Jon Hager of Hee-Haw’s The Hager Twins Found Dead
- Jon Hager, who performed as one-half of The Hager Twins with his brother Jim in the original cast of Hee-Haw, passed away last week at the age of 67. Sam Lovullo, a producer of Hee-Haw and friend of the Hagers, said Jon had been in poor health and was depressed since Jim had died in May 2008.
- The judge handling the paternity case involving Eddy Arnold ruled that his court had no authority to order the exhumation of Arnold’s body.
- Ben Ratliff reviewed the “pairing” of Steve Earle and Allison Moorer at City Winery, a new restaurant and nightclub in New York, on Thursday night.
…until Mr. Earle got to a New York song, “Down Here Below” — starting with an image of the red-tailed hawk Pale Male smugly looking down over Fifth Avenue — his stories about Kentucky, or Tennessee, or Copperhead Road, or Taneytown, or Guitar Town, felt very, very far away.
- Sunny Sweeney expresses her affection for mullets in her newest MySpace blog and is offering a prize pack to the person who submits the best mullet picture.
Keith Urban’s new album, to be released March 31, will be titled Born to Love.Apparently that was just a rumor and the article was removed.- I might have posted this before, but Still Is Still Moving reminded me of this killer version of “Lost Highway” from Kurt Nilsen and Willie Nelson.
- The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will open an exhibit on Jan. 24 spotlighting John Hartford, who Mick Buck, the museum’s curator of collections, describes as “the Mark Twain of traditional music.” Hartford got his big break in 1967 when Glen Campbell’s recording of his song “Gentle On My Mind” became a Grammy-winning pop and country hit
- Watch the video for Jackson Taylor’s “Honky Tonk Heroes” complete with an appearance from the Honky Tonk Hero, Billy Joe Shaver. Taylor’s new album is expected to be released in March.
- Steve Martin’s album, The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, will be available exclusively on Amazon, for the first 90 days, starting January 27.
- Watch the trailer for Noble Things, an independent film about a guy who returns home to face the demons he left behind and features Lee Ann Womack as a police deputy and Tracy Byrd in some capacity. According to IMDB, you’ll have to wait until December for it to come out.
- The defamation lawsuit filed against Natalie Maines has been moved to a federal court.
- After decades of obscurity, Juli Thanki proclaims Ernest V. Stoneman unsung no longer with the release of of the two-disc set The Unsung Father of Country Music.
- Bruce Robison recently released a digital album of his biggest songs, titled His Greatest, and he answered questions about the project in an interview with Eamon McLoughlin for CMT.
Did you ever feel like you had to move to Nashville, or were you always comfortable in Texas?
That has been the confusing part, but I did learn that treating it as an outsider was really my only option. It wasn’t that I had so much integrity that I would never write a certain type of song just to get it recorded. It was more that I tried to do that and wasn’t any good at it! I’ve always had a lot of respect for friends of mine in Nashville who can write a certain type of song. It just isn’t the way that I do it. Those of us who have been country music fans for years see those carpetbaggers come in and say, “Hey, I’m just gonna come over here from rock ‘n’ roll and clean out!” It doesn’t work that way. It’s a really condescending attitude. I’ve had to just write the kind of songs that I write. Some of them are pretty sad, and some are a bit of an anachronism, but I look at it as my calling card. - Teen magazine Seventeen published downloads and brief Q&As with Miranda Lambert, Jennifer Nettles and Julianne Hough. (via Country Music Is Love)
- Jerry Jeff Walker visited KUT last week and recorded “Down In Belize,” a song inspired by his permanent vacation villa down in the Caribbean. Listen and download on Texas Music Matters.
- Your daily reminder to vote for The 9513 in the 2008 Weblog Awards comes courtesy of Country Universe, Melodic Sunburst, My Kind of Country and Country Music Central. Thanks a million, guys, and be sure to get your votes in by 5 PM EST tomorrow. (Vote Here)
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In each and every instance, the best country albums of the past ten years were built on the backs of songs -- stories about you and me from birth to death and stories that paint landscapes rooted in every region of America and beyond. These are the top country albums of the decade.Tagged In This Article
Allison Moorer // Billy Joe Shaver // Bruce Robison // Country Music Hall of Fame // Eddy Arnold // Ernest V. Stoneman // Glen Campbell // Jackson Taylor // Jennifer Nettles // Jerry Jeff Walker // John Hartford // Jon Hager // Julianne Hough // Keith Urban // Kurt Nilsen // Lee Ann Womack // Miranda Lambert // Natalie Maines // Steve Earle // Steve Martin // Sunny Sweeney // The Hager Twins // Tracy Byrd // Willie Nelson
Current Discussion
- Ben Foster: "Why Don't We Just Dance" is one of the most genuinely country songs I've heard in quite some time, and ...
