Folk Alliance

Morgan O'kane "Time"

The Music Fog crew is busy doing the due diligence, getting ready for another trip, but this time on a private shoot for an artist. Sometimes we move like a military cadre, quietly making our preparations out of the line of sight. There is a clandestine feel to it. We are scattered in different cities, and that is not an obstacle to us as a company, what with communication being what it is these days. But when we get mobilized, it has a kind of George Peppard "A Team" vibe, though I hear it with different music. Of course, the "A Team" is back as a movie this year. I get a little worried that our culture spends so much time recycling rather than inventing. I guess there are always periods like this before moving on, but it seems we've been in ennui land for a decade. TV shows coming back to life as movies, sequels, prequels, and now I see that Cheap Trick is playing Vegas doing a reprise of Sgt. Peppers! Yikes.

Photo Credit: Martin Diver Photography

We don't subscribe to the notion that everything good has already been invented, and that there is nothing new to explore. The building blocks remain the same, but even when people pick up threads from before, they can create something new. And so it is with the melting pot of Americana. Throw all that roots music into the gumbo pot, and form something that isn't a pure bit, but instead a Heinz 57 of music. Morgan O'kane is true to the roots, but his music has a rock and roll energy to it. We hold this truth to be self evident, that a society without artists is a less rich one. You have to have dreamers, schemers, to move things forward. Morgan O'kane, Ferd Moyse and Zeke Healy have been on a campaign of their own, to conquer Europe these last three weeks. They are playing a free show this Thursday (9/23) at King's Cross Social Club in London, and we are all invited to their Hootenanny. This ain't your Grandpa's string band music!

- Jessie Scott

Time

Amelia Curran "Hands on a Grain of Sand"

I'm on the plane heading back to Austin from Nashville.  Highlights of my wild week?  Met the mayor, Karl Dean.  Met Don Was after an amazing set at Cannery Row with the newly shorn Todd Snider. Met the folks from The Utne Reader.  Was on a panel with representatives from Pandora, Clear Channel, EchoNest, and Sound Exchange.  Got to host the webcast of one of the most amazing awards shows ever, which was followed by Robert Plant's Band Of Joy.  Saturday night was our first night out.  We ran into Stonehoney at Robert's Western World, one of those legendary honky tonk's on lower Broad in Nashville, and then headed over to the Cannery/Mercy Lounge for an upstairs- downstairs double punch of shows: The Fairfield Four, Hans Rotenberry, Mike Farris, Susan Cowsill, Tony Joe White, and then Todd RIPPING IT UP!

We are tired, but happy. To help us get back our houses, and then get them in order, we're bringing you an Amelia Curran performance we shot in Memphis earlier this year.  We'll return to our Nashville cavalcade of Americana Music Association Festival artists very soon.  Amelia Curran is embarking on a European adventure later this month.  So enjoy "Hands On A Grain Of Sand," recorded in Memphis on the Music Fog bus during Folk Alliance......while I sleep it off!

- Jessie Scott

Amelia

Will Kimbrough "Three Angels"

This past Saturday night, I was hanging out at the world famous beach bar, The Back Porch in Port Aransas, Texas. It was so refreshing listening to Larry Joe Taylor doing a tropical infused set, which wafts across us and into the gentle breeze to be carried out to the Gulf of Mexico on an end of summer day. Larry Joe has become quite the entrepreneur with his festivals, the next one being Rhymes and Vines in Stephenville, TX coming up the weekend of September 16th. He has really captured the beach spirit and offers the perfect music for this night in Port A, where we are surrounded by yachts that are docked next to signs for Parasailing and Jet Skis...ooooohh can we go? I am thanking the sun and the stars for this weekend away before Music Fog heads to Nashville for the Americana Music Festival and Conference for what is sure to be a busy week. Right now, it is time to smell the roses, or the sand and surf, in this case. This doesn't suck.

I will share with you that we have a whole bunch of people set to play for us this week in Nashville. I am a bit superstitious about telling you who they ALL are, as there is always the possibility that someone will cancel, and we don't want to disappoint...but we are expecting Cindy Bullens, Jon Langford, Darrell Scott, Ray Wylie Hubbard (you might recall that he references looking like a Port Aransas dope dealer in the song "Screw You, Were From Texas." We need to get him to play that for us!) and Will Kimbrough is coming back, this time with his band! We saw Will most recently in Memphis at Folk Alliance, and he recorded this beautiful, count your blessings tune, "Three Angels," from his album Wings, on the Music Fog bus. You have to have your angels, you know...those friends and family that welcome you in. Treasure them. Treasure the moments.

- Jessie Scott

Three