Over the last few years, we all haven’t been able to stop harping on all the great country music talent coming out of the greater Appalachian region, from Kentucky, to West Virginia, to the Commonwealth, to south and eastern Ohio. One festival has its finger squarely on the pulse.
It seems these days that life pinballs back and forth from one disaster to another. You almost have to be reminded that on December 10th, a cluster of tornadoes ravaged Western Kentucky and the surrounding areas and states, leaving a large swath of destruction.
The tornadoes that ravaged large swaths of Western Kentucky on December 10th struck at the very heart of country music’s heartland, and what’s become the launching point for the current country music revolution led very much by artists from Kentucky.
Now that the summer has commenced in earnest and the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly behind us, it’s time to hit the road, and hang out with friends, and listen to the country songs from artists that the mainstream won’t mess with, but that define the best that country music has to offer.
True country music has lost a major champion and local legend after it was revealed Friday afternoon (4-30) that Dustin Boyer—the beloved owner of the local honky tonk Duke’s Indy in south Indianapolis, Indiana—has died. A long time traditional country fan…
Apparently not enough hearts have been broken, not enough tears cried, not enough minds sent swooning, and not enough sorrow sown. If you want something done right, you often have to do it yourself, and the Queen of Underground Country is back to show all you whipper snappers how it’s done.
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. By the power vested in me by country music, I am officially declaring the 28th of August, in the Year of Our Ford 2020 as an officially-sanctioned country music holiday, with all the rights and privileges thereof afforded to all self-professed country fans.
The once Saving Country Music Song of the Year winner and former frontman of Kentucky-based Southern rock outfit Fifth on the Floor is readying the release of a new album, and “ambitious” would be one one way to characterize it. Justin Wells prepared “The United State.”
Featuring three days of live performances, local organizers didn’t take their chances booking expensive mainstream names with dodgy talent and tired acts. Instead the festival is doing what many regional festivals all around the country are doing, which is drawing their entertainment from the riches of the Texas and Red Dirt.
The amount of premium festivals with stacked lineups for you to salivate over as the target for your discretionary music budget are starting to get downright overwhelming, and a new festival set to take place August 10th and 11th in Lexington, Kentucky will only add to your dilemma.
Kentucky has always been the fertile crescent of country music. It just happens to be that lately it has kicked its output into overdrive, and more than any other state at the moment, it’s Kentucky’s sons and daughters fueling the country music insurgency turning the mainstream on its head.
The Tumbleweed Festival, which is set to transpire in Sugar Creek, MO, just outside of Kansas City on July 28th and 29th, has just launched the always dicey proposition of an online poll to see what band will fill the festival’s final slot for their 2nd season beside headliners such as Jamey Johnson, Cody Jinks, Whitey Morgan, and Billy Joe Shaver.
Every year, Saving Country Music goes through the exercise of choosing the “best” song in its humble estimation. In 2016, this winner happens to be a song about losing and defeat. A song like this is only made possible from the total collapse and unrelenting broken heart of a musician at the end of their rope.
A song can change a life, and a song can change the world. And if you’re a real music fan, you know this to be true because you’ve felt it, and seen it yourself. We’re not looking for fanciful ditties that get stuck in your head here. There is a time and a place for those, but that’s not here. We’re looking for songs that barrel you over.
It has once again come that time of year for reflecting back on some of the best albums released in the last 12 months or so, not to treat country music as competition per se, but as an exercise undertaken with the intent of expanding your musical knowledge in hopes the gaps that formed due to the busy lives we all live get filled in with joyous little music projects.
Lexington, Kentucky-based Southern rock / sometimes country band Fifth on the Floor is breaking up, according to a missive sent out by the band today (1-6-15). Led by songwriter and lead singer Justin Wells, Fifth on the Floor was seen by many as one of the most promising upstart Southern rock bands of the last decade, releasing three albums over the eight year span of the project.