American Aquarium

I know I haven’t written anything in a while but I am going to start writing more again. One of the most recent concerts I went to was Justin Jones at the 930 club. While I really liked Justin Jones, the opener American Aquarium was really good. They are produced by Jason Isbell formerly of the Drive By Truckers and it sounds great.

 

One of the best things about American Aquarium is the lead singer BJ Barham. He has a Springsteen swagger, a great voice and a great red acoustic gibson. The other best is the lap steel player who plays in every song. The band has a really close feel. It seems like they all get along and there isn’t any tension in the band.  I appreciate the bluegrass jam vibe with country rock and roll.

 

Here is a link to their site

 

http://www.americanaquarium.net/home.cfm

 

and a good song to start you off on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls3E8f5huDo

 

Music Concert Series

Since I hadn’t written anything in a while I decided two posts today. Enjoy the second one below.

I have recently been watching a lot of Austin City Limits. It’s been the longest running concert series on TV since 1976 and it is great. A few recent concerts I really liked were Raphael Saadiq and the Jeff Bridges/ Miranda Lambert concerts, also Randy Newman was great. I watch it through PBS like I assume more of America because I happen to live in DC. It is a great music series, and commercial free. It plays a lot of Americana music, so if you are looking to get into Americana just DVR ACL. I find myself looking a lot at the guitars (Jeff Bridges has a great gretsch).

The Website is below

http://acltv.com/

And Photos! All photos come from ACLTV.com

Hayes Carll

Fretboard Journal

Issue 23 of Fretboard Journal- Gillian Welch on the cover from Fretboardjournal.com

If you are interested in all things guitar (both electric and acoustic), bass, banjo and/or mandolin, I would recommend Fretboard Journal. It is a great magazine and I think the articles and photos are far superior to many other boutique guitar magazines.  They have been publishing for about 6 years now and it’s a quarterly journal. It’s also the only magazine I don’t throw issues away. I’m not a photographer but there is something very down to earth and real about the photos they take. It makes these incredible guitars seem very accessible and tangible. Unlike other magazines that but there rare beauties on a pedestal never to b touched or played and any worthwhile musician knows that instruments were made to played not collected and kept in a display case. That is why Stradivarius violins are still played and rented out to violinists. Sure its Yitzhak Pearlman and Hilary Hahn but still they are being used.

They recently released their fall issue with Gillian Welch on the cover. She is one of the most important women in Folk and Americana music today, and I love it. When I found out about his magazine about a year ago, it really started to motivate me to read about different tone woods and try experimenting with guitar building and modifying. I guess you could say along with Old Crow, Fretboard Journal helped make me the man I am today. It also has opened me up to the wide world of independent luthiers and builders. That may also mean I’ll make my next guitar a small business one rather than a corporate one.

The issues range from $8 to $18 depending on how you buy it, at the stand vs. subscription. This is the only magazine so far that I bought a subscription to the day I saw it. If that isn’t enough to convince you I don’t know what is.

Wonderful magazine, great topics.

Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter with a Beautiful Gretsch

… And now I return to Americana music. I have been following Josh Ritter for a long time. He is one of my favourite artists of all time. He hails from Moscow, Idaho. A city I have never been to, but I have been to Moscow, Russia. He has a way with words and a way with chords. I believe he has given a lot to folk and Americana and like all Americana musicians he plays a small body Gibson.

He comes to DC a lot which is great and like many performers he loves the 930 club.  He is one of the most charming performers I have ever seen. He has a lot of dialogue with the audience and it really shows how much he loves his fans.

He released an album last year called So Runs Away the World. I have to admit after The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, I didn’t know if I could like anything as much. SRATW grew on me at first I wasn’t sure if I liked it but now it’s one of my favourite albums, of all. He did an amazing reinterpretation of the Stagger Lee story on “Folk Bloodbath”. “Lantern” is my favourite song and now a standard on his set list.

