DAVE'S DIARY - 7/11/2016 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 8 - SERIES 31
SINGING ACTORS KIEFER AND TIM HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
A famous actor who sings and a superstar singer who acts headline N u Country TV on Channel 31/Digital 44 on Saturday November 12 at 9.30 p.m.
Kiefer Sutherland and Tim McGraw open the show hosted by Mid Pacific Bob Olson and repeated on Monday at 2.30 a.m.
A trio of Texans - William Clark Green, Sunny Sweeney and Brennen Leigh - perform satirical songs in Behind Bars in the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Prolific ARIA and Golden Guitars winner Troy Cassar-Daley returns with the title track of his 10 th album Things That I Carry Around that is also accompanied by an autobiography.
And Hester Fraser - daughter of late Western District raised Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser - debuts under her stage name Goldheist.
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
TIM MCGRAW HUMBLE AND KIND
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Louisiana born singer actor Tim McGraw returns with his video for Humble And Kind from his 14 th album Damn Good Country Music. Tim, now 49, appeared in The Blind Side, Country Strong, Friday Night Lights and other movies and TV shows. McGraw shared stages with singing spouse Faith Hill on his second Australian tour but his new song was penned by another chanteuse - Lori McKenna, now 47, and mother of five children aged 12-27. It's the first solo-written #1 song to top country charts in four years. And it happened on the eve of her 11th album The Bird & The Rifle produced by Dave Cobb. McKenna wrote Humble and Kind in her pajamas in May 2014 at home in Massachusetts between school drop off and pick up. |
“I'd dropped the little kids off at school and then came home. I keep a guitar in the dining room because it's at the front of house, and I tend to sit there sometimes and look out the window at the people going by. I'm such a weird neighbour,” Lori revealed.
“I probably didn't get out of my pajamas until I had to pick up the kids at 2:45. I always call those spaghetti days, because spaghetti is the only thing I can cook in 15 minutes if I'm chasing a song. My family knows.”
McKenna wrote the song for her family - husband and children - and said it was her list of all the things she wanted to make sure she'd told them.
“I saw this as a very simple song,” she said.
“It's three chords that repeat each other over and over. And once I realised I was rhyming with ‘kind,' it was just plugging in the words. But Tim saw it as this worldly thing. I was like, ‘man.'
“It's just an example of how two people can see something so differently. He saw it so much bigger than I did. And not just because I play it for shows with 200 seats and Tim plays it for shows with 20,000 seats. From the get-go, he just made it beautiful.”
McKenna and Brandy Clark, 40, also wrote Three Kids No Husband for McKenna's eighth album Numbered Doors in 2014 after meeting a woman with five children and no husband.
It also appeared on Clark's second album Big Day In A Small Town and was inspired by a YouTube video Clark created to introduce Pray to Jesus from her 2013 album 12 Stories .
CLICK HERE for an interview with Tim in The Diary on May 23, 2010.
CLICK HERE for another Tim CD feature on March 12, 2013.
CLICK HERE to win Tim CDS on our membership page.
KIEFER SUTHERLAND CAN'T STAY AWAY
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British born Canadian star Kiefer Sutherland, also 49, returns with his video for Can't Stay Away from his new album Down In A Hole.
Kiefer is known here for his role as Jack Bauer in drama TV show 24 but recently appeared with dad Donald in the movie Forsaken and returns soon in new TV series Designated Survivor .
Sutherland's first leading role in Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984) earned him a Genie Award nomination.
His movie career included Stand by Me (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), Young Guns (1988), Flatliners (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), The Three Musketeers (1993), The Cowboy Way (1994, A Time to Kill (1996), Dark City (1998), Phone Booth (2002 ) and Melancholia (2011).
But his country music roots are equally deep.
“I started team roping in the early '90s, maybe late '80s, and I did that for 10 years, and I did it pretty hard. I toured with my heeler, who was a guy named John English,” revealed Sutherland.
“That was all we listened to in the truck, and what I fell in love with. They were listening to Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson - all of those guys wrote in the first-person narrative.”
Songs with painful honest revelations inspired Sutherland.
“The joke that I always make is that I don't think Johnny Cash went to Reno and shot a man to watch him die - but he took on the character, and man, that's my wheelhouse. That's what I do,” Sutherland explained.
“So that's why I started writing in that narrative, was because it could be a character. What I didn't kind of plan on was that the first-person narrative was actually mine.”
So appearing on the Grand Ole Opry was no huge shock for the actor who operated Iron Works label with Jude Cole for 10 years.
“I went out for sound check and was like an 8-year-old kid testing the water,” he recalled.
“You can't not walk out there and be aware of the historical relevance. You think of the people who've been there.”
So who were his biggest influences?
“Johnny Cash and June Carter,” Kiefer confessed.
“Dolly Parton. I'm a huge fan. I think she's just such a spectacular writer and incredible performer. I still can't figure out how she plays the guitar with the long nails.”
