DAVE'S DIARY - 19/9/2016 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 1 - SERIES 31
GRAMMY WINNING TRIO HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV SERIES #31 PREMIERE
Prolific Grammy and CMA awards winners Chris Stapleton, Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood headline our Series #31 premiere on Channel 31/Digital 44 at 9.30 pm on Saturday September 24.
Kentucky Coalminer's son Stapleton, 38, performs a pre-fame live cut of one of his hits from debut solo disc Traveller on the show repeated on Monday at 2.30 a.m.
Chesney, 48, showcases the first single from his 17 th album Cosmic Hallelujah that is out on October 28.
And Oklahoma singer Underwood performs the latest in a long line of domestic violence summary justice anthems on the show filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Texans Kevin Fowler and Zane Williams also lampoon mainstream country in their latest clip.
Fawkner singer-songwriter Jasmine Rae honours expatriate Scot singer-songwriter Karl Broadie who died from cancer at 44 on April 19.
And former Broome pearl sheller and deckhand Ruby Boots performs a song she wrote with Waifs singer Vikki Thorn in her adoptive home state of Utah.
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/series/487
STAPLETON NO LONGER CRYING FOR HIS SUPPER
 |
Chris Stapleton proves why he is the biggest selling country artist of the past two years with his live rendition of Sometimes I Cry from his debut solo album Traveller that has sold 1.5 million copies.
Traveller has sold more than 750,000 this year - an amazing feat for an album released on May 5, 2015.
That's three times the sales of Blake Shelton's 12 th album If I'm Honest and almost four times Keith Urban's 10 th album Ripcord.
Chris broke at 37 after writing major hits for peers while in the Steeldrivers bluegrass band from 2008-2010.
CLICK HERE for a Stapleton feature in The Diary on December 21, 2015.
CHESNEY'S COSMIC HALLELUJAH IN PINK
 |
Tennessean Kenny Chesney showcases topical song Noise that resonates with teachers - but not preachers or Donald Trump. Kenny's timely satire Noise is on his 17th album Cosmic Hallelujah. Chesney, now 48, delayed its release until October 28. It follows previous album The Big Revival that produced four consecutive #1 hits including Grammy-nominated American Kids, Wild Child with Grace Potter and three-week chart-topper Save It For A Rainy Day. The new album also features Setting The World On Fire with triple Grammy-Award winner Pink. |
It was recorded in part at Rick Rubin's Malibu studio.
CLICK HERE for The Big Revival feature in The Diary on December 29, 2014.
CARRIE UNDERWOOD CHURCH BELLS TOLL WITH POISON
 |
Oklahoma oriole Carrie Underwood, touring here with expat Australasian superstar Keith Urban in December, delivers swift summary justice to an oil magnate domestic violence bully in her new video for Church Bells.
Underwood's battered bride poisons her tormentor by lacing his Tennessee Whiskey with poison.
It's a sequel of sorts to the Dixie Chicks who added arsenic to the black eyed peas in their Dennis Linde penned hit Goodbye Earl.
Two high school graduates Mary Ann and Wanda fatally silenced Earl who “walked right through that restraining order and put Wanda in intensive care."
Ironically, actor Dennis Franz - best known as a hard-boiled detective Andy Sipowicz in the NYPD crime TV show, played the villain Earl in the award winning video.
Now, 16 years and 15 million albums later, Carrie, 33, vividly depicts revenge fuelled fatal summary justice dispensed by a battered Baptist bride after hearing the pealing of the bells from her back pew perch.
Seven time Grammy winner Carrie didn't write Church Bells but delivers it with punchy passion.
Not quite as dramatic as the daughter of the bashed wife who burns down the villain's house in the award winning Gretchen Peters penned Martina McBride hit Independence Day .
Underwood, who has frequently hosted the CMA Awards, is unlikely to suffer violence from her spouse Mike Fisher - an ice hockey star for the Nashville Predators .
Instead she performs another song Oh, Sunday Night - a revamp of her duet hit Something Bad with Texan Miranda Lambert - as the theme song for Sunday Night Gridiron games on the American NBC network.
Church Bells is on Underwood's fifth album Story Teller.
CLICK HERE for an Underwood CD feature review in The Diary on November 2, 2015.
KEVIN FOWLER, ZANE AND RANDY
 |
Texan Kevin Fowler stirred the parody pot with hearty humour in his Sellout Song.
It features fellow Texan Zane Williams who wrote the bro country rap satire and Randy Rogers who proves that baseball bats are ideal for multi-tasking.
Sellout Song is on Amarillo born Kevin's ninth album.
At 50 Kevin can afford to be humorous - other hits include Beer, Bait & Ammo, Hip Hop In a Honky Tonk and Santa Got Busted by the Border Patrol.
The latter was inspired by Shotgun Willie Nelson's occasional drug busts and features a cameo by Asleep At The Wheel singer Ray Benson.
Kevin also recorded Don't Touch My Willie about his hero - singing actor Nelson who turned 83 on April 30.
Fowler, father of three daughters, and Amy Rankin of the legendary Rankin Twins performed their previous video for Before Somebody Gets Hurt from Kevin's eighth album How Country Are Ya on Nu Country on June 13, 2015.
