Merle Haggard Misses The Old Times And Kelly Clarkson Surprises Fans At The Wreckers Concert

It took me a little longer to do the news today due to some lengthy articles from Texas Music Times and Hardcore Troubadours.

• Congrats to Picthfork Media for winning the ‘Best Weblog About Music’ category at the 7th Annual Weblog Awards at SXSW.
• In just a couple of weeks Jack Ingram will be releasing his newest album, This Is It. In True to the Roots Monte Dutton does an interview with Jack Ingram. If I remember correctly he has a psychology major, which I thought was pretty interesting. But yes, he’s been receiving a lot of publicity lately.
  

  “I have heard story after story about the 10-year overnight success story,” he says. “I am one artist in a long line of artists that has finally achieved some national exposure after 10-plus years of ‘paying dues’ and I’m glad that after all this time on the road I am a ‘new face.’ It beats the hell out of having to go get plastic surgery!” he jokes.

• In an article on the American Chronicle Vince Gill talks about the things that inspired him to record his four CD project, These Days, singing with family, and creativity.
  

  The album’s liner notes read like a who’s who of music: John Anderson, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, Phil Everly, Emmylou Harris, Krall, Del McCoury, Michael McDonald, Gretchen Wilson and many others add their voices to These Days.

• Merle Haggard has said that he misses the old way of making records, when it didn’t mater as much whether you were in tune or not.
  

  He believes it gave the music a human touch that’s missing today.

  ‘It’s unacceptable now to be slightly out of tune,’ Haggard said recently. ‘A lot of the records I made and Ray made and Willie made a lot of those were out of tune.’

• Kelly Clarkson joined The Wreckers at a recent performance at Billy Bob’s. Watch the YouTube video.
  

  According to Billy Bob’s GM Robert Gallagher, “The 4000-plus crowd was going nuts for The Wreckers and out comes Kelly Clarkson to sing with them and the crowd came completely unglued.”

  via Country Nation

• Texas Music Times has a lot of great reading material for the month of March. I wouldn’t recommend reading it all in one sitting, but there are some real gems among their articles.
  • COVER STORY: Stoney Larue — Harley Davidson Cool
  • OPINION: Showcases – A Tale of Two Events
  • Welcome to The Doug Moreland Show
  • How One Renegade Band Keeps Riding The Rail
  • SIDEMAN BLUES: Reckless Kelly’s David Abeyta
  • Austin Allsup: My Day Is Coming
  • The Tale Behind The Tune: “Floods”
  • Full Steam Ahead for The Scott Wiggins Band
  • Texas Black Heart Brigade
  • Rich O’Toole: Marijuana, Jalapenos, and Being Good
• Cricket interpreted the album The Crooked Mile Home by Chuckanut Drive in the form of a story. And, while I usually like to go listen to albums after they’ve been recommended, I fear that the album won’t be able to hold a candle to the fantastically written story she has provided.
• And lastly, check out the Steve Earle concert review at Twang Nation.