DAVE'S DIARY - 5/2/2008 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 10 - SERIES 9
SUGARLAND HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
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Georgian
superstars Sugarland headline Nu Country TV this Saturday - February
9 - on the eve of their first Australian tour. The chart-topping duo performs its cheating hit Stay from huge selling second album Enjoy The Ride in an episode hosted by Heather Rutherford at 8 p m. Singer Jennifer Nettles wrote the song four years ago about cheating. That was long before she divorced husband Todd Van Sickle - an Atlanta nightclub owner - in March. |
Nettles said her song was inspired by Reba McEntire hit Whoever's in New England that was written from the perspective of a wife whose husband is cheating on her.
The singer
knew countless songs written from that viewpoint but none from the other
two people involved.
She says most people don't realise that even the person who is doing the
cheating gets hurt as well.
"Even though the person who is cheating might think he or she is
getting away with something, they know they aren't living their highest
truth," says Nettles, 33.
"And they wouldn't be in the situation if they were just happy-go-lucky
in the first place. Nobody is happy in this situation."
Once she decided to write the song from the other woman's perspective,
Nettles was overwhelmed with emotions and says the song pretty much wrote
itself.
"You know, it was just in a couple of sittings on my couch,"
she explains. "And once the first line came, 'I've sitting here staring
at the clock on the wall. I've been laying here, praying she won't call,'
the story just unfolded."
Kristian Bush, the other half of Sugarland, remembers being blown away
by the lyrics the first time he heard the song.
"This is one of those first times when you become like Bob Dylan,
where you are writing the character's story rather than your story,"
he notes.
"And it's a huge moment, and I am humbled around people who write
like this. When I heard that song, I was like, 'Oh, my gosh. This is a
heavy hitter of a writer here. This is a monster of a machine that is
about to write songs.'"
Enjoy The Ride has sold more than two million copies since Stay reached
#2 on the Billboard singles charts.
Sugarland performs with Patty Griffin, Gary Allan, Taylor Swift, Jim Lauderdale,
Catherine Britt, Adam Harvey, John Butler and more at the CMC Snowy Mountains
Country Music Festival at Thredbo on March 14 & 15.
CLICK HERE for an interview
with Nettles from the Diary on February 19, 2006.
ALISON KRAUSS PLANTS RETURN
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Former
bluegrass child prodigy Alison Krauss ignites Nu Country TV on a duet
with Robert Plant. Krauss and the Led Zeppelin singer revive the Everly Brothers hit Gone, Gone, Gone. It's from their acclaimed album Raising Sand - produced by T Bone Burnett. Raising Sand, a collection of 13 mostly obscure folk, rockabilly, gospel and blues tunes, is more like a collaboration between two bohemian musicians than a rigidly structured duets effort between a couple of singers. |
Plant's passionate
baritone and Krauss' ethereal soprano are an ideal conduit for the music
- like two more instruments in an already organically textured orchestra.
The tunes include Plant's Read This Letter, the late Townes Van
Zandt song Nothing, Allan Toussaint's Fortune Teller, the
late Gene Clark's pair Through The Night and Polly Come Home
and Tom Waits Trampled Rose.
Kraus, 36, and Plant, 59, tour the U.S. and Europe this year to prime
the sales pump of an album that has already sold half a million copies.
Click here for a Krauss
CD review from the Diary on January 23, 2005.
Click Here for
another Krauss CD review from the Diary on August 29, 2007.
JOSH TURNER FIRECRACKER
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South
Carolina stone country singer Josh Turner enriches Nu Country with
sizzling Top 2 hit Firecracker from third album Everything
Is Fine. The bucolic baritone has blazed a reality rooted trail since breaking with his Hank Williams inspired Long Black Train in 2003. Turner and his seven-piece band, the Tonkin' Honkies, perform traditional country music such as South Carolina Low Country. The former fork life driver, who hails from the tiny town of Hannah, performs a duet with Garth Brooks' second wife - Georgian born Trisha Yearwood - on Another Try on the new disc. Everything Is Fine also features Nowhere Fast - a duet with R&B singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton. |
One of the
album highlights is a remake of One Woman Man - a big hit for the
late Johnny Horton in 1956 and for George Jones in 1989.
Turner previously had #1 hits with second album title track Your Man
and Would You Go With Me.
CLICK HERE for
a Turner CD review from the Diary on December 11, 2007.
CORB LUND RETURNS
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Former Canadian
rodeo rider Corb Lund gallops into Nu Country on the eve of his fourth
Australian tour in March.
The singer appears in a video for his trademark song Roughest Neck
Around.
Corb tours with thrice wed surfing chart topping Californian cowboy Gary
Allan in Toowoomba, Tweed Heads and Rockhampton from March 19.
Lund and his band The Hurtin' Albertans then head south to the Rose Cafe
in Jan Juc on March 23 and east to the Hallam Hotel on March 25 for his
Victorian concerts.
Corb and his band appeared in the horror movie Slither on the eve
of their previous Australian tour in 2006.
CLICK HERE for a Lund feature
from the Diary on March 9, 2006.
JAMES BLUNDELL BUCKS BACK
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Former
Texas (Queensland) stockman James Blundell returns to Nu Country with
his new video for Nature's Gentleman from his 10th album Ring
Around The Moon. Blundell, a headliner at the Whittlesea Country Music festival this weekend, hails from Stanthorpe in south-east Queensland. James, now 43, shares the Whittlesea bill with fellow Golden Guitarists Adam Harvey, Sara Storer, The McClymonts, Gina Jeffreys and Victorian artists Leslie Avril, Paul Costa, Travis Sinclair and Carter & Carter. |
CLICK
HERE for a Blundell feature from the Diary on February 1, 2005.
HARMONY JAMES FINDS HORSE
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Northern
Territory singer Harmony James - a finalist in the 2008 Golden Guitar
Awards best new talent - returns to Nu Country with new single Somebody
Stole My Horse. Harmony lives in the Barkly Tablelands and works by day for the Department of Primary Industry and writes and performs songs at night. The singer was born in the saddle until she was unceremoniously dumped. |
A fall from
a horse resulting in a broken collarbone, led her to take a new path -
university - to study more about the field she'd been working in.
Harmony found her previous career rewarding, but dangerous.
"I got bucked off a horse and broke my collarbone," she said.
"Just after I went back to work I got charged by two cows. That re-opened
the break. It stayed broken for the next 2 years. I ended up having an
operation with a bone graft, a steel plate and 7 screws to fix it."
The isolation of the Territory was a blessing in disguise for Harmony.
"There was no TV at our place so I read a lot," she said.
"I discovered Louis L'amour's western novels and I was hooked. It
inspired me to go Jillarooing after I finished school; if I couldn't be
a cowboy that was the next best thing."
Harmony advises graziers on feeding and breeding programs and husbandry
practices.
She also graduated from the Tamworth Country Music College and found a
friend in producer Herm Kovacs - formerly of the Ted Mulry Gang at his
Ramrod Studios in Sydney.
Somebody Stole My Horse is the second hit from her self-titled
debut disc that also features Tailwind.
Further info - www.myspace.com/harmonyjamesmusic
or www.harmonyjames.com