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JD Souther Named to Songwriters Hall of Fame; Cleotha Staples Passes Away; Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires Wed
Cleotha Staples, one of The Staple Singers, passed away at 78. JD Souther was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame and will be inducted in a ceremony later this year. Steve Dougherty interviewed and profiled Buddy Miller for the Wall Street Journal. Discussing the heart attack he had onstage in 2009, Miller said, “I [...]
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Hayes Carll, SteelDrivers Debut New Music; Big Machine to Release Nashville Soundtrack; Della Mae Plays Pakistan
Ronnie Fauss is among the initial lineup of artists who’ll play SXSW next year. Bob French, Sr., leader of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, passed away on Monday at the age of 74. Listen to “Love Don’t Let Me Down,” a new Hayes Carll song featuring Caitlin Rose. Check out “I’ll Be There” from The SteelDrivers’ [...]
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Bob McDill Earns ASCAP Golden Note Award; First Outer Banks Bluegrass Festival Scheduled for October; Watch the Trailer for Reba’s Malibu Country
Bob McDill will be presented with the ASCAP Golden Note Award (which goes to songwriters, composers, and artists who have “achieved extraordinary career milestones”) this autumn. Chet Flippo talks about the “big tent” of country music: The big tent I saw in my mind’s eye was gorgeous. It was enormous and gleaming white in the bright [...]
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Birthday Bash Giveaway: Friday Five Edition
In the past, we’ve written Friday Fives on a variety of topics ranging from bank robbers to Hawaii to monkeys; there have also been a bunch of macabre Friday Fives about freezing to death, plane crashes, mining deaths, rodeo deaths, and suicide by drowning. Today’s Friday Five, though, is about shirts, because we’ve got three Engine [...]
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Jason Isbell Leads Americana Music Awards Nominations; Buddy Rogers Passes Away; Big Machine Label Group Adds Music Publishing
Jason Isbell leads the Americana Music Awards nominations, with four. Gillian Welch was next, with three nominations. Chet Flippo remembers Doc and Merle Watson: I interviewed Doc with his son Merle (named for Merle Travis) for Rolling Stone a couple of years later, and it turned out to be a delightful time with Doc. He [...]
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Friday Five: Wedding Bell Blues
Love has been in the air recently among the world of country music. Jake Owen recently said “I do.” Carter’s Chord member Becky Robertson just got married last weekend. Lady Antebellum’s Dave Haywood got married just a couple weeks back, Lee Brice got engaged, and LeAnn Rimes renewed her vows on her first anniversary. Depending [...]
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Roots Watch: Reading Marty Robbins, Dwight Yoakam–and James Brown
Pulling off a musical biography well is not easy. Trust me; I’m spending much of my own time these days working on one, (on roots music A&R and publishing pioneer Ralph Peer). From short profile articles to full-length books, there are questions for the writer—focus, depth, audience, and how to go about it. I have [...]
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Roots Watch: Bakersfield, Nashville, and That “East vs. West” Thing
Country fans have long since noticed (and sometimes complained) that the ACM and CMA awards shows feature pretty much the same star acts and hits of the year. That was hardly the case back in the mid-1960s, as pointed out in the Country Hall of Fame and Museum’s major new exhibition, The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, [...]
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Hank Cochran Documentary to Premiere April 25; Golf & Guitars Update; New Music Videos
People Magazine has a free playlist for you to download that includes music from The Band Perry, Scotty McCreery, Chris Young, Eli Young Band, Montgomery Gentry, Love and Theft, Brantley Gilbert, and Hunter Hayes. Taylor Swift is far-off cousins of Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn according to Geni.com. Ellen DeGeneres and [...]
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Julie Roberts Music Video; Kenny Chesney Album in June; New Marty Robbins Book and Mark Collie Has Live Prison Album Coming
Miranda Lambert’s new music video for “Over You” is a stunning visual. Lambert also revealed that she is working on a television series based on her own childhood. Another one of country’s pretty faces released a new music video yesterday as well. Julie Roberts unveiled her new music video for “Whiskey and You” on CMT. Lady Antebellum [...]
Current Discussion
- Jon: "I think that a lot of the people who do watch award shows, though, watch them because they can’t (for ...
- Luckyoldsun: Rick If Taylor Swift is scoring her 60th No. 1 record at age 61 or whatever, I'll... (Oh, I forgot--I'll be ...
- Rick: Opry Alert! Tonight's Opry features Easton Corbin, Lee Greenwood, Craig Morgan, Mandy Barnett, Diamond Rio (who needs pitch correction these ...
- Both Kinds of Music: "I think we wrote close to 60 or 70 songs" and then put Wagon Wheel on there just to show ...
- Luckyoldsun: Amazing One, " “Given credit as the ‘artist” by who? " Um, by the movie studio, by the critics, by the Academy. It's ...
- Jon: Well, that's just gibberish. When Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald sang on the silver screen, they were the artists ...
- Barry Mazor: Thanks for straightening me out LuckyOlSunbody. "Given credit as the 'artist" by who? Take it up with the Screen Actors ...
- Luckyoldsun: Barry: As far as the comparison to movies: The person who's given credit as the "artist" of a movie is the director--not ...
- Jon: I've got to say, I think "Lots More Blues, Rags, and Hollers" was a better record.
- Janice Brooks: As for new releases, I love the new Don Rigsby and Mike Scott. Will also dig up a cut of ...
