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George Jones’ Radio Airplay Skyrockets; Curb Sues Tim McGraw Again; Album Releases
George Jones’ radio airplay skyrocketed following news of his death. Chuck Dauphin compiled a list of Jones’ 20 biggest Billboard hits, David Cantwell wrote about Jones for Slate, NPR’s RJ Smith wrote about “The Mysteries of George Jones” and Holly Gleason wrote a piece on the Possum for the Oxford American. Alan Jackson is rescheduling [...]
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CMT Names Artists of the Year; Keith Urban Receives Nashville Symphony Harmony Award; New Music Videos
Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood were named as 2012 CMT Artists of the Year. Rolling Stone announced their top country albums of 2012 and Kellie Pickler was at the top of the list: “American Idol also-ran Pickler is an unlikely trad-country heroine. But 100 Proof may [...]
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Aldean, Swift & Underwood Among People’s Choice Award Nominees; Watch The King of Broken Hearts Trailer; Sara Watkins on Mountain Stage
Elizabeth Cook chats with actor Rainn Wilson in this entertaining video interview. Then they play “Ramblin’ Man.” Clint Black, Vince Gill, and Jana Kramer are “among the 125 signatories of an open letter opposing internet radio station Pandora’s Congressional request to lower its royalty payment rates.” Yesterday there was a news item about the Jim Lauderdale documentary, The [...]
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Roots Watch: The Ryman Awards Show Season
September’s the month country and its cousins honor music and music makers that the Media Barons-That-Be don’t consider ripe for prime time—anything more than five minutes old, anything with specialized appeal, artists who don’t universally look like aspiring starlets or teen idols (sorry, Junior Sisk, Richard Thompson, and Billy Sherrill) and anybody at all besides [...]
Continue reading "Roots Watch: The Ryman Awards Show Season"
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Jamey Johnson to Play Ryman; ICM Awards Nominees Announced; New Album Releases
Songwriter Hal David passed away. What’s your favorite song that he wrote or co-wrote? Peter Cooper wrote an article on Marty Stuart, who is celebrating 40 years in the music business, for the Tennessean. An excerpt: Stuart’s chart run as a 1990s country hit-maker was enough to put his name in bold print in the [...]
Continue reading "Jamey Johnson to Play Ryman; ICM Awards Nominees Announced; New Album Releases"
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Willie Nelson Hospitalized; Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Names Four Inductees; New Music Videos
Willie Nelson canceled last night’s show in Denver and was hospitalized after suffering breathing problems due to the altitude and emphysema, KVET reports. He’s apparently doing better and planning to head back to Texas today. Tony Arata, Kim Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Larry Henley will be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame [...]
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Old Albums Are Outselling New Albums; Kellie Pickler is the Newest Maxim Cover Girl; Album Releases
Friends and family remembered Kitty Wells at her funeral. Old albums are outselling new albums for the first time since Nielsen Soundscan started tracking US album sales in ’91. Bobby Braddock, Vince Gill, and the late Roger Miller are among those who will receive special awards this fall at the 6th Annual ACM Honors. Kellie [...]
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Stream AMA Award Nominees Announcement; New Music From Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band; Miranda Lambert in Parade
Jeffrey Brown and WAMU Bluegrass Country’s Katy Daley discussed Doc Watson on last night’s PBS NewsHour. Tim Stafford and Andy Falco shared their memories of Doc. Ken Landreth posted several live recordings of Doc at Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom festival in 1969 and 1971. There’s an interesting article in The Atlantic about the history of headphones. An [...]
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New Johnny Cash Photos; Strait Is Sick; New Mary Chapin Carpenter Album Coming and New Music Videos
To celebrate what would have been his 80th birthday this past weekend, TIME released a bunch of previously unreleased Johnny Cash photographs. David Allan Coe and Hank Williams III are collaborating on a new music project. George Strait had to cancel a concert two songs into a show in Kansas City. Take a listen to [...]
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Steve Martin on Earl Scruggs; Merle Haggard Hospitalized; Taylor Swift Lands Vogue Cover
Steve Martin wrote a fine piece on Earl Scruggs for the New Yorker. An excerpt: The banjo lends itself to showing off: it’s often played fast and thrillingly, fingers flying up and down the neck, the right hand connecting to the left with seemingly impossible accuracy. But Earl always remembered his mother’s advice when he [...]
Current Discussion
- BRUCE: Who the hell is "Pay Price"? Good grief.
- Luckyoldsun: Can't say I personally want to hear anything he's done since before the Watergate break-in--save for that duet album with ...
- Bruce: I can't access it for some reason. But I will tell you this. At 79 years of age, his voice ...
- Janice Brooks: I have the Jim Ed Brown single in rotation.
- Bruce: "People are more interesting than genres". Exactly!
- Jon: Imprecision or ambiguity might gentler terms than sloppiness, but yep, whatever you call it, there's a lot of it in ...
- Jon: "I seriously doubt that the statement “I think X” can reasonably be deemed to imply “I can’t conceive of anything ...
- Barry Mazor: Here's the current Americana chart. There are just a few--Emmylou, Rodney, Mr. Earle, Kris, Bobby Bare--who'd ever been on ...
- Barry Mazor: I think the history of radio formats is a lot sloppier than people like to make out, and here are ...
- Andrew: As the music director of a station that does play those classics right alongside the current top 40, I know ...