Further info - http://kiefersutherlandmusic.com/
HESTER FRASER AND HER GOLDHEIST
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When Hester Fraser adopted her alter ego as Goldheist for her duo with drummer Mark Spiteri it had nothing to do with that infamous raid on the Perth mint. The grand-daughter of late Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser chose a name far from the Fraser family's grazing roots at Nareen near Hamilton in our Western District and Armidale, NSW. The pianist-singer-songwriter filmed her cinematic video for Far Away From Here after winning a Tamworth busking quest in January. But Hester, now 27 and a 2011 Sydney Music Conservatorium graduate, didn't cry over spilled coffee or a car breakdown in her video filmed at Gloucester. |
Another of her songs Dust was inspired by drought on Arran - the Fraser's 1050-hectare property at Armidale on which they run cattle.
It raised awareness of the plight of farmers including father Hugh who had to sell half his herd during one drought.
“I knew the drought was bad but it was overwhelming when you realise the scale of what it means to live through it,” Hester said.
“The manual labour that goes into keeping stock alive - I hadn't understood the financial cost. I wanted to write about issues but I also wanted to create a message of support.”
Hester said she was inspired by volunteer group Aussie Helpers who deliver hay and visit farmers in need.
“The most powerful thing Aussie Helpers do is help farmers realise they're not forgotten,” she said.
“When we went through drought in the ‘90s, I was pretty little and don't remember much but dad had to make some tough decisions.”
She continued her family tradition with grand paternal tribute The Camelia Tree that raised funds for the Asylum Seeker Resource centre.
Further info - http://www.goldheistmusic.com/
TROY BOOK AND CD TOUR
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Grafton raised singer-songwriter Troy Cassar-Daley has also drawn attention to the suffering of farmers in his music.
But he draws on other favourite memories in a vintage Holden that didn't break down in his video for Things I'm Carrying Around - the title track of his 10th album and autobiography.
Troy contributed When A Small Town Dies to the CD, Send It Down Hughie 2 , to raise funds for drought-stricken farmers.
The singer is touring nationally to promote his album and book with Victorian concerts in March.
CLICK HERE for a Troy CD feature in The Diary on September 9.
SUNNY SWEENEY AND BRENNEN LEIGH
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Texans Sunny Sweeney and Brennen Leigh exude fertile humor in their singalong on their animated video for But You Like Country Music.
"I saw you pull up next door in your Subaru/ bet that thing runs on veggie oil," Sweeney sings.
"I bet you're probably growing marijuana/ in that big organic garden in your yard."
"I'm surprised you even saw me from where you're sitting/ behind that 747 in your drive," Leigh responds.
"You seem like you'd have a Doomsday compound/ full of firearms, ammunition and canned foods."
Sunny's second husband Jeff Hellmer is an Austin police sergeant so the crop in the video may be an offshoot of her third album Provoked in 2014.
Sunny, 39, and Brennen, 32, also wrote Staying's Worse Than Leaving for Sweeney's second album Concrete in 2011.
Sweeney recorded The Next Big Nothing - penned by late Tasmanian Audrey Auld - on 2006 debut CD Heartbreaker's Hall Of Fame .
Brennen was born in North Dakota and moved to Austin, Texas, and released 2009 solo album The Box and Before The World Was Made with singer-songwriter Noel McKay in 2013.
She also cut a Lefty Frizzell tribute disc after her songs were recorded by Grammy winning Texan Lee Ann Womack.
Leigh also collaborated with Jim Lauderdale, John Scott Sherrill and David Olney and was twice voted Texas Music Awards Best Female Vocalist.
The mandolinist also fronts country bluegrass band High Plains Jamboree, with frequent writing and touring partner-guitarist McKay, bassist Simon Flory, and fiddler Beth Chrisman.
Brennen, Sunny, Jamie Lin Wilson and Courtney Patton have combined for the Hard Candy Christmas tour in December.
CLICK HERE for a Sunny interview in the Diary on March 27, 2011.
WILLIAM CLARK GREEN CIRCUS CROPS
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Fellow Texan William Clark Green explores crazy characters in a comical circus in his video for Ringling Road where the lead character ends up in prison in our Behind Bars segment.
Ringling Road is the title track of the fourth album by the 30-year-old from Flint - rose capital of Texas.
It was inspired by a real road in Green's current Texas hometown Eastland and debuted at 133 on the Billboard 200 and 18 on the country chart.
Ringling Bros Circus once used Eastland as a regular rest stop between shows where elephants and other animals were let off the train for a drink while circus folk unwound on nights off.
Green and co-writers Ross Cooper and Randal Clay created a cinematic classic about extra-curricular circus life - far wilder and entertaining than the ticketed performances.
He cut first album Dangerous Man in 2008 while studying at Texas Tech in Lubbock, 2010 album Misunderstood and 2012 disc Rose Queen, inspired by the Texas Rose Festival in Tyler.
Green also contributed Still Think About You to Dreamer: A Tribute to Kent Finlay , in early 2016 on Austin-based Eight 30 Records.
He wrote the song with mentor Finlay who founded legendary Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos in 1974.
Kent died at 77 on March 2, 2015 after a long illness but took a shine to Green's unfinished song.
“I took it to Kent and said, ‘I've got this song, and no one seems to like it,'” Green recalls.
“But I played what I had for him, and he went, ‘Oh, I like that!' And I was like, ‘Thank God, finally somebody does!' So we ended up finishing it together, and I'm really glad we did.”
Green released latest album Live At Gruene Hall , circa 1878, at New Braunfels south of San Marcos, on September 23, 2016.
Further info - http://www.williamclarkgreen.com/
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 12th 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.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.