DAVE'S DIARY - 20/4/2015 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 8 - SERIES 26
ALLISON MOORER HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Allison Moorer - the seventh ex-wife of Texan troubadour Steve Earle - headlines Nu Country TV this Saturday April 25 on Channel 31/Digital 44
Florida born latter day Texan singer Sam Riggs returns to the show repeated Monday 5.30 am and 2.30 pm, Tuesday 4 pm, Wednesday 7.30 am and Thursday 2.30 am.
Americana stars Jim Lauderdale and Todd Snider also perform Behind Bars in the show filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
And expat South Australians Liam Gerner and Jodi Martin also showcase their latest video clips during national tours.
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
MOORER BOOMERANGS LIKE IT USED TO BE
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Alabama born Allison Moorer toured here in 2005 and 2008 as Steve Earle's seventh wife - and singing spouse.
Moorer, 42 and younger sister of fellow singer Shelby Lynne, is qualified to sing Like It Used to Be from her ninth album Down To Believing.
She's picking up the pieces after splitting with second husband Earle in March last year.
Moorer gave birth to the couple's first child, John Henry Earle, on April 5, 2010.
She performed with Earle on After the Fire is Gone from Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn (2010.)
Allison was raised in Monroeville , Alabama , just north of Mobile .
Following the murder-suicide of her parents (perpetrated by her father) in 1986, she and Shelby moved into their aunt and uncle's home.
She followed Shelby to Nashville where she met Doyle "Butch" Primm - an Oklahoma-reared musician who became husband and frequent song-writing partner.
Her song A Soft Place to Fall appeared in the Robert Redford The Horse Whisperer movie in 1998 - she also appeared in the movie.
The ballad earned her an Academy Award nomination so she performed it on the 1999 Oscars ceremony.
CLICK HERE for an Allison Moorer interview in The Diary on May 16, 2004.
SAM RIGGS LIVE IN SOUTH AUSTIN
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Sam Riggs and his band The Night People perform Hold On And Let Go live at the Giddy Up bar in south Austin in the heart of Texas. The song is on Sam's debut album Outrun The Sun. There was a savage sting in the tail of the cheating tale by the protégé of Oklahoma born latter day Texan Ray Wylie Hubbard. |
“He opened my eyes to song-writing, and I could see the idiot I had been and the idiot I was going to be, and he helped me to navigate that,” Riggs revealed.
“He taught me what it really is to be a songwriter.”
Riggs' relocated in 2007 from Florida to Austin , Texas , after friends brought him a CD by Texas band Reckless Kelly.
“The only thing that matters is how you interpret this life. I wanted this to be reflection of my intent and an echo of my soul as songwriter and artist.”
Outrun The Sun followed his 2012 EP Lighthouse .
The band spread its fame opening for Chris Knight, Joe Diffie, Kevin Fowler, Pat Green, Eli Young Band, Randy Rogers Band and Hubbard.
“Your audience is like a dreamer, and the last thing you want to do is wake a dreamer,” says Riggs.
“We try to draw them in with our music and keep them entranced in that dream.”
Further info - http://www.samriggsandthenightpeople.com/
JIM LAUDERDALE BEHIND BARS
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North Carolina Presbyterian minister's son Jim Lauderdale first toured here in 2002 with Canadian Fred Eaglesmith and Kim Richey.
This week the multi Grammy award winner performs I'm a Song - title track of his 26th album - at the famed Loveless Café near Nashville .
I'm A Song is his first double album with 20 tracks, all on one CD.
It began in 2012 when he recorded nine songs with James Burton, Al Perkins, and the band.
He completed the remaining tracks last year with the intention of only recording a few songs but turned into eleven.
I'm A Song features all-star cast - Lee Ann Womack, Patty Loveless and Buddy Miller and band - James Burton, Al Perkins, Kenny Vaughn, Dennis Crouch, Stuart Duncan and John Oates.
Co-writes include song-writers Elvis Costello, Robert Hunter, Bobby Bare, Gary Allan, Odie Blackmon, Matt Warren, Jimmy Ritchey and Mark Irwin.
Jim had good qualifications to play late Texan George Jones in Stand By Your Man - stage version of the Tammy Wynette story in Nashville .
Lauderdale wrote 1991 song King Of Broken Hearts about The Possum who died at 81 on April 26, 2013.
" King of Broken Hearts just popped up for me," said Lauderdale who turned 58 on April 11.
"I was reading a Gram Parsons biography by Syd Griffin. In the book, Pamela Des Barres was talking about how Gram had a party and he put on George Jones for people who hadn't heard of him. When I read it, I got goose bumps and this melody came. I was living in California and went out to Cap Rock where Gram used to hang out and was cremated. And the song came to me. A lot of times, a melody will come at the spur of the moment. I'll think of a phrase and the melody will come right then."
CLICK HERE for a Lauderdale interview in The Diary on December 14, 2006.
