Taylor Swift Makes European Debut to Sold-Out Crowd
- Taylor Swift made her debut in London last night to a sold-out crowd and The 9513 forum member SamB was there to catch all the action.
She did most of the hits (no Tim McGraw, which was odd), and some stuff off the new album, including Change, which I loved, and Love Story, which she said will be the first single in the UK. Indeed, the implication is that the second album will be released here too.
You can find numerous pictures on this Flickr account. (via NashvilleGab)
- In an interview with Andrew Dansby, Jack Ingram reveals the contents of his iPod (every Willie song ever released‽) and says he’s five or six songs into his next album.
- Country, California has a brand new copy of Vern Gosdin’s Super Hits compilation to give away. All you have to do for a chance to win is comment by 11:59 PM on Friday.
- The folks at NPR have another great recording from Mountain Stage, this time the performer is Elizabeth Cook and she sings “Awful Dreadful Snake,” “Mama’s Prayers,” the title track from her last album, “Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be a Woman” (apparently someone doesn’t like the word “balls” as almost every instance of the word is bleeped), and a cover of Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning.”
- Also from NPR are performances of “Gentle On My Mind,” “Grow Old With Me” and “Jesus” (another Velvet Underground cover) from Glen Campbell at World Cafe with host David Dye.
- Twang Nation unearthed a YouTube video of Rachel Brooke (MySpace) covering “Old Log Train” from Hank Williams that almost looks like it could have actually been shot during Hank’s day. Good stuff.
- Word has it that James ‘Slim’ Hand (MySpace) can be seen in an upcoming episode of one of my favorite TV shows, Friday Night Lights.
- In an article for CMT, Calvin Gilbert explores the musical influences of Billy Bob Thorton’s band The Boxmasters and Thorton himself reminisces on the time he got to be a Wagonmaster (a member of Porter Wagoner’s backing band) for a night with Marty Stuart and Dwight Yoakam.
- Last night’s Republican National Convention featured John Rich, Gretchen Wilson and Cowboy Troy performing the national anthem, but they’ll be relinquishing those duties to Trace Adkins for the closing night.
- Chris Willman, author of Rednecks & Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music, wrote a great article discussing the use of Brooks & Dunn’s “Only In America” to close Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention.
- Kelly, of The Gobblers Knob fame, believes it takes more than simply recording an album in Texas for it to become a “Texas Album.” “Honesty, simplicity, distinctive voices, and even more distinct writing,” he explains, “[are] the combination of components of what I consider to be real ‘Texas Records’.” Two semi-recent albums that he feels fit those parameters are Owen Temple’s Two Thousand Miles and Susan Gibson’s New Dog, Old Tricks.
- Riders In the Sky member Ranger Doug describes the band as Monty Python meets Sons of the Pioneers. (via ggcolumn)
- Brad from Galleywinter has a short recap of the Pickin’ for Preemies ‘08 event that featured Charley Pride as a surprise guest.
Charley Pride was the surprise guest and he did all his hits…plus the old Clay Walker “My Name’s Joe” song. The consumate pro and entertainer…he was the one guy EVERYONE was excited to see. Highlights for me of the early sets were Bleu and Corb Lund. Corb is officially the next big thing in our scene and he’s someone people are starting to embrace more and more.
- The cover for Hal Ketchum’s new Father Time album proves that even veteran artists are prone to catching the Bleeding Cowboys (the name of the font used) disease, yet I anxiously await its release next week.
- Check out the latest songs uploaded to Sarah Buxton’s MySpace: “My Sweet By and By,” “There You Go” and “Just People.”
- Reviews praising Bruce Robison’s just released album, The New World, are beginning to roll in.
- Congratulations to the winners of our Glen Campbell giveaway: Roger Wink and Jimi Jette.
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20 Comments
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September 4, 2008 at 11:59 am Permalink
Dang its a busy news day…thanks for the shout-out and thanks for high-lighting my grammatical errors too!!!!
September 4, 2008 at 12:10 pm Permalink
Thanks for the plug… I think. Did you just do this to scare me into buying another back-up copy of the Gosdin compilation?
September 4, 2008 at 12:15 pm Permalink
Also, kudos on the interrobang.
