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Friday, June 1, 2012
Gillian Welch, Steve Earle and Jason Isbell Lead The Americana Music Association Award Nominees
The celebration also featured performances by special guests Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne and Robert Ellis alongside the Americana All-Star band, led by Buddy Miller with Lauderdale, Greg Leisz, Don Heffington and Don Was. The finale song honored Americana icons; Levon Helm, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson, who were the heartbeat of the genre, with a loving rendition of ”Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
A genre that honors the roots of American music and its tapestry of influences, nominees for the 2012 ceremony reflect its brightest talents. From lyricists that articulate the human condition to unrivaled instrumentalists, Americana has been described by The New York Times as "the coolest music scene today."
AMERICANA HONORS & AWARDS 2012 Nominees
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Here We Rest - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive - Steve Earle
The Harrow & The Harvest - Gillian Welch
This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark - Various Artists
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Gillian Welch
Hayes Carll
Jason Isbell
Justin Townes Earle
EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Alabama Shakes
Dawes
Deep Dark Woods
Robert Ellis
SONG OF THE YEAR
“Alabama Pines” – Written by Jason Isbell and performed by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
"Come Around" - Written and performed by Sarah Jarosz
“I Love” – Written by Tom T. Hall and performed by Patty Griffin
“Waiting on the Sky to Fall” – Written and performed by Steve Earle
INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR
Buddy Miller
Chris Thile
Darrell Scott
Dave Rawlings
DUO / GROUP OF THE YEAR
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Civil Wars
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Punch Brothers
The Americana Honors & Awards, presented by Nissan, returns to the historically cool Ryman Auditorium on September 12, 2012 (as part of the Americana Music Festival to take place September 12-15, 2012 at various venues throughout Music City). Jim Lauderdale will once again host the Honros & Awards, while Buddy Miller will lead the All-Star Band.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Joey+Rory To Release His and Hers On 7/31
"Joey knew she wanted to record it. And from there, she had the idea to title the album His & Hers. On this record, we went in and cut six songs with Joey singing and six songs with me singing. So it will be quite a departure from what we've normally got on our other albums, where either I didn't sing or I just did one song."
In signing up for CMT’s competition show Can You Duet in 2008, Rory Feek wanted one thing: for the world to know his wife Joey, and the power of her voice.
“My whole hope was: I'm going to get eliminated immediately, but they might hear her sing,” he says, now four years into a career as her Joey+Rory duo partner, and a decade into life as her proud husband.
The couple far surpassed his expectations, Joey+Rory taking third place and subsequently signing with Vanguard/Sugar Hill Records. Over two studio albums -- 2008’s The Life of A Song, from which single “Cheater Cheater” is culled, and 2010’s Album Number Two -- country fans have indeed come to know Joey’s crystalline belt. They’ve also come to know Joey+Rory as a couple, rooted in an 1870s Pottsville, Tenn., farmhouse, Rory writing songs and tinkering with old cars, Joey gardening or baking bread at Marcy Jo’s Mealhouse, the local restaurant she owns with sister-in-law Marcy. But with the new His and Hers, listeners will get fully acquainted with both Joey and Rory as individually arresting lead singers, Joey taking the fore on half of the album’s tracks, Rory’s warm, approachable vocal helming the others.
“In all of our live shows, he’s always done half the singing and I do half,” Joey says. “So we just felt like that was the right direction to go with this album – let it really be more of what we are together, and fill it full of great songs.”
Along with spotlighting Joey’s graceful arcs and Rory’s homespun charm, the songs offer a thorough sonic and lyrical encapsulation of who Joey and Rory are as country artists and fans. That much is clear from opener “Josephine,” a strummy, five-plus-minute letter from a Civil War soldier, penned in heartrending detail by Rory. It stands well outside country radio’s current tendencies, but sits firmly among the country music tenets Joey and Rory individually, though similarly, came up on: strong storytelling, rustic tones, emotion-forward singing.
Those tenets permeate His and Hers, from Grammy winner Gary Paczosa’s right-in-the-room production to its affecting narratives. Joey leads a mournful, lost-loved-one ballad (“When I’m Gone”) and the poignant "His & Hers"). Rory tenderly trembles through life and love lessons (“Teaching Me How to Love You”) and captures the playfulness he consistently shares with his wife in life and onstage with the boyish “Someday When I Grow Up.”
