quotable Country.

• George Strait’s “Give It All We Got Tonight” is his 60^th No. 1 song.

• Jason Boland is the American Songwriter Writer of the Week.

• A Maryland man made a Dolly-mobile out of a pink VW Beetle.

• Garden & Gun posted a feature on Jason Isbell as well as a song from his upcoming album, Southeastern.

• The Tennessean launched a new video series called “The Story Behind the Song.” First up is Bobby Braddock and “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

• We don’t want to spoil the ending All-Star Celebrity Apprentice for any fans who might have missed it, but you can find out how Trace Adkins did here.

• Drive the “Juke Joint Trail.”

• Rural Rhythm Records has created the Rural Roots Digital series, which will focus on “best of” collections and classic album reissues.

• Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ film based on the life of Dave Van Ronk, premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote a positive review of the movie.

• Black Prairie recorded a soundtrack for Jon Mooallem’s book, Wild Ones. Stream the album here.

• Folksinger Sam Amidon was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition.

• Peter Cooper’s newest Tennessean column covers “veteran sideman” Richard Bennett.

• The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame exhibit opened in Music City Center.

• Music videos from the past week or so:

Zac Brown Band – “Jump Right In”

Shakey Graves – “Unlucky Skin”

Della Mae – “Empire”

The Band Perry – “Better Dig Two” (Billboard Music Awards performance)

Robert Ellis – “The Grand Tour”

Sons of Fathers – “Roots & Vine”

Trampled By Turtles – “Midnight on the Interstate”

Glenn Jones – “Across the Tappan Zee”

Taylor Swift – “22” (Billboard Music Awards performance)

Mark Newton & Steve Thomas – “Old McDonald Sold the Farm”

Sammy Kershaw – “The Route That I Took” (George Jones tribute)

David Ramirez – “The Bad Days”

Chasing Blue – “Come to Me”

Aoife O’Donovan – “Red & White & Blue & Gold” (live at the American Songwriter offices)

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Rebecca Frazier may have founded a bluegrass band called Hit & Run, but her voice is sure to stick with you. Today we’re proud to premiere the title track from Frazier’s forthcoming solo debut, which will be released May 28 on Compass Records. When We Fall is an engaging contemporary bluegrass album, with well-written originals (plus a cover of Neil Young’s “Human Highway”) set to excellent arrangements on which Frazier, a skilled flatpicking guitarist, is joined by musicians including Ron Block, Barry Bales, Scott Vestal, and her husband, John Frazier.

Here’s what Frazier had to say about the song:

“‘When We Fall’ is probably my favorite song on this album. It is one of those rare songs that seemed to write itself. I woke up singing it one morning, as though I’d heard it in a dream. I’d been showing my young son a picture of Adam and Eve in the previous days.  I’ve noticed that everyone seems to take something different from ‘When We Fall.’ Some listeners think it’s about falling in love. Others think it’s about falling down and getting back up. It’s okay with me; listeners can find their own meaning in the song. I tend to think about this song as a loss of innocence. The ‘mirror’ can refer to self-image. If we disappoint ourselves or other people, how do we reconstruct our feelings of ourselves as good people?”

With four kids in the Morton household, it seems that many discussions often turn to questions of “why?” or “what if?” This past week, the question posed at dinner time was, “What if you won a billion dollars in the lottery?”

Dancing a jig and then paying half back to the government in taxes are a given. But suppose you came home with half a billion dollars, and because of your passion for music– (and probable bad business sense)–decided to open up your very own record label on Music Row. It’s called [Your Last Name] Records and you’ve assembled the best production, promotion and management teams that money can buy.

So now comes the big question: Who do you sign? For purposes of today’s Your Take column, assume that you, as the label president/CEO, can sign five different groups or solo artists to start your label. The only rules? The artists can’t currently be signed to another label. We want to know which five artists you’d choose and a little reasoning behind your picks. 

• Jewly Hight wrote a must-read feature on Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.

• BJ Thomas and Keb’ Mo’ have a new music video for “Most of All.”

• On July 23, Omnivore Recordings will release Don Rich’s That Fiddlin’ Man and the all-instrumental The Buckaroos Play Buck and Merle, which is a combination of The Buck Owens Songbook (1965) and The Songs of Merle Haggard (1971). (via press release)

• On June 14, Haggard will be given an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Cal State Bakersfield and Owens will be posthumously awarded the university’s Presidential Medal of Honor. (via press release)

• Also on June 14: John McEuen will receive the Charlie Poole Lifetime Achievement Award at the Charlie Poole Music Festival in North Carolina.

• Chet Flippo writes that LeAnn Rimes’ new album, Spitfire, “has an immediacy and a force” that he hasn’t heard from her in years.

• Jewly Hight interviewed Scott Avett for a Nashville Scene feature.

• Miranda Lambert’s “Fastest Girl in Town” was nominated for an O Music Award in the Best Interactive Music Video category. Fan voting  has begun; the results will be announced June 19.

• Mark Newton & Steve Thomas have a new music video for “Old McDonald Sold the Farm.”

• Joe Pug released a lyric video for “Deep Dark Wells.”

• Judith Durham of Australian folk-pop band The Seekers (“Georgy Girl”) is recovering from a brain hemorrhage.

• Here’s a video of singer-songwriter Robert Ellis covering “The Grand Tour.”

• The Blue Stocking Club, a women’s community service group in Bristol, Tenn., donated more than $76,000 to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, which is currently under construction.

• Chris Young talks about his next album in this fine American Songwriter feature written by Craig Shelburne. An excerpt: “I know this adage gets used a lot by artists so I can only say it because it’s how I feel – this is more like what we do in our live show. So there still are some ballads that fit the framework of what I did with ‘Tomorrow.’ There are some mid-tempo things that fit, like ‘I Can Take It From There,’ but overall we haven’t released as many true up-tempo songs as I end up playing live. I think that’s naturally where my songwriting went.” Plus he’s broadening his scope sonically. “We’re doing a lot more with guitars, we’re doing some loop stuff, some vocal and doubling effects on this record,” he adds. “Feeling like I had a batch of songs that I was excited about early in the process took a lot of the pressure off. I’d be a little more nervous about doing all that if we didn’t have the songs.” 

• Jim Ed Brown’s got a new, Bobby Bare-produced single (it’s available on iTunes, or you can listen to a snippet on Brown’s website) and an album in the works.

• There’s a lengthy feature on the Steep Canyon Rangers in the new issue of American Songwriter.