James Agee died in 1955, at age 45. Two years later, his novel A Death in the Family was published with the help of David McDowell, Agee’s editor. The novel won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Agee, and famed book critic Alfred Kazin wrote that it was “the work of a writer whose power with English words can make you gasp.”

Today, on the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth, we have reason to re-visit (or discover) Agee’s masterpiece. Penguin Classics has republished the novel with an introduction by Steve Earle, who lived in Tennessee — Agee’s home state — for many years. (I know Earle as a hard-living songwriter and singer, but he wrote a short story collection, Doghouse Roses, in 2001.)

James Agee

In the introduction, Earle writes, “[James Agee’s words] are so indelibly etched someplace inside of me that I couldn’t reach to rub them out even if I wanted to. And I never want to.”

About a year ago, A Death in the Family created buzz because literary scholar Michael A. Lofaro of the University of Tennessee edited A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author’s Text. The New York Times praised Lofaro’s volume, which opens with an entirely different scene. Will Blythe wrote:

At last we have A Death in the Family that appears closer to the author’s original intention. This tidying is good in its own right, but the main reason to celebrate the publication of this version is that it serves as a fresh reminder of the wondrous nature of Agee’s prose — unabashedly poetic, sacramental in its embrace of reality, and rhythmical as rain on a Tennessee tin roof. 

I assume that the new Penguin edition is the original, McDowell-assisted text. You can read an excerpt here, then tell us: What are your thoughts on re-releases of classic books? Is there a reason to re-package something that’s already great? I think it’s exciting when an older book gets fresh attention. I haven’t read A Death in the Family, but now I think I might.

Rod Stewart – Soul Book

Rod Stewart - Soul Book

I’ve always enjoyed Rod Stewart’s soul covers on his 70’s albums; ‘You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Man’, ‘If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right’, ‘I Know I’m Losing You’ and ‘You Send Me’ spring to mind. Now in 2009, this 64 year old recently released a great collection of soul covers ….  great album.

Favourite track: It’s The Same Old Song

Leonard Cohen – Live In London

Leonard Cohen - Live In London

In July 2008, then 73-year old Leonard Cohen recorded ‘Live In London’ which was released as a double CD in March this year. A superb collection of songs with incredible musical arrangements, linked by Leonard’s surprisingly lighthearted banter and continuous acknowledgment of the band.

Favourite Tracks: Hallelujah, Recitation (A Thousand Kisses Deep)

Bob Dylan – Together Through Life

Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

I have never been a big fan of Bob’s vocal style, but he sure writes some awesome songs. On this album, featuring the two guys kissing on the cover (c’mon, look closer), he teams up with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and produces some fine swampy, bluesy songs.

Favourite track: Beyond Here Lies Nothin’

Uriah Heep – Celebration (Forty Years Of Rock)

Uriah Heep - Celebration

Uriah Heep first appeared in 1970 with their ‘Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble’ album featuring the classic ‘Gypsy’. I was hooked, and am still a fan today.  They are still going strong, though guitarist Mick Box is the only original member.

2008’s ‘Wake The Sleeper’ is one of my albums of the last decade, and Uriah Heep recently released ‘Celebration’. This album features only two new recordings, the rest are newly recorded covers of their greatest hits. Not always a recipe for success, but these new recordings breathe new life into many of my old favourites, except for ‘The Wizard’, which just doesn’t seem to work.

Favourite tracks: July Morning (2009 recording), Look At Yourself (2009 recording)

Special Mentions:

U2 – New Line On The Horizon

Steve Earle – Townes

Neil Diamond – Hot August Night / NYC – Live From Madison Square Garden

Neil Young – Fork In The Road

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Gods & Guns

Ian Gillan – One Eye To Morocco

Source.

Levon Helm is from the Arkansas Delta, and Steve Earle, the writer of the song, is from Texas.

Neither is from a coal mining region.

However, Levon did play a coal miner in a movie.

Waylon Payne is hitting Nashville early on a hot July morning. He’s driving a new used gold Mercedes Benz and he needs a shave and a shower and a couple cups of coffee. He’s been up late seeing old friends, which by his own admission is not a wise decision. He looks a little strung out and a lot like James Dean in Giant, in the scene just before Dean strikes oil. But this isn’t the movies, where even the messes are beautifully framed and everything seems to work out in the end. This is Payne’s life and he’s trying. “Lord, I’m trying,” he sighs.

