DAVE'S DIARY - 14/8/2017 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 6 - SERIES 33
BLAKE SHELTON AND OAK RIDGE BOYS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Oklahoma singing actor Blake Shelton and his pals The Oak Ridge Boys get animated as they headline Nu Country TV on Saturday August 19 at 9 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.
Arizