Joe Gracey Passes Away; Vince Gill Returns to the Troubadour; Tiny Desk Goat Rodeo
- Joe Gracey, an important figure in the Austin music scene, passed away this week after a battle with cancer.
- Rosanne Cash performs with the Minnesota Orchestra tonight.
- Chris Willman wrote a piece (and quoted Blake Boldt) about homosexuality in the country music industry: Whatever stereotypes might exist about country music not being a gay-friendly genre, “the Row” is chock-full of gay people and one of the most accepting businesses in which they could possibly land in the South. If you’ve got the Sundance Channel, tune into show Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys to see songwriter Shane Stevens and his pal Sherrie Austin.
- Bruce Springsteen played “Dancing in the Dark” backstage at a Taylor Swift show, then posed for a photo.
- Peter Cooper’s most recent column is all about the uber-talented Mike Henderson of The Steeldrivers and the Mike Henderson Band.
- Jason Isbell’s stolen van and trailer were recovered near the Dallas area, but unfortunately all the gear inside the trailer is gone. Check out a list of instruments and serial numbers.
- Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile played a Tiny Desk Concert at the NPR offices. In unsurprising news, it’s fantastic.
- Vince Gill played his first show at L.A.’s Troubadour in 35 years on Wednesday.
- Carrie Underwood is confirmed to perform at the CMA Music Festival next June.
- There’s a must-read feature on John Prine over at The Huffington Post. An excerpt: Asked if he felt like addressing the cancer through his writing, he said it didn’t quite work like that. “What would I call it? ‘This little cancer of mine, I’m gonna let it shine?’ It just bugs me when people go on TV and say ‘I’ve got cancer,’ but I don’t know … maybe it helps them.”Cancer made him look inward, gave him a long moment to reflect. He remembers how he felt immediately following his successful treatments: “It makes colors brighter, makes everything smell better, everything around you.”
- In 2012, Billy Currington will launch his first headlining tour.
- Lady Antebellum will perform at the Dancing with the Stars finale next week.
- The Country Music Hall of Fame has you all set when it comes to the holidays with a performance from Suzy Bogguss and various family-friendly happenings.
- Kim Hartnett of NorthJersey.com had a chat with John Cowan. Here’s an excerpt in which Cowan explains newgrass: “Newgrass is a genre of music that was started in the mid-60s by people like The Country Gentlemen and The Osborne Brothers. Basically what they did was they plugged their instruments, which was kind of unheard of; they had electric bass. Traditional bluegrass had always been all acoustic, no electricity, and used an acoustic upright bass. The band I was involved in for so long, the New Grass Revival, we actually took it a step further. We grew up in the 60s, so we were incorporating a lot of the sounds and music that was a part of who we were at that time as young musicians. We basically took songs by Jerry Lee Lewis and Leon Russell in the early days, and Bob Dylan — people like that — and played them in the context of our band.”
- Satan is Real, seminal country record from the Louvin Brothers, got the deluxe reissue treatment from Light in the Attic Records. Check out an interview about the story behind this reissue, and then check out our archives, where Charlie Louvin talked about the story behind shooting that classic LP cover.
- Ready to watch the Americana Music Awards rebroadcast on Austin City Limits tomorrow night? Check out an interview with producer Terry Lickona.
Tagged In This Article
Billy Currington // Bruce Springsteen // Carrie Underwood // Charlie Louvin // Chris Thile // Chris Willman // Edgar Meyer // Jason Isbell // Joe Gracey // John Cowan // John Prine // Lady Antebellum // Louvin Brothers // Mike Henderson // Mike Henderson Band // Rosanne Cash // Shane Stevens // Sherrie Austin // SteelDrivers // Stuart Duncan // Suzy Bogguss // Taylor Swift // Vince Gill // Yo-Yo Ma
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November 18, 2011 at 1:34 pm
There;s another good piece on my old friend Joe Gracey, filling in some more of the background to the story, here:
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2011/11/rip_joe_gracey_one_of_a_kind.php
November 20, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Take a look at that Springsteen photo and realise that there are forty years between him and Swift, yet he looks at most, in his late forties.
I hope I get to age in Boss years too.
November 20, 2011 at 10:27 pm
That Huffingpost Article mentions this article by the great Roger Ebert, the first published review of John Prine. Well worth a read: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/music/john-prine-an-american-legend.html
November 21, 2011 at 6:48 am
It was very sad news about Joe Gracey and I love Kimmie Rhodes albums. Managed to get the track “Rich From The Journey” played twice on BBC Radio 2 and wrote to Joe about it.
Photo I took at the Luminaire in London, England Joe is right of stage taken 11 April 2008
http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/99/fc2e03a2218075730e0f1c2f8e5f9718/l.jpg
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