DAVE'S DIARY - 30/11/2015 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 1 - SERIES 29
WILLIE NELSON AND KACEY MUSGRAVES HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV SERIES #29 PREMIERE
Singing actor Willie Nelson and fellow Texan Kacey Musgraves headline the Nu Country TV Series #29 premiere this Saturday December 5 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.
Georgian singer-songwriter Kip Moore and Gretchen Peters also returns to the show repeated Monday 2:30pm, Wednesday 7:30am and Thursday at 3am.
Host Mid-Pacific Bob Olson introduces his northern suburbs neighbour and discovery Waterline with a humorous memory about an historic ritual.
Van Diemens Land born singer Scott Bird premieres with acclaimed NSW folk rock band Men From Earth .
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
TEXAN DUO IGNITE 50-YEAR-OLD SONG
 |
Shotgun Willie Nelson and Kacey Musgraves revive a 50 year-old song from the Red Headed Stranger's treasure trove.
Willie, a sprite 82 year-old, and young Kacey, 27, perform Are You Sure in a cosy bar under a pink hued light.
Nelson first recorded the classic on his 1965 album Country Willie - it's now the hidden track on Kacey's second major album Pageant Material that followed three indie discs.
In Kacey's song Dime Store Cowgirl she sings “I've had my picture made with Willie Nelson” before a list of bucket list items the Golden, Texas native never dreamed she'd check off.
“When we got to tour with Nelson I got to pick his brain a little and I asked him, ‘do you ever sing that song Are You Sure ?' and he couldn't believe that I knew it,” Musgraves revealed.
“He pulled the guitar out and we started singing it. He asked me if I wanted to sing it. So it kind of happened really organically.
“I asked him why he never plays it live. I just really loved it. It's very honest and very country, and it's a neat perspective. He seemingly pulled a guitar out of a cloud of smoke on his Honeysuckle Rose bus and started strumming. I was of course dying inside a little bit.”
The Texans recorded the song with Nelson using his iconic guitar Trigger .
“It was meant to be a hidden track at the end,” Musgraves says.
“A little nugget for people who make it to the end of the record.”
Willie, now recovering from stem cell surgery, was elated to find a new fan of his old song.
“This is the one she wanted to do,” recalled Nelson touring with Merle Haggard to promote their Django & Jimmie CD.
“It's one of those obscure songs of mine that I wrote many years ago in Nashville. She's a great artist.”
Willie revealed why he had surgery to improve his lungs.
"Over the years, I've smoked a lot of cigarettes, and I've had emphysema and pneumonia four or five times, so my lungs were really screwed up, and I had heard that this stem cell operation would be good for them. So I said, 'well, I'm gonna try it out,'" Nelson said.
"But I'm still so sore that I can't say that it was a success. I'll have to wait until all the soreness goes away."
He was concerned about performing after surgery.
"I think I'll be able to sing. The only thing that worries me more than anything is carrying my guitar, because they did the operation right in my stomach. But I think I'll be all right."
CLICK HERE for a Kacey CD review feature in The Diary on August 31.
CLICK HERE for another Kacey feature in The Diary on July 9, 2013.
CLICK HERE for a Willie and Merle CD feature in The Diary on July 6.
STEELDRIVERS IN THE RIVER
 |
Acclaimed Nashville bluegrass band The Steeldrivers celebrate their 10th year in the saddle and head downstream to chase a honky tonk angel.
They rescued the angel when they dipped their feet in their river of choice on Long Way Down from fourth album The Muscle Shoals Recordings on Rounder.
The album is largely inspired by Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with its musical history of soulful music.
Muscle Shoals is hometown of the Steeldrivers lead vocalist-guitarist Gary Nichols, whose band-mates are fiddler-vocalist Tammy Rogers, banjoist Richard Bailey, mandolinist Brent Truitt and bassist and singer Mike Fleming.
They made a two-and-a-half hour trek from Nashville to Sheffield, Alabama, to the Nutt House Recording Studio to record 11 new original tunes, mostly written by Rogers and Nichols.
The music mixes soul, blues, bluegrass, R&B, country and rock.
Jason Isbell, Nichols' friend and musical compatriot since childhood, co-produced two of 11 tracks and contributed slide guitar to Brother John and Ashes of Yesterday.
Nichols wrote or co-wrote five songs, including Here She Goes and dark ballad Brother John.
Rogers has credits on five songs, including the waltz Ashes of Yesterday and sombre finale River Runs Red - a meditation on the Civil War.
Bailey composed lone instrumental, California Chainsaw .
The band also included Drinkin' Alone - a romp penned by Jay Knowles and former Steeldrivers singer Chris Stapleton.
Stapleton, 37, topped the Billboard all genre top 200 chart for two weeks after winning three major prizes at the 49th CMA awards on November 4.
Chris was with the band when nominated for a 2009 Grammy for Best Country Performance by Duo or Group with Vocals for Blue Side of the Mountain .
In 2010, the group received two nominations for its second album, Reckless , before Stapleton was replaced by former Mercury Records artist Nichols on lead vocals and guitar.
In December, 2011 co-founder Mike Henderson was replaced by Nashville musician-record producer Truitt.
Further info - http://www.thesteeldrivers.com/
GRETCHEN PETERS CURE FOR THE PAIN
 |
Gretchen Peters sings high in the mountains on a front porch in her new video for The Cure For The Pain from her eighth album Blackbirds .
