On Miranda Lambert Leaving Sony Nashville After 20 Years
59 CommentsSimilar to Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert has been one of those mainstream artist that delineates herself from most mainstream contributors by following her heart, sometimes to the detriment of her commercial appeal or success, while then sliding right back into the good graces of the industry.
Axl Rose Blowup Shows Importance of Hall of Fame Purity
15 CommentsIn the end, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame isn’t illegitimate because of who has been inducted into their institution, it’s illegitimate because it is an institution, formed around a genre of music whose roots are in rebelling against institutions. Conversely, where the Rock & Roll HOF found its fundamental weakness is where the Country Music HOF finds its strength.
Album Review – Lone Wolf OMB “A Walk in My Pause”
12 CommentsKaty bar the door and baton down the hatches folks because Lone Wolf, the Italian, trilingual, pizza spinning, gator wrestling, globe trotting, banjo plucking, banjo building, wild-assed Floridian from up North via Costa Rica has a new album headed your way. Warn the neighbors downstairs, cause it’s about to get loud and feet will be stomping!
TNN – The Nashville Network to Return – Updated
74 CommentsThe fight to preserve classic country and present it to a new generation of fans may just have become a lot easier. After 12 years off the air, the original TNN, “The Nashville Network” has just announced it is coming back this summer, and is committed to “true country music.” TNN ran for 17 years from 1983 to 2000 until Viacom morphed it into Spike, leaving many traditional and classic country fans underserved.
Record Store Day 2012 Country Music Field Guide
9 CommentsThis Saturday, April 21st with be the 2012 installment of Record Store Day, the annual event started in 2007 to help the struggling independent record store. 2012 will go down as the year when country came busting through the Record Store Day scene with full representation, with so many projects being released taking stock of it all can be dizzying. So here is your 2012 Country Music Record Store Day Field Guide.
Joey Allcorn: No Consent on Hank3’s “Long Gone Daddy”
50 CommentsToday is the released date of Long Gone Daddy, an album Curb Records is releasing that contains outtakes from early in Hank Williams III’s career when he was under contract with the label. Most of the material on the album has been released previously. according to a press release released today by Allcorn, he had no more consent from Curb to release his song “This Ain’t Montgomery” than Hank3 did.
Progress vs. Traditionalism in Country Music
41 CommentsThe war vs. pop influences and progress in country music, and the purity yearned for by the traditional elements of the genre is almost as old as the genre itself. In an attempt to power through the rhetoric, here is a cool-headed attempt to explain some of the differences between the traditional and mainstream mindsets.
Album Review – Trampled by Turtles “Stars & Satellites”
16 CommentsTrampled by Turtles have flat out blown up on our asses, debuting videos on CMT and selling out theater shows, while still being true to their original approach. That’s what happens when you have good guys putting out great songs and great albums and developing a sound that is familiar enough that it’s easy to get comfortable and acquainted with.
Billy Joe Shaver to Release “Live at Billy Bob’s Texas”
10 CommentsCountry music songwriting legend and original Outlaw Billy Joe Shaver will be releasing a loaded 20-song CD package with companion DVD called Live at Billy Bob’s Texas on July 17th, recorded in the “World’s Largest Honky Tonk”. This will be Shaver’s first album in five years. Billy Joe Shaver will be the 42nd artist to release a “Live at Billy Bob’s” album.
Axl Rose Declines Grand Ole Opry Induction
18 CommentsThe day after Vince Gill surprised Keith Urban with an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry at his “All For The Hall” benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame, apparently Vince handed out another surprise invitation, this one to none other than the frontman and sole remaining founding member of Guns & Roses, Axl Rose.
Aaron Lewis of Staind’s “Endless Summer”
34 CommentsIsn’t Arron Lewis bored yet and ready to return to butt rock? Apparently not, as he told The Tennessean late last week he’s planning to release a “very country” album in June. What does “very country” mean? If his previous song “Country Boy” is any indication, it will be songs with laundry list country lyrics, and that’s exactly what you get with his new single “Endless Summer”.
Album Review – McDougall – A Few Towns More
3 CommentsScott McDougall from Portland, OR might be the last of the true Romantic-era troubadours: a bardic-like, almost fantasy character that arrives in town with a bass drum on his back and guitar in hand, and sets up at the local pub to sing songs, spin tales, slay lonesome moments, and save the spiritually repressed before whisking out of town like something out of a dream.
Let’s Remember Willie Nelson for More Than Marijuana
22 CommentsToday it was announced that a new statue of Willie Nelson will be erected in Austin, TX, commemorating the country music legend whose career now spans over 50 years. The statue will also officially be unveiled at 4:20 PM “as a nod to the country star’s reputation as a stoner.” Some may want to commemorate Willie Nelson’s “reputation as a stoner”, but I choose to remember him as so much more.