New Music Video From James Taylor - "Fire and Rain" (Live At The Opry)

Album Review: Drew Kennedy- At Home In The Big Lonesome

Artist: Drew Kennedy
Album: At Home In The Big Lonesome
Release date: November 3, 2017
Rating: Four and A Half Stars Out Of Five

It makes only sense in a year in which Texas native Drew Kennedy had much of his home state seriously damaged by a ravaging hurricane that his 8th album would be his most serious and intimate to date. For those that believe Texas is filled with just honky-tonk and swing music, this project borrows more from James Taylor and Don Williams than it ever does Asleep at the Wheel. It's excellence beyond expectation and compare. Drew has always been an intellectual writer, but he has hit his stride on this unbelievable album. From the opening piano-laden track "When I'll Miss You Most," he reaches right in your chest and grabs hold of your heart. For anyone who has experienced loss, it's beautifully tragic and meaningful all at once. Not a word is wasted and the production allows the lyrics space to live like Walt Whitman's finest prose.

Song after song, you come to the realization that each and every song is just so damn smart. On "Cream and Sugar," he has me crushing so hard on the waitress and stranger he's describing, my wife ought to be jealous.

Kennedy's gift is that he can find the beauty and specialness of what typically goes unseen. Whether that's an old motel sign or the feeling of the breeze upon your skin, he has a poets knack for creating visual and tactile image from a spoken word.

“This is the story of what life is like for those of us somewhere in the middle of it all,” Kennedy says. “It’s about the journey to get to this point, and the giant question mark-shaped path we’re following onward from here. Of how even the best-laid plans for your next big step have to so often be altered because life calls.”

It's not that what Kennedy says is overly profound- although there are parts of the project that are emotionally heavy. (A home imploding on "House" comes to mind.) It's that what he says is overly interesting. You find yourself hanging on each sentence and lyric because they deliver an observation in a way that you haven't heard before.

This is a storyteller songwriting at the very peak of expertise. It makes up one of our very favorite albums of 2017.

New Music Video From James Taylor & Bonnie Raitt - "You Can Close Your Eyes"

Check out James Taylor and the amazing Bonnie Raitt performing "You Can Close Your Eyes" at the Harvey Can't Mess with Texas benefit last Friday night below. To watch the entire concert and to find out how you can help, visit http://bit.ly/2ymxka7.
 

Sheryl Crow Covers James Taylor - "Fire and Rain" and "How Sweet It Is" with Garth Brooks & Darius Rucker

The Henningsens Debut Album World's On Fire To Hit June 1

Artist: The Henningsens
Album: World's On Fire
Release date: June 1, 2016

Made up of a father, son/daughter trio, Brian, Aaron and Clara, the Henningsens have written their fair share of hit songs. Now with their debut album coming out, they hope to have some radio cuts of their own like their own The Band Perry hits “All Your Life” and “You Lie.”

Despite parting ways with their label last year, The Henningsens announced earlier this month that they would be putting out a new album called World’s On Fire out June 1, 2016.

“We’re all the way from very country to bluegrass to something you can’t quite put your finger on,” Brian says of the band’s music, rooted in very melodic, harmony-driven sounds and crossing generations of musical influences. While Brian cites such acts as Pure Prairie League, The Marshall Tucker Band, and The Eagles, Aaron notes influences like Johnny Cash, James Taylor, and Brad Paisley, and Clara is quick to mention Dixie Chicks, Alison Krauss, and Nickel Creek. “We try to be very lyrically descriptive,” Brian says. “We always say it when we write: we’re trying to make a little movie play in your mind.”

This album features 13 songs, including "Like a Girl," "Sugar Rush," "Jesus or a Bullet" and the title track.

 

New Music Video From James Taylor- "Angels of Fenway"

Tour Bus Covers- John Berry Covers James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James"

Post by John Berry.

Linda Ronstadt's Duets Scheduled For April 8 Release

Rhino Records is bringing together 14 of Linda Ronstadt's biggest collaborations with the likes of Aaron Neville, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Frank Sinatra, James Taylor, Dolly Parton and James Ingram along with a previously unreleased collaboration with Laurie Lewis, for a new collection that was created with help from Ronstadt and her longtime manager, John Boylan.  Duets will be available on April 8.

