DAVE'S DIARY - 8/1/08 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 6 - SERIES 9

TEXAN LEGENDS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV

Legendary singing Texan actors Kris Kristofferson and Billy Joe Shaver headline Nu Country TV this Saturday - January 12 - at 8 p m on C 31 in Victoria.

Kristofferson reprises This Old Road after making a cameo in a recent video for San Francisco Mabel Joy by Kacey Jones who also returns this week.

Another legendary Texan singer-songwriter Delbert McClinton joins January tourist Jones on their European chart-topping hit You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.

Rhodes scholar Kris also recently introduced big hit 8th of November by Big & Rich who join Shaver on his prophetic gem Live Forever.

Celebrity chef and mathematician Mid Pacific Bob Olson hosts the show and provides a delicacy from the Northcote High School kitchen.

Bob catches up with hotshot guitarist and singer Brad Paisley, who has threatened to tour Australia with Keith Urban, and the Old Crow Medicine Show.

West Virginia born Paisley performs a video for his humorous parody Alcohol and Old Crow Medicine Show strut their stuff on Wagon Wheel on a show repeated on Monday at 4 p m and Thursday at 9 am.

KRISTOFFERSON RUN DOWN ON THIS OLD ROAD

Kristofferson performs the video for recent album title-track This Old Road - a song inspired by daughter Casey's historic bike crash.

"This Old Road somehow seems to get better the older you get," Kristofferson, now 71, says.

"I actually wrote it many years ago, maybe 20. My daughter had just been hit by a car on the back of a motorcycle with her boyfriend. She was hospitalised and I was waiting for her to come out of that. I had left my band over in Europe and had flown back to be with her in the hospital. I would go out running every day in the desert, and I guess I was feeling just about as old as I am now because the song fits just as well today as it did then - probably better today. I remember band member Donnie Fritts telling me when I sang it at a benefit for him in Muscle Shoals, "Man, I haven't heard that song in forever, but I never realised how good it was." And I said, "Well, we probably were too young."

Ironically Kristofferson was almost killed while making the video clip - his first - in the Mojave Desert.

"I think it's kind of odd that This Old Road was the first video I ever did," the actor confessed.

"Because of all of the work I had done in films and everything, you'd think I would have done a video before that. But we were out in the Mojave Desert in a tunnel, of all things, and almost got hit by a train. When we went into the tunnel, they said there were no trains out there and nothing coming. Sure enough, here one came, and we all end up running madly out of the tunnel. But the funny thing was at the end of the day, United Farm Workers of America founder Cesar Chavez's son showed up. We hadn't planned to meet or anything, and here's the guy that I've been working for - for 30 years, you know."

Kristofferson is a longtime supporter of the UFW.

The singer recently performed a show at the famed Bluebird Café for its new owners - the Nashville Songwriters Association International who bought it from Amy Kurland who inspired the movie Thing Called Love.

Fritts, Billy Swan, Stephen Bruton and Chris Gantry joined him on stage and Rodney Crowell, Marshall Chapman, John Carter Cash, Shawn Camp and Paul Overstreet in the audience.

CLICK HERE for an exclusive interview with Kris from our Diary on May 19, 2006.
CLICK HERE for another feature on Kris from our Diary on July 21, 2005.

BILLY JOE SHAVER LIVES FOREVER

Fellow Texan Billy Joe Shaver was packing in 2006 - not for his belated fourth tour of Australia - but a visit to Papa Joe's Saloon at Lorena, south of Waco.

Billy Joe, 68, delivered summary justice - Lone Star style - to a knife-wielding drinker who insulted his second wife Wanda Lynn Canady.

The singer, spiritual adviser for singing Texan crime novelist and fellow 2002 Aussie tour mate Kinky Friedman in his Gubernatorial campaign, allegedly shot another Billy - Billy B Coker, 50, in the face.

That incident, resulting in charges of aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a gun on licensed premises, has delayed plans for a return tour with Ray Wylie Hubbard.

It followed a day of visiting local graveyards to source picture locales for new gospel album Everybody's Brother and Coker's failed attempt for cocktail waiter's duties by using his knife as a swizzle stick in Billy Joe's drink.

The shooting, in which Shaver reportedly asked his victim "where do you want it" has also inspired the new Dale Watson song Where Do You Want It?

Joe Mad Dog Turner, who represented Shotgun Willie Nelson in an historic drug bust near Waco and a more recent bus bust with mates in Louisiana, is defending Shaver.

Meanwhile Shaver performs Live Forever - a song that takes on significance when he flies across the international dateline - with superstar duo Big & Rich.

Billy Joe is promoting his new John Carter Cash produced Everybody's Brother - his 20th album - featuring the late Johnny Cash, Kristofferson and John Anderson.

Shaver performs Get Thee Behind Me Satan with Anderson and also Johnny Cash on a duet recorded in the late 1970s of You Just Can't Beat Jesus Christ.

The singer also duets with Kristofferson on his tune No Earthly Good - the only cover on the disc.