Peters, now 57, performed live in the Nu Country FM Harley House studio at the Paris, Texas, end of Collins St on her 2001 Australian tour after our former studio burned down at Beer Can Hill, Northcote on June 26, 2000.
Gretchen was born in Bronxville, New York and raised in Boulder, Colorado.
She moved to Nashville in the 1980s and wrote hits for Martina McBride, Etta James, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Anne Murray, Neil Diamond and many more.
She won 1995 CMA song of year for McBride's version of her domestic violence and revenge song Independence Day , replete with fiery video.
The title track of her 1996 debut album The Secret of Life was recorded by Faith Hill who toured here twice with singing spouse Tim McGraw.
CLICK HERE for an exclusive Gretchen feature in the Diary on December 21, 2011.
MEN FROM EARTH HIGH ON A MOUNTAIN
 |
Scott Bird flew the nest in Penguin on the north-west coast of Van Diemen's Land at 18.
Scott's quartet Men From Earth found the light at the end the tunnel in their video for Shine from their indie debut album Wildwood Echoes.
Bird's flock perform to promote the album on Saturday at the Spotted Mallard in Brunswick.
Scott grew up in the foothills of the Dial Range where some of our oldest farm land meets the equally perilous southern shores of Bass Strait.
Bird, fiercely proud of his Koori-Irish ancestry, started his first band at 12.
He has since honed his writing in a variety of bands including three albums and two EPS with the Pale Riders and solo album Riversong.
Bird spread his wings, teaching music on the NSW Central Coast in 1998 at Erina with his masters in acoustic, electric guitar, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, bass, drums, percussion, harmonica and didgeridoo.
He played harp on Catherine Britt's single I Want You Back and the Little Hillbillies album and harmonica and banjo on discs by Kasey Chambers, Beccy Cole, Luke Dickens and Paul Costa.
Bird also flew as the vampire in Shane Nicholson's video for Jimmie Rogers Was A Vampire and landed four songs on Chris E Thomas's 2012 album Monkey Off My Back , replete with cameos on banjo, harp, washboard and stomp-box.
But that was then and now Bird's partners in rhyme are guitarist Luke Wright, 29, also mandocello, mandolinist-banjo player Tom Beasley, 21, and Robert Patey-Downes, 62, on percussion.
CLICK HERE for a Men From Earth CD review in The Diary on September 28.
KIP MOORE FLIES FROM GEORGIA TO THREDBO
 |
Georgian Kip Moore performs his video for What You Got On Tonight from his second album Wild Ones.
Moore, 35, begins his Australian tour at the Snowy Mountains country festival at Thredbo from March 4-6 before playing CMC Rocks Queensland at Ipswich from March 11-13.
Fellow Thredbo headliners are Kelsea Ballerini, Morgan Evans, Daryl Braithwaite, Amber Lawrence, Adam Eckersley Band, Deep Creek Road, The Weeping Willows and Little Georgia.
Moore's mother plays organ in the Baptist church at Tifton, Georgia, where he debuted at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant.
The singer, one of six children, was an avid surfer before choosing music - he wrote tunes for fellow young guns Thompson Square and James Wesley.
The singer also performs Lead Me on the soundtrack of new movie The Best Of Me , starring Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden.
CLICK HERE for a Kip Moore feature in the Diary on February 20, 2013.
WATERLINE REVISIT BELL STREET
 |
Northern suburbs quartet Waterline debut on Nu Country with its video for 12 Clicks - The Bell Street Song.
They launch it to a captive audience at Coburg Court House on Friday December 11 at 7:15 pm
The crowd funded video, produced and directed by local film maker Sam Rodgers, invokes memories of Sunday drives to the airport for a few frothies as a bona fide traveller.
Coburg court-house is a fitting launch venue - it was where many Sabbath drinkers fronted the morning after trips to the Tullamarine speakeasy.
Major song-writer Alistair wrote 12 Clicks a few years back as a tribute to Bell Street , a grungy, narrow but highly used artery in Melbourne's north.
It's got a country feel to it which makes it a little different from most of the band's canon but it's a favourite with the band and audiences.
Alistair has strong associations with Bell Street - he first saw it as a youngster, looking out of an FC Holden station wagon and watching as the road unwound.
From the red vinyl bench seat next to his dad he saw the odometer click over 12 times as they drove the length of Bell Street from Heidelberg to Pascoe Vale.
Waterline emerged in Melbourne in the fertile slipstream of Paul Kelly, The Waifs and Mick Thomas.
The band's debut CD Your Town was co-produced by former Redgum bassist Hugh McDonald in 2012.
Waterline play regularly around Melbourne and have appeared at the Anglesea and Basin Festivals and are renowned for their unique mix of idealism, humour and social commentary.
Further info - http://www.waterlinetheband.com/
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate the 29th series of Nu Country TV.
Australian record companies and artists have joined forces to ensure our survival.
We're pleased to announce Sony has given us the latest CD and DVD by Georgian star Jason Aldean on the eve of his debut Australian tour in March.
We also have Angels And Alcohol - the 20th album by fellow Georgian superstar Alan Jackson.
Also 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, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith, Voice judge Blake Shelton, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Charley Pride and more.
We also have a Lady Antebellum DVD.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.