The album will arrive just days before Ronstadt is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10. The honor recognizes her role as a pioneering female artist and pays tribute to her exceptional musical legacy, which has earned 12 Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards and one Emmy. Last year, Ronstadt released her best-selling memoir Simple Dreams and also revealed that she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which left her unable to sing.

Several songs on this collection are also Grammy winners. Ronstadt won her first in 1976 for a cover of Hank Williams’ “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)” that featured Emmylou Harris and appeared on what many consider her masterwork, Heart Like a Wheel (1974). Another Grammy-winner featured on Duets is “Somewhere Out There,” which Ronstadt recorded with James Ingram in 1986 for the soundtrack to An American Tail.

Duets also includes two of her most successful collaborations, both of which feature Aaron Neville. The Grammy-winning songs “Don’t Know Much” and “All My Life” originally appeared on Ronstadt’s triple-platinum album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind (1989).  In 1976, she and Don Henley sang the Warren Zevon-penned track “Hasten Down The Wind,” which was the title track to Ronstadt’s Grammy-winning, #1 album. It was her third consecutive million-selling album, an accomplishment no other female artist had achieved at that point.

Duets also spotlights a number of Ronstadt’s more recent collaborations, like “Sisters” with Bette Midler, which appeared on Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook (2003). That same year, Ronstadt partnered with Carl Jackson on “The New Partner Waltz,” for the Grammy-winning tribute album Livin’, Lovin’, Losin’: Song of the Louvin Brothers. Duets also includes three tracks from Adieu False Heart – a Grammy-nominated album Ronstadt recorded in 2006 with Cajun-music singer Ann Savoy – including a cover of the 1966 hit, “Walk Away Renée.”

Track Listing
1.                  “Adieu False Heart” with Ann Savoy
2.                  “I Can’t Get Over You” with Ann Savoy
3.                  “Walk Away Renee” with Ann Savoy
4.                  “The New Partner Waltz” with Carl Jackson
5.                  “I Never Will Marry” with Dolly Parton
6.                  “Pretty Bird” with Laurie Lewis*
7.                  “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You)” with Emmylou Harris
8.                  “Hasten Down The Wind” with Don Henley
9.                  “Prisoner In Disguise” with J.D. Souther
10.               “I Think It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” with James Taylor
11.               “Don’t Know Much” with Aaron Neville
12.               “All My Life” with Aaron Neville
13.               “Somewhere Out There” with James Ingram
14.               “Sisters” with Bette Midler
15.               “Moonlight In Vermont” with Frank Sinatra

TNS Video History- 2012 Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony

This past week, Garth Brooks, Connie Smith and Hargus "Pig" Robbins were awarded country music's highest honor. Two country singers who started off with record-breaking success, only to set aside their careers to raise families, and a blind piano player who became a studio luminary even though he couldn't read charts, were welcomed into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the annual Medallion Ceremony on October 21, 2012.

Ronnie Dunn, Crystal Gayle, Merle Haggard, Charlie McCoy, Ronnie Milsap, Quebe Sisters Band, Bob Seger, George Strait, James Taylor, Gene Watson, and The Whites were among all-star cast paying tribute.

New Music Video From Mary Chapin Carpenter- "Soul Companion"

Songwriter Andrew Gold Passes Away

Country music lost another one of its magical songwriters when Andrew Gold had a heart attack and passed away at the age of 59 Friday, June 3rd. Gold wrote hits for Trisha Yearwood and Wynonna Judd, for whom he co-wrote the #1 single "I Saw The Light" with Lisa Angelle, who he later produced in her own right. He toured with The Eagles, played on records and toured with Jackson Browne. He produced, wrote, sang and played with James Taylor, Don Henley and Linda Ronstadt. In addition, he produced singles for Vince Gill.

Gold was best known as a solo artist for his 1977 hit ‘Lonely Boy’ and 1978’s ‘Thank You For Being A Friend’, the later became the theme for the hit TV series The Golden Girls that ran from 1985-1992. Gold continued in TV writing the theme song for ‘Mad About You’ known as ‘Final Frontier’.

TNS Video History- Johnny Cash & James Taylor- "Oh, Susanna"