September 4, 2008 at 2:00 pm Permalink
No problem on the shout-out guys, it only helps make the roundup more comprehensive, so thanks for that. Glad you enjoyed the interrobang, too. I had to copy and paste it from google since they don’t come standard on keyboards :P
September 4, 2008 at 4:03 pm Permalink
Woohoo, I got in a news article! :))
September 4, 2008 at 4:19 pm Permalink
- I think Taylor leaving out “Tim McGraw” has to be because the audience has little idea who Tim McGraw is. Not to mention it’s one of her most ‘country’ songs, and is also somewhat divergent from the rest of the show’s material.
- Hey, I have every Willie song ever released on MY iPod. What’s crazy about that? I wonder if he has the new Blues album…(it’s awesome).
- The Boxmasters always surprise me in that they don’t suck.
September 4, 2008 at 4:52 pm Permalink
Color me skeptical. I don’t think every Willie song ever released would fit on an iPod.
September 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm Permalink
I really enjoyed that Willman article. He raises some interesting points for sure. The portion that he quoted from his book is what I was referring to on the thread regarding Obama’s use of the song in last Friday’s News Round Up.
September 4, 2008 at 4:56 pm Permalink
Not every song he recorded, but every song he’s released–it’s about 8GB worth of MP3s.
September 4, 2008 at 5:46 pm Permalink
Oh yeah, ditto to Friday Night Lights, Brody. I don’t know why, but I really like that show. They choose great music for it too.
September 4, 2008 at 10:26 pm Permalink
That Susan Gibson album is pretty awesome.
September 4, 2008 at 10:36 pm Permalink
Thanks for the links to the tunes by Elizabeth Cook and Sarah Buxton, two of my favorite current artists. It kills me that true talents like that can’t get on airhead country radio while piffle twit artists like Jessica Simpson and Julianne Hough get greeted with open arms due to their pop culture noteriety.
Taylor Swift’s reception in the UK proves that some folks over there have just as poor of musical taste as young American females……
Last year Vern Gosdin recorded a duet with Louisiana born artist Kimber Sparks down in Australia where she is attending college even though she is in her late 30’s. Kimber asked Vern to sing “Chisled In Stone” with her and he provides a supporting role with his noticeably weakened voice these days. Nonetheless the song comes off just fine and Bill Chamber’s production works really well. Its worth a listen….
September 4, 2008 at 11:47 pm Permalink
John Rich, Gretchen Wilson and Cowboy Troy were, as usual, awful. I used to like John Rich too. Proof that politics and reality TV can make anyone a twit… doing both… yikes.
Elizabeth Cook is fantastic. Good set.
Sarah Buxton is proof that looking cute isn’t the only way to get radio airplay. She should be on the radio just as much if not more than Julianne Hough. Shame she’s not, she can actually sing too.
September 5, 2008 at 7:25 am Permalink
Something was off about Trace’s rendition of the National Anthem last night.
September 5, 2008 at 7:57 am Permalink
The instruments were obviously off =P Just curious, what did you find to be off about his rendition? I kinda dug it. Here’s a video for anyone interested.
September 5, 2008 at 8:41 am Permalink
Jana: I really dig tha lbum too (obviously). I think it helped me that I saw her perform much of the album acoustically only with a fidlde accompaniment a week or so before i popped in the disc. It gave the songs real life when i listened to them later…
September 5, 2008 at 10:25 am Permalink
His voice quality seemed dry…not the performance so much, but the voice. I can’t really explain it.
September 5, 2008 at 11:01 am Permalink
Trace seemed fine to me (here we go again Leeann!)
Jana,
Susan Gibson is pretty good.
September 5, 2008 at 11:26 am Permalink
I guess I’m only a moderate fan of his voice. I just feel he didn’t really gain much traction or something. I suppose it was okay; I wasn’t big on it though. he certainly didn’t ruin it or anything…
September 9, 2008 at 12:15 pm Permalink
Has anyone heard the upcoming Taylor Swift single “Love Story?” Lots of forced Romeo and Juliet references. The second verse strts with “You were Romeo; I was a Scarlet Letter.” I’m guessing she’s never read either as those lyrics don’t make sense, and she finishes with Romeo and Juliet marrying each other at the end of the song. I’ve always found her songwriting has always made up for her weak vocals, but not in this new song. I’m sure it’ll still be a hit among middle school and high school girs.
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