DAVE'S DIARY - 4 MAY 2014 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 10 - SERIES 22
DIERKS AND LYLE FLY HIGH ON NU COUNTRY TV
Arizona born country and bluegrass star Dierks Bentley, Texan singing actor Lyle Lovett and Canadian chanteuse k.d. lang headline Nu Country TV on Thursday May 8 at 10.30 p m on Channel 31.
Expatriate Australian guitarist-singer-songwriter-producer Jedd Hughes and vocal partner Sarah Buxton also return to the show repeated Monday at 5.30 am and 2.30 pm.
Cowtown colt Casey Donahew debuts on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Amarillo chart topper Kevin Fowler and Mississippi born latter day Texan Jason Eady also return in our popular Behind Bars segment.
Nu Country TV has been added to the 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
BENTLEY ENJOYS A DOUBLE SHOT OF BOURBON
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Dierks Bentley returns with the first tipple of a whiskey double shot with a song too raw for American radio.
The singer-songwriter, who pilots his own plane to some gigs, drowns his sorrows in the graphic video for Not Enough Bourbon In Kentucky from ninth album Riser .
“The record started in a darker place,” Bentley revealed of the album that featured four songs inspired by the death of his father Leon at 88 on June 1, 2012.
“The first single Bourbon in Kentucky , I think it just stopped a lot of radio stations when they put it on. There were all these summer songs, coming on and fun songs and then there ain't enough bourbon in Kentucky for me to forget you. It's such a hard-core song.
“I had some programmers tell me, you know, "It's just too much." And I appreciate their honesty. We went for something, but it's cool because that song reflects where the album started with my dad passing away. Then by the end of it, my son Knox was born.
“ Bourbon in Kentucky stuck out like a sore thumb on radio. It was heavy and brooding. I love that we took a chance on it. It's weird talking to people about this new record and the things that are behind it. I've probably said, ‘My dad died' 100 times.”
When Dierks toured here with Lee Kernaghan in 2012 he was a on a high as he drew Carlton footy stars Andrew Walker, David Ellard and St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt to his Palais concert on March 13.
CLICK HERE for a Bentley feature in the Diary on March 30.
CASEY DONAHEW SOAKS UP A WHISKEY BABY
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Cowtown has long been one of the bulwarks of roots country music with Shotgun Willie Nelson's 41 st July 4 picnic set to return this year to the famed Fort Worth stockyards.
It's also the home town of Texan young gun Casey Donahew who debuts on our show with the video for Whiskey Baby from his sixth album Stand Off .
Casey, his band and a posse of sweet young belles flesh out the story line in a Wild West town setting.
Donahew had a choice of locales for his video - old Cowtown or Willie's western town on his ranch at Luck near Austin .
The singer, now 37, was born in Burleson - a suburb of Fort Worth and started playing local bars in 2002 while working as a rodeo rider.
They worked the Texas bar circuit and broke nationally in 2009 when one of their self-released albums hit the Billboard Top 30 chart.
They made their name at famed Cowtown club Billy Bob's and released the album Lost Days in 2005.
With guitarist Brent Wall, bassist Steve Stone, and drummer Taz, they released 2006 album titled The Casey Donahew Band .
In 2008 they followed with live album, Live-Raw-Real in the Ville, and cracked Billboard with fourth album Moving On .
Further info - www.caseydonahewband.com
LYLE LOVETT AULD LANG SYNE
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Lyle Lovett and little mate - Canadian chanteuse and occasional actor k d lang perform the video for Release Me , title track of his 12th album. Lovett, now 56, toured here to wide acclaim and played Hamer Hall in Melbourne . It was the same venue chosen by the promoter for some of his duet partner's concerts on her Australian tours. |
Lovett may have appreciated the humor of the locale of a famed lang press conference - the Como Hotel , South Yarra .
While bemused journalists waited by the hotel pool for the Canadian's curtain call they were treated to a swimming exhibition by then septuagenarian Barry Humphries who was not wearing a Dame Edna frock or wielding gladioli.
Lyle has starred in 17 movies after he was discovered by Robert Altman and his music is in movies diverse as Toy Story, The Apostle and Hope Floats .
He played a detective in The Player , sheriff in The Opposite Of Sex and government agent in popular TV show Castle .
Lyle was also cast as a research scientist in Breast Men and kept his hand by scoring music for Dr T & The Women - saga of a Dallas gynaecologist
CLICK HERE for a Lovett feature in The Diary on January 25, 2010.
JEDD HUGHES AND SARAH BUXTON ENCORE
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Quorn born Jedd Hughes and Kansas chanteuse Sarah Buxton perform in the video for her song Stupid Boy - a #3 hit for another expat Keith Urban who plays Rod Laver Arena on June 25. Stupid Boy was one of several hits on Urban's Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing album. He also recorded her Put You in a Song for his 2010 album Get Closer . Hughes, now 32, moved to Tamworth en route to Texas and Nashville where he found Sarah, now 33, as a duet partner. They recorded a duet disc and have played the famed CMC Rocks The Hunter festival. Jedd released 2004 disc Transcontinental after studying bluegrass at the famed South Plains College in Levelland in West Texas His singles were High Lonesome and Soldier for the Lonely. |
He was discovered by Terry McBride of McBride & The Ride and began in Patty Loveless's band before playing in a duo with hit writer Sarah.
