Man oh man, life has gotten FAST all of a sudden! What with my new job at KDRP on the radio from 2pm to 7pm Monday through Friday, and then working with the other usual stuff, Threadgill's, and Music Fog, and various tour stuff, artists, and writing...well ya know, there doesn't seem like there is time to eat even! Truth be told, I am loving all this, I have to say.
Making time for the family, now that is something that is always essential, but never easy for a touring musician. Cody Canada took time to write about that in a song for his sons Willy and Dierks, as he knows the drill all too well. By the way, Cody and The Departed are in the studio today recording their next album, and I am getting to sit in a watch for a bit. I am so excited! Music Fog had the honor of filming Cody in March during our Spring Marathon at Threadgill's WHQ. He played a brand new song for us, "Your Brother and You."
It's the start of another week, and it was a really busy weekend 'round these Austin parts, starting with the dedication of the new Willie Nelson statue on 4/20, and then a glorious tribute concert to Johnny Cash at the ACL Moody Theater on Friday night. Old Settler's Music Festival went on all weekend, and then yesterday was the Reckless Kelly Celebrity Baseball Jam. Founding Nitty Gritty Dirt Band member John McEuen sat in with me for an interview on KNBT.FM on Saturday, as the legendary band was playing the legendary venue of Gruene Hall on Saturday evening. John and his sons have a new album called The McEuen Sessions, which is mighty fine stuff as well!
Hope you had a fun weekend. We have news from our trusty analytics department that Music Fog hit 9,000,000 views on 4/20 on our YouTube channel, so we got to celebrate 4/20 also. Today we bring you a rousing tune from The Sweetback Sisters, who brought down the house when they performed for us during our Spring Music Fog Marathon at Threadgill’s in March. They are serious joy purveyors, even when they are singing about crying! OMG, they are playing my old college town on Wednesday, Athens, Ohio! Catch them when they come round! We have an as yet unrecorded, and therefore unreleased, tune for you today from the Sweetback’s, “I’m Gonna Cry.”
A long time ago, I wanted to do a documentary on a road that runs from Delaware up to the Canadian border, US-9. I was taken with how the landscape changed along the way, from the interior farmland of Delaware, on a ferry across Delaware Bay from Lewes, DE to Cape May, NJ. Up through the New Jersey beaches into the full blown urban experience of New York. Suburban, then the exurbs and into deep and beautiful countryside, paralleling the Hudson River for a good portion of its 315 mile stretch, but US-9 keeps going. It’s path reaches past the Catskill Mountains, into the Adirondacks, to where the Hudson River officially begins at Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York. But 9 keeps going, ultimately ending in a cul-de-sac near the Canadian border. The story is of the architecture, of the commonality which is pushed at a different pace by the amount of people congregated along its points: New York City, Albany, Lake Placid, Saratoga Springs, to the hamlet of Champlain. In essence, you can take a road like that back in time, to how the land looked, and to how our communities started when we sparsely populated this land.
I think there are a lot of people lately who yearn to go back to more carefree days, to an easier time. I like my music harkening back to then, as the band New Country Rehab presents it. They are taking a trip down from Canada, heading to Old Settlers Music Festival making pit stops for gigs along the way. They start tonight at The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, and make their way down to Texas and then head back up north. NCR have been gathering rave reviews wherever they go. We had the pleasure of filming them at the Music Fog Fall Marathon last October in Nashville, during Americana Fest. Here are John Showman, James Robertson, Ben Whiteley, and Roman Tome' with the Music Fog recording of an unreleased tune, “Back In Time.”
Man oh man, life has gotten FAST all of a sudden! What with my new job at KDRP on the radio from 2pm to 7pm Monday through Friday, and then working with the other usual stuff, Threadgill's, and Music Fog, and various tour stuff, artists, and writing...well ya know, there doesn't seem like there is time to eat even! Truth be told, I am loving all this, I have to say.
