Engine 145 - A Roots Music Publication

Songwriters: Gretchen Wilson and Vicky McGehee If you’re looking for a reason to start caring about Gretchen Wilson’s music again, new single “Still Rollin’” ain’t it. The redneck woman who made white trash cool again–just to watch Jason Aldean and Miranda Lambert usurp her territory–turns to classic rock for inspiration here, drawing out the titular [...]

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A memorial service for Jack Greene will be held March 27 at the Ryman. Vince Gill, Lorrie Morgan, Gene Watson, Mandy Barnett, The Whites, Ricky Skaggs, Penn Pennington, Joe Rucker and members of the Opry band are expected to perform, while Dallas Frazier, Jeannie Seely, Keith Bilbrey, Charlie Ammerman, and Roxanne Atwood are expected to [...]

Continue reading "Gill, Skaggs to Perform at Jack Greene Memorial; New Jason Isbell Album Due in June; Mississippi Country Music Trail Will Honor Johnny Russell"

The Eagles’ Don Henley will release a new solo album called Cass County in May. Henley said the album “leans towards country. Some of it’s traditional country, some of it is what you might call alt-country, and I’ve got a lot of interesting guest vocalists and musicians on there with me. I made a lot [...]

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Making year-end lists of best books is an exercise at once exciting and frustrating. Listing the best books of the year helps recall fondly those great books that revealed new information about an artist or his or her music or drives you to pick a again a book that you didn’t want to end the [...]

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If you were sleeping off a pie binge or waiting in line for the chance to buy a discounted flatscreen, you might have missed the release of Omnivore Recordings’ Black Friday country records, available at independent record stores. The four 10″ EPs, featuring “rarities” recorded by Merle Haggard, Wanda Jackson, George Jones, and Buck Owens, preview [...]

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Rosie Flores kicks out the jams on the opening lick of her energetic new album and never lets up until last note of the final track. One of the hardest working guitarists in roots music, Flores cranks up her Fender, her fingers nimbly flying over and around blues bars, country chords, and rock riffs. She delivers [...]

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In the biting album track “The Long Run,” the title track, but never single from the Eagles’ follow-up to Hotel California, Don Henley practically spits out the rejoinder, “Did you do it for love? Did you do for money? Did you do it for fame? Think you had to, honey?” with all the churlish invective you’d expect [...]

Continue reading "Idol Hands: The Trouble with Keith Urban, Fame & Talent Shows"

Late one September afternoon in 1955, a silver Porsche 550 was driving along the gentle rolling hills outside the small farming community of Cholame in San Luis Obispo County, California. Inside that little car was one of the leading film stars of his time, James Dean, with his racing friend and mechanic Rolf Wütherich. As [...]

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Here’s 20 of country music’s best hotel and motel songs. Apologies for excluding Neal McCoy’s “Hillbilly Rap.” Honorable Mentions: Cadillac Sky – “Motel Morning” David Houston – “No Tell Motel” Eagles – “Hotel California” Gene Watson – “Love in the Hot Afternoon” Guy Clark – “Lone Star Hotel” Jack Ingram & Jerry Jeff Walker – [...]

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A lifetime spent listening to music has taught me a lot about Saturday night. It is, for example, all right for fighting or going to the movies, not to mention a good night to simultaneously keep dancing to the rock and roll and work on one’s spelling, and those are just the pop songs. Nobody [...]

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