Friday, May 27, 2011

Shane Wilson





Great artist from Coldwater, Alabama -
I'm in a rush, so I'm just gonna paste his official bio




I ain’t special - MUSIC is special. Just so happens it’s what I do to earn a living...
So, I’ve played and written music my entire life. I’ve been lucky at times, and I’ve been good at times, and I’ve struggled... A LOT. The “right” musicians didn’t come along for me until about 6 months ago, and they are Bassist SHAWN DONAHOO and Drummer CLAY MARTIN - COLDWATER.
I’m honored to be an Alabama Music Hall of Fame Achiever and a Carnegie Hero Medal Winner.
I was humbled when critics embraced my ZANE RECORDS releases in 1999 and 2001, dubbing my newfound writing abilities as “platinum.” My song, “Town That Knows Everything” was heralded as “the best song SPRINGSTEEN never wrote.”
Yeah, I know. “Go figure!”
I’ll give you a list of credits like every musician/songwriter/artist does, but I’m more excited about now than then. However, I have been incredibly blessed to have worked or recorded with:
Greg Allman; “Idol” winner - Taylor Hicks; Sugarland; Widespread Panic; the late, great Buddy Miles and Butch McDade; Oteil Burbridge of The Allman Brothers; Derek Trucks; Bonnie Bramlett; Chuck Leavell; Jimmy Hall; The Drive-By Truckers; The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section; The Memphis Horns; Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham and Donnie Fritz; Delbert McClinton; Mark Wills; Lenny LeBlanc (“Above All”); Jerry Joseph; Bloodkin; Whew!! I have been lucky!

COLDWATER is four hours of original, marketable and crowd-pleasing music spring-loaded and ready for energizing shows everywhere. We are a Roots Rock, Americana, Southern Roul (rock and soul) trio based out of Decatur, AL.

Web Presence: Reverbnation.com/shanewilson; Facebook.com/shanewilson88; myspace.com/shanewilson88; twitter and shanewilsonmusic.com is currently under construction.

“Sincerely, thank you for your interest, your time and your support of original artists everywhere.” SHANE WILSON and COLDWATER

Check him out

Monday, May 23, 2011

Scott Ward Band - George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues





check 'em out - great friends of mine - features the legendary Spooner Oldham and Earl "Peanut" Montgomery.



You can find out more about the Scott Ward Band and where you can purchase their upcoming album here.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Alabama




My beloved home state of Alabama is still in need after last month's devastating tornado outbreak. If you feel it in your heart, go here to see how you can help. We're a strong people and we will survive, but we could all use a little help.




A member of my family was a victim of the tornado that not only destroyed his home but put him in the hospital with serious injuries. Find out more about them and how you can help at Help The Lankfords






I'll leave you with a beautiful song by Tuscaloosa, Alabama's finest, the Dexateens.





Thursday, April 21, 2011

ryan adams - heartbreaker demos




Pretty widely bootlegged, but essential, my favorite of all Ryan's "demo" collections. Many of the songs ended up on Whiskeytown's swan song, Pneumonia.





I definitely prefer it to his recent releases.

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker Demos

1. In My Time of Need
2. Bar Lights
3. Win
4. All I Wanted :)
5. Out of Time
6. Sit & Listen to the Rain
7. Night Lights
8. Probably Gonna Happen
9. West NY Serenade
10. Lil Girls
11. In the World
12. Medicine
13. Dialtone
14. Don't Wanna Know Why
15. Easy Heart
16. Goodbye Honey


That won't make you mine...








Justin Townes Earle - Under Cover








In the tradition of compiling our favorite artists' takes on other artists' songs, heres a collection of live covers from Justin Townes Earle.
Some great stuff here.... especially dig his take on his daddy's South Nashville Blues


JTE Under Cover




Tom Ames' Prayer (Steve Earle)
Mr. Gold & Mr. Mudd (Townes Van Zandt)
Your Biscuits Are Big Enough for Me (Bo Carter)
Lonesome Song (Carter Family)
Birmingham Jail (Slim Whitman)
Can't Hardly Wait (The Replacements)
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind? (Dolly Parton)
Hesitation Blues (Art Gillham)
Walkin' Blues (Son House)
Rex's Blues (Townes Van Zandt)
Automobile Blues (Lightnin' Hopkins)
Close Up the Honky Tonks (Buck Owens)
Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Doc Watson)
Gold Watch & Chain (A.P. Carter)
Fishin Blues (Taj Majal)
Chitlin Cookin Time in Cheatham County (Traditional)
Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor (Doc Watson)
Old Joe Clark (Traditional)
Atlantic City (Bruce Springsteen)
Racing In The Street (Bruce Springsteen)
Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out (Jimmy Cox)
Raleigh & Spencer (Traditional)
Far From Me (John Prine)
So Different Blues (Mance Lipscomb)
Brand New Companion (Townes Van Zandt)
Long Journey Home (Bluegrass standard)
Must Be Someone Else You've Known (Merle Haggard)
Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman)
Ain't No Tellin' (Mississippi John Hurt)
South Nashville Blues :) (Steve Earle)
Midnight Special (Traditional