TODD SNIDER PLAYS A TRAIN SONG
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Oregonian born latter day Nashville singer-songwriter Todd Snider returns Behind Bars with a live version of Play a Train Song from 2004 album East Nashville Skyline. The 48-year-old has made 15 albums since being discovered by recently deceased songwriter Kent Finlay at Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos - south of Austin - in Texas. Todd recorded for Margaritaville distributed by MCA, and credits Finlay as his career catalyst. Finlay gave Snider, then 19, his first booking - Cheatham Street Warehouse - and introduced him to Billy Joe Shaver. History repeated when Snider broke with a song which almost hit the cutting room floor when recorded. |
“We had 16 songs recorded," Todd added.
“I just had to cut it down to 12 as Kevin Kinney said keep it under an hour. Four songs had to go. Some guy from Canada heard Seattle Grunge Rock Blues and thought it was cool and I decided to put out 13 songs. No-one really thought it would get on radio."
In our interview I suggested it was similar to when Mel McDaniel cut 1977 album Gentle To Your Senses and added Blow Up Plastic Girl as an afterthought.
"That was Kent Finlay from Martindale, you're the first person that ever asked about Plastic Girl," Snider said.
"Wait until I tell him. He's a genius, man. But he won't come out of his house. He's got this house, three kids, a wife, 50 cats and a goat and a pig. He says he grows songs out there.
“He can't sing that great anymore and I don't know how old he is. He's a peculiar man. He's brilliant and I was real fortunate to stumble into him. He let me stay in his house for three years. He was the one that made me listen to Billy Joe Shaver and Kristofferson."
Todd has vivid memories of the night he answered a pay phone at Idle Hour bar in Nashville and had a rifle thrust in his face.
The sardonic singer-songwriter was expecting a call from his artist wife Melita but instead aborted a dope deal.
Snider's mentor Texan singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver stepped in, and with the rifle in his chest, escorted him from the bar.
The duo decamped after a barfly alerted the enraged rifle toting bar owner that Shaver wrote Honky Tonk Heroes and neither was ready to meet God.
They visited the bar after a writing session and Snider reprised the yarn in his intro to his revamp of Billy Joe's Good News Blues on East Nashville Skyline .
CLICK HERE for an exclusive Todd Snider interview in The Diary on July 23, 2013.
LIAM GERNER TRAVEL ADVICE FOR SENIOR CITIZENS
South Australian born Liam Gerner returns with travel advice for senior citizens in Texas.
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Gerner resurrected famed icons Hank and Tammy in song as geriatric drug mules. The moral of the story - if you are driving through Texan with a load of cocaine don't crash your Winnebago into a judge's ranch house. It's on Liam's debut 11 track album Land of No Roads recorded at Rick Rubin's Shrangi La Over 3 studio in Malibu and produced by his engineer and co-writer Eric Lynn. Gerner cut his album after a Trans-Atlantic trek that began in London with pit stops in the U.S. where Gerner toured with artists diverse as Jason Isbell, Drive By Truckers , Oscar winner Ryan Bingham, Dale Watson, Jackson Browne and singing actor and Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson. |
It's Gerner's incubation as a road scholar of a different sort that fuels this album with a little help from friends Gary Louris, Robbie Fulks, Cajun accordionist Steve Riley and Lucky Oceans - expat Texan multi-instrumentalist and Asleep At The Wheel co-founder, also an ABC radio-TV host in Fremantle.
Gerner grew up in Yongala in mid-north of South Australia before moving to Mt Barker in the Adelaide Hills and going on the international road.
CLICK HERE for a Liam CD review in The Diary on March 5, 2014.
JODI MARTIN SALTWATER IN HER HAIR
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Fellow South Australian Jodi Martin debuts by cooking up a storm and surfing live on her beach of choice in her video for Saltwater In My Hair.
It's on the Ceduna born singer's fifth album Saltwater.
She wrote it with famed touring partner Arlo Guthrie.
Jodi began composing songs as a three-year old on her family's grain farming property east of the remote coastal town of Ceduna .
By the time she was four, her mum, a schoolteacher, suggested Jodi record the songs on her cassette machine.
At 16 Jodi began performing country music showcases and festival talent quests.
She met Kasey and Nash Chambers and Dead Ringer Band at Victor Harbour Country Music Festival and shared stories of growing up on the Nullarbor Plain near Jodi's hometown.
Nash asked Jodi to send him her songs.
Kasey recorded Jodi's song Why for the Dead Ringer Band's ARIA Award winning album Homefires the following year.
At 19 she played Lismore Festival - a promoter asked Jodi for a recording to send to an international artist he planned to bring to Australia .
It was Arlo Guthrie who played Woodstock when he was 19 - he invited Jodi to open for his Australian tour.
Jodi subsequently released rootsy albums Water and Wood , and Fifteen Minutes Out to Sea , and 2011 World Turning EP.
She joined Guthrie on three national tours and their connection continued when Jodi relocated to Montreal to focus on touring Eastern Canada .
In 2011 Arlo and Jodi embarked on a song-writing road trip on the tour bus from Florida to New York State .
Each day for three weeks, they wrote a new song, and several songs from this journey appear on Saltwater including Saltwater in My Hair.
Further info - http://www.jodimartin.com/home
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.