DAVE'S DIARY - 3/2/ 2015 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 10 - SERIES 25
TEXAN DUOS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Texan duos Shotgun Willie Nelson and pianist sister Bobbie Nelson and Bruce Robison and singing spouse Kelly Willis headline Nu Country TV on Thursday February 5 at 10. 30 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.
Geelong born star Adam Harvey continues the family theme on the show repeated Monday 5.30 am and 2.30 pm, Thursday at 2.30 am and Saturday at 11.30 pm.
Former Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles and dual Grammy nominee duet partner Brandy Clark return to the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Treble Grammy nominee Californian quintet Rose's Pawnshop also debuts in Behind Bars.
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
WILLIE AND BOBBIE NELSON RESURRECT MEMORIES
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Willie Nelson, 82 in April and sister Bobbie Nelson, 84, resurrect his classic Who'll Buy My Memories from his 70th album December Day. Willie wrote and recorded it 33 years ago - now it's part of Willie's Stash Volume 1. It was also title track of his 1992 album released to pay his $16.7 million IRS debt. When federal agents raided Willie's home on November 9, 1990, they weren't looking for drugs. |
Instead they seized most his worldly possessions - recording studio, instruments, memorabilia and more than 20 properties in four different states - to help pay back taxes and penalties.
The only thing they didn't get was Trigger - his favourite guitar spirited away from home several days earlier by daughter, Lana.
Nelson used Trigger - and nothing else - to record The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories ? an acoustic disc of new songs and classics.
Willie and Bobbie released the video sharing memories of their childhood in Abbott , Texas .
“We grew up working on farms and making our school money picking cotton, baling hay, whatever. It was a great way to grow up,” Willie recalled.
“We learned a little about everything in Abbott. There was no laws up there, so we could pretty well do what we wanted to do, as long as we lived through it, and fortunately we did.”
The pair share the screen with shots of fields and churches and old photos from their upbringing.
“Some of my, really, earliest memories, besides walking through the field, would be us learning music, our grandparents showing us music,” Bobbie revealed.
“Our grandfather was very much into gospel music - our grandmother, too - and I was trying to learn to play the pump organ. I remember Daddy Nelson showing Willie how to play the guitar, and he taught him how to sing so that when he'd go to school, he could sing for the kids.”
The siblings have played together since they were kids, starting at church revival meetings.
“There's nothing like playing music with Willie. I get an energy from just sitting with me at the piano, but when I sit with Willie, it's just an all-new energy,” Bobbie Nelson says of sharing the stage with her brother.
“When we put that all together, you can really feel it.”
Willie added “We play together, I think, as well as anybody. When it's just her and I, it's a lot of fun to play. It's nice to know that sister Bobbie is over there because whenever I need someone to take the lead, all I have to do is nod to sister Bobbie, and she's already there. She knows what to do and gives me a chance to relax a little bit and figure out what I'm going to do next.”
CLICK HERE for a review of the Willie & Bobbie Nelson CD in The Diary.
CLICK HERE for a Willie feature in The Diary on June 30, 2014.
CLICK HERE to win a Willie CD on our Membership page.
BRUCE ROBISON AND KELLY WILLIS PARODY A CHEATER'S GAME
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Bruce Robison and wife Kelly Willis perform a live version of Cheater's Game - title track of their third duet disc.
The duo live in Austin with their four children including twins.
They played live in our Nu Country FM Beer Can Hill studio in Northcote on their Australian tour in summer of 2000 before it burned down on June 26.
Bruce, now 48, also honoured Octogenarian Nelson with his song What Would Willie Do?
He also wrote #1 hits Travelin' Soldier for the Dixie Chicks , Tim McGraw's Angry All the Time and Wrapped for George Strait .
So how did Robison make it as a songwriter?
“For me, it's only happened very organically,” Robison recalled.
“Those were the songs that happened within the first couple of years that I started writing. You have those magical moments where you're putting all your influences together. The hardest thing was going to Nashville and raising my profile enough to where good things happened. Those songs were the culmination of 10 years of sleeping on couches and playing in and around Nashville . It literally was 10 years - then some of the people that I knew rose through the ranks and became publishers and recording stars and producers.”
Robison has since released eight solo albums dating back to 1996.
After 17 years of marriage, four children, and more than 15 albums, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis cut Cheater's Game in 2013.
It was so invigorating they boomeranged with Our Year in May, 2014.
“When we decided to make Cheater's Game , I was like, "I'll either write 13 of them or none of them,” Robison revealed.
“I don't care which one it is." I just wanted to record great songs. I'm hoping my songs measured up, but I'm willing to go to the mat for the other tunes on Cheater's Game , whether it's a Dave Alvin song or a Robert Earl Keen song or a Razzy Bailey song or a Hayes Carll song. Those are great songs, and I really feel like we brought something fresh to them. Our Year is a continuation with original songs, as well as songs like Tom T. Hall-penned Harper Valley P.T.A . and the Statler Brothers' I'll Go to My Grave Loving You ."
It was worth it for Robison and Oklahoma born Willis, now 46, and wed to high school boyfriend and Radio Ranch drummer Mas Palermo from 1989-1991.
Willis had a cameo in Tim Robbins' 1992 film Bob Roberts .
“We had waited so long to collaborate for Cheater's Game , but the feeling was that we had done all the hard work of putting the band together, finding our sound and knowing how it all worked,” Bruce explained.
