CMA Donates A Lot of Money; Ralph Rinzler’s Role In Bill Monroe’s Legacy; The Farcie Awards
- The Country Music Association donated its largest sum ($1,066,632) to Nashville public schools yet through its “Keep the Music Playing” campaign.
- The Infamous Stringdusters have a new album, Things That Fly, planned for an April release.
- Danny Balis‘ song “Tethered” came in at No. 24 on DC9 At Night’s list of the best songs in Dallas music for 2009. Read Pete Freedman’s thoughts on the song and snag a free download on the Dallas music blog.
- Texas Music Matters posted an exclusive live recording of Lyle Lovett’s song “Natural Forces” from his recent gig at Bass Concert Hall.
- Julianne Hough has been writing a lot with Chuck Wicks for her new Dan Huff-produced album, which she reveals will be more mature and a little more edgy than her debut.
- Listen to Cadillac Sky on Mountain Stage.
- Sounds Country reviewed the new collaborative album from Adam Carroll and Michael O’Connor, Hard Times, due out at the beginning of the year.
Carroll and O’Connor have crafted a complete record about a slice of life where there is little to do but laugh. Managing to realize the effects of an economic recession and combine it with a healthy dose of absurdity, they create a song cycle that entertains from beginning to end and reads like the best Larry Brown novel he never wrote.
- Craig Shelburne posted a list of ten indie albums that survived his year-end purge and earned a spot in the top drawer of his desk.
- For those of you with Josh Grider’s recent album, Sweet Road to Ride, he notes that if you sequence seven of the songs in just the right order, it becomes an unintentional concept album about a guy meeting a girl, falling in love, questioning their love, falling out of love, and finally going a bit mad.
- In the second part of Juli Thanki’s analysis of the partnership between Ralph Rinzler and Bill Monroe for PopMatters, she explains Rinzler’s tactics for resuscitating Monroe’s career and cementing his reputation as the “Father of Bluegrass.”
- Fill out your ballots for the inaugural Farcie Awards, alerting you to the worst the music world has to offer, at Farce the Music.
- Eleven Hundred Springs has two more songs from its upcoming release on MySpace. Look for the title track, “This Crazy Life,” and “Honky Tonk Angels (Don’t Happen…).”
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December 9, 2009 at 11:14 am Permalink
The Balis track is great, as is the whole album…
December 9, 2009 at 11:14 am Permalink
When I see “Dan Huff” and “edgy” in the same sentence, I laugh.
December 9, 2009 at 11:40 am Permalink
A collaboration between Julianne Hough, Chuck Wicks, and Dun Huff being considered edgy makes me laugh.
December 9, 2009 at 12:10 pm Permalink
In all fairness, she didn’t say the new album would be edgy, she said it would be edgier than the last one. With the bar set that low, it shouldn’t be a hard goal to reach.
December 9, 2009 at 12:10 pm Permalink
So Chuck Wicks and Julianne Hough have split up as a couple yet they still write songs together and Chuck’s likely next single was written about Julianne! Talk about gluttons for emotional punishment…
Juli’s article on Bill Monroe and Ralph Rinzler is fascinating. Its just a shame Ralph never got to write that biography on Bill. The description of the early 60’s folk music scene is telling as this scene is where much of the anti-Vietnam War “hippie” movement sprung from. Great stuff.
It was nice to see Craig Shelburne include the Hot Club of Cowtown in his list of favorite recent indie albums. From his other album descriptions I may have to check out Zoe Muth.
December 9, 2009 at 12:17 pm Permalink
For those who may be interested, Amazon has the digital version of Kris Kristofferson’s album on sale for $5:
http://www.amazon.com/Closer-To-The-Bone/dp/B002MCY2TY/ref=xarw?pf_rd_p=502126971&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1000371251&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1JAWJE35VWRPJPAJ0EJC
December 9, 2009 at 12:24 pm Permalink
Rick- Zoe is great, I had a chance to interview her earlier this year and her stuff is outstanding. http://thatnashvillesound.blogspot.com/2009/08/up-coming-new-nashville-zoe-muth-high.html
December 9, 2009 at 2:03 pm Permalink
Read Julie’s article, it is very well done.
Thanks for the Kristofferson heads up, Razor.
December 9, 2009 at 2:55 pm Permalink
I wish I had time right now to discuss Juli’s pieces on Rinzler and Monroe in some detail; parts I agree with, parts I don’t, ranging from relatively trivial items (e.g., though Earl did go to visit Bill before he died, calling them “close friends” is just plain wrong) to some of the conceptual framework. Regardless, they’re well-written and thoughtful, and that counts for a lot.
December 9, 2009 at 3:07 pm Permalink
Oh, and BTW, the new Stringdusters album rocks, if I do say so myself.
December 9, 2009 at 3:15 pm Permalink
The Josh Grider album is fantastic and one of my favorite releases this year. I think I’ve heard him described as a combination of Waylon Jennings and Dave Mathews, which I think is a good description.
December 9, 2009 at 6:30 pm Permalink
Rick’s Random Tidbits: Those folks over at Country Standard Time have got the jump on The 9513! Yes, they posted a link so you can listen to the new Cledus T Judd parody song “She Beat Tiger All To Hell”! Somehow I think Buck would have liked this song…(lol)
Link: http://airplaydirect.com/music/cledustjuddtaleoftigerwoods/
The Top 40 Airhead Country radio station out here in Los Angeles would NEVER play this song! I’m glad smaller market country stations still have a sense of humor and spin ditties like this.
December 11, 2009 at 9:47 am Permalink
Thanks for the Cadillac Sky mention. Great stuff!
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