DAVE'S DIARY - 11 MAY 2015 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 11 - SERIES 26
TEXANS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Texans Sunny Sweeney and Rich O'Toole headline Nu Country TV with a little help from Tennessean Will Hoge on Saturday May 16 at 10.30 pm on Channel 31, Digital 44.
Western swing king Ray Benson also previews his latest Bob Wills tribute disc in Behind Bars on the show hosted by Mid Pacific Bob Olson and filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Georgian band Blackberry Smoke also returns to the program repeated Monday 5.30 am and 2.30 pm and Thursday 2.30 am.
Former Andamooka rodeo rider and miner Shane Johnson also debuts with Novocastrian Viper Creek Band eulogises its hometown.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Just follow this link on your computer or mobile phone - http://www.c31.org.au/program/view/program/nu-country-tv
SUNNY SWEENEY AND WILL HOGE SHARE A BED
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Texan singer-songwriter Sunny Sweeney and Tennessean Will Hoge showcase their video for My Bed - second single from her third album Provoked.
Their faded love lament is not written from the back pages of twice wed Sunny, now happily married to an Austin police sergeant.
Sunny, 38 lost one of her dogs Merle to her ex-husband in the divorce.
Sweeney kept her other two dogs Dolly and Nash in the settlement.
The singer hails from Longview - birthplace of actor Matthew McConaughey - near Miranda Lambert's hometown Lindale.
Grammy finalist Hoge, 42 and former history and teacher and basketball coach, was born in Civil War town Franklin.
He sold 100,000 singles of his big hit Strong that he wrote with Zach Crowell and Ashley Gorley.
It became a Chevy Silverado truck jingle and his biggest publishing earner after playing to millions of people during televised sporting events.
It was a bonus track on his ninth album Never Give In
CLICK HERE for a Sunny Sweeney interview in The Diary on March 27, 2011.
WHY RICH O'TOOLE IS JADED
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Houston singer-songwriter Rich O'Toole returns with the video for the title track of his fifth album Jaded. It was shot in Joshua Tree and Pioneertown, California. Rich, 31, wrote the song with actor Evan Gamble when they escaped to Palm Springs to exorcise the painful sense of defeat they felt after enduring similar breakups. The nephew of late singer-songwriter Hank Cochran sings about a crazy ex-girlfriend who wouldn't let their relationship end and made him more jaded. Video director was Oden Roberts, whose movie, A Fighting Season , opens this year. |
CLICK HERE for a Rich CD review in the Diary on March 16, 2015.
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL THIRD BOB WILLS TRIBUTE PREVIEW
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Asleep At The Wheel lead singer and co-founder Ray Benson explains the source of his third Bob Wills tribute disc Still The King, released on March 3 on Bismeaux Records, in Behind Bars.
The Austin based raconteur recruited Lyle Lovett, Vince Gill, Old Crow Medicine Show , Elizabeth Cook, George Strait, Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Brad Paisley , The Devil Makes Three, Time Jumpers and many other peers on 22 songs to celebrate Wills who died of pneumonia at 70 on May 13, 1975.
Benson and Wheel members visited Wills shortly before he had a stroke and went into a coma.
There's an attention to detail paid to everything right down to packaging - an exacting, miniature depiction of Wills' favourite cigar box - that signals their obsession as nothing short of enduring affection.
This is the first Wheel album to feature new replacements: pianist/vocalist Emily Gimble - her grandfather Johnny was a Texas Playboy and fiddler/vocalist Katie Shore.
Benson mixes new and old styles on tunes from Wills' songbook Faded Love, Time Changes Everything and those composed by legendary Texas writer Cindy Walker - Bubbles in My Beer .
This album follows 1998's Ride with Bob and 1993's A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills that earned four Grammys.
Wills and his Texas Playboys performed thousands of shows across the U.S. for nearly six decades and recorded prolifically in the late 30s and early 40s.
"After 45 years of travelling and playing, it still amazes me how well this music, born in the 1920s and 30s, thrives in present day," said Benson.
"The artists playing and singing on this collection range in age from folks in their 20s to former Texas Playboys 92-year-old Billy Briggs and 86-year-old Leon Rausch, certain evidence that Western swing music is alive and well as it cruises through the next millennium."
Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Fiddler Hall of Fame in 2007.
Based in Austin, Asleep at the Wheel formed in Paw Paw, West Virginia, in 1970.
The band has won nine Grammys and released more than 20 studio albums and charted more than 20 singles on Billboard .
They moved from San Francisco to Austin where co-founder pedal steel guitarist Lucky Oceans, now 64, played with them.
Lucky won a 1978 Grammy for Best Country Instrumental for the Wheel's remake of Count Basie's One O'clock Jump.
In 1977 Oceans, real name Reuben Gosfield, met Christine Haddow - a young Australian photographer from The Boston Globe whom he married in 1979.