It isn’t easy, though. Payne’s got bad habits, and he’s dragging around a family legacy straight out of a Tennessee Williams play, by way of Hee Haw. He’s had more lucky breaks than most, but he’s been kicked a lot harder too. The son of country singer Sammi Smith, of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” fame, Payne was raised by his conservative Christian aunt and uncle who disowned him when he was kicked out of seminary for having an affair with a monk, leaving him homeless and on the streets while still a teenager. He pulls down his shirt to reveal the man’s name tattooed over his heart. “I know who I am,” he says, defiantly. “I wear it proudly.”

Payne is sitting at a table outside a packed café when the member of a very successful country act—it would be hard to call them a band—walks past and glances at him. “Is that…?” Payne mutters. And then curses under his breath.

And what else could he do? Waylon Payne can write a better song walking back and forth to his weed dealer’s apartment than half the writers on Music Row could in a hundred years. In fact he has—listen to his 2004 debut The Drifter, a throwback to Guitar Town-era Steve Earle, forged during Payne’s days in L.A.’s honky tonk scene. On songs like “Her” and “Jesus on a Greyhound,” Payne writes with an incredible eye for detail and sings with all his might, sounding like a cross between the Replacements’ Tommy Stinson and Wayne “The Train” Hancock. You probably won’t be able to find it though. According to Payne, the label only printed 7500 copies and then sent him a bill for $150,000, which forced him into bankruptcy. Today, he disowns the record as “not real.”

Real is everything to him, and he comes out with it in rapid bursts, almost with a vengeance against the cold world of Southern euphemisms he knew growing up. When he speaks, half the time it sounds like a sermon and the other half it sounds like a confession. He veers between traditional country grandiosity–“Put me in the Opry, dammit! What else do they need? I got a hit record and I’m in the movies!” and “I’d like to have my own show on CMT, like a variety show, with an orchestra”—to things someone who wants to be in the Grand Ol’ Opry should never, ever say into a tape recorder. In the stereo of the Mercedes is a burned CD of four songs from his new album, Needles, that he is writing slowly down in Austin. There are stories behind those songs that Payne will tell you in full detail. But he shouldn’t.

He’s got new management that believes in him and a publishing deal. He’s also got a sleeper hit creeping up the charts with Lee Ann Womack’s “Solitary Thinkin’,” written by Payne in less than an hour in a Los Angeles bar. “A prostitute bar,” he laughs. “But I didn’t know it was a prostitute bar. I was just wondering why the drinks were free all night.” He’s heard rumors of a Grammy nomination for it. It’s sure good enough. “See, I initially started out as just a singer, because I didn’t think I had anything to say. I was wrong. If you have something to say, baby, sing it loud and sing it true. It will never hurt you. You can get away with a lot singin’ it in a song.”

Gay, high and possibly brilliant, Payne makes you wonder how much more he is going to get away with. With a voice that makes you believe every word he sings and an eloquence for heartbreak that harkens back to the classic country ballads he fell in love with as a kid, he’s the kind of guy you want to shake out of his own way. What’s he doing in a town like this, in a business that makes the hack who just walked past a millionaire and makes Waylon Payne plead to cut the record he hears in his heart and writes on slow lonesome walks wherever he finds himself?

Payne waves off questions like that. He truly does not care. Like he says, he knows who he is and he wears it proudly. “And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I can walk onto any stage in any room, alone, with just a guitar and I’m great. I’m great.” The trick now is letting everyone else know. So he shows up for the meeting with his new manager, and later he swings by his publisher’s to play some of the new songs. He may not care, but he does have something to prove—and a head full of songs to prove it with. The question is will he slow down long enough to write them, or will he die trying.