“We had put in all the blood, sweat and tears - and we knew we were going to take a break from it - so we decided to go out with a bang with the new album. I'm really glad that we did, and we both feel that these two projects hang together as a moment in time.”
CLICK HERE for a Bruce Robison interview in The Diary on January 9, 2013.
CLICK HERE for a Kelly review in The Diary on March 30, 2004.
ADAM HARVEY MORE FAMILY JOY
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Geelong born Adam Harvey proves how he enjoys Family Life in his long-time home in the People's Republic of Batteau Bay on the NSW Central Coast . Adam, now 40, is joined in his video by a vast cast including wife Kathy - a native of Terang - and their two teenage children and dog as they illustrate the title track of his ninth album. Daughter Leylah sings on Daddy What If - a Bobby Bare hit penned by prolific late Playboy cartoonist, author-playwright Shel Silverstein who also scored the soundtrack of Tony Richardson's 1969 Ned Kelly movie starring Mick Jagger and featuring vocals of Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Thom Ghent. And it was son Conway, now 13 and named after the late Conway Twitty, who inspired My Little Boy. |
“I was sitting here in the office and he was heading off on his first day of high school and he's nearly six foot tall and nearly as tall as me,” Adam recalled.
“He just walked out the door to catch the bus and I thought where has that time gone? I got teary and started writing the song and finished it in 15 minutes. I sang it to my wife Kathy and she cried and sang it to my producer Graham Thompson and he cried. I was in the studio recording while Duncan was filming a video and I could see behind his camera and he had tears pouring down his face.”
CLICK HERE for an Adam Harvey interview in The Diary on August 18, 2014.
JENNIFER NETTLES THAT GIRL
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Former Sugarland Jennifer Nettles and dual Grammy nominee Brandy Clark warn of the power of His Hands in an evocative live concert. Nettles, 40, and Clark , 37, both released solo albums so Nettles also performed That Girl - title track of her second solo album. Jennifer's former Sugarland partner Kristian Bush returns to Melbourne with Lady Antebellum and Maddie & Tae. |
Sugarland performed Northcote Social Club on their 2008 Australian tour - this time Bush struts his stuff at Rod Laver Arena on March 17 and CMC Rocks Queensland in Ipswich .
Nettles studied Sociology and Anthropology at Agnes Scott College in Decatur , Georgia , and graduated in 1997.
She formed her band Soul Miner's Daughter who released two albums: The Sacred and Profane in 1996 and Hallelujah in 1998.
Both albums composed songs written by classical guitarist Cory Jones and Nettles.
In 1999 she formed the Jennifer Nettles Band and released three studio albums and two live discs.
She also released four albums, a Christmas disc and live album with Sugarland from 2004-2010.
Nettles married Todd Van Sickle in 1998 and divorced in 2007.
On November 26, 2011 she wed her boyfriend of two years, Justin Miller, in a sunset ceremony at Blackberry Farms in East Tennessee .
CLICK HERE for a Sugarland interview in The Diary on March 3, 2008.
A NIP OF BRANDY
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Prolific Washington born singer-songwriter Brandy Clark released her debut solo 12 Stories after living in Nashville for 16 years. She co-wrote Miranda Lambert's #1 hit Mama's Broken Heart , Band Perry chart-topper Better Dig Two and also landed songs on albums by artists as diverse as Gretchen Wilson, Ashton Shepherd, Reba McEntire, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban and Darius Rucker. |
Clark won 2014 CMA Award for Song of the Year for Texan Kacey Musgraves hit Follow Your Arrow and is nominated for two Grammys for song-writing.
Brandy was reared in Morton , Washington - a logging town of only 900 people in the shadow of Mount St. Helens .
Her indie album features Vince Gill on background vocals and debuted at #28 on Billboard .
On January 6, 2014, Clark made her network CBS network TV debut with Stripes on The Late Show With David Letterman
Clark opened for Nettles on her 2014 tour and wrote satiric Songs About Trucks for Waco country singer Wade Bowen.
Further Info - http://brandyclarkmusic.com/
ROSE'S PAWNSHOP TORCH AN ARSONIST
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California quintet Rose's Pawnshop retrieved the goods bluegrass style at the Good Neighbour club in Los Angeles with The Arsonist - title track of its 2006 debut disc
Third album Gravity Well is nominated for three Grammys this month.
The band is named after Rose's Pawn Shop where members hocked their gear as broke buskers in LA before forming in 2005.
They turned to Gaslight Anthem producer Ted Hutt for Gravity Well that features new video What Were You Waiting For starring Friday Night Lights alumna Dora Madison Burge.
The clip traces the highs and lows of a rocky relationship, with Burge portraying one half of a volatile couple whose members are stuck in a cycle of getting angry, getting tearful and getting it on.
Nobody from Rose's Pawn Shop makes an appearance but the band-mates say they like it that way.
"It would've been weird to have five dudes hanging out while this couple was going through some intense stages of their relationship," admits singer Paul Givant, who began writing the song during a spontaneous jam session in the back of the band's bus.
"The song is based on some experiences I've had with my own relationships," he adds.
"You love the person - there's so much you love about them - but you also know there's so much that's wrong about the relationship. It just can't be sustained, but for whatever reason, it takes more energy than you can muster to leave the relationship."
Further info - http://rosespawnshop.com/
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate the 25th 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, Chris Young, Charley Pride, Slim Dusty, Kacey Jones, Rosanne Cash and more.
We also have DVDS by Lady Antebellum.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.