Mark Collie Unveils Brushy Mountain Prison Project; Stream Sara Watkins’ Sun Midnight Sun; New Music Videos

• Stream Sara Watkins’ new album, Sun Midnight Sun, before its May 8 release date.

• Peter Cooper wrote about Mark Collie’s “prison project,” Alive at Brushy Mountain, which is finally getting released after ten years.

• Carrie Underwood was on NPR’s All Things Considered.

• Underwood is also the subject of a lengthy Tennessean feature penned by Cindy Watts.

• The Mavericks, Sunny Sweeney, Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers, and Dave Alvin were a few of the highlights at Stagecoach.

• Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” is American Songwriter’s Lyric of the Week.

• Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, and Dierks Bentley will headline the first Watershed Music Festival near Quincy, Washington this August. Dwight Yoakam and Sara Evans are also among the artists scheduled to perform at the three-day festival.

• Todd Snider, after having “smoked a joint the size of a Sharpie,” talked with Rolling Stone about his album Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables.

• Levon Helm was laid to rest in Woodstock with the help of a drum line.

• Paste pulled a 31-year old unpublished interview with Bob Dylan out of the vault.

• Jaren Johnston (“You Gonna Fly”) is the newest subject of American Songwriter’s Nashville Songwriter Series.

• A new Quotable Country is up at Country California.

• Shelby Lynne’s tour gear was stolen. Her site has a list and photos of the missing instruments, and she’s offering a reward for anyone who has information leading to the recovery of the instruments.

• Lee Ann Womack on Kin, the fantastic upcoming Rodney Crowell/Mary Karr project on which she sings “Mama’s on a Roll:” “When Rodney called, I was intrigued, because the idea of these songs he’d written with an author of Mary Karr’s reputation seemed like a whole lot of fire power…But what was most amazing was how downhome and real all the songs were… It felt like the way real people feel in their lives, raw in places and philosophical in others.”

• The first 100 records from the late John Peel’s collection will be available starting tomorrow, with 100 new records going up every week, along with interviews and live performances.

• This June, Pittsburgh’s free Three Rivers Arts Festival will have a Bluegrass Day, featuring the Del McCoury Band, the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Greensky Bluegrass, and local musicians.

• Marissa R. Moss of American Songwriter caught the film Big Easy Express, which documents the Railroad Revival Tour undertaken by Mumford and Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

• New and new-ish music videos:

Easton Corbin – “Lovin’ You is Fun”

Carolina Chocolate Drops – “No Man’s Mama” (on Later with Jools Holland)

Reckless Kelly – “I Stayed Up All Night Again” (Music Fog)

Dustin Lynch – “Cowboys and Angels” 

Lee Brice – “Hard to Love” 

David Nail – “The Sound of a Million Dreams” 

JT Hodges – “Goodbyes Made You Mine”

Sonia Leigh – “Bar”