–Ari Surdoval

*

*

“You know when Robert Johnson said ‘you gotta move’ — I figured that out. It’s like, you’re happily floating through nothing– you know, nothingness.  All of a sudden, a big giant fish, they way I picture it… grabs you and… puts you in a form, and slams you on the face of this veil of tears, and says– You’ve gotta move! “

–Townes Van Zandt

*

*

From Waitin’ Around to Die–

*

For the first 14-15 years of his life Townes Van Zandt was a happy, healthy, athletic young man from a prestigious background. As Guy Clark put it–

’He was being bred to be Governor of Texas– seriously, it was that kind of family.’

In his mid to late teens he started to develop a bi-polar disorder and was diagnosed ‘manic depressive with schizophrenic tendencies’. By the age of 19 he was thought to be a danger to himself, a suicide/OD waiting to happen, and his adoring parents took the hard decision to have their eldest son hospitalised and treated. They used the best doctors, the most advanced therapy in the leading facility in the country .

The combination of electricity and chemicals helped temporarily to alleviate Townes symptoms, possibly saved his life,but they also wiped out most of his childhood memory, and his subsequent attempts to settle down were constantly derailed by his depression and the addictions that accompanied it.

Five years, one album, a marriage and a little boy later, the blues having taken hold for good, Townes hit the road. He spent the next 30 years self medicating with drugs, firewater and a dark sense of humour, to somehow survive long enough to create a collection of the greatest contemporary folk songs America has produced.

‘How close can you cut it to your own bone? Did you break your own heart?  Did you scare the shit out of yourself? That’s what matters.  Townes went for the passion not a bunch of clever bullshit.  He sounded like himself.’

–Guy Clark

*

*

‘Everything is not enough

Nothing is too much to bear

Where you been is good and gone

All you keep is the getting there.’

*

*

‘Time shes a fast old train

Shes here then shes gone

And she won’t come again

Won’t you take my hand’

*

*

‘When will she see

That to gain

Is only to lose

All that she offers me

Are her chains,

I got to refuse’

*

*

‘Lay down your head poor boy

Feel how the ground does move

Hear how them drivers sing

What now my darling one

Go find a little fun

You are not needed now’

*

*

‘My days they are the highway kind

They only come to leave

But the leavin’ I don’t mind

It’s the comin’ that I crave.

Pour the sun upon the ground

Stand to throw a shadow

Watch it grow into a night

And fill the spinnin sky’

*

*

‘Ride the blue wind high and free

She’ll lead you down through misery

Leave you low come time to go

Alone and low as low can be’

*

*

‘Tomorrow the mountains will be sleeping

Silently the blanket green and blue

And I shall hear the silence they are keeping

I’ll bring all their promises to you’

*

*

‘Chained upon the face of time

Feelin’ full of foolish rhymne

There ain’t no dark till something shines

I’m bound to leave this dark behind’

*

*

‘Goodbye to all my friends

It’s time to go again

Think of all the poetry

And the pickin’ down the line’

– Townes Van Zandt

*

]]> http://dkpresents.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/2000-the-year-in-music/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:12:12 +0000 dkpresents http://dkpresents.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/2000-the-year-in-music/ http://andrewhickey.info/2009/11/11/spotify-playlist-veterans-day-poppy/ Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:38:56 +0000 Andrew Hickey http://andrewhickey.info/2009/11/11/spotify-playlist-veterans-day-poppy/

Remembrance Sunday and the eleventh of November are days that evoke conflicting emotions in me. I’m pretty much an absolute pacifist, so you’d expect me to disapprove of them, but at the same time the *reason* I’m a pacifist is because I don’t like seeing people go and get killed (or kill others), and I have nothing but respect for those who fought (and often died) for causes they thought were right, even when (as has so often been the case) they’re led by psychopaths. Those people DESERVE remembrance, and respect. They went through things that none of us who haven’t been in a war can possibly imagine, and many of them behaved with far more decency than their commanders (I’ve read studies that show that in war, even when afraid for their own lives, 85% of soldiers unconsciously shoot to miss, because even in that position they can’t bring themselves to kill – something borne out by stories of people like Harry Patch, the last British soldier from WWI who died earlier this year, who had made a pact with his friends never to shoot to kill, but to aim for the enemies’ legs.)

