Will Kimbrough "Hill Country Girl"

Wednesday night I was honored to broadcast the Americana Honors & Awards Show from the booth at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Under the auspices of Linda Fahey at Folk Alley, Ann Powers and I teamed up once again to bear witness to an historic night of music. The winners list only tells the half of it. Jason Isbell won Song Of The Year for the fabulous "Alabama Pines," Artist of the year was Gillian Welch, and Instrumentalist Of The Year went to her partner Dave Rawlings. Alabama Shakes picked up the New & Emerging Artist Of The Year. Group or Duo Of The Year was awarded to The Civil Wars, and Album Of The Year went to Tamara Saviano and Shawn Camp and Guy Clark, for "This One's For Him," A Tribute to Guy Clark. The Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Bonnie Raitt, Richard Thompson, Booker T. Jones and Dennis Lord from SESAC, one of us folks who banded together to form the Americana Music Association thirteen years ago.

There were stellar moments and tears of joy, there were spectacular performances, and if you missed the show, you can hear the archive on folkalley.com or npr.org. It is always a blast when the tribe gets back together to celebrate the music we love at Americana Fest. It is random who you run into, and I haven't seen him yet, but I just checked Will Kimbrough's tour schedule and he might just be around Nashville this week. I am using this video as a spell to summon him. It is the haunting "Hill Country Girl," filmed during MusicFest At Steamboat Springs 2011. This one will dig down deep.

-Jessie Scott

Radney Foster "Half of My Mistakes"

A long, long, time ago, Radney Foster walked by the XM Performance Studio during a promotional visit with me at X Country. I told him the kinds of things we were doing in that room, like our interview performance series Artist Confidential, and the series Then Again…Live, which gave artists the opportunity to perform an entire album back to back, in essence, recreating it for a new day. Radney surmised that we should do that with his album, Del Rio, Texas 1959. It was released in 1992, and was Radney’s brilliant solo debut during an especially accessible era in Country Music history. Then came the boy bands and the girls with belly buttons showing. Steve Earle calls the time before ‘the Great Credibility Scare.’

Radney drops a new CD today, recorded at Cedar Creek Studio here in Austin, TX. It is an acoustic take on his Del Rio album called Del Rio, Texas Revisited. The first thing is this album is a gold mine of great tunes. The second thing is it sounds fresh, timeless even, with its acoustic treatment. In early March, Radney assembled Dixie Chick Martie McGuire (fiddle), Jon Randall Stewart (guitar), Glenn Fukunaga (doghouse bass), Michael Ramos (keyboard) and Steve Fishell, who produced the original album, and plays guitar on this new recording. Find out all about it in Radney’s website, where you can also listen to the tunes.

While we are shining a light on Radney Foster, here is a solo video Music Fog captured back at the 2011 MusicFest at Steamboat Springs. Here is "Half of My Mistakes," though make note, it is not one of the songs found on the new album.

-Jessie Scott

Sons Of Bill "Find My Way Back Home"

After Christmas this year, before the trip to Steamboat for MusicFest, I did a small but disciplined thing, that is, I put the presents away. This of course can be problematic as there is something that I put in a drawer which I have been searching for all week, but cannot find to save my soul. But there was another item that I happily hung up in my closet. Since it was not a winter thing, I was so stoked to discover it and I pulled it down with glee, feeling the wonder of the holiday all over again. So cool when you get a gift that is a season or two ahead, simply delicious. While I continue digging for the other one that I squirreled away somewhere, allow me to direct your attention to a video that we kept under wraps for this occasion.

We had Sons Of Bill in our digs at the Steamboat Grand Hotel during MusicFest at Steamboat Springs 2011. It is with great fanfare that they have finally released their fab new album Sirens as of last week. Don’t you know, we would have loved to hook back up with them during our Spring Music Fog Marathon last month in Austin, but just plumb ran out of room. But the good news is that while fishing around in the Music Fog closet, we found a video we have not yet posted, that is indeed one of the tunes from the new album. By the way, there is a massive tour going down for Sons Of Bill, so catch them when they are close. Here is “Find My Way Back Home,” the Music Fog version, recorded in January of 2011. Huzzah!

-Jessie Scott