DAVE'S DIARY - 22/9/2014 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 4 - SERIES 24
KASEY CHAMBERS HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV ON GRAND FINAL EVE
Kasey Chambers proves why she should perform at the AFL Grand Final when she headlines Nu Country TV this Thursday September 25 at 10. 30 pm on Channel 31, Digital 44.
The life-long Carlton supporter performs the video for Wheel Barrow - first single from her seventh solo album Bittersweet on the show repeated Monday 5.30 am and 2.30 pm and Thursday 2.30 am.
Maddie & Tai, fresh from the David Letterman show, also debut on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Waco singer-songwriter Wade Bowen and fellow Texan Stony LaRue perform acoustic songs in our Behind Bars segment.
And Canadian singer Kira Isabella debuts with a date rape warning and expat Queenslander 8-Ball Aitken returns on the eve of his latest tour of his homeland.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of 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
KASEY CHAMBERS WHEELS AWAY HER WOES
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Revered singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers headlines the show with the video for Wheel Barrow - first single from her seventh solo album Bittersweet . Kasey wrote her bluesy tune with fiddler Ashleigh Dallas who has been in her band for four years and also plays mandolin and banjo on the album. The mother of three has boomeranged after her amicable split with singing spouse Shane Nicholson and performs the title track as a duet with Bernard Fanning. Kasey is promoting her album on a national tour that brings her to The Forum in Melbourne on December 7. |
MADDIE & TAE – GIRLS IN A COUNTRY SONG STORM
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Maddie & Tae debut with their parody of the generic Bro-Country fad clogging U.S. charts and corporate country radio. Maddie Marlow and Taylor Elizabeth Dye copped flack for performing Girl In A Country Song on the Letterman Show with a computer generated backing track and sound effects. But, unlike some pop puppets, the vocals were live for the Dot Records debutantes. They announced November 4 as release date of their EP All About That Bass featuring more of their original songs. |
Maddie, 19, hails from Sugarland , Texas , and Tae, 18, is from across the border in Ada , Oklahoma - same hometown Blake Shelton was discovered by late hit writer-publisher Mae Boren Axton.
Mae wrote the Elvis Presley hit Heartbreak Hotel and was mum of the late singing actor Hoyt Axton.
Maddie and Tae met at 15 in Dallas through a vocal coach and moved to Nashville after graduating from high school.
They teamed with songwriter Aaron Scherz and signed with Big Machine Records imprint Dot in June.
The duo wrote debut single, Girl in a Country Song , with Scherz, who produced it with Dann Huff who also worked with expat Australasian superstar Keith Urban and other major acts.
They originally signed with Big Machine publishing and wrote every day to hone their craft.
By the time they turned in Girl in a Country Song , they had built a catalogue of about 200 songs.
“We were writing the song thinking that no one was gonna hear it. It was just going to be a song that we played at writer rounds, maybe on a Nashville street corner,” Dye revealed recently.
“But we turned it into our publishing team at Big Machine , they called two days later and said ‘Hey, so yeah, Girl in a Country Song is gonna be your first single, and you're getting signed to Dot Records . Good luck.' It was crazy.”
“Maddie and I both have been singing since the age of three, and we pretty much knew from an early age that this was the career we wanted to pursue.
“When we met when we were 15 and 16, we knew that this was our passion. I think we started traveling back and forth to Nashville when we were 15 and 16. We definitely had to grow up fast and figure out what we wanted to prioritise in our lives.
“I think pretty much both of us knew at an early age that singing and being an artist is the career that we wanted to pursue. You know, all your friends are like, in school and having school mind and we kind of had to grow up quick. We aren't very good at being teenagers. Have a different mindset, which is fine with us. I think us ladies, we are complicated creatures. God made us so we're just special.”
The Bro-Country fad milked by artists diverse as Florida Georgia Line , Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean was easy to parody.
“We like to have options, and these songs don't really give us any options,” Dye said of Bro-Country .
“We're only good for looking good and all of that stuff. So, that's what really inspired this idea, and I think that's why so many people are connecting because women want to feel beautiful no matter what.”
Marlow added: “It's funny because when we get up on stage, people are like, 'Okay, we've seen this before. Two blond girls. Probably gonna sing about love and boys and all this kind of stuff. And we do get inspired by that and write about it. But there's a lot more to be said. It's all about what we're inspired by, all different things. The cool thing is, we're coming from a real place in everything. So no matter what we're discussing, it's definitely real."
Maddie & Tae also debut at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on September 23.
Further info - http://www.maddieandtae.com/
STONY LARUE ON A TRAIN TO BIRMINGHAM
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Texan Stoney Larue debuts on Behind Bars with his acoustic version of Train To Birmingham.
Stoney was born in Taft , Texas , but moved over the border to college town Stillwater , Oklahoma , and cut an album at famed Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa where Bob Wills and many western swing icons hung their hats.
He befriended fellow Red Dirt country musicians Jason Boland and Cody Canada and moved into the Yellow House where their late night jam sessions also featured Mike McClure and Brandon Jenkins.