They moved to Fremantle and Oceans released solo albums Lucky Steels the Wheel in 1982 and Secret Steel in 2005 and discs with his Australian bands including Dude Ranch and the Zydecats .
He also hosts ABC TV and radio show The Planet .
In 1993 Lucky won a second Grammy with Asleep at the Wheel for the band's collaboration with Lyle Lovett on Blues for Dixie from 1993 album A Tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
Former Bob Wills Texas Playboys fiddler Johnny Gimble died if a stroke at 88 on Saturday May 9 in Dripping Springs, Texas. He played with Wills for more than a decade from 1949 and with Willie Nelson from 1979-1981.
Johnny's grand-daughter Emily is a keyboard player and vocalist in Asleep At The Wheel.
CLICK HERE for a Willie & The Wheel feature in the Diary on July 4, 2009.
BLACKBERRY SMOKE IN A ONE HORSE TOWN
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Georgian quintet Blackberry Smoke - protégés of fellow Georgians Zac Brown - sing of the restrictions of their roots in their vintage video for One Horse Town from 2012 album Whippoorwill.
The song tells the story of small towns the world over and was released well before fifth album Holding All The Roses.
We featured their video for latest single Too High in April from their Rounder Records debut.
It was released eight months after live album DVD Leave a Scar: Live in North Carolina - 22-track recording of an April, 2012 gig at Winston-Salem haunt Ziggy's .
"We were like, 'Well, hell, let's just film another show,'" lead singer Charlie Starr revealed of the DVD.
“We want to make a different record every time, if we can. As a band, it's so enjoyable to learn how to use the studio because the studio's a different animal than playing live. We wanted to make a record with more textures, more tone, more light and shade, you know? And so that's what we did. I think we achieved that.
“We want to always keep it fresh, not only for ticket buyers but for ourselves, so we're trying to incorporate new things. And with the new album is a whole new batch of songs that work their way into the show, but at the same time, we'll be pulling older stuff as well. We always try and keep it a nice mixture.”
Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine, Tennessee's First Legal Moonshine , also has a music partnership with Blackberry Smoke .
Further info - http://www.blackberrysmoke.com/
NOVOCASTRIANS HONOUR THEIR HOME TOWN
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The Viper Creek Band eulogises its roots in Newcastle in the vibrant video for My Hometown from debut album Kicking Up Dust.
It features celebrated Tamworth singer and fiddler Ashleigh Dallas, discovered and taken on the road by Kasey Chambers at 18.
The clip, produced by Filmery , features cameos from people proudly showing signs of their various hometowns across Australia and way beyond.
The quintet was formed in early 2011 and illustrate why members left the city for the bush in a cinematic travelogue.
They also celebrated good times, friendships and beer on first EP Crazy Tonight .
Lead vocalist Damien Baguley and guitarist Jochen Walter wrote the material and each member worked on the arrangements, individual sounds and harmonies.
The EP was recorded in six days at Rockettown Studios and mastered by Jeff McCormack at the Music Cellar .
The video for Crazy Tonight was shot on a property outside of Newcastle where they threw a massive backyard party.
Second single Tonight You Are Mine followed a few months later and featured Tara Beaulieu in the film clip.
After line-up changes the band recorded second EP Dance Like No-one's Watching with producer Simon Johnson.
Newcastle is also home town of Catherine Britt, fellow singer-songwriter Morgan Evans and a vast variety of country musicians.
Further info - http://www.thevipercreekband.com.au/
SHANE JOHNSON RODEO ROMPS
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Andamooka rodeo rider Shane Johnson praises Broncs, Boots and V 8 Utes in his new video featuring live footage from the Wilmington Rodeo in South Australia on January 28, 2012. Those trusty tools of the trade in his 2011 single, recorded at Red Brick Studios , are a staple for South Australian rodeos between droughts. Shane grew up in country N.S.W then moved to Moonta on the Yorke Peninsula and joined the Australian Army for fifteen years. |
Since then he has worked as a shearer, truck driver, and farrier.
He also competed on the Australian rodeo circuit as a bull rider and currently works as a miner at the Olympic Dam in South Australia.
“I have always been around music with my father playing guitar, ukulele, mouth organ, piano and squeezebox accordion since I was very young,” revealed Shane who cut his debut album Just Good Country at Lindsay Butler Studios in November 2013.
“I take inspiration for my songs from things I have done and seen and the people around me.”
Johnson, finalist in the Australian Songwriters Association song writing competition in 2007, is working on more songs and another album with Lyndsay Waddington from Kross Kut Records on the Gold Coast for his second album.
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate the 26th series of Nu Country TV.
Australian record companies and artists have joined forces to ensure our survival.
We have new CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing your membership.
They include singing actors Willie Nelson and Tim McGraw, Voice judge Blake Shelton, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Gary Allan, Toby Keith, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Chris Young, Charley Pride, Slim Dusty, Rosanne Cash and more.
We also have DVDS by Lady Antebellum.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.