Whole Lotta Shakin' - a PRI documentary series on the history of rockabilly, hosted by Rosie Flores.
posted on Apr 26, 2008 - View this thread

Sometimes, when you've had your fill of people basking in the golden light of their self-righteous indignation, you just wanna hear a song about somebody telling those holier-than-thou-ers where to get off. Something like, say, Harper Valley PTA.
posted on Apr 24, 2008 - View this thread

Just the other day I was thinking about World War 2-era propaganda songs, so of course I gave a listen to Smoke On the Water. Say what? You didn't know it was about kickin' Hitler's ass? Or Hirohito's? Guess you weren't listening well enough when ol' Red Foley sang: "...there'll be nothing left but vultures to inhabit all that land, when our modern ships and bombers make a graveyard of Japan..." I tell you, they just don't write songs like that anymore, friends. Anyway, by 1951 Red was looking forward to Peace in the Valley.
posted on Apr 9, 2008 - View this thread

It's 3 a.m., on some date in 1975, the white line is wavering in front of your amphetamine bleached eyes, your rig is barreling through the high plains north of nowhere and you won't see your woman for three more days, what 8-track do you need to get you through the night? Why, Country Porn, of course.
Linked page is mostly safe for work, but NSFW audio files, and some text
posted on Mar 12, 2008 - View this thread

A fantastic photoset capturing the life and times of country western artists Carl Butler and Pearl. There are a few people you may recognize as well.
posted on Mar 3, 2008 - View this thread

I tell you what, buddy, that ol' Joe Maphis fellow outta Bakersfield, he was one fast picker. Yup, fast as greased lightning and smooth as gaht-damn silk on that double-neck Mosrite guitar. He and the missus have a little advice for you, too: Don't Make Love In a Buggy. And though Joe was mainly a picker, he did pen one memorable little country ditty which you might've heard in some honky tonk along the line: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music). [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted on Feb 28, 2008 - View this thread

"The Christmas card didn’t arrive this year." Ken Nelson, longtime head of country music at Capitol Records, passed away last week. In a time when studio band assembly lines were the rule, Nelson was known among artists for his hands-off approach to record production. Through his work with artists like Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Red Simpson, Nelson helped bring national recognition to West Coast country.
posted on Jan 21, 2008 - View this thread

In more or less chonological appearance, here are examples of one of our very own still extant national musical treasures:
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Talking Merchant Marine
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - San Francisco Bay Blues
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Salt Pork West Virginia
And here, from SXSW 2006, is Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Billy Bragg - The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd
Also from SXSW 2006, Jack Elliott & Marty Stuart - Engine 143
From last year, here is Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Old Shep
and Ramblin' Jack Elliott - South Coast
And from last week's Bill Graham's Birthday Bash, here is
Phil Lesh, Jackie Greene & Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Friend of The Devil
posted on Jan 20, 2008 - View this thread

The Maestro FZ-1 Fuzztone was one of the first stomp boxes a guitar player could use. Released in 1962 by Gibson, sales didn't take off until a British band used it in the introduction to one of their songs in 1965. But if it weren't for a Marty Robbins song and engineer Glen Snoddy, the pedal might have never been invented and country music wouldn't have been the same.
posted on Dec 4, 2007 - View this thread

The Delmore Brothers, hailing from north Alabama and active from 1926 to 1952, were an early country and western duo that married effortlessly relaxed (but very polished) harmonies with soulful country-boogie blues. Bob Dylan said of them: "The Delmore Brothers, God, I really loved them! I think they've influenced every harmony I've ever tried to sing." They're sure worth some listens, y'all.
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread

CountryBluesGuitarFilter: Keys to the Highway: Some Country Blues Resources --although Weenie Juke Radio is now dead and gone, Weenie Campbell lives on, with forums, guitar lessons and linkage galore. Keys To The Highway lists lyrics and guitar keys and tunings for some notable artists. And the one for the Mississippi Sheiks is a link to the fine country blues music blog Done Gone, which has on its front page list of links just about every prewar, country blues and related site worth linking. As does Weenie Campbell. And at WeenieCampbell there are also some audio lessons in mp3 from the great guitarist and guitar teacher John Miller, these days a resident of my fair city.
posted on Oct 20, 2007 - View this thread

