Engine 145 - A Roots Music Publication

A legion of country music legends and industry professionals expressed their admiration for Country Music Hall of Famer Kitty Wells after her death this week at the age of 92. Rightly heralded as Queen of Country Music, she was a ground-breaking force who challenging authority even as she maintained a traditionally feminine image. No less [...]

Continue reading "Kitty Wells’ Legacy and the Future of Women on Country Radio"

  There’s much that all genres and sub-genres along the American roots music space-time continuum have in common, from the most overtly pop and polished mainstream country to the most obscure flavor of traditional regional folklore or edgy roots rock. Inevitably, their fans have much in common, too—most basically, enjoying hearing favored artists take their [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Across the Roots Rock Rasp Divide"

Country fans have long since noticed (and sometimes complained) that the ACM and CMA awards shows feature pretty much the same star acts and hits of the year. That was hardly the case back in the mid-1960s, as pointed out in the Country Hall of Fame and Museum’s major new exhibition, The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Bakersfield, Nashville, and That “East vs. West” Thing"

Keeping up with the sheer volume of new releases that might be of interest to people reading this column is always a challenge, practically impossible, and while I don’t plan to do it often, I figure that one way to play some catch-up here is just to line up some brief comments on recent releases [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Some Records I Think You Ought to Hear"

It is always during a crisis of faith where Bruce Springsteen burns the brightest. Whether the young man straining at the reins of Born To Run, the high stakes legal battle/state of the original blue collar erosion Darkness on the Edge of Town, the failing of “til death do us part” Tunnel of Love and [...]

Continue reading "Bruce Springsteen Wrecks Me: Album Leak Fires Up the Faithful"

Give it to Bon Iver – or rather Justin Vernon, who anchors the atmospheric songscapers. When the big-time network TV folks decided to come up with a way to stage his kind of “obscure music” to the bing-bang-boom conditioned viewership, he balked. If his songs were good enough to help his loose coalition of players [...]

Continue reading "The Grammy Problem"

Pssst. I have some shocking news to reveal: For some time, apparently, there have been some points along the roots music spectrum where the talent to amuse is commonly relegated to secondary status as less significant, less special, and even less demanding of technical proficiency than bringing audiences to tears, working them into a lather, [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Walking Into The Light…Side"

(Part One can be found here) WLAC was just as instrumental in breaking the careers of national artists, as it was in fostering the careers of Nashville’s talent. John R. and Hoss Allen are directly responsible for breaking James Brown’s first single “Please, Please, Please,” while Gene Nobles is credited with launching the careers of [...]

Continue reading "Night Moves: WLAC and Nashville’s Untapped Legacy (Part Two)"

It’s beyond me when a new “musical year” begins these days, but happy New Year. The start of a new calendar year here in Nashville does have a certain distinctive local flavor to it; performers who’ve been out on the road, suddenly back home for a Christmastime break, show up at events and get-togethers around [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: New Year’s Beginnings, Middles, Endings, and Post-Mortems"

  No, that’s not a suggested name for the next big music magazine; Frets & Threats could have some real breadth and staying power, but I figure the magazine market is too threatened for a launch right now. I bring this up after a week at IBMA’s “World of Bluegrass,” 2011 edition, which was marked [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Frets and Threats"