We are drilling down on the last few slots for our Fall Music Fog Marathon next week, at Marathon Recorders during the Americana Fest in Nashville. I can’t wait to announce it all, and more than that, I can’t wait for the event itself, because we are going to be rocking the room. As I book this round of artists, I am finding it really interesting how much seems to go down in the middle of the night. Robust email gets traded, deals get solidified, stuff gets done in the quiet of the night. Oh, I know, some people wake early for the same effect. When I was doing overnights on the radio in Pittsburgh eons ago, you could actually feel the shift from the party people going to bed, to the bright and chipper early risers wishing you a good morning before the sun came up.

Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN/AAS STAFF

Johnny Nicholas has our song today, along with John Chipman, Scrappy Judd Newcomb, and Bruce Hughes. This was recorded at one of my favorite watering holes in Austin, The Saxon Pub. The wind just kind of blows me in that direction late at night. Johnny Nicholas is a pretty noteworthy cat, too. This summer, he put out his first album in six years, Future Blues. There is a terrific piece that the Austin American-Statesman wrote about him, after heading out to Fredericksburg, TX to Johnny's roadhouse restaurant, The Hill Top Cafe, to talk about the blues, and how he started a restaurant with only a grill and a Coleman camp stove. Read it here. I think a trip into the Hill Country may be in the not too distant future!

- Jessie Scott