For lovers of old-time, mountain banjo styles and songs, Roscoe Holcomb and Dock Boggs are revered figures. To many, however, plucker and singer David Akeman remains uncelebrated or unknown, even by his stage name of Stringbean. Is it because he was for a time actually famous as a country music showbiz staple, and therefore lacks folk cred? Or maybe the purists just can't get with those low-hanging pants the man was known for, his original hillbilly homeboy styling? Or was it cause on any given tune his left hand would likely be off the neck of the banjo more than on it? Whatever the reason, it's time folks took a new look at Stringbean. After all, the lines between folk and commercial styles have always been blurry in American music. Let's hear it for Stringbeeeeeeeaaan!
posted on Oct 17, 2007 - View this thread

The DeZurik Sisters committed only six songs to record during their recording career, but were the first women stars of the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance. Now WFMU has 32 tracks of theirs from their early appearance as The Cackle Sisters on the Purina Checkerboard Squares Radio Show. Download away and hear the yodeling that swept the nation in the early 40s.
posted on Aug 2, 2007 - View this thread

“We consider the 'primitive' music of blues singers such as Leadbelly to be more authentic than that of the Monkees. But all pop musicians are fakes . . . Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor . . . have turned out their personal record collections to produce a persuasive defence of inauthenticity as the defining characteristic of great popular music[.]” (via)
posted on Apr 20, 2007 - View this thread

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud, Loud Music Photgrapher Henry Horenstein's Honky-Tonk: Portraits of Country Music, 1972-1981 captures a sound in transition. This evocative collection of informal, black-and-white portraits of country musicians and fans in bars, backstage, and on the road illustrate a decade when smoky roadhouses and venerated venues began to give way to the more mainstream Countrypolitan or "Nashville" sound. Seminal artists like Mother Maybelle Carter and Bill Monroe mingled backstage with shinier newcomers like Dolly Parton and Anne Murray. But even as the commercial sound was dominating, youngsters mixing with old-timers sparked the first wave of old-time/bluegrass revival, and some of the artists who got started then still carry the torch for a non-Nashville sound today. In this online exhibit you can watch it all unfold.
posted on Feb 2, 2007 - View this thread

Hick Hop - Asylum Street Spankers (previously)
posted on Dec 22, 2006 - View this thread

Mr. Frank J. Stola (flash): a self-described professional musician who mangles any and all genres he attempts. Don't miss his take on instrumental fusion rock classical jazz, revolutionary country n western traditional, or heavy metal instrumental on CD Baby. Equally marvelous are his strange, minimal videos. And don't forget to pick up Mr. Stola's myriad products at his Cafepress store. Is he serious?
posted on Dec 11, 2006 - View this thread

Freddy Fender, RIP. Freddy Fender dot com.
posted on Oct 15, 2006 - View this thread

Country Music in Black and White. Read the story behind the intertwined roots of Jazz and Country when Louis Armstrong famously backed up Jimmie Rodgers for Blue Yodel No. 9. Then see how he came back to the historic Ryman Auditorium to do his final concert with none other than Johnny Cash. Finally be glad that you can see this meeting of giants online.
(last link is an embedded flash movie, some sites have flash, but no noise)
posted on Sep 25, 2006 - View this thread

'Pavarotti of the Plains' In 1957, Don Walser stopped recording country music and became a National Guardsman, just as rock 'n' roll took over the airwaves. He stayed with the Guard for 39 years, but around 1990, his performances at Henry's in Austin, Texas developed a following. By the end of the decade, he would sign to Sire Records, open for Ministry and the Butthole Surfers, collaborate with Kronos Quartet and be honored with a National Heritage Award. Walser retired from his music career in 2001 because of ill health. He passed away on Wednesday at age 72.
posted on Sep 21, 2006 - View this thread

Clarence Ashley - The Coo Coo
Skip James - Crow Jane
Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years
Son House - John the Revelator
Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys - Close By
Houston Stackhouse & Joe Willie Wilkins - Cool Drink Of Water
Muddy Waters - Honey Bee
Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Lone Star Rag
Mississipi John Hurt - You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley
Maybelle & Sara Carter - Cannonball Blues
Al Green - Simply Beautiful
Enjoy. Note that, too, save for Mississippi John Hurt, there is more by each of the above artists linked on each clip's page.
The first is via FaheyGuitarPlayers, the rest were all in a day's surf. On dial-up, even.
posted on Sep 20, 2006 - View this thread