Eyes to laugh and lips to cry...






check out a great blog dedicated to JTE, Halfway to Jackson
also check out the Drive-By Truckers' Under Cover

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The King of Honky Tonk

If you're a fan of country music (specifically the honky tonk vein) and you're not familiar with the late, great Gary Stewart, you're really missing out - his 70's output has been called "the coolest records to come out of Nashville" by none other than Steve Earle; but if this has piqued your interest, there's a great piece on him written by Jimmy McDonough (Shakey: Neil Young's Biography and The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan )that explains his appeal and tells his life story, which reads like a lonesome country song in itself. Here's an excerpt from LITTLE JUNIOR, KING OF THE HONKY-TONKS: The life and death of Gary Stewart.



The voice just stopped you in your tracks. Hillbilly haywire with a lonesome Kentucky edge that added a little chrome to those Cadillac pipes, it wasted no time in grabbing your soul by the lapel. When you listened to Gary Stewart sing, you kind of held your breath, wondering if he'd get out of the song alive. He'd swoop down on words, elongate syllables and growl around his range, then spit out the chorus. At a time when many roots-conscious rockers were trying to add a little country to their rock 'n' roll, Gary went the other way 'round with a vengeance. "Stewart didn't really fit in anywhere," writes Jim Lewis. "He wasn't Southern rock, and he wasn't Nashville country." Amen to that. Gary Stewart was a weird, frustrating and often thrilling genre unto himself. Live, if Stewart was on his game, look out. A long-haired runt of a guy with only a scary grin breaking the dark shadows beneath his cowboy hat, Stewart rode an audience like bucking a bronco. Suddenly possessed by the spirit, he'd throw the band a curve by ambling over to the piano and, caressing the keys with the crude, rhythmic whimsy of Skip James, lurch into an impromptu version of Merle Haggard's "I Can't Be Myself" with the herky-jerky rhythm of a marionette that had cut its own strings. Many were afraid of Stewart, spooked by his sheer wattage, but in moments like this he looked as fragile and forlorn as an empty champagne glass on a barroom floor. Say the wrong word to Gary and he'd shatter. His was a music of dangerous, wild abandon, and for a few years there in the seventies, Stewart cut a string of ferocious, magnificent recordings, some of them hits: "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)." "Drinkin' Thing. " "Out of Hand." "Your Place or Mine." "I Had to Get Drunk Last Night." "Single Again." "Shady Streets." "In Some Room Above the Street." "Stone Wall (Around Your Heart)." Comparisons were frequently made to Jerry Lee Lewis, but to these ears Gary was more of a countrified Roky Erickson: a voice that came screaming from another dimension, and one that contained more than a hint of madness. Perhaps the only singer with phrasing as perverse is Bob Dylan, himself a Stewart fan. While touring with Tom Petty in Florida, Dylan went out of his way to meet him, confessing that he'd played Stewart's ode to marital malaise 'Ten Years of This' over and over, the record casting a spell over him. But then it was easy to be bewitched by Gary. "I'm only goin' through once an' I'm goin' through in style," threatened Stewart in his low-down theme song, 'Little Junior.' Did he ever. Car crashes, drug busts and overdoses, missed gigs, label firings, mental breakdowns, domestic battles--chaos followed him like a puppy on a chain. To rip off a line from Billy Joe Royal, Gary Stewart burned like a rocket. But no longer, because on December 16, 2003 his body was found in his Florida home, dead by his own hand.



Between the late 1980's and mid 1990's,"The King of Honky Tonk" (a title bestowed on him by TIME magazine) recorded a mix of covers with a jazz/blues band based out of Kentucky called Blue Jay and the Hawks. The recordings (and Blue Jay originals w/o Gary) are available to listen to on their website; however for your convenience I've put them together in a single (small) download.

Gary Stewart with Blue Jays & The Hawks

1. Leave the Note (Jay Haskett)

2. Long Black Veil (Dill/Wilkins)

3. No Expectations (Jagger/Richards)

4. Six Days on the Road (Montgomery/Green)

5. Wild Horses (Jagger/Richards)

GET IT


Enjoy, and do yourself a favor and pick up some Gary Stewart albums, my personal favorite being the combined reissue of his two bestselling LP's, Out of Hand & Your Place or Mine.