Hughes has also written songs for fellow expats The Greencards , Tim McGraw, Josh Gracin and diverse Australian artists and collaborated with Texan icon Guy Clark.
Jedd has also played guitar in bands with Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Emmylou Harris and Eric Church.
Buxton earlier enrolled at Belmont University after leaving Kansas and started Southern rock band Stoik Oak that toured for three years.
After an 18-month engagement she married Christopher Robin of Christopher Robin Band at 22 but soon divorced.
Sarah signed to Lyric Street Records and between 2006 and 2008 she issued three singles from an EP Almost My Record.
In mid-2008 Buxton recorded a duet Sweet & Wild with Dierks Bentley on his Greatest Hits/Every Mile a Memory 2003-2008.
This song reached #51 on the country charts as an album cut, although only Bentley received chart credit for it.
She released her self-titled debut album featuring three duets with Hughes and Top 25 single Outside My Window in 2010 shortly before Lyric Street closed.
Sarah began performing with Jedd as short-lived duo Buxton Hughes before forming Skyline Motel .
Buxton also wrote Gary Allan's 2013 single Pieces from his album Set You Free and The Band Perry's 2013 single Don't Let Me Be Lonely from their album Pioneer .
She has co-written several songs on ABC hit TV show Nashville .
They include Yellin' from the Rooftop, Loving You is the Only Way to Fly, Stronger Than Me, Every Time I Fall in Love and Nothing in This World Will Ever Break My Heart Again for which she and co-writer Kate York received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.
Buxton became engaged to session guitarist Tom Bukovac on December 20, 2009, married on November 20, 2010 and gave birth to first child, Marshall on December 4.
CLICK HERE for a Hughes feature in The Diary on January 21, 2005.
KEVIN FOWLER THANKS BLACKKACK BILLY
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Amarillo born Kevin Fowler returns to the show with the video for his #1 hit penned by two members of Blackjack Billy who played the seventh CMC Rocks The Hunter festival in March. Kevin mounted his tractor and outdoor bath to illustrate How Country Are You - title track of his eighth album. Rob Blackledge and Noll Billings wrote the song well before their March tour here. Although Kevin also recorded satirical Don't Touch My Willie about the Red Headed Stranger's drug busts the singing actor didn't join the cast for his new video. But Fowler, now 48, released sardonic sibling Santa Got Busted By The Border Patrol with a cameo by Asleep At The Wheel singer Ray Benson. |
Kevin has a propensity for booze songs including The Lord Loves a Drinking Man, Beer Season, Long Neckin' (Makes for Short Memories), Drinking Days, Ain't Drinking No More, Beer Money, All The Tequila in Tijuana and Beer, Bait & Ammo.
Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Sammy Kershaw and fellow Texans George Jones and Mark Chesnutt recorded the latter song - title track of his 2000 album.
Chesnutt also cut The Lord Loves A Drinking Man .
Fowler, father of three daughters, could feel jinxed - his last three labels closed shortly after releasing his albums.
In 2010 when Kevin signed with Disney subsidiary Lyric Street Records he was on a roll but eight weeks after release of his single Pound Sign they folded.
Fowler broke the streak after signing to Colt Ford's label, Average Joe's Entertainment .
He and Colt collaborated on Ford hit Hip Hop In A Honky Tonk for 2010 Ford album Chicken & Biscuits .
Fowler also wrote Long Line Of Losers for Montgomery Gentry and earned some serious "mailbox money."
He also recorded a duet with The Possum - Me and the Boys - on a previous album.
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 .
"My ranch is a really good place for me to write, somewhere where you can really get into your head and forget everything going on around you. I just think of a lot of stuff driving. I just sort of space out and get into that little zone."
He also penned Ain't Dead Yet and Now You're Talkin' with frequent Aussie tourist David Lee Murphy.
Others include I Pulled a Hank Last Night - a strong drinking-man's anthem - and Honky Tonk Junkie is a clever tribute to genre icons.
"I get to Jonesin' for Jones/I got a hanker for Hank".
Fowler grew up on Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash but his diet included AC/DC .
"I'm almost a heavy-metal fan," said Fowler, who joined hard rocking Dangerous Toys in the early 1990s before founding Southern rockers T hunderfoot and returning to country in the late 1990s.
Further info - www.kevinfowler.com
JASON'S GOD FEARING BLUES
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Jason Eady and his Wayward Apostles return with a live cut of God Fearing Blues from 2009 disc When The Money's All Gone. Frequent Aussie tourist and latter day Texan Kevin Welch, who lives at Wimberley, produced Eady's last three albums - his latest Daylight & Dark was released on January 21. OK Whiskey was the first single from the new album. “We put that out as a single here in Texas, and I've noticed the further I get away from Texas and Oklahoma, the less that song goes over because people don't know what that means,” says Eady. |
“In Texas and Oklahoma and Kansas , that song kills because it's a big deal there. It's a big thing that everybody talks about. It's from back in the post-prohibition days. They were restricted in the amount of alcohol content that beer can have. Anheuser-Busch brews a different Budweiser for Oklahoma than they do for anywhere else in the country. Like, for every three beers you would drink in Oklahoma , you would only have to drink two beers anywhere else.
Further info - www.jasoneady.com
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate our 22nd 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, Carrie Underwood, Chris Young, Charley Pride, Slim Dusty, Eli Young Band, Rosanne Cash and more.
We also have the latest John Denver all-star tribute album and DVDS by Lady Antebellum.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.