Real Live Roadrunning is a collaborative live album by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, released on 14 November 2006. The album was recorded live on 28 June 2006 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, at the end of their summer tour in support of their critically acclaimed album, All the Roadrunning. Real Live Roadrunning was released as a combined CD/DVD. This is the video version of the concert : Continue reading “Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler Real Live Roadrunning 2016 (full concert video)”→
Singer-songwriters John Prine and Sturgill Simpson shared the stage last summer at an intimate event for a lucky few Grammy Museum guests. “This is John’s night” Simpson said, “I just wanna be here, but it’s John’s night”.
Part interview and part performance, video of the two country artists together was streamed live on Facebook in two parts.
Great storytellers, wonderful songs and very good playing!
Interview session (with some songs):
Concert part:
“Souvenirs” and “Sam Stone” solo, John Prine
followed by duets with Sturgill Simpson on “Speed Of The Sound of Loneliness” and “Paradise”.
Townes Van Zandt have been chosen, along with Bob Morrison, Beth Nielsen and Aaron Barker, to be included in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame 9th of October this year.
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was founded in 1970 and have 199 inductees today.
We think Van Zandt’s inclusion is long overdue and here are 11 reasons why. There are many more, but these gems really shine.
Marie she didn’t wake up this morning She didn’t even try She just rolled over and went to Heaven My little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody’d find them Caught a Chesapeak on the fly Marie will know I’m headed south So’s to meet me by and by
Marie will know I’m headed south So to meet me by and by
– Townes Van Zandt
Townes Van Zandt is one of the greatest songwriters in music-history. To narrow down my choice to just 11 songs is a pain. His 9 studio albums, and some compilations released after his death in 97 are so full of great songs that my task has been nearly impossible. I could pick 11 other songs in his songbook that are just as good, but today this is my list.
Marie:
Kurt Wolff (allmusic): Townes Van Zandt’s music doesn’t jump up and down, wear fancy clothes, or beat around the bush. Whether he was singing a quiet, introspective country-folk song or a driving, hungry blues, Van Zandt’s lyrics and melodies were filled with the kind of haunting truth and beauty that you knew instinctively. His music came straight from his soul by way of a kind heart, an honest mind, and a keen ear for the gentle blend of words and melody. He could bring you down to a place so sad that you felt like you were scraping bottom, but just as quickly he could lift your spirits and make you smile at the sparkle of a summer morning or a loved one’s eyes — or raise a chuckle with a quick and funny talking blues. The magic of his songs is that they never leave you alone.
Tony Joe White (born July 23, 1943, Oak Grove, Louisiana, United States) is best known for his 1969 hit “Polk Salad Annie”; “Rainy Night in Georgia”, which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970; and “Steamy Windows”, a hit for Tina Turner in 1989. “Polk Salad Annie” was also recorded by Elvis Presley and Tom Jones.
“Elvis’ producer Felton Jervis was a good friend of mine during the early days in Nashville. All of a sudden I released ‘Polk’ and it was a big hit single and then Felton called and invited my wife & me out to Las Vegas to see Elvis perform. He flew us out just to let us see Elvis do it live on stage! He did a good version of it, which of course he recorded for the live album. We hung out with Elvis for 2 or 3 days and just sat back in the dressing room and talked. We played a little guitar together – he really liked music. Elvis said, “Man, I feel like I wrote that song”. I said “You know, the way you do it on stage, it feels like you wrote it”. Elvis always treated me real good.”
– Tony Joe White
Here is another gem from the The Johnny Cash Show, Polk Salad Annie (w/ Johnny Cash):
“The easy way out
is a dangerous path
and no one knows it like I do”
– Dylan LeBlanc (Easy Way Out)
Dylan LeBlanc released his new record, Cautionary Tale, January 15 2016.
Shreveport artist Dylan LeBlanc is still only 25 years old, he was considered a wunderkind when he released his debut, Pauper Field, to much well deserved acclaim in 2010. It was a great album and the fall on the follow-up, Cast The Same Shadow in 2012, was hard. Not that the album was so terrible, but the expectations were so high.
He spent his formative years surrounded by some of the region’s finest musicians. His father, James LeBlanc, is a longtime Muscle Shoals session player and a fine singer, songwriter (and guitar player) in his own right.
I’ve had people tell them I make them cry, but that doesn’t mean [my music] is sad. I want to dig deep because I don’t have it in me to write about surface-level stuff and I think people equate that with sadness. That’s not sad, that’s just emotions. That’s what “feeling stuff” is like.
~John Moreland (to Marissa R. Moss @ americansongwriter.com)
Like Tom Waits on “Waltzing Matilda” or Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, Moreland’s a master of the eerily emotive, roots-rocking folk song, that all hinge on his uncanny ability to conjure lines that hit exactly in the most tender spots: loneliness, heartbreak, humanity. “I keep mining the horizon,” he sings on “Cherokee,” “digging for lies I’ve yet to tell.” Moreland’s been poked at for being overly somber, but it’s not his fault that the truth hurts.
~rollingstone.com
