DAVE'S DIARY - 13 SEPTEMBER 2005 - PREVIEW EPISODE 11 - SERIES 4

BECCY COLE AND JAKE NICKOLAI TOGETHER

Beccy Cole had good reasons for taking young gun Jake Nickolai on her national tour to promote fifth album Feel This Free. She needed a dynamic guitarist for her band and opening act to attract the armies of fillies roaming the bush beyond the neon. Beccy also wants to utilise Nickolai's talents before he follows mentors Keith Urban, Jedd Hughes and Greencards onto the more lucrative international circuit. Cole and her fellow South Australian multi-instrumentalist both appear on Episode 11 of Nu Country TV this Saturday - September 17 - at 8 p m on C 31. The bucolic belle from the Blackwood Hills of Adelaide performs a video for her new single A Better Woman. Beccy is a panellist on ABC TV's Spicks & Specks and had a character created for her by The Wiggles.

Cole, 34, also joins singer mum Carol Sturtzel on ABC TV cooking show Beat The Chef when she's home on her national tour.

CLICK HERE for a Beccy feature in the DIARY on April 16, 2005.

JAKE NICKOLAI 3 DAYS DRIVING

Whyalla born, latter day Mornington Peninsula artist Jake Nickolai has emulated the theme of new single 3 Days Driving on his tour with Cole. "I loved 3 Days Driving because it's a road song, and I figure I'll be spending a lot of time on the road over the next few years," says Jake, just 22. Nickolai performs a video for the song penned by former teen tonker Mark O'Shea from his debut ABC mini-album Think About You. The Tamworth College of Country Music graduate has sold a brace of his Matt Fell produced disc while on tour. Hefty exposure of videos on CMC and Nu Country TV for Faster, Think About You and 3 Days Driving have primed the sales pump. Nickolai was one of the headliners for the Nu Country Arts Centre concert on January 30.

CLICK HERE for a Jake feature from the Diary.

JAMES TALLEY RETURNS

Oklahoma born singer-songwriter James Talley returns with a live performance of his song Give My Love To Marie. The 12-album veteran, who supplements his music by selling real estate in Nashville, has been performing for four decades. Talley, 60, performed at the 1977 inauguration of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and has released live albums of U.S. and European concerts. Carter was the proud owner of Talley's 1975 debut LP, Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got A Lot Of Love and successors Tryin' Like The Devil (1976) and Blackjack Choir (1977).

Talley financed his first album with earnings from his carpentry work and released his new albums on his indie Cimarron label.

He has also retrieved the rights to his embryonic discs that were swallowed up by the Capitol conglomerate and withered on the sales vine.

CLICK HERE for a Talley story from the Diary on August 9, 2005.

HARDRIVE GO TO MARKET

When Nu Country TV producer-director Peter Hosking goes shopping for supplies and artefacts for his recently renovated town house he always lugs his video camera. So he reached deep into his saddlebag when he spotted popular Melbourne bluegrass band Hardrive strutting their stuff at the Camberwell Market on the Sabbath. Singing actor Hosking weaved between the fresh fruit and veges as he filmed the lads performing The Gospel Plough.

Hardrive was promoting its second album Henry Lawson's Blues due south of the Camberwell railway station with Hosking - not local thespians Geoffrey Rush and Barry Humphries - on the dark side of the camera.

Further info - http://hardrive.bluegrass.org.au/

LONESOME COWPOKE FROM MITTAGONG

Legendary American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tim O'Brien was the brightest import to grace historic Southern Highlands of Mittagong until singing Texan crime novelist Kinky Friedman and Billy Joe Shaver's invasion in 2002. O'Brien and his bands Hot Rize and Red Knuckles & The Trail Blazers performed at a bluegrass festival on a tour promoted by latter day Melbourne musician Chris Duffy.

Now the pretty locale has produced the treasured musical export Cowpoke who have released their debut album Pokin' 'Round.

The sextet, revelling in a management address of 409 Bong Bong St, Bowral, NSW 2576, has also filmed a video for its song Fool.

Members met while teaching at Southern Highlands School of Music and debuted in October of 2004 with satirical single How Would John?

Cowpoke debuts on Nu Country TV on Saturday with Fool.

Further info - http://www.cowpoke.com.au/

NIC DALTON A GLOOMCHASER

Fellow NSW refugee Nic Dalton exploits acrimony of ruptured rural romance on his tune There's Nobody Coming Over.

Nic suffered heartbreak when he spent five years living on a small farm at Morongla, population 40, in central west NSW.

The singer's pain deepened whenever he drove through Goulburn - "home of the big Merino" - en route to Sydney.

So Dalton and his Gloomchasers Orchestra named second album Home Of The Big Regret and cut a video for their song for Nu Country TV on Saturday.

Ironically Lucy Lehmann - source of Dalton's domestic drama - plays guitar and co- wrote eight of 13 tunes on the Half A Cow label disc, distributed by Shock.

Further info - www.halfacow.com.au and Natalie@ohtraveller.com

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