The Academy of Country Music Announces Special, Industry and MBI Awards Winners
- Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard and Harland Howard were among the winners of Special Awards announced by the Academy of Country Music on Tuesday. They won’t be televised with the regular ACM Awards ceremony that takes place on April 5th, but will have their own event in the fall. Winners were also announced for the Industry and MBI (musician, band, instrumental) Awards.
- Doyle Lawson will release his 34th album, Lonely Street, on May 5. BluegrassJournal.com has the track list and tour dates.
- In an interview with Pitchfork’s Stephen M. Deusner, Neko Case revealed that the last Track on Middle Cyclone is actually four minutes of frogs looped.
Darryl and I were sitting around in the studio, and we were almost finished with the record. We decided to see how long it was, and I said, how much time is left over on an audio CD? He told me, and I told him that we should do something with it, that we shouldn’t waste it. So we decided to put some soothing frogs on there.
- This week’s edition of “Country Quizzin’” is all about songs that employ personification. Answers and final March rankings will be revealed later tonight.
- Martina McBride talked about relating to the characters in her songs, performing in a family band as a teenager and, of course, her new album in an interview with Craig Shelburne.
- In the newest episode of “On The Road With Jamey Johnson,” Johnson’s bodyguard Sherrif talks about his relationship with the singer and his rise in popularity.
- My Kind of Country’s Occasional Hope reviewed the new album from Dallas Wayne, I’ll Take the Fifth, and named it her favorite album of 2009 so far.
- Country Universe’s Lynn Douglas asks: “Do you believe that a country group needs a lead singer in order for the band to reach that next level?”
- A CalTech grad student named Virgil Griffith conducted an unscientific study to determine if there’s any correlation between musical preference and SAT scores. According to her graph, students with the highest scores listen to Beethoven, while those with the lowest listen to Lil’ Wayne. Most of the students who listened to country fell in the average range. (via NashvilleGab)
- For the third part of his “Nashville Or Bust” series, A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin ended his exploration of Johnny Cash with his religion, prison recordings and television show. For the fourth part in the weekly series, Rabin moved on to his next subject, Willie Nelson, and his first three concept albums: Yesterday’s Wine, Phases and Stages and Red Headed Stranger.
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March 25, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I was starting to worry about Doyle’s release date.
March 25, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I was looking forward to checking out Help Is On the Way last year and it seemed like something wonky went on with that release date.
March 25, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Hmmm… I couldn’t really get into Dallas Wayne’s “I’ll take the fifth.” I’d heard several of the Fulks songs before and so they just seemed like lazy covers to me. I also thought some of the lyrics- “I’ll take the fifth” for example- were just like bad Saturday Night Live skits…one bad joke that goes on way too long.
March 25, 2009 at 1:45 pm
“I was looking forward to checking out Help Is On the Way last year and it seemed like something wonky went on with that release date.”
Different label – Doyle’s been releasing his bluegrass albums on Rounder and bluegrass gospel albums on, uh, Mountain Home? for a few years now. But one label’s more or less got its promotional act together, the other less so; I’ll let you guess which is which ;-).
I was just figuring they’d get this one out quick, and they finished recording a while ago. Well, make that “hoping” instead of “figuring”; I’ve got a song on there…
March 25, 2009 at 3:11 pm
neko case- 30 plus minutes of a “4 minute loop of frogs”=the most irritating 30 minutes and waste of time in recording history. I actually listened to the CD and IMHO…it’s crap and the last track is 30+ minutes of my life that I’ll never be able to get back.
March 25, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Jon – Which one is yours?
March 25, 2009 at 3:58 pm
“Yesterday’s Songs,” written with Mark Simos and Lisa Shaffer. And BTW, if you’re not familiar with Lisa, check out her MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/lisashaffer. We met up in northern Kentucky back in 2002 and tried to get a band together, but she moved to Nashville instead, about 6 months before I did. Good singer, good songwriter.
March 25, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see Lisa Shaffer mentioned here. I have a DJ CD copy of her one and only Lyric Street label single from a few years back titled “Just One” and its a very nice song. Lisa’s been off the mainstream country radar ever since….
As for Lynn’s question: “Do you believe that a country group needs a lead singer in order for the band to reach that next level?”, I ask the next level of what? These days its more likely to be mediocrity than excellence. How many groups these days without an identifiable lead singer are doing well on Top 40 country radio? Little Big Town has fallen off radio’s “in” list, so will Gloriana follow them into the wilderness? Hmmm…
I think the CalTech student’s survey has a lot of merit. Well at least when it comes to rap/hip-hop/r&b or whatever they are calling that crap these days…
March 25, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Rick’s Random Tidbits: Anyone want to see/hear what the result is when a young Aussie female country artist tries to sound like Big and Rich?
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=51701833
Shea has had moderate success on the Aussie country scene and now she has been signed by James Stroud to his fledgling Stroudavarius Records. I would like to see Shea and Kellie Pickler on two sides of a stage having a “cute and flirty” showdown concert….