Engine 145 - A Roots Music Publication

“Give It All We Got Tonight” is George Strait’s 86th Top 10. Eddy Arnold’s the only one who’s got him beat, with 92 Top 10s. All Things Considered aired an excellent piece on the inspiration behind Lee Brice’s chart-topping single, “I Drive Your Truck.” Two years ago on Memorial Day, Nashville songwriter Connie Harrington was driving [...]

Continue reading "George Strait Nets 86th Top 10 Song; Wide Open Bluegrass Lineup Announced; New Trampled By Turtles Video"

We heard so many different influences on Rachel Brooke’s newest album, A Killer’s Dream, that, during our interview with the singer-songwriter, we couldn’t help but ask her to make a mini-playlist of the music she listened to the most while writing and recording the album. 5. Howlin’ Wolf, “Back Door Man” “Going into recording A Killer’s [...]

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I’ve been traveling through the intersection of Roots and Pop for, well, a long time now, but the artists who speed right through the yellow and red lights have never stopped grabbing my attention.  Are they doing that on purpose? By accident? Unaware there’s an intersection–even if it’s a backed-up, jammed up intersection? Or maybe [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: Pop Artists Driving Close to Country"

Ray Price’s cancer remains in remission. Out May 14: Plowboy Records’ You Don’t Know Me: Rediscovering Eddy Arnold. The tribute record features performances by Chuck Mead, Alejandro Escovedo, Pokey LaFarge, Mandy Barnett, Chris Scruggs, Mary Gauthier, and more.   Randy Travis and Joe Nichols performed at the memorial service for Chris Kyle, the former Navy [...]

Continue reading "Randy Travis, Joe Nichols Perform at Chris Kyle’s Memorial; CMT Edge Premieres New Wayne Hancock Song; Album Releases"

Buck Owens – Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics Thanks in part to his weekly appearances on Hee Haw, Buck Owens was one of the most visible country musicians of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He’d already well established himself by the mid-1960s, and he and The Buckaroos helped to develop the “California sound”—dominated [...]

Continue reading "Album Reviews: Buck Owens — Honky Tonk Man; Don Rich — Sings George Jones"

George Jones’ final album will be filled with Dolly Parton-penned tunes. In an interview with Billboard magazine, he says, “I love Dolly, always have and I am so honored to be doing a project with her…She is writing most of the songs and we all know what a great songwriter she is. I am just [...]

Continue reading "Kristofferson Presents Willie Nelson with NSAI Award; Emmylou Harris Featured in Southern Living; New Music Videos"

The power of music (and the secondary power of repeatedly talking and teaching a particular narrative about it), are such that for many, the Dust Bowl, some eighty years later, survives in memory mainly or solely as “the horrible experience Woody Guthrie sang about.” (For others, it’s what they saw or read in The Grapes [...]

Continue reading "Roots Watch: There’s More “Dust Bowl Music” Than Woody’s"

The Carter Family is essential to understanding the roots of country music, not just its foundation in Appalachian balladry but also its great emphasis on the modest pleasure of faith, family, and home. Not quite as mythic as the lives of Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, or blackface minstrel Emmett Miller, the story of A.P., Sara, [...]

Continue reading "Don’t Forget This Song: Frank Young, David Lasky, and the Story of the Carter Family"

Doc Watson passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Here are obituaries from the New York Times, NPR, CMT, and Washington Post. Last week’s Golf & Guitars raised nearly $100,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Morton Golf Foundation, which brings the game to underprivileged and disabled communities in the Sacramento region. [...]

Continue reading "Doc Watson Passes Away; Randy Travis Files Countersuit Against Ex-Wife’s Management Company; New Joey + Rory Album Out 7/31"

Back when I was researching and writing my book Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, at least one friend misheard what I was doing and thought I was dedicating years of work to Kenny Rogers. There were a lot of polite, puzzled “Is that so’s” and ‘How ’bout that’s.”  These two artists strike so many people as so very different that they [...]

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