Engine 145 - A Roots Music Publication

This is the last Friday Five before Thanksgiving (well, not for you Canadians; you’ll just have to consider this list as very late or very early), so let’s talk about one of the day’s most important elements: food, more specifically potatoes. Enjoy a few songs about the carbolicious miracle tubers, and have a wonderful holiday. [...]

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Today is Neil Young’s 65th birthday. Numerous country artists have covered songs penned by Neil Young (make your own joke about Southern men not needing him around, anyhow); here are some of my favorites. 5. “Birds” – Holly Williams Williams covered this track from After the Gold Rush for last year’s Here with Me. Accompanied [...]

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5. “Daddy, Come and Get Me” – Dolly Parton This song was a Top 40 hit for Parton in 1970. She sings from the point of view of a woman “crazy with jealousy” who’s been wrongfully institutionalized by the guy she loves…because he wants to see someone else. You know what else is crazy? Dolly’s [...]

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Dwight Yoakam will celebrate his 54th birthday on Saturday. You could celebrate by squeezing into the tightest jeans in your closet, watching some of the movies in which he’s appeared, or chowing down on some frozen foods from Bakersfield Biscuits (not advised if you actually want to fit into those jeans). Me, I’m going to [...]

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If you’ve never had the pleasure of living in tornado country, huddle in your cellar for a while and listen to a few songs that have been written about it. 5. “Tornado Ripe” – Ray Wylie Hubbard This gritty dirge is from Hubbard’s most recent album, A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is No C). [...]

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Whether it’s George Jones hawking his own brand of country sausage, Martha White’s longtime sponsorship of bluegrass acts, or Darius Rucker singing about the Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch, country singers and food endorsements go together like biscuits and gravy. Here are a few old school commercials that I hope you get a kick out of, [...]

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While there are several good country and folk songs about sinking ships including Johnny Horton’s “Sink the Bismarck” and Woody Guthrie’s song about the USS Reuben James (torpedoed in October ’41), today we’ll be concentrating on ships that weren’t attacked. It’s slightly cheerier. 5. “The Lighthouse’s Tale” – Nickle Creek This one’s from the trio’s [...]

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Ken’s list of Jenny songs last week got me thinking I need to pay tribute to the one I come home to every night. While Ken’s lovely wife Jennifer is his high school sweetheart, my best girl is, well, a bitch. She’s my dog, Daisy. While the gals named Daisy in the songs below seem [...]

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Whatever job you have, chances are you suffer from the occasional bad day. Seamen, working girls, bartenders…it seems just about every occupation has a song about the blues that come along with the job (you can find those blues, by the way, recorded by Ernest Tubb, Hazel Dickens, and George Jones. But you probably already [...]

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Here’s a little dose of Beatlemania. Today’s Friday Five is three times larger than normal, but several covers still got left off, including Steve Earle’s “I’m Looking Through You” and the David Grisman Quintet’s version of “Because.” What’s your favorite Beatles cover? 15. “Paperback Writer” – Floyd Cramer Back in the day, Cramer used to [...]

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