DAVE'S DIARY - 28/12/2010 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 4 - SERIES 15
TEXAN TOURIST HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Texan tourist
Miranda Lambert and Sunraysia raised singing teacher Sara Storer return
to Nu Country TV - New Year's Day - with songs about the childhood homes
they left behind.
Lambert, who now calls Oklahoma home with fiancé Blake Shelton,
is one of the headliners at CMC Rocks The Hunter on March 5 and 6.
Storer was born at Wemen near Robinvale but now lives in the Northern
Territory where she worked as a teacher before pursuing her music.
They perform their home homage at 9.30 p m on C 31 on a show repeated
Monday - 3.30 am, Tuesday 4.30 pm and Wednesday - midnight.
Canadian trio Doc Walker performs a different take on the home theme on
the eve of its second Australian tour.
And McAlister Kemp, who performed with Doc Walker at CMC Rocks The Snowys
in March, also return to the show, accessible online on the C 31 web page.
Pint sized Hunter Valley vamp Kirsty Lee Akers, headliner of the Bunyip
Festival on Sunday February 27 also returns with fellow fest act Simply
Bushed.
Former Cowpoke singer-songwriter Steve Cheers makes his Nu Country debut
as a solo artist.
MIRANDA
LAMBERT HOME ON THE RANGE
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Texan
tornado Miranda Lambert celebrated her 27th birthday November 10 with
four major CMA Awards in Nashville. We honour the soaring star by reprising her award winning video for The House That Built Me - a song that topped Billboard charts for more than a month. Miranda's fourth album Revolution also won her best female vocalist and CD and song of the year. Ironically it was one of the few songs she didn't write on an album with a DVD sequel - Revolution: Live By Candlelight. Fellow Texan Allan Shamblin wrote Miranda's song with Tim McGraw hit writer Tom Douglas about seven years ago. |
"We
were at Sundance Film Festival in Utah doing some writer shows for the
Bluebird Café in conjunction with Sundance," Shamblin revealed.
"I had the title for the song and I ran it by Tom. We started talking
about the idea. When you co-write a song you each dig into your own heart
for where you're coming from. The inspiration for me was the last ten
years or so with having my own children. I often think about the neighborhood
and the house that my father built that I grew up in."
Lambert, whose father was a undercover Dallas narcotics cop and private
investigator, makes her Australian debut with Georgian superstar Alan
Jackson at Rod Laver Arena on Friday March 4 before their CMC Rocks The
Hunter gig.
It's not clear if Miranda will bring fiancé Blake - CMA Male vocalist
of the year.
Maybe she'll leave him behind after his explanation about why he didn't
splurge on her birthday present.
"She's freaking rich, man," he joked of their joint milestones
in their five year romance.
"She can get whatever she wants."
Shelton later admitted he bought her an iPad.
CLICK HERE
for a Lambert CD Review in the Diary - January 11, 2010.
CLICK HERE for a Lambert
feature in the Diary on May 5, 2007.
SARA STORER - CALLING ME HOME
 |
Prolific
Golden Guitarist Sara Storer is well qualified to write about her
childhood home at Wemen near Robinvale in the Sunraysia. She grew up on the family farm as youngest child with three brothers and two sisters - plus a plethora of cousins nearby. The family not only outgrew the home but the farm and moved pastoral pursuits to outside Dubbo, between Warren and Gulargambone. Although Sara, now 35, spent almost a decade teaching at Kalkaringi in the outback she enriched her family roots by writing songs with brothers Greg and Doug. And, after a sojourn on the NSW Central Coast, she returned north to the territory where she and partner David O'Hare collaborated on producing a son Harry in Darwin. But Sara had vastly different partners on the title track of her 20 song Best Of - Calling Me Home. |
They are
Gippsland born Weddings, Parties, Anything and Sure Thing singer Michael
Thomas and Trey Bruce - prolific writing son of Ed and Patsy Bruce who
penned Waylon & Willie classic Mommas Don't Your Babies Grow Up
To Be Cowboys.
Despite such disparate writers the song explores similar themes to the
Lambert hit The House That Built Me.
"I wonder now who sleeps in my room/ do they lie awake/ do they ever
wonder who lived here before."
Check out the duelling video clips on Nu Country this week.
CLICK HERE for a Storer
interview in the Diary on October 29, 2007.
DOC WALKER - HOME ON THE PRAIRIE
 |
Canadian
trio Doc Walker explores a different home metaphor in the video for its
hit Coming Home off its sixth album Go.
The band began in 1996 and hails from the Manitoba prairie and played
the third CMC Rocks The Snowys festival at Thredbo in March.
They also toured NSW and Queensland with Texan country star Jack Ingram
and Grenfell singer Steve Forde.
Doc Walker returns in January for major gigs in Tamworth, Brisbane and
Sydney.
Go debuted at #12 on the ARIA Country Chart early in 2010.
Another single, I'm Gonna Make You Love Me, topped Canadian video
charts and features footage from the trio's Australian trip.
Special guest in Tamworth and Sydney is Peter McWhirter whose debut album,
Lucky As A Seven, cut in Nashville, was released on September 10.
Queensland country-folk duo, Busby Marou, performs the Brisbane show.
