Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood Team Up for 2008 Tour
- Various songwriters (Kathy Mattea, Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters and more) talk to the Tennessean about what The Bluebird Cafe has meant to them and special memories they share with the venue.
- Last week I wrote about the new music video from Eric Church dealing with the death penalty. Whitney Self posted the video on the CMT Blog and was left underwhelmed from deficient character development. She attended the debut of the video earlier in the week and says that others also looked confused from the surprising lack of thunder in “Lightning”.
- Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood will be hitting the road together in 2008 for the “Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Carnival Ride Tour.”
- Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, Dixie Chicks, and Faith Hill are just a few artists who have recorded Darrell Scott penned songs, but even with that success the singer-songwriter admits that there are no guarantees that anyone will record his songs again. He reflects on his song “Goodle, USA” — which wound up on a Faith Hill’s Fireflies album as “We’ve Got Nothing But Love to Prove” — and comments that his bigger hits were all written for him first.
- The parent company to BlueHighways TV — a television network interested in exploring and re-freshening the folklore, music, traditions, destinations, festivals and artistry of America — announced it has completed the purchase of the Americana Television Network assets. This gives them a number of original roots music entertainment series that’ll be able to make available.
- The Keith Urban camp will have one more member on the tour with them in the future. Nicole Kidman says she’ll join her husband after she finishes shooting “Australia.”
- Most country fans have heard at least once that Patsy Cline hated the Willie Nelson authored song “Crazy” before recording it, but Still Is Still Moving has the full version of the story.
- Guy Clark participated in a fantastic video interview with Gearwire, which they’ve split into eight different segments (that I have found so far). You’ll have to browse the archives to find each one, but Clark talking about his songwriting process is one of my favorites.
- An interview with Gary Allan in American Songwriter enticed me to pick up a copy over the weekend. Obviously he talks a lot about his songwriting, but I also learned a lot about Allan I hadn’t known before. Here’s an excerpt:
What’s the state of the country song? Are you interested in anything you hear on the radio?
I can’t listen to the radio much. I haven’t listened to the radio for a long time. I don’t even know if we have a genre anymore. I think that’s the biggest thing I got from touring with Rascal Flatts. There’s not even really a country genre. You’ve got just as much pop as country. I was baffled on that Flatts tour…going, “I just don’t get it.”He talks about the music business robbing him of his songwriting for a while and sitting around smoking pot. He mentions that if it weren’t for the record label his album Tough All Over would have been brutal. Apparently the whole interview, by Peter Cooper, is available online, too.
- Garth Brooks’ “More Than A Memory” finally made its way to YouTube.
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November 12, 2007 at 10:42 am Permalink
I’m a little confused. Is Gary Allan dissing Rascal Flatts? That’s fine by me, I just can’t tell what it is that he doesnt get? Does he not “get” the popularity of such poppy acts? does he not “get” that the country genre now has dozens of sub-genre’s? I love Gary Allan (and do not love many of the more pop acts), but maybe he is still smoking some of that wacky stuff…
November 12, 2007 at 11:01 am Permalink
From the context of the question I’m assuming that he doesn’t get how Rascal Flatts — or much of what’s played on country radio — is considered country music.
November 12, 2007 at 11:12 am Permalink
I wish it were true about Nicole Kidman joining Keith on the road after Australia is finished, but it’s not. After she finishes up that film, she has promotional duties in London, and probably elsewhere, for Golden Compass and then in January she begins at least a 6 week shoot in Berlin Germany for yet another movie. Hopefully after that, she will find time in her schedule to join her guy on the road, especially after all the traveling he’s been doing for her this year.
November 12, 2007 at 12:10 pm Permalink
Thanks Brody, I was leaning in that direction as well, and I tend to agree with him. It is an interesting take from someone who made quite the dollar, i imagine, from touring with a band he (or myself, for that matter) “doesn’t get”.
November 12, 2007 at 1:22 pm Permalink
I like Gary Allen, in fact of all the Nashville guys, he’s the only one whose catalogue I think actually has some worthwile music in it.
But him talking about how watered down the country genre is kind of lame isn’t it? He’s out there doing his part to feed the beast, and though I liked “best I ever had” it’s not really a country song, and the song about the tough little boys is totally something that Rascall Flatts could do.
I read a quote from Allen before that was something to the effect of “all radio got split into demographics and someone decided that country music was the demographic for soccer moms, but Willie and Waylon didn’t give a damn about soccer moms” – well which demographic was “tough little boys” for?
I think its great that Allen holds the opinion he does about the state of country music, I just wish he’d do more about it. It’s not like he has to play arenas and have super hit records. At this point he actually has the visibility and fanbase (not too mention the money) to make whatever kind of country record that he’d like and tour with whoever he’d like to tour with and still make a good living. In fact, he could probably finance his own record and hire a radio promotion firm to push singles and do just as well as if he were on a major. After all, hes guaranteed to get distribution into the big box retailers.
I assume that he’s making records hes happy with, but why doesn’t he put together a tour with people who he thinks embodies what country music should be about?
Until he does something positive to help improve things in country music, he’s just bitchin’ all the way to the bank.
November 12, 2007 at 2:28 pm Permalink
Keep on hollerin’ Ben. Perfectly hollered!
November 13, 2007 at 10:24 am Permalink
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Willie and Waylon didn’t give a damn about soccer moms, but that they didn’t give a damn about demographics in general. If a song was good, then it was good and it didn’t matter who the target audience was. As soon as an artist starts recording for a specific demographic it ceases to be about just the music anymore.
That baffles me, too. If he considers himself so different than Rascal Flatts, why would he be trying to appeal to their fan base?
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