This was the music of my childhood, along with massive infusions of Psalty the Singing Songbook and the Donut Man. During adolescence, my musical range expanded only slightly to include nashville country, teen pop, and the odd intersections between the two. YouTube has been an invaluable resource for expanding my previously limited horizons, from the productions which marked Michael Jackson's rise and fall to the birth and growing pains of the west coast rap scene. My favorite Youtube musical discovery thus far, however, is this pseudo-impromptu live rendition of Arthur's Theme.
posted on Sep 4, 2006 - View this thread

The Neon Philharmonic consisted of members of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, a producer of country & western records named Don Gant (who produced Jimmy Buffett's first hit), and a jazz pianist named Tupper Saussy. Strangely enough, this odd combination produced an unexpected Top 20 hit, Morning Girl. The group was briefly mentioned as an obscure music hipster reference in a devastating indie-rock takedown of current critical darling Sufjan Stevens, but such a throwaway reference to the Neon Philharmonic does not do justice to the bizarre life of its founder, Tupper Saussy.(more inside)
posted on Aug 1, 2006 - View this thread

Made most popular to many Americans as the closing song for the Grand Ole Opry programs, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was written in 1907 by Ada Habershon, an intensely religious young woman and acquaintance of Dwight Moody and Ira David Sankey. The music was "composed" by Charles Gabriel, a popular songwriter and composer of the era who is often solely credited with the song, but while he may have put the notes down on paper, the tune itself already existed as the African-American spiritual Glory Glory / Since I Laid My Burden Down. [lots more inside]
posted on May 26, 2006 - View this thread

Bluegrass Talk Radio
posted on Mar 16, 2006 - View this thread

So You Think You Hate Country Music? Then listen to this. The roots of American country music may surprise you. In this series of NPR programs, trace the gradual development of real country music through the first half of the 20th century. Learn how a woman's instrument of the late 1800s, the parlor guitar, became the the central symbol of country and rock; see how African-American musical forms like gospel and blues meshed with the development of country and early rock and influenced the traditional forms in turn; listen to German-Mexican hybrids of accordian style; find out why women had so many honky-tonk torch songs to sing in the late 40s. The series contains hours of content (narrative, interviews, music tracks), and a multitude of excellent links for deeper digging.
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

Blaze Foley, Drunken Angel. An iconoclastic country singer and songwriter who was shot dead in 1989, Blaze Foley is probably best known as the subject of Lucinda Williams' song 'Drunken Angel' and the author of 'If I Could Only Fly' which was covered by both Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. He also wrote the anti-Reagan 'Oval Room' which was unusually leftist for early-1980's Nashville. A documentary is in the works. Here's some video of Foley singing with Townes Van Zandt, himself once a cult figure but now considered somewhat last week.
posted on Jan 26, 2006 - View this thread

Pay Up, Cheaters! The Story of the Beat Farmers (QT trailer for as-yet unreleased DVD, Jamie Dawson, director)
Pour yourself a shot of Jäger and gather round the campfire, boys and girls, it's time for testifyin'. Tonight I present the cautionary tale of a big, kind-hearted stink-ape of a man, Country Dick Montana, who spent his short life as the Master of Ceremonies for a neverending party. He played drums, guitar and sang in The Beat Farmers, a legendary Southern California roots rock (embedded RealVideo) band proud of its fans' ability to make bar cash registers explode. Too country for rock radio, too rock for country radio, they could fill any showroom, but their only airplay outside San Diego consisted of ditties (embedded RealVideo) played by Dr. Demento; not exactly the recognition one would hope to receive. [more inside]
posted on Nov 6, 2005 - View this thread

Rockin' Country Style You usually hear the music termed "rockabilly," but the creator of this site prefers the term "country and western rock 'n' roll," a term he feels reflects what observers of the music's prime era (the mid-to-late 1950s) thought was going on, and is more inclusive besides (racially and also in regard to artificial genre boundaries). Whatever you think about his "theoretical scope," there is so much here to explore. And so much deeply, deeply odd music. The usual suspects are here, among them Elvis and the usual Sun heroes, as well Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly, etc. What is really interesting about this site, however, is how one can explore the evolution of a performer's sound (see: Link Wray) or the sounds of a geographical area or city. Then there are just so many great song samples, like Hep Cat Baby from Eddy Arnold and Fickle Chicken by the Atmospheres - and that's only from the A's! The site also features compilations by label, photographs of singles, and likes to sites dedicated to labels and performers. Terry Gordon, who oversaw the creation of this impossibly thorough database, is now working on a second database site dedicated to southern soul.
posted on Aug 14, 2005 - View this thread