Further info - www.docwalker.com
MCALISTER KEMP DEBUT
 |
Sydney
duo McAlister Kemp debuts on Nu Country with the video for its third
single Hell Yeah. Drew McAlister hails from Narrabri via Moree and Troy Kemp is from Slim Dusty's hometown Kempsey. They began jamming together in 2008 when cast together in Johnny Cash tribute show Walk The Line. Singer-songwriter Mike Carr hired them for Walk the Line and suggested they form a duo. The lads shared stages with Doc Walker at CMC Rocks The Snowys at Thredbo in March. They also perform CMC Rocks The Hunter on March 5 and 6 with Alan Jackson, Texans Miranda Lambert and Jack Ingram, Joe Nichols, Buxton Hughes, The O'Sheas, Kasey Chambers and Grafton raised Troy Cassar-Daley and The McClymonts. Before that they play Whittlesea Country Music Festival on February 12 to promote their ABC Music debut album All Kind Of Tough. |
The duo scored four Golden Guitar nominations for the 2011 Australian Country Music Awards in Tamworth.
Expatriate
Aussie Adam Brand guests on All Kinds of Tough on the Tim McGraw
hit, Sing Me Home.
The duo wrote the title track and McAlister penned It Don't Buy You
Love with Carr and Last Thing I Wanna Do with frequent Brand
co-writer Travis Meadows.
Further info - www.mcalisterkemp.com
KIRSTY LEE AKERS - KNOCKED UP AGAIN
 |
Hunter
Valley singer Kirsty Lee Akers returns to Victoria as headliner
of the 21st Bunyip Country Music Festival on Sunday February 27. Angaleena also penned songs on Akers debut disc Little Things. |
Akers, the
2007 Tamworth Starmaker Quest winner and 2008 new talent Golden Guitarist,
penned four songs on her second album.
Her collaborators included Trey Bruce and Sydney singer Mike Carr.
CLICK HERE
for an Akers CD review in the Diary on July 6, 2009.
SIMPLY BUSHED
 |
Akers' Bunyip
buddies Simply Bushed provide a snippet of their video for Cangai Bridge
on the eve of the February festival.
They perform on the oval where former Geelong ruckman and latter day Sydney
star Shane Mumford strutted his stuff as a teenager.
The band illustrates its amusing video with anecdotes about the bridge
on the Mann River near Grafton.
Burly bon vivant-lead guitarist Paul Grierson fronts the band and shares
lead vocals with Chris Rieger (acoustic rhythm guitar and banjo), and
Steve Stuut on drums.
Simply Bushed, celebrating 20 years in the saddle, launched new album
Look At The Time at Tamworth in January this year.
Ted Mulry Gang refugee and long time studio ace Herm Kovac produced the
disc featuring 12 new original songs written by Chris and Paul.
The first single is the equally humorous Surly Shirley.
Further info - www.simplybushed.com.au
CHEERS FOR STEVE
 |
Former
Cowpoke singer Steve Cheers management Powerpoint Music has a memorable
HQ - Bong-Bong St in Bowral. Maybe not as well known as another late Bowral boy - cricket champion Don Bradman. Steve Cheers reminds viewers what a vinyl record looks like in the video of Mark Callaghan penned Gangajang hit Sounds of Then from his debut solo album The Speed Of Love. Cheers theatrical background included producing, directing and acting in Little Shop of Horrors and Jesus Christ Superstar. "My Auntie Beryl was a theatre and television personality during the 60s & 70s," Cheers recalled in a recent interview. |
"The
are many entertainers in the Cheers Family including my mother Valda -
a nightclub singer during the 50s and 60s.
"My Uncle Harvey and Sister Kerry were both band leaders during the
60s and 70s.
"I started playing piano and singing at school from age 7 and did
my first concert aged 10."
It's not clear if Steve is related to the late Smoky Dawson's widow Dot,
nee Florence Cheers, who died recently at 104.
Steve moved from Sydney to Mittagong in 2000 and cut two albums with Cowpoke
who split in 2008.
Cheers wrote 10 of 12 songs on his disc - also produced by Kovac who plays
tambourine, claves, cowbell, shaker, bass, bodhran and brush snare.
Luke Moller is on fiddle and mandolin, Michel Rose on pedal steel and
dobro and Gary Steel on piano and accordion.
Former Starmaker winner Travis Collins guests on acoustic and electric
guitar and backing vocals.
Further info - www.stevecheers.com
KEITH URBAN CD FOR TOUR
Expatriate
Australasian superstar Keith Urban returns for a triumphant tour with
chart-topping mates Lady Antebellum in April.
And Keith's long time record company EMI-Capitol has great news for Nu
Country TV viewers.
Promotions ace Bianca O'Neill has donated copies of his huge selling ninth
album Get Closer to you.
All you have to do is become a member of Nu Country TV or renew your membership.
It costs just $20.
Please send a cheque or money order made out to Nu Country Music to us
at P O Box 625 - Northcote - 3070.
We also now have electronic banking for membership payment and renewal.
But email us first at music@nucountry.com.au
as stocks are limited.
Other prizes
on offer include -
Taylor Swift - 2ND CD Fearless.
Alan Jackson - 34 Number 1's.
Miranda Lambert - Revolution CD
Miranda Lambert - Revolution: Live by Candlelight DVD
Tim McGraw Southern Voice Tour CD with 11-bonus video clips.
Dierks Bentley - Feel The Fire. CD
Felicity - Landing Lights
Slim Dusty Sittin' On 80 Boxed Set
Twin CD-DVD pack - The Best Of The Country Music Channel 2010.
Steve Forde - Guns & Guitars
Catherine Britt - Little Wildflowers.
Mike Brady - Country To Country.
A variety of compilation CDS.