These are my favourite Josh Ritter song not in any particular order

“Galahad” – I first heard this at his concert in February, it is the tale of Sir Galahad encountering an “angel” and then going to heaven . This song inspired me to start finger picking.

“To the Dogs or Whoever…” – The starter of the historical conquests album. It’s a very strong song and it makes for a great concert opener. It’s rapid fire and loud. I like it a lot.

“Girl in the War” – Tells the story of a love stuck in the water and a dialogue between Peter and Paul. Beautiful imagery and he rhymes kingdom with kingdom.

“Harrisburg” – I like that is an adventure song. Although it is a sad story of a man running away from his live. He plays this song acoustically on the album but in concert it is a full band and Zach Hickman sings “Papa was a Rollin Stone” during the last verse. Damn great Song.

“Lillian, Egypt” – Chorus just goes La La La. This usually drives me crazy, but not when Josh is singing.

“Good Man” – I recently realized I like this song. I listen to Josh Ritter a lot but I don’t always remember the title of the song.

“Temptation of Adam” – Beautiful and nuclear, if you have ever longed for someone but they didn’t see you as more than a friend this song is for you. Although I was never trapped in a missile silo.

I would recommend starting off with The Historical Conquests and then going on from there. There are a bunch of Youtube videos also, but I’m going to post the here. You’ll have to go find out for yourself.

Also …

If he ever comes to your town go out, buy a ticket and enjoy.

Americana Music Festival

This is America

Although, the Americana Music Festival was over a month ago the concert broadcasted by the Austin City Limits series. What a concert! There were some many guitars and banjos. If you were looking at the guitars like I was you could see almost everyone there had a L style Gibson blues guitar. Emmylou didn’t have a guitar but if she did she would be packing a J-200.

My favourite performances of the night were Justin Townes Earle singing his gospel single ‘Harlem River Blues’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away’ with Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller. I really dig the gospel and soul style in “Harlem River Blues’. The organ makes for a strong, driving melody. ‘I’ll Fly Away’ is another gospel song that has a simple powerful message and the banjo really makes this song. It gives an old time feel that is the embodiment of Americana.

I also liked The Civil Wars performance ‘Barton Hollow’ is a great song and it reminds me of  ‘Copperhead Road’ by Steve Earle. It has that haunting quality to it that really makes a powerful impact. I personally, I would throw a banjo is there but that’s my bias.

Joy Williams and John Paul White of The Civil Wars perform at the Americana Music Association awards show in Nashville

These were the performers and later on I will probably put some more info about them.

Emmylou Harris

Greg Allman

Buddy Miller

The Civil Wars

Jessica Lea Mayfield

Robert Plant

Justin Townes Earle

Alison Krauss

Amos Lee

Jim Lauderdale

The Avett Brothers

Elizabeth Cook

The Secret Sisters

There are a lot of You Tube clips you can see the individual performances  and below I have a link for the Americana Music Association homepage.

http://americanamusic.org/acl-presents-americana-music-festival-november-19-pbs

CMA Awards 2011

Keith Urban 2011 CMA - Look at that fine Telecaster, just look at it.

So based on my recent counts, it looks like heavy metal music is not a good blog topic. That’s fine I got my metal out of the way. Now back to Country. Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood hosted for the 4^th year in a row and it was great. Brad and Carrie started off by sing about how Hank Williams Jr. needs to tone down his criticisms of president Obama along with Hank. It started off a little uneasy but quickly turned into a performance based show. This is a much better format of award shows and I think the grammys should take a hint. I don’t know what the Oscars can do but they are also in need of a format change. I want to see who wins but I also don’t want to be bored for 3 hours. Maybe get Ricky Gervaise, who is apparently hosting the Golden Globes again. Also the Mark Twain award for Will Farrell was a well done award show.

I have to say in short, well done country music association.

There are a few things I will take away from the CMA awards.