I also don’t wear poppies, partly because I don’t wear anything like that – no breast cancer awareness badges or make poverty history wristbands, but also because the poppy as a symbol has become incredibly politicised in Britain recently, and it’s increasingly become a symbol of support for a particular right-wing form of patriotism. That said, I do think it’s hugely important to remember the sacrifices people went through for causes both noble and otherwise, so I’ve put together this spotify playlist. A lot of these songs are angry songs, because people should not have to travel thousands of miles to kill or be killed unless there’s a good reason, and often there isn’t. I find it very hard to remember those who died, or those who were maimed for life, without also remembering those who put them in that position. Never again should mean that…

One song I wanted to include was Armistice Day by Paul Simon, which he titled that for reasons much like those in this Vonnegut quote:

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

However, Armistice Day appears to be one of the few Paul Simon songs *not* on Spotify. So it goes.

The songs I have included are:
Veterans Day Poppy by Captain Beefheart (mislabelled as Apes-Ma – all the songs on this album are mislabelled). Sometimes Beefheart’s lyrics are difficult to understand, so here’s a transcription:

I cry but I can’t buy
Your Veteran’s Day poppy
It don’t get me high
It can only make me cry
It can never grow another
Son like the one who warmed me my days
After rain and warmed my breath
My life’s blood
Screamin’ empty she cries
It don’t get me high
It can only make me cry
Your Veteran’s Day poppy

Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914) by The Zombies is written and sung by Chris White, and his more fragile voice suits this deeply disturbing song much better than Blunstone’s would have.

Any King’s Shilling by Elvis Costello is a reminder of some of the more recent conflicts. “Stay at home tonight, if you know what’s good for you/I can’t say more, it would be telling/But if you don’t, what will become of you/Just isn’t worth any King’s shilling”.

Shipbuilding by Robert Wyatt is another Costello song (co-written), and possibly the saddest song ever written, about the hope a war brings to an economically depressed town – “It’s just a rumour that’s been spread around town/A telegram or a picture postcard/within weeks they’ll be re-opening the shipyard/And notifying the next of kin once again”.

Some Mother’s Son by The Kinks is from Arthur, the last of their incredible run of straight masterpieces in the mid sixties. “Some mother’s son lies in a field/Someone has killed some mother’s son today” I’d have liked to pair this with the other WWI song from the same album, Yes Sir No Sir (“Give the scum a gun and make the buggers fight/just be sure to have deserters die on sight/If he dies we’ll send a medal to his wife”) but that’s not on Spotify.

Song For The Dead by Randy Newman does a pretty good job of this though – a song from the point of view of a soldier in Vietnam burying his dead comrades and saying ‘a few words on behalf of the leadership’. At once utterly vicious and cynical about the motives of the leaders who start wars, but still recognising the real horror their decisions cause to those who have to carry them out.

Rich Man’s War by Steve Earle continues along these lines – “Somebody somewhere had another plan/Now he’s got a rifle in his hand/He’s wandering Baghdad wondering how it got this far/He’s just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war”.

Little Boy Soldiers by The Jam – “These days I find that I can’t be bothered/To argue with them, well what’s the point?/Better to take your shots and drop down dead/then they send you home in a pine overcoat/With a letter to your mum/Saying find enclosed one son/one medal and a note/to say he won.”

Where Have All The Flowers Gone? by Pete Seeger is often thought of as a rather twee song. It really isn’t.

And to finish, we have The Last Post.

Det ska tydligen vara nåt med Townes Van Zandt i år. Som jag skrivit om tidigare har Steve Earle släppt ett helt album där han tolkar folksångaren Van Zandt. När nu Lyle Lovett släpper “Natural Forces” är Van Zandt högst närvarande i såväl sound som känsla och representerad genom låten “Loretta”.

Lyle Lovett är folk- och countrymusikartisten från Texas, USA, som även har gjort små gästspel i Hollywood,. För den lite större publiken är Lovett förmodligen mer känd för sitt äktenskap med Julia Roberts i början av nittiotalet, än för sin konstnärliga insats. Lovett släppte sitt debutalbum “Lyle Lovett” 1986 som blev tämligen framgångsrikt, inte minst genom låtar som “Cowboy man” (min ringsignal på mobilen) och “This Old Porch”.

