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Carrie Underwood to Sing Sunday Night Football Theme; Stream New McKenna, Bhiman Albums; Who is the Greatest Living Country Singer?
Carrie Underwood is replacing Faith Hill on Sunday Night Football. Elizabeth Cook and Todd Snider are on the cover of The East Nashvillian. You can download the entire issue here. John Murph of The Atlantic posted a transcript of his interesting conversation with Wulf Muller and Chuck Mitchell about the revamped OKeh Records label. Hellbound [...]
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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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Eddie Stubbs Marks 30 Years in Broadcasting; Richard Thompson, Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell Announce Tour Dates; Stream Carrie Rodriguez’s New Record
George Strait kicks off his The Cowboy Rides Away Tour this Friday in Lubbock. There’s a Holly Williams EP available on NoiseTrade. Iris DeMent, Kelly Hogan, Taylor Swift, and Todd Snider are a few of the acts whose albums were in the Top 50 of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. Jewly Hight [...]
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Stream Rhonda Vincent’s New Album; Kellie Pickler and Luke Bryan to Sing at All-Star Game; Zac Brown Band Gets Animated
Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead) directed the new, animated Zac Brown Band video for their single “The Wind.” Kix Brooks’ New to This Town will be released on September 11. Stream Rhonda Vincent & The Rage’s Sunday Mornin’ Singin’ Live before its release next week. Kye Fleming (“Smoky Mountain Rain,” “I [...]
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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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Doc Watson Hospitalized; Johnny Cash Music Fest Announces Lineup; Ronnie Dunn’s Facebook Posts Trouble His Label
Doc Watson was hospitalized after a fall earlier this week. After taking a turn for the worse, he was airlifted to a Winston-Salem hospital and underwent surgery to clear an impacted colon. According to Bluegrass Today’s sources, the surgery was a success, and Watson’s entire colon was removed. Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, Dierks Bentley, and [...]
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New Albums From Jerry Douglas, The Bankesters & Jimbo Mathus Due This Summer; Nora Jane Struthers Launches Kickstarter; Free American Songwriter Country Compilation
Marty Stuart was featured in The Wall Street Journal. An excerpt: “When I was playing the chart game, I was embarrassed to play my albums for my rock friends,” he said, mentioning Tom Petty and Jack White. “When people think of country music, they want a feeling of authenticity. Now you have to homogenize.” He [...]
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Mark Collie Unveils Brushy Mountain Prison Project; Stream Sara Watkins’ Sun Midnight Sun; New Music Videos
Stream Sara Watkins’ new album, Sun Midnight Sun, before its May 8 release date. Peter Cooper wrote about Mark Collie’s “prison project,” Alive at Brushy Mountain, which is finally getting released after ten years. Carrie Underwood was on NPR’s All Things Considered. Underwood is also the subject of a lengthy Tennessean feature penned by Cindy [...]
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George Jones Postpones Performances Through 5/20; Bonnie Raitt to Receive AMA Lifetime Achievement Award; The Business of Johnny Cash
This September, Bonnie Raitt will receive the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance. George Jones has postponed all performances through May 20 as he continues to recuperate from an upper respiratory infection. More info about Nashville, the Music City “family soap” starring Connie Britton: she will play “a 40-year-old Nashville superstar named Rayna who [...]
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Stream Mercyland Compilation; Lionel Richie’s Tuskegee Tops Billboard’s Hot 100; Driving Virginia’s Crooked Road Music Heritage Trail
Dick Clark passed away yesterday. Clark had several ties to country music, including the country show he hosted in the early ‘50s, Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders. Stream Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us, a fantastic compilation featuring Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and more. For all the roadtrippers [...]
Current Discussion
- Arlene: Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison's current terrific album, Cheater's Game, was financed via Kickstarter. If they are still unsigned, they'd ...
- KC: My picks seem to be doing ok without a label, but I would sign them even if it was just ...
- SCOOTER: Sturgill Simpson - fantastic artist Ashton Shepherd - I know she was recently dropped and a lot of people complain ...
- Daniel Mullins: Lee Ann Womack is a must. I would also sign Wyatt McCubbin. He was featured on The Music Inside: A Tribute ...
- Ken Morton, Jr.: BTW- Julie's been in the recording studio all this past week and will be unveiling something new soon.
- Ken Morton, Jr.: Jonathan, I actually had this exact conversation with Julie Roberts a couple weeks ago. She came out with Emily West, ...
- Jack Williams: The first name that came to my mind was electic bluesman Alvin Youngblood Hart. He hasn't released a proper ...
- bob: There was a survey by cmt.com dated 3/31/10 which showed more than 175 country act signed to major labels. I ...
- Jonathan Pappalardo: I would sign: 1) Trisha Yearwood - I don't believe she's affiliated with Big Machine Records anymore and a new CD ...
- Juli Thanki: Oh, good thinking with Hellbound Glory, Mike. Their music matured so much between Old Highs & New Lows and Damaged ...
