Last fall I wrote about the new album from Hank Erwin, Copper. Generally speaking, the record is full of Southern rock ballads and outlaw country tales, many of them at least partially autobiographical. If you’re going to just sample a couple of songs, you can’t go wrong with Altana or Hell Or Harlan, both with […]
Jamestown Revival – Young Man
You can just picture Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance, also known as Jamestown Revival, sitting in rockers on the porch of a ranch in the blistering midday sun of southeast Texas. They’re strumming acoustic guitars, working on some songs and complaining about “them damn kids nowadays.” At the end of the day they have a […]
David Jameson Video Premiere – Gone Like the Wind
From placing second in a Mandarin language singing contest, to doing engineering consulting work across Southeast Asia, to getting inspired at Houston Rodeo. Aside from the latter, that’s not really the life arc of a typical country music singer. It worked its magic for David Jameson, however. His debut album, Tall Dark Pines, is due […]
Shawn’s Picks – 2021 Favorite Albums
For the second time in a row we’ve finished a year like no other. On the plus side, all that time at home seems to have upped everyone’s songwriting skills. I can’t remember the last time my first pass at the annual favorites list was so long. The first couple of picks were relatively easy. […]
CJ Garton Video Premier – I Went Crazy
CJ Garton was raised a 6th generation Oklahoma red dirt cowboy. Although he makes his living as a singer-songwriter these days, his roots run deep. On a little bit of a whim, he and his son rode their horses from Nashville back to the Oklahoma homestead in 2019. That trip became the inspiration for a […]
Sad Daddy Video Premiere – Charlie Pickle
Some bands stay together for years with little or no change to their lineup. Other bands are more amorphous, with different incarnations of lineups performing under different names and band members sitting in on each other’s solo projects. The latter describes Arkansas/Texas quartet, Sad Daddy. Last spring the friends got together at guitarist/vocalist Brian Martin’s […]
Calista Garcia – A Beautiful World
Like many of us over the last couple of years, Calista Garcia found herself consumed by the negative events in the world. As an antidote, she decided to focus on all the good things she saw around her. She transcribed that awareness into a collection of songs that became her new EP, A Beautiful World. […]
Gov’t Mule – Heavy Load Blues
In the eighties and early nineties, post one Daley and pre another one, one of the safer areas of Chicago to go see live blues was a short stretch on North Halsted Avenue. There were half a dozen blues clubs in a stretch of just a few blocks, where the headliner rarely went on before […]
Nathan Evans Fox – Wasted Love
North Carolina born and currently residing in Nashville, Nathan Evans Fox sometimes talks about “accent”. Not just the way you talk, but how you react to certain things, how you behave, even some of your values. The French use the word “terroir” similarly to describe what’s imparted by a place of origin. Fox decided to […]
Video Premiere: Mike Donello & the New Essentials – Southside
One of the things I like about live music towns is how a group of musicians will just sort of start playing local gigs and end up becoming a well-known part of the music scene. They can make a living, or at least have a healthy side hustle, performing frequently without ever having to sleep […]