Lovetts nya är i många stycken en tillbakagång till ett lugnare sound efter förra albumet “It’s Not Big, It’s Large”, där Lovett med sitt storband, givetvis kallat The Large Band, stundom gör storbandscountry. Men eftersom Lovett är en berättelsernas man skymmer inte arrangemangen historierna, och “It’s Not Big, It’s Large” är smyckad med ett antal timida countryballader av högsta rang. Inte minst “South Texas Girl” med magisk intro- och outrosång av legendaren Guy Clark (vars The Guitar var Dagens låt häromdagen).

Men nu var det senaste “Natural Forces” det skulle handla om, och främst “Loretta”. På sitt nya album bjuder Lovett på ett par uptempospår som inte gör fans av förra skivan besviken. “Natural Forces” är emellertid främst ett balladalbum där den akustiska gitarren ackompanjerar Lovetts historier med stor närvaro. Fiol, elektrisk gitarr och ett och annat munspel, ibland ett piano har tagit ett steg tillbaka och agerar stämningssättande medspelare med den äran.

“Natural Forces” har många starka spår som lämpar sig väldigt väl till kvällsteet i soffan en ruggig höstkväll. Lovetts version av Van Zandts “Loretta” är tveklöst ett av dessa spår, som Lovett gör med bibehållen respekt utan att kopiera rakt av. Där Van Zandt slår an strängarna till sin akustiska gitarr för att berätta historien om Loretta, kvinnan i baren utan sorger eller bekymmer som förmodligen är lite för bra för att vara sann, inleds Lovetts version istället med piano och fiol som på ett ögonblick får din uppmärksamhet.

Du kan lyssna på alla spåren från Lyle Lovetts “Natural Forces” på skivbolaget Lost Highways hemsida här.

Med Spotify kan du lyssna på förra albumet “It’s Not Big, It’s Large” här.

Nedan spelar Lyle Lovett “Loretta” live tillsammans John Prine på en Bluegrass-festival i San Francisco i början av oktober i år:

During his Townes tour of Van Zandt songs Steve had a problem with one of his signature Martin guitars. Steve’s guitar tech and stage soundman Russ Garett gave London based luthier and guitar repairs man Graham Parker a call and Graham was able to save the day. As a result Russ kindly gave Graham a couple of back stage passes. As Graham’s partner was off singing jazz songs to the likes of Jay-Z Graham kindly invited me to come along. I did, with my trusty Canon G9. Here’s the results:

Read the review of the show

Here’s a video of Steve Earle playing Guitar Town live in Barbican last night. More to come!

Steve Earle is touring his album of Van Zandt songs entitled Townes. Last night he played the Barbican to a sell out crowd. Steve had a bit of a crisis on his hands with his main Martin and my buddy Graham Parker fixed it for him. In fact Graham fixed it twice. Yesterday he got a call saying that his temporary fix didn’t last too long – Steve changes his strings after every gig. So Graham replaced the nut. Whilst doing so he noticed that the strings were too close to the neck. This caused the strings to slip off the neck every so often so whilst replacing the nut he made amends to the where the strings sat on the neck. I’m getting technical here, I’ll stop.

As a result of Graham’s help Steve’s guitar tech Russ Garett gave Steve two complimentary passes. We met up with Steve and Russ before the gig and had a brief chat. Steve was in pretty good form chatting away about his signature guitar. Graham explained that Les Paul used to get $50 for every guitar made. Steve explained that he got more than that, about $150. “Wow!” Graham and I said. “Yeah but I just give it to charity,” Steve replied. “When you make a load of money doing what I do as a Marxist what else can you do with it?” What a guy!

The gig was awesome. Steve was on great form chatting away talking at length about his relationship with Townes. How Townes heckled him in 1972 when Steve was just 17, how they became friends, how Townes visited Steve’s house and saw Steve looking bad and his arms looking worse.  Steve also said how appreciative he was of the audience’s reception of the album and how his only regret was that Townes wasn’t around to enjoy it with him.

Steve got two standing ovations and seemed really humbled. Graham and I made our way onto the stage and made some movies of Russ striking the stage where Russ explained a bit about Steve’s set up.

