Under the maxim of “When opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door,” the Ameripolitan Awards were born to promote music with a prominent roots influence often ignored by the rest of the music industry. First held in Austin for a few years before moving to Memphis…
Johnny Rodriguez. Any serious fan of 1970’s country music worth their salt will know the name, the hits, and doesn’t need to be sold on the importance of this man. Six #1 songs, fourteen Top 5’s, twenty Top 10’s, including a run of fifteen Top 10 songs to start his career between 1973 and 1978…
Forget what you should call this music, if it fits in Americana, or if a country website should even be talking about it. The songs themselves are excellent, and truthfully, shoving the music and arrangements to the side for a moment, if you would call the songs of “Workingman’s Bellfuries” anything, you might have to call them country.
Barrence Whitfield is not a name you’re going to see praised to the rafters or land on every end-of-year “best of” list, but his influence and the power of his music is unwavering, and Under The Savage Sky is as good of a place to start discovering his genius as any. The way he’s able to sing with a sincerity to his soul tones, and then rear back into a wild scream is the stuff a totally immersive musical experience is made of.
One of the last remaining bands that still holds onto that spirit that revitalized Lower Broadway and still plays there on a regular basis is Hillbilly Casino. Nearing their 10-year anniversary, the band that can regularly be seen playing Layla’s Bluegrass Inn has released a live album recorded at the Exit Inn called “Live in the USA.” I spoke to the Hillbilly Casino bass player Geoff Firebaugh about the album and Lower Broadway.
Michael Goodman smoothly takes you on a musical time warp to the roiling 50’s to both cut a rug and cry in your beer in a time when music was much better across the board and became immediately timeless. Like walking into Sun Studios circa 1956, he takes you back to a time when the music of American was uncorrupted, the sentiments were sincere, and the promise was unending.
It’s not that JD McPherson does anything different than many other artists have done before him. It’s just that he does it better. Good music will always be relevant, and JD McPherson is living proof of this. A strict revivalist of the 1950’s rock & roll blues, his music has branched out and burrowed into the consciousness of many folks not regularly susceptible to the pull of a straight-laced throwback rock & roll show.
If you want proof that in 2012 genuine old-fashioned rock n’ roll is indeed roots music, look no further than Nick Curran & The Lowlifes and the album Reform School Girl. Unfortunately Nick Curran passed away on Saturday (10-6-12) after a long fight with oral cancer. But what Nick left behind was a revitalization of the true soul of rock & roll.