CLICK HERE for a Billy Joe Shaver feature from the Diary on April 11, 2007.
CLICK HERE for a previous feature on Billy Joe from the Diary on March 24, 2004.

KACEY JONES AND DELBERT

Californian born comedienne and singer-songwriter Kacey Jones features in the video of her duet with Delbert McClinton on their European hit You're The Reason our Kids Are Ugly.

The song, penned by Lola Jean Dillon and late L E White, was originally a 1977 hit for Loretta Lynn and the late Conway Twitty.

Jones included it on her hilarious 2000 album Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay Or Dead on her IGO record label.

It will be on sale during the debut tour by Kacey and Oklahoma born stone country singer Becky Hobbs in January.

So will her other discs Men Are Some Of My Favourite People, Big Ass Box of Music, Nipples To The Wind and Mickey Newbury tribute disc San Francisco Mabel Joy.

We also have a new video clip of Lie To Me Darlin' - featuring Kacey and Waylon Payne who played Jerry Lee Lewis the Johnny Cash movie Walk The Line.

Kacey and Becky perform on the Tamworth train from January 19, showcase gigs at the Family Hotel in Tamworth and a special Nu Country showcase at the Noise Bar at the Railway Hotel in Brunswick on Friday February 1.

CLICK HERE for a Kacey Jones feature from the Diary on September 10, 2006.

BRAD PAISLEY ON ALCOHOL

West Virginia born guitarist and singer-songwriter Brad Paisley returns to Nu County with his satiric video of his hit Alcohol.

The song was a big hit off the singer's fourth album Time Well Wasted on Arista-BMG-Sony.

Paisley, 35 and CMA vocalist of the year in 2007, plans to tour here with Keith Urban to promote his fifth album - aptly named Fifth Gear.

"There are pockets of interest outside America and country doesn't really translate anywhere they don't speak English," says Paisley.

"Australia, I think, has the best potential: it's really like a floating Texas out in the ocean."

Paisley recently celebrated the triumph two successive #1 hits Ticks and Online with the songs' co-writers.

Brad wrote Ticks, which went No. 1 in June, with Tim Owens and Kelley Lovelace and Online, which topped the charts in October, with Lovelace and Chris DuBois. Online is about computer dating and will feature soon on Nu Country TV.

Brad and actress wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, with son William Huckleberry, born on February 22, 2007, are featured on the cover of the January issue of Good Housekeeping.

CLICK HERE for a 2005 Paisley CD review from the Diary.
CLICK HERE for a previous Paisley CD review from the Diary on March 30, 2004

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW

Old Crow Medicine Show return to Nu Country with the video for their underground hit Wagon Wheel.

Old Crow Medicine Show won fame in the 1990s by busking in Nashville and earned a reputation playing gigs around town - they used famed bluegrass venue Station Inn as their launch pad.

Their early, independently released albums reflected their rough-around-the-edges musicianship.

Those discs also captured their exuberance on stage, as well as an invigorating new perspective on old-time music.

In 2004 it released a more polished album, O.C.M.S. on Nettwerk Records - it had more accessible songs like Wagon Wheel (their signature song) and Tell It to Me.

A rigorous tour schedule and a memorable live show enabled them to sell more than 100,000 copies of O.C.M.S - an impressive number for a new band that didn't know much about record deals and everything that goes with it.

Second album, Big Iron World, was also released on Nettwerk.

The quintet has now won a following with five albums - the latest is David Rawlings produced Big Iron World (2006).

It was formed in upstate New York was discovered by Doc Watson's daughter Nancy.

The group busked across the border in Canada and is known for its eclectic country folk and bluegrass hybrid.

Old Crow Medicine Show is a regular guest on Prairie Home Companion - Garrison Keillor hosted radio show eulogised in the final movie by late Robert Altman, famed for his Nashville movie.

Further info - http://www.crowmedicine.com

TAMWORTH TRAIN SPONSOR

Nu Country has a new sponsor for Series #9 - The Tamworth Country Music Country Train that leaves Geelong and Southern Cross stations at dawn on January 19 for the NSW country music capital.

Headlining entertainment is Oklahoma raised stone country legend Becky Hobbs and Nashville comedienne, producer and singer-songwriter Kacey Jones.

We have new video clips by Becky and vintage footage of by Jones who hosted Nu Country TV from an Austin motel room during the Mickey Newbury festival in June of 2006.

Kacey recorded the Newbury tribute disc San Francisco Mabel Joy - the video clip, directed by New Mexico country star Stacy Dean Campbell, features singing actors Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Payne.

We reprised it in Series #9.

Kacey and Becky sing for their supper on the train - home for passengers during the Tamworth festival.

Nashville singer Julie Taylor performs on the train with local artists including Grant Luhrs, Connie Anderson, J R Williams, Ian Muir, Rick Bartlett, Hank Sasaki, June Harrison and Bec Hance.

Full details - www.tamworthcountrymusictrain.com.au

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