Backstage Steve told Graham that the guitar felt great, “Plays like a fucking Martin should!”

Was a great evening out. Great to see Steve play on such fine form and meet the man. A true gent.

Read about the trip backstage.

Graham Parker and Steve Earle

Goodbye (Oct 09 VOM)

The classic Steve Earle song is my entry this month into the HC Virtual Open Mic (VOM).

Gear used:

Shell Pink MojoTwanger T-style
Seymour Duncan Antiquities pickups
Swart AST Amp

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Las canciones ocultas en The Wire, esa magnífica serie que relata las virtudes, miserias y depravaciones varias de todo bicho viviente en la ciudad de Baltimore, protagonizan la entrega número 13 de nuestro podcast, así como el último trabajo de Steve Earle  y otras sustancias peligrosas…

Podéis visitar la página del Podcast para descargar los últimos  programas ó suscribiros al RSS

Listado de temas:

1. Tom Waits – “Way down in the hole”
2. Johnny Cash – “Ring of fire”
3. Bill Withers – “Use me”
4. Mary Wells – “You beat me to the punch”
5. War – “The Cisco Kid”
6. Solomon Burke – “Got to get you off my mind”
7. Velvelettes – “He was really saying something”
8. The Nighthawks – “Sixteen tons”
9. Duke Ellington – “Fleurette Africaine”
10. Steve Earle – “Guitar town”
11. Steve Earle – “Colorado girl”
12. Steve Earle – “Goodbye’s all we’ve got left”
13. Steve Earle – “Poncho & Lefty”
14. Nino Ferrer – “Cannabis”
15. Richard de Bordeaux & Daniel Beretta – “La Drogue”
16. Brian Auger – “Black Cat”

Trots att jag (och många andra skäggälskare) missade Steve Earle’s konsert förra veckan kan jag inte undvara er ett skönt mail från min bror, Randy Andy, som med all rätt påminner oss om att vi borde ha varit där:

“Mina herrar,
Även om jag antar att det svider för er att läsa, ser jag mig tvungen att meddela att ni missat den absolut häftigaste konsertupplevelsen i sitt slag som beskådats på senare år. Givetvis i bjärt kontrast till Second Magic Night in Gothenburg, raka motsatsen faktiskt. Men så In-I-Helvete-Bra. Ännu bättre för var dag som går sedan dess, Townes-plattan går varm 24-7 och är fullständigt lysande, vilka låtar och versioner…

Här följer 4 st stora S:
Spelplatsen, så nära en klassisk City Hall man kan komma, perfekt obekväma träbänkar och akustik i världsklass. 
Stadsdelen, nostalgitripp i Birkastan efter att ha bott åtta år i samma kvarter. 
Stämningen, varenda krog runt kvarteren var fullsatt trots tisdagskväll, lyckades trots det få en barplats på Lundbergs (där du Bro förresten rättade till min frack innan du baxade in mig i taxin till kyrkan en sensommarkväll för elva år sen..), där jag intog en stadig Ceasar och ett par Starobrno i gott rocksällskap. 
Spelningen. Först Rhett Miller (ung singer-songwriter också från Texas) som förartist, som gled ut och snackade med all publik i foajén innan huvudakten. Sedan the great great Steve Earle, med en pondus som får Lennart Johansson att framstå som Lisa Ekdahl och en sydstatsdialekt bredare än Highway 77. Levererade två råbarkat finstämda helakustiska timmar med långa snack mellan vartannan låt, helt jävla magiskt. 
Turnén fortsätter till bland annat England, Tyskland och Holland. Boka in och meddela mig var och när, jag är där.
Med hopp om en fortsatt trivsam lördagskväll, utan sjungande körer eller bin ifrån TV-hörnan.
För övrigt har jag bestämt fått Vininfluensan.”

/A

Tack vare bloggen La Cienega finns nedan ett klipp från konserten:

Nyligen släppte den levande countrylegendaren Guy Clark albumet “Somedays the Song Writes You”. Ett synnerligt starkt album som visar att Clark fortfarande besitter en osviklig förmåga att skriva starka countrylåtar med historier som sitter kvar länge efter musiken tystnat. Om nu någon tvekat.

