Music City Roots Filming for TV; New Music from Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Jimbo Mathus; Aldean Announces Trio of Stadium Shows
- At the ICM Faith, Family & Country Awards, Vince Gill took home Mainstream Inspirational Country Song and Mainstream Country Artist. Read the full list of winners here.
- Isaac “Dickie” Freeman, a Gospel Music Hall of Famer who performed with, among other groups, the Fairfield Four, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 84.
- Chicano country music artist Roland Garcia, Sr. passed away yesterday.
- JD Souther talks with Rolling Stone about his role on Nashville.
- Billy Robinson, who, as a young man, played steel guitar on the Opry and backed up artists like Hank Williams and Red Foley, tells his story to Reminisce. An excerpt: At first it was a little frightening, me being just 18 years old. I didn’t know how to read music, so rehearsals were intimidating. But soon I found out that most of the people I was playing with didn’t read music, either. Because I was so young, people liked pulling tricks on me. The worst thing they did was untune my guitar while it was in a dressing room. I wouldn’t know it until I started playing. The great Hank Williams was a real nice guy. When we went to Germany in 1949, becoming the first Opry group to play in Europe, we got Air Force orders explaining why we were going there. One was written in Russian. Hank looked at it and told me, “Billy, you know those Russians will never win a war because they can’t spell.”
- Chet Flippo on Jamey Johnson’s new album: Johnson has just released a landmark tribute album to Cochran, and I can’t think of a riskier commercial venture in today’s country climate of demanding hits now! Hits now! And youth! Youth! Think young! Think young! Good luck to all the one-hit wonders who are going through this cycle of survival of the fittest. Just imagine the number of would-be and wanna-be Taylor Swift replacements who have been chewed up and then discarded by the Nashville hit machinery over the past few years. Jamey is in no danger of being considered a teen idol, but the notion of a major record label putting out a tribute album to a songwriter who is largely unknown to the entire music-buying public — especially the young music-buying public — is crazy.
- Two Tons of Steel had a “nuclear meltdown,” writes former band member Chris Dobbs.
- In 2013, Jason Aldean will play Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium. While in Chicago yesterday, Aldean answered a few questions about the important things in life–music, baseball, and hot dogs–for Chicago’s RedEye blog.
- The BoDeans have a video for their song, “All the World.”
- Want to hear a clip of “Orange Blossom Special” played on the accordion? UNC’s Southern Folklife Collection has you covered.
- Miranda Lambert is on the cover of November’s Good Housekeeping. Inside the magazine, there’s an interview and her recipe for peanut butter pie.
- Randy Owen, Vince Gill, and Charlie Daniels were honored Wednesday night at the Leadership Music Dale Franklin Awards.
- Music City Roots has teamed up with Nashville’s TNDV to film 13 hour-long MCR episodes that will be distributed to public television nationwide in Spring 2013.
- Peter Cooper wrote about Blackie & The Rodeo Kings for the Tennessean.
- Here’s a new single from roots rockers Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires.
- Colt Ford spoke to a group of University of Florida telecommunications students about his struggle to get mainstream airplay: “Radio for me has been extremely difficult,” he said. “A radio station in Florida shouldn’t sound like a radio station in Kansas City.”
- Christopher John Farley of the Wall Street Journal interviewed Taylor Swift about her new album.
- Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts, and more are appearing on the A Very Special Christmas 25th anniversary album. Proceeds benefit Special Olympics.
- Culture Brats posted a new Jimbo Mathus song, “In the Garden.”
- Out December 4: Florida Georgia Line’s Here’s to the Good Times.
- On November 13, Punch Brothers will release a five song EP called Ahoy. Bluegrass Today has the track listing.
Tagged In This Article
Billy Robinson // Blackie and the Rodeo Kings // Chet Flippo // Chris Dobbs // Colt Ford // Fairfield Four // Florida Georgia Line // Hank Williams // Isaac Dickie Freeman // Jamey Johnson // Jason Aldean // JD Souther // Jimbo Mathus // Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires // Martina McBride // Miranda Lambert // Peter Cooper // Punch Brothers // Randy Owen // Rascal Flatts // Red Foley // Roland Garcia Sr. // Taylor Swift // The BoDeans // Two Tons of Steel // Vince Gill
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October 19, 2012 at 1:20 pm
If it was me, I don’t believe I’da blogged that.
October 19, 2012 at 6:30 pm
I hope Music City Roots slices together a bunch of decent performances from a bunch of different shows for the TV segments as most of the music (excluding bluegrass themed shows) presented at MCR just isn’t very good.
Triggerman’s take on the new Jamey Johnson album is quite different from Chet Flippo’s! It seems people tend to value and prize this album more for what it represents than what it actually sounds like.
Link: http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/review-jamey-johnsons-living-for-a-song-tribute-to-hank-cochran
That Billy Robinson piece was really interesting. Sounds like the kinds of stories Eddie Stubbs likes to tell on WSM about the history of country music.
Since they had a nuclear meltdown, maybe the band should have been named “Two Tons of Uranium 238″! (lol)
Opry Alert! Tonight’s Opry features the Charlie Daniels Band, Darryl Worley, Jon Pardi, and the husband and wife team of Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison up from Texas! Grade: B+
The Saturday Night Opry will feature the fantastic Quebe Sisters Band (also up from Texas), The Grascals, J.T Hodges, Sarah Darling, Janie Fricke, and Mac Powell(?). Grade: A! Good stuff!
October 19, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Colin Linden is pret cool. BTW, that was him playing guitar on Nashville last night; I believe sitting in with the ‘band leader’ character, tho’ it may have been a different scene. If you are unfamiliar with BARK, you shouldn’t be.
October 20, 2012 at 10:39 am
I hate to agree with Colt Ford about anything, but I do here. What plays well in the midwest is less likely to go over in say New England. Spinning the same rigid national playlist in both Dallas and Seattle sounds to me like an idea conceived by a lazy intern with a bad attitude.
When broadcast radio lost its regional sound, when the local listeners and PDs no longer had any say so about what their station could play, was about the same time all the variety and charm left the mainstream radio world.
And I digress.
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