1. Reba is always a delight
2. Taylor Swift from now until 2018 will always win something
3. Brad Paisley should have won best album
4. The Band Perry
5. I don’t like Jason Aldean as much as I thought I did
6. I like Keith Urban a lot more than I thought I did
7. That show instrument wise is all teles and acoustics
8. I like Eric Church

Here is a link to the videos from the show if you need to catch up on it

http://www.cmt.com/cma-awards/videos.jhtml

 

 

Smoking Cigarettes and Drinking Coffee Blues

There are few country artists I like more than Marty Robbins. He had an unmistakable country western sound that is still popular today. In my youth, no one I knew listened to country music or liked country music, such a shame. However, I did have one cassette tape with country music and sure enough the ones that stuck with me were 2 songs sung by Marty Robbins, El Paso, which is probably his most famous one, and Ghost Riders in the Sky, a traditional western song. In his long career he made a big impact on country music.

A very young Marty Robbins from lyricsdoc.eu

Marty Robbins is best remembered for his western songs which he didn’t really start singing until 10 years into his career. Among his many hits the El Paso trilogy was one of the most interesting and hit number one on both pop and country billboard charts. He wrote El Paso and it ended up being such a hit, that he wrote Feleena (From El Paso) and El Paso City. The song features a lot of embellishment picking which gives it this wonderful mystic quality and the ¾ time which is atypical for a popular song. The themes he sings about in the song love, betrayal, revenge and shootouts, aren’t strange but the way he crafts the lyrics. It all goes together so well.

Since I love guitars Im going to go into a little bit about Marty’s Martin Guitar. It was a very small guitar the model number is 5-18 and Marty was really the only guitarist known to play it because it has a very crowded finger board and apparently most people don’t like the 1 11/16″ nut size.  A lot of people like this size for travel, but not really as a main guitar.

Here is a link to the site, guitar specs, not that interesting to many people but I love looking at them.

http://www.martinguitar.com/guitars/choosing/guitars.php?p=z&g=f&m=5-18%20Marty%20Robbins

Marty was also a NASCAR driver and damn good at it too. He came in top 10 six times, and one of them was the Daytona 500. Just so you know what he was about, His biography is titled Marty Robbins: Country Music and Fast Cars and to add to the cool factor of Marty Robbins, he was a good friend of Johnny Cash and appeared on his show.

He released 52 albums and 100 singles, certainly a very prolific writer. Unfortunately, Marty Robbins died in 1982 from complications after surgery but his memory lives on. I had no idea but Fallout: Las Vegas uses the song Big Iron which may turn a new group of people onto Marty.

This is the Marty Robbins I am much more familiar with. Just look at that mustache. He looks like this in most of the videos you see of him.

And now the recommended videos

Marty sang a lot of crooner songs, but I’m going to focus on the country western parts here

El Paso- This is a good place to start

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn3JB51NH_M

Big Iron- Story of a Texas Ranger looking for an outlaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGmUsJvRv7U

Cigarette and Coffee Blues – good song for a broken heart. In this video you will see Marty’s signature parlor guitar. It looks like a little bit smaller you have a ukulele.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouqq6yvpw-4

They’re Hanging Me Tonight – Classic Country song theme, gunshots for your ex lover

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuFWKbFiQ1A

This is my all time favourite country song, It has a great story makes a big impression. Personally I like the Johnny cash version better because there is a wicked piano part, but one thing Marty always had were those 3 part vocal harmonies. He uses them very well in this song. Hell of a song by a hell of a singer.

Ghost Riders in the Sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xSYyMDaq4

Any other favourite Marty Robbins song? any other old country singers you think I should write about?

Leave a comment

Americana Rock Mix- Podcast

Americana Rock Mix logo from Americanarockmix.com

Who doesn’t love a good podcast?