On October 28 aged 37, Stoney releases his fifth album Aviator, produced by Frank Liddell - husband of Lee Ann Womack.
Liddell is producer of Chris Knight, Womack and fellow Texan Miranda Lambert who featured Stoney's backing vocals on her 2013 hit All Kinds Of Kinds.
The singer also recorded a live album at equally famous Billy Bob's in Cowtown , Texas - his live single Oklahoma Breakdown topped Texas charts for over four weeks.
Seven Network Sunrise host and Port Adelaide President David Koch was filmed line dancing outside the famed honky tonk with its 42 bars on a recent U.S. visit.
There was no footage of Kochie chancing his bull riding skills in the venue's live rodeo arena but the show captured Dale Watson live at the Continental Club in Austin .
Stoney, son of a bass player and a nurse, got hooked by the allure of music early and recorded his first works at 12.
Further info - http://www.stoneylarue.com/
WADE BOWEN LIVE ON SATURDAY NIGHT
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Fellow Texan Wade Bowen returns Behind Bars with his live acoustic version of Saturday Night. The Texas Tech University graduate hails from Waco - hometown of Steve Martin and where Billy Joe Shaver hangs his hat. Bowen was a member of West 84 with Matt Miller in 2001. He released his 2002 debut album, Try Not To Listen , a live disc in 2003 and another studio album in 2006. |
In 2008 Wade released If We Ever Make It Home and on November 21, 2009 cut his second live album at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth , Texas.
The album was released on April 27, 2010 as a CD/DVD combo.
He is the brother-in-law of Cross Canadian Ragweed singer Cody Canada and co-wrote Don't Break My Heart Again with Pat Green.
Wade released Justin Niebank produced 2012 album The Given - his first for a major label and featuring nine of his originals.
The Given explores relationships from desolation to domestic difficulties and features Texan icon Guy Clark on late Townes Van Zandt classic To Live Is to Fly .
Further info - http://wadebowen.com
DATE RAPE IN CANADA
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Ottawa singer Kira Isabella debuts with a video of Quarterback from her second album Caffeine & Big Dreams . Kira turned 21 last week and warned of dangers of date rape with sporting heroes - a subject equally relevant here and in other countries where sporting heroes have not always resisted temptations to take advantage of their admirers. It was written by Rivers Rutherford, Bobby Hamrick, and Marti Dodson, and was produced by Mark Liggett and Jerry Lane. After discussing rape scandals surrounding university football teams in recent years the writers decided to pursue a darker storyline. |
The song was originally to be pitched to Carrie Underwood who tackled tough subjects in Temporary Home and Blown Away.
But the writers held back because of Underwood's romantic history with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo before she wed Ottawa Senators and latter day Nashville Predators hockey star Mike Fisher.
Though written as a first-person narrative in a demo version, the songwriters opted to re-write Quarterback in the third person to avoid leading listeners to believe the story came from Isabella's personal experience in the lyrics.
"She always heard that a girl's first time/ is a memory she'll never forget /she found out the hard way about love/ when she saw those pictures on the internet."
Kira will sing her hit when she opens a show for Keith Urban and Darius Rucker in Canada on September 27.
Isabella was signed to Sony Canada in 2009 - first single Love Me Like That was released in 2011 and charted on Canadian Hot 100.
She released second single A Real Good Radio in 2011 and third single A Little More Work from debut album, Love Me Like That, in October 2012.
She toured Canada with Terri Clark in October 2012 and Carrie Underwood in December.
In 2013 she signed with U.S. record label Hit Shop Records and released Quarterback early this year.
Further info - http://www.kiraisabella.ca/ca/home
8 BALL AITKEN DESTROYING THE WORLD
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Expatriate Queenslander 8-Ball Aitken gets animated on Tokyo roof tops and Johland banana fields as he rocks the crocks on the eve of his latest return tour of his homeland.
The energised guitarist-singer-songwriter recorded and filmed Destroying The World for acclaimed seventh album Southern Hemisphere .
Aitken has been living in Tennessee and appeared on TV shows in Texas and Europe on his journey down the Lost Highway .
The former Atherton Tablelands cane cutter and banana picker performed live with veteran outlaw Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guthrie Kennard on Ray's radio show in Gruene - locale of the oldest dance hall in Texas .
He also graced singing Texan crime novelist Kinky Friedman's Texas Roadhouse Live TV show in Austin .
8 Ball, now 32, also appeared as an extra on TV show Nashville and played octogenarian Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch in Tennessee .
He expanded his CV with his songs used in U.S. TV shows diverse as Justified, Breaking Amish and Parking Wars.
His travelogue boomeranged him home for a tour that included Tamworth in January and Blues On Broadbeach Music Festival on May 24-25, 2014.
“I will be back in Australia for a humongous tour in October,” he says.
CLICK HERE for a Southern Hemisphere CD review in the Diary on January 25, 2014.
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate the 24th 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, Kacey Jones, 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.