- Ben Foster: I definitely think that "Fifteen" was one of Taylor's better songs. It's not too pop-heavy, and it tells a story ...
- Ben Foster: I actually liked "Cowboy Casanova." I thought it sounded sharply different from anything else Underwood had ever recorded. ...
- Steve M.: "Or maybe he’s consistent, and you’re just the most schizophrenic country fan." Getting snarky are we? Not enough bran in the ...
- Noeller: Not to be overly mean, but the worst part of every Colt Ford song is Colt Ford.
- t.scott: seems as good a reason as any
- Nicolas: I haven't heard this song yet, but that bridge is so god-awful that I'm afraid to listen to it now ...
- Jim Malec: OK, so let me get this right: He's only a rapper because he wasn't strong enough a singer to be ...
- Matt B.: Albums are released for fans and nowadays they hope to sell Gold but really are just vessels for people to ...
- Jon: Toby Keith is the most schizophrenic country artist... Or maybe he's consistent, and you're just the most schizophrenic country fan.
12 Comments
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January 12, 2009 at 12:36 pm Permalink
A free download from Miranda Lambert from Seventeen? OMG TMTH LOL! :-) !!!
January 12, 2009 at 1:05 pm Permalink
It seems as though you need to buy (or sneakily flip through) a hard copy of Seventeen in order to get the code to unlock those downloads. I don’t want people to get all excited about a free Julianne Hough download (coughcough) and then have their hopes shattered.
January 12, 2009 at 1:13 pm Permalink
Sam: Sylvia Plath once worked with and wrote for Seventeen.
January 12, 2009 at 2:08 pm Permalink
The Maranda Lambert code is “peppermint”, and I didn’t have to sign up for anything to get it.
Stormy: Not being in the demographic, I’m not a huge Seventeen reader. But would Sylvia Plath have uncovered the fact that Jennifer Nettles likes chunky jewelry on stage and Miranda Lambert rocks out to Rhianna? I think not.
January 12, 2009 at 5:10 pm Permalink
Speaking of Steve Earle, on Saturday Night I heard LA’s eclectic electro-acoustic practitioner David Lindley perform a solo acoustic version of “Copperhead Road” while playing a Turkish “Saz” (the grandfather of the Greek Bouzouki). This was soon followed by his original composition “Meth Lab Boyfriend” based on a true story of a musician friend of his who spent too much time on the road and came home to find his wife had a new boyfriend with a meth lab in the garage. Trippy stuff……
Its nice to see Pop Stoneman getting some recognition these days. Better late than never!
Stoneman Family Alert: On February 21 the remaining Stoneman daughters will be back hosting the E.T. Record Shop Midnite Jamboree as part of a “CD Release Celebration”. Roni Stoneman is a loose cannon cut-up who is not to be missed.
The author of the new unauthorized Keith Urban biography Jeff Apter is interviewed by John Nutting on this week’s archived addition of Saturday Night Country. This will only be available through Friday as the archive is updated each Saturday with a new program:
WMP Link: http://www.abc.net.au/snc/stories/snc_mod_10.asx
Note: The Keith Urban section begins at the 7:00 minute mark when Johnno plays one of Keith’s first Aussie singles he got to record for winning the Toyota Starmaker talent Quest.
January 13, 2009 at 8:06 am Permalink
Yeah I’m not sure what’s worse, linking to myspace or linking to Seventeen magazine. Maybe we should research the average age of 9513 readers and see that we’re all too old for both! :P
January 13, 2009 at 8:35 am Permalink
Nobody has anything to say about a certain someone performing on SNL this weekend?
January 13, 2009 at 8:47 am Permalink
Marc, Myspace is a great way to discover new music, no matter what age one is.
January 13, 2009 at 9:46 am Permalink
Why do you think Sylvia Plath killed herself?
January 13, 2009 at 10:59 am Permalink
Stormy, Plath worked for Mademoiselle, not Seventeen.
January 13, 2009 at 11:45 am Permalink
I’m just saying 17 isn’t the pit of suck that, say, Cosmo Girl is.
Mike K.: Ashley Simpson already set that bar so low it no longer matters.
January 13, 2009 at 2:02 pm Permalink
Yeah, but Mademoiselle was downright highbrow. Well, not highborow, but high tone/upscale, at least in its aspirations. I’m not sure that there’s anything like a current equivalent. Not that it takes away from your point.
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