Arthur Miles [mp3], the throat-singing cowboy, singing about the lonesome cowboy. Types of throat-singing, with tips, brought to you by the International Association for Harmonic Singing.
posted on May 29, 2005 - View this thread

KRISTOFFERSON!! Born in Texas to an Air Force General, Kris Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxing champ who studied writing at Pomona College. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford (students of Merton College later voted that the college should erect a statue of Kristofferson, naked astride a motorcycle of his choice, in Front Quad but funds were never made available) and had two short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly. After Oxford, he joined the military where he trained as a Ranger and learned to fly helicopters. Turning down an invitation to teach at West Point, he packed his bags and left for Nashville, taking a job as a janitor at Columbia Records' recording studio and following his dream to be a songwriter. He flew helicopters to offshore oil rigs in his spare time, until he became too frustrated and, as legend has it, got drunk, flew his helicopter onto Johnny Cash’s backyard, and handed him his demo tapes. A week later Cash sang Kris’ song “Sunday Morning Coming Down” on The Johnny Cash Show, four months later it sat atop the country music charts, and later that year it won the CMA for best song of the year. (more inside)
posted on May 20, 2005 - View this thread

The country music of the atom bomb. Via 3 Quarks Daily
posted on Mar 16, 2005 - View this thread

It's Rodeohead, (MP3 download), the radiohead country and western medley. Please note there is absolutely no reason to post this apart from it's Friday, it's a bank holiday weekend and it made me laugh. If you're looking for in-depth then move along, nothing to see here...
posted on May 28, 2004 - View this thread

701 78s. A huge set of "old-time" music recordings from 1924-1946, made available in RealAudio format by honkingduck.com. Not high sound quality, but an invaluable collection for anyone with any interest in early recorded bluegrass, folk, country, blues, etc.
posted on Nov 10, 2003 - View this thread

Gay porn legend Jeff Stryker releases a country album. It's true! The site provides links to several mp3 samples, but don't miss the brilliant "Pop You In The Pooper!".
posted on Jan 29, 2003 - View this thread

"The early bird may get the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese." Willie Nelson in New York. An Adam Gopnik profile.
posted on Oct 1, 2002 - View this thread

Country singer Toby Keith claims he won't be playing his hot country single Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) on an ABC July 4th special because Peter Jennings doesn't like the song. "I find it interesting that he's not from the U.S.," Keith says of Jennings, who is Canadian. "I bet Dan Rather'd let me do it on his special." (via cursor)
posted on Jun 13, 2002 - View this thread

A little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll: Dolly Parton’s upcoming Halos and Horns CD features her version of “Stairway to Heaven” (and, from the other end of the rock spectrum, Bread’s wimp-rock classic “If”). Ironically, country singer Irene Kelley was kicked out of a high school Led Zeppelin cover band for suggesting they do a Dolly Parton song.
posted on Apr 10, 2002 - View this thread

Harlan Howard is dead. The greatest American country songwriter outside of Hank Williams and Merle Haggard wrote more than four thousand songs, including Patsy Cline's "I Fall To Pieces" and Buck Owens' "Tiger By The tail", but "God May Forgive You (But I Won't)", performed by Rosie Flores and Iris Dement, is the one that turned me on. Known as the Dean of Nashville songwriters, Harlan had a permanently reserved barstool, and plenty of tips for aspiring songwriters, one of which was "country music is three chords and the truth". Old stool.
posted on Mar 23, 2002 - View this thread

Country Great Waylon Jennings Dead Well, there aren't too many outlaws left.
posted on Feb 13, 2002 - View this thread

Guitarist, musical icon Chet Atkins dies at 77 Chet Atkins, whose guitar style influenced a generation of rock musicians even as he helped develop an easygoing country style to compete with it, died Saturday. He was 77. "And another bites the dust."
posted on Jul 1, 2001 - View this thread