Carrie Underwood To Host SNL, Kristofferson Earns Johnny Cash Award, And More On Willie’s Label

Everybody welcome Matt C. to the staff here at The 9513. Brady, Jenna, and I reside in Austin and generally cover more of the Texas scene, since that’s what we’re exposed to, while Matt joins us as our voice in Nashville. His first article was published on Saturday in which he recommended The Time Jumpers, a local Nashville act that I have never heard of. By bringing Matt on board we hope to get more of a balanced perspective of the country music scene as well as providing a fresh voice to the blog.

• On March 24 Carrie Underwood will become only the fifth country artist to appear on Saturday Night Live in the past twenty years. The show will be hosted by quarterback of the Colts, Peyton Manning.
• Kris Kristofferson will be presented with Country Music Television’s Johnny Cash Visionary Award. Previous recipients of the award are Hank Williams, Jr., Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, the Dixie Chicks, and Johnny Cash.
  

  ‘I love Kris fiercely, not just because he and my father are cut from the same spiritual cloth, and because he is the living artistic link to my dad, but because he is my ideal as a songwriter and a human being,’ Rosanne Cash said in an e-mailed response.

  ‘He and my dad were closer than brothers. They loved each other early, and it is so fitting that he receive this award named after Dad,’ she said.

• Whitney Pastorek at Popwatch went to a Rascal Flatts concert…
  

  Um… did you like it? I really, really did not. Now, I like some of their songs okay, and “What Hurts the Most” a lot — I figure they’re basically the Nickelback of country music, right? — but what I watched this weekend was inexcusable, friends. As I try to explain that here, I hope those of you who just raised your hands will keep open hearts and minds and then use the comment section to try and educate me in your ways. Because I’ve never seen a worse show in my entire life.

  It’s definitely an amusing article worth checking out for a chuckle or two. via Country Universe

• Glen Campbell gave a personal performance with songwriter Jimmy Webb at Pepperdine University this past Saturday.
  

  The combination of Webb’s elegant material and Campbell’s flexible tenor made for one of the most successful pairings of songwriter and artist in country music’s history. Webb’s name appeared in the parentheses beneath the title on five of Campbell’s hits, three of them — “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” — achieving enough commercial and critical respect that they were ranked among the 500 greatest country singles of all-time in the Country Music Foundation book Heartaches by the Number. Campbell was also the first to record the Webb-penned “Highwayman,” a song that eventually made its mark in a 1985 reincarnation by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson.

  At the end CMT compiles a list of other artists who paired with a specific songwriter to come up with at least five hits.

• Billboard has some more information on Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Records that will be officially announced this coming Friday at SXSW. As the details emerge it’s becoming a little more exciting. Willie says he has twenty-five years of material laying around and the first act signed is 40 Points, a quartet that consists of his two sons, Lukas and Micah. One of his partners, James Stroud, left his job at Universal a couple of months ago.
• Speaking of Willie, Jan Burak Schwert details her encounter with the legend.