REAL Country & Muddy Blues – Brothers in Arms

Today (9-23) will be the first first official installment of Reverend Nix’s “Mojo Medicine Show” on SCM Live. The medicine show is a podcast featuring homemade music for homegrown folks, with the best in cigar box guitar, deep roots, muddy roots, slippery roots, and boiled and sauteed roots music. And on the show LIVE this week will be 17-year-old blues guitar phenom BluesBeaten Redshaw. So if you find your self with a free minute sometime between 4 & 6 PM Eastern, today or any Friday, stick your head in and give a listen, hang out in the chat room, have a good time.

Speaking of roots music, I thought I would take a moment to set some things in stone. The name of this website is Saving Country Music, but that doesn’t mean country music is all we cover, or fight for. Since the beginning I’ve talked about many artists who might be considered more blues than country, especially in the one man band movement and other artists that centered around the now deceased Deep Blues Festival.

These artists a lot of times fit right beside the REAL country artists, tour with them, share the same labels, play the same festivals. Probably the best known is Scott H Biram, but recently I’ve reviewed albums from Reverend Deadeye and Hillgrass Bluebilly’s Possessed by Paul James. I know some of the more countrified folks may not get into this kind of music, and some of the folks that come for the bluesy stuff may not like the country artists. But that’s fine, it s all one big family.

The diversity in this insurgent roots movement gives us strength. If you ask me, Scott Biram, Hillstomp, or Larry & His Flask are much more country than most of the stuff you can hear on the radio that flies that flag. Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers were both country bluesman, and I see that same spirit, and musical open-mindedness here. I also see the collective artists in the deep blues/muddy roots movement being ignored by the mainstream just as much as the REAL country acts, so don’t mind trying to help shine a light on this talent.

So I say lets all of us dirty, degenerate, destitute country/bluesy/post-punk roots-types put our collective lost souls together and see what kind of trouble we can create for corporate music. We may not know what to call ourselves, but we know that its our calling to keep the soul and spirit of roots music alive, and that makes us brothers in arms.

Can I get an amen?

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