Rory wrote or co-wrote much of His and Hers (he’s earned well-documented songwriting success, logging multiple No. 1s, including Easton Corbin’s “Little More Country Than That). Other songs came from well-known Nashville scribes (Kent Blazy and Leslie Satcher’s “Let’s Pretend We Never Met”), talented friends (Sandy Emory Lawrence’s “When I’m Gone”) or country legends (Tom T. Hall’s “Your Man Loves You Honey”). All bear Joey’s one overriding requirement: “It has to be genuine, it has to be honest, it has to be sincere.”
Fans and newcomers will get to know the songs -- and Joey+Rory -- better come July, when the duo’s new weekly variety show, The Joey+Rory Show, launches on RFD-TV. Filmed entirely at their farm and in their community, its first 13 episodes will mix live performances of His and Hers tunes, recipes from their café, behind-the-scenes looks into their life together and intimate acoustic performances from the duo and a select group of singers and songwriters that inspire them.
“We don't have a TV, partly because it’s hard to find good family programs to watch any more… so rather than just set at that place and complain about it, we're hoping to create some good programming everyone can enjoy,” Rory says. “Just like the records you make, you never know if this show will reach hundreds of people, or millions—either way, the journey together is extraordinary."
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Bluegrass Legend Doc Watson Passes Away
The recipient of the National Medal of Arts, National Heritage Fellowship and eight Grammy Awards (including Lifetime Achievement), Doc Watson was a legendary largely-bluegrass performer who blended his traditional Appalachian musical roots with bluegrass, country, gospel and blues to create a unique style and an expansive repertoire.
He is a powerful singer and a tremendously influential picker, who virtually invented the art of playing mountain fiddle tunes on the flattop guitar. A discography of over fifty recordings includes, most recently, collaborations with his grandson Richard Watson and with David Holt.
Doc was born Arthel L. Watson in Deep Gap, NC on March 3, 1923, into a family already rich in musical tradition. His mother, Annie Watson, sang traditional secular and religious songs, and his father, General Watson, played the banjo, which was Doc's first instrument, as well.
Then, at age thirteen he taught himself the chords to “When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland” on a borrowed guitar, and his delighted father bought him a $12 Stella. He later picked up some chords from a fellow student at Raleigh School for the Blind, and began to incorporate material that he heard on records and the radio with the music of his heritage. Back home he played mostly with neighbors and family, among them fiddler Gaither Carlton, who became his father-in-law when Doc married Rosa Lee Carlton in 1947. They became parents of two children, Merle and Nancy Ellen.
It wasn't until 1953 at age thirty that he met Jack Williams, a local piano player, and began to play gigs for money. Doc played with Williams' rockabilly/swing band for seven years, a period and a style that he revisited in the recent album Docabilly. But he continued to play traditional music with his family and with his banjo playing neighbor, Clarence “Tom” Ashley. In 1960, spurred by the growing folk revival, Ralph Rinzler and Eugene Earle came south to record Ashley and heard Doc Watson in the process.
These sessions resulted in Doc's first recordings, Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. A later recording, a collaboration with mandolinist David Grisman entitled Doc & Dawg, returns to this old-time pre-bluegrass style. In 1961 the Friends of Old-Time Music invited Doc, Ashley, Clint Howard and Fred Price to perform at a now-legendary concert in New York City, and one year later Doc gave his first solo performance at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village.
From then on, he was a full-time professional, playing a wide range of concerts, clubs, colleges and festivals, including the Newport Folk Festival and Carnegie Hall. As the late sixties brought a waning of the folk revival, Doc's son Merle Watson provided the musical and emotional companionship that he needed to continue touring. With Merle playing guitar and banjo and serving as partner and driver, the father-son team expanded their audience nationwide.
After working for a while with the band Frosty Morn, they continued to tour with bassist T. Michael Coleman, and brought their music to Europe, Japan and Africa. A series of remarkable recordings, including collaborations with Flatt & Scruggs, Chet Atkins and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, helped make Watson the gold standard among traditional pickers.
Although he briefly stopped performing after Merle died in a 1985 tractor accident, Doc (accompanied by guitarist Jack Lawrence) now accepts a limited number of engagements.
For the last several years, he has hosted the annual Merle Watson Memorial Festival in Wilkesboro, where, surrounded by family and collaborators ranging from bandleader Jack Williams to grandson Richard Watson, he can give full breadth to his musical expression and still sleep in his own house, deep in the Carolina mountains, on land homesteaded by his great-great-grandfather.
Legendary North Carolina-born guitarist and singer Doc Watson received the National Medal of Arts on Monday, Sept. 29, 1997 in a ceremony at the White House hosted by President Bill Clinton. "There may not be a serious, committed baby boomer alive," said the President, "Who didn't at some point in his or her youth try to spend a few minutes at least trying to learn to pick a guitar like Doc Watson."
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
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