Om Townes Van Zandt var Steve Earles primära mästare, vilket jag skrev om häromdagen, är Guy Clark utan tvekan en annan av Earles förebilder. Precis som han är för många andra svårdmodiga män med gitarr. På nya albumet tolkar förresten  Clark Van Zandt i “If I needed you”.

Men det är låten “The guitar” som får introducera vinjetten Dagens låt på bloggen. Låten berättar historien om en egensinning musiker, måhända Clark själv, som stiger in en pantbutik och finner en gitarr på väggen som väcker tankar och minnen i musikern.

Här framförd live på The Cactus Café i Austin, Texas tillsammans med Verlon Thompson som Clark skrivit detta närgångna och varma stycke countryballad med.

For the Miami New Times music blog Crossfade.

Many famous musicians have spent a day or three in jail for driving drunk, holding drugs, or something really stupid. But only the select few have spent a serious stretch of time in prison, which brings us to David Allan Coe (pictured). The original country outlaw performs Friday at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale.

It’s confirmed Coe did time at Ohio State Penitentiary and he has famously claimed to have been on death row for killing a man who attempted to procure a blow job from him — this has not been confirmed or proven false. Although Coe is a redneck renegade who penned “Take This Job and Shove It,” recorded the 1970s smash “You Never Even called Me By My Name” and recorded an album with the members of Pantera, he’s by no means the greatest recording artist to do hard time. Here’s a highly subjective list of the greatest musicians who worried about being some bulky dude’s bitch.

Continue reading/check out the killer clips.

Kollade in legendaren Steve Earle på Palladium i Malmö igår, och det var en behaglig konsert, utan att välta mig ur de fruktansvärt hårda stolarna på Palladiums parkettsektion . Earle turnerar med skivan “Townes” som släpptes i maj i år som är en hyllning till hans mentor, den legendariske folksångaren Townes Van Zandt. Sydsvenskans Håkan Engström ger den gamle folksångaren från Texas tämligen sval kritik i dagens tidning. Och nog har Engström sina poänger. Det trallar på i maklig styrfart. Ibland tappar man fokus, och vips flyger tankarna iväg. Men Earle kan såklart sin Townes och utan att göra något väsen av låtarna levererar han med skrovlig röst och stort patos respektfulla versioner av förebilden.

Se Steve Earle framföra “Colorado girl” på David Letterman Show

Allison Moorer signs to Ryko.

Allison Moorer is set to release her Ryko debut, Crows, on February 9th, 2010. Produced by R.S. Field (Buddy Guy, John Mayall) at the House of David Studio in Nashville, TN, the 13-track album is a refined and lyrically honest collection of songs that is a marked stylistic departure from her previous work. Crows is the anticipated follow up to her critically acclaimed 2008 album, Mockingbird, which was a celebration of songs composed by a stunning cast of female songwriters including Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Cat Power, her sister Shelby Lynne, and more. It also follows Moorer’s first Grammy Award Nomination for the song “Days Aren’t Long Enough,” a composition she co-wrote with her husband, Steve Earle, for his Grammy Award Winning 2007 album Washington Square Serenade.

Crows Tracklisting
01. Abalone Sky
02. Goodbye To The Ground
03. Just Another Fool
04. The Broken Girl
05. Should I Be Concerned
06. When You Wake Up Feeling Bad
07. Easy In The Summertime
08. The Stars and I (Mama’s Song)
09. Still This Side Of Gone
10. Like The Rain
11. Sorrow (Don’t Come Around)
12. It’s Gonna Feel Good
13. Crows

Friday October the 30th sees the Curragh Sons bring their unique brand of high-octane Irish music to the Moon and Sixpence in Glossop. The ever shifting lineup sees the return of Steve Massey on drums, joined onstage by Paul Higham, Sean Wood, Paul Newland and Dave Molynuex.

There are a couple of new tunes in the pipe, Sean has pledged to have learned the words to Steve Earles Copperhead Road and apparently young Higham is planning to have a crack at Pancho and Lefty.

Anyway get down there early if you’re planning on coming, it promises to be nothing short of a blinder. And remember this, in the words of Sean himself “the more you drink, the better we sound”. Hur!