Kevin also has a propensity for booze songs The Lord Loves a Drinking Man, Beer Season, Long Neckin' (Makes for Short Memories), Drinking Days, Ain't Drinking No More, Beer Money and All The Tequila in Tijuana .
Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Sammy Kershaw and fellow Texans George Jones and Mark Chesnutt recorded Beer, Bait & Ammo - title track of his 2000 album.
Chesnutt also cut The Lord Loves A Drinking Man.
Kevin could feel jinxed - his last three labels closed shortly after releasing his albums.
Fowler sources songs driving his pickup at his ranch near Junction - he calls these songs "presents from the song gods."
"Those seem to be the best ones," he said of songs including Cheaper To Keep Her .
He penned Ain't Dead Yet and Now You're Talkin' with frequent Aussie tourist David Lee Murphy and I Pulled a Hank Last Night - a strong drinking-man's anthem - and Honky Tonk Junkie, clever tribute to genre icons.
Further info - www.kevinfowler.com
JASMINE RAE – KARL BROADIE TRIBUTE
 |
Golden guitarist Jasmine Rae performs an evocative tribute to expat Scot singer-songwriter and producer Karl Broadie who died of cancer at 44 on April 19. Edinburgh born Karl moved to the historic Nundle village near Tamworth with his family before he succumbed to his illness. The prolific singer-songwriter, now 28, released If She Calls in 2010. Jasmine's revamped single - If He Calls - ensures proceeds flow to Karl's family. If He Calls was produced by ARIA and Golden Guitar winning producer Matt Fell, with Beau Golden on piano and mastering by Michael Carpenter. |
It followed Jasmine's performance of the song at the Concert For Karl tribute show in Sydney.
Rae used song-writing as therapy on her previous album If I Want To after the death of her dad - a panel beating and motor industry business owner - at 56 from bowel cancer.
The singer released her fourth album Heartbeat in 2015.
She also performed a duet with fellow Victorian raised singing restaurateur Adam Brand on Quit This Time - on Brand's 12th album My Side Of The Street .
CLICK HERE for a Jasmine Rae CD feature in the Diary on August 31, 2015.
RUBY BOOTS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
 |
Former Broome pearl sheller and deck hand Ruby Boots returns to Nu Country with her video for Middle Of Nowhere from her debut solo album Solitude.
Ruby, now performing and writing in Nashville, has toured with Kris Kristofferson, Tony Joe White, Justin Townes Earle, Shovels and Rope , Shakey Graves, The Waifs and Nikki Lane.
In 2015 she received the APRA Professional Development Award that prompted her Nashville sojourns.
Ruby, nee Bex Chilcott, wrote Middle Of Nowhere with Waifs singer Vikki Thorn - a fellow West Australian - at her farm in remote southern Utah.
She is well qualified to cite different inspirations than many roots music peers.
“Up until I was 21, all my life was fairly tumultuous so I didn't have the opportunity to follow that,” Ruby revealed before she released Solitude for U.S. label Lost Highway .
“I was sitting out on a pearl boat with a friend, I was working as a deckhand on a pearl boat at Montebello Island just off the coast of Exmouth, and she got me a couple of chords and the rest is history, really.
“I remember hearing The Waifs album Sink or Swim on a little island off the coast of Broome where I spent most of my days chipping pearl shells, working as a deckhand in the burning sun.
“I hadn't picked up a guitar at that point, and from a distance on first listen I was drawn to Vikki's voice, it played a hefty part in what inspired me to start singing and writing. Fast track to ten years later, and I find myself flying half way across the world to write with my now dear friend, an experience that has nurtured my journey since.”
So it's fitting Middle Of Nowhere was also inspired by a different journey to Thorn's latter day home in Utah.
“I was tired, jetlagged, emotionally drained, and scared out of my wits - the latter mainly because I had no idea what I was walking into,” Chilcott revealed.
“I knew Vikki lived on an isolated farm in Utah somewhere, and that we were setting out to write a few songs, and that's where my knowledge ended. I hadn't even bothered to find out an address and was nearly refused entry into the country at customs! After meeting my new, tiny-framed yet big-voiced friend Vikki in Salt Lake City, we drove to the farm - a drive that proved to be highly entertaining. In the final leg I succumbed to my jetlag daze and passed out, later waking up in the total darkness of the driveway on a very isolated property, about a twenty minute drive to the nearest sign of civilization a lonely petrol pump.
“Welcome to the middle of nowhere” Vikki said. “I quickly replied with all the false bravado I could muster, “That's going to be the name of the first song we'll write tomorrow”.
CLICK HERE for a Ruby feature in The Diary on April 27, 2015.
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 31st series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
Warner Brothers promo wizard Tony Midolo has given us Blake Shelton's CD If I'm Honest and Sony has donated the latest CD and DVD by Georgian star Jason Aldean.
We also have Angels And Alcohol - 20th album by fellow Georgian superstar Alan Jackson.
Also CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing membership.
They include singing actors Willie Nelson, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Charley Pride and more.