If you love the type of music I have been referencing in this blog then I suggest you check out the Americana Rock Mix. The host Von is very charming and I have to give it to him he has a very clean and well edited sound. There are so many podcasts I would love to listen to but the production values make it hard to listen to the speaker/commentator/orator. I would say same goes for documentarians. I also have to say that I like Von. I’ve listened to a few episodes and so far they have all been great.

There are a few things about this podcast that I really like. One thing he does that so many others don’t is play a couple songs by each artist. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a great song and when I go to check out the rest of the band’s songs I don’t really care for them. Two, I like is the live sets he puts out. I was doubly impressed to see that a Josh Ritter concert was on the podcast. I have seen Mr. Ritter more than any other artist because he is an excellent performer. He also has Hoots and Hellmouth and few Drive By-Truckers sets. There are over 100 episodes so far and mostly about 1 hour or a bit more. That’s a lot of fucking music. So if I had to recommend a music podcast. This would be number one.

Tom Waits – Bad As Me

The Honourable Tom Waits

Tom Waits trying to find his sound from Tomwaits.com by Anton Corbijn

Tom Waits came out with a new album on Oct 28^th called Bad As Me. I got to listen to it before the release and I have to say I really liked it. It has a distinctive Waits sound of cigarette smoke and hobo throat. He has all the elements, the slow drum cadence, the obscure string instruments accentuating horns and of course Monster Voice. This album has a lot more rock feel to it that older albums and one thing I really like about Tom Waits is that he really takes all the elements that lead up to rock and roll, like jazz, blues and folk, but combines them into something not rock. That’s not to say I don’t like this album but it is an interesting confluence. The title single it great it has Tom cry singing and the distorted guitar taking turns with the trombone to make a melody. It’s upbeat too which really does draw me in more than a slow song; all around a great album.

If you are interested in the instruments he uses, check out this site http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/instruments-main.html

It categorizes all the instruments he uses and the song and album on which they appear.  I think it’s amazing how many instruments he includes especially when most band max out at 3. A lot of them also look like World War I torture instruments, which is always a plus.

A few of my favourite Tome waits Songs

1. Singapore – Sea adventure to a strange land with a group of sketchy sailors
2. God’s Away on Business – Look at the youtube of cookie monster singing this
3. Swordfishtrombone
4. 16 shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six
5. Ol’55 – I know this a slow one but I like it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5X4N2exOsU

This is all I’m going to post you have to discover the rest.

Any other favourites Waits songs? Mash ups?

Old Crow Medicine Show – My Gateway Band

Old Crow Medicine Show

I have to hand it to Old Crow. They made me the Americana fan I am today. When I was in college I first heard wagon wheel and it instantly led me to search for more. I had been listening to a little Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, but I did not have the appreciation for them that I do now. Old Crow although should be given their own credit because of their contribution to Americana and old time music.

Old Crow Medicine Show with Ed Helms taken by Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

 

They started put playing as a 5 piece band on the streets of Nashville, and just got bigger from there.  One things they have done amazingly is make old time music very accessible. They have brought back old country and folk songs like Union Maid and Fall on my Knees, and continue to keep their honest old time pickin’ and fiddlin’. To be honest a high school version of me would have walked away at the first sound of twang, and now I’d rather listen to it than anything else.

A few songs to get you started if you haven’t heard them

1. Wagon Wheel – Start off with this one, it’s probably their most popular song and it gets covered regularly. This song was actually taken from a Bob Dylan song that he recorded for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. OCMS and Bob Dylan are both cited as song writers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gX1EP6mG-E&ob=av2e

2. Fall on My Knees – I didn’t know about this one until my girlfriend showed it to me but it is now one of my favourites. It is an old song but if you search it Old Crow’s version always comes up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjb0buprxqY

3.  Tell it to Me – This is from their first album and it’s just one of my favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mhi3vW7H50&feature=relmfu

Have a favourite OCMS song? Any band that changed the way you think about music? Leave a comment.

You can learn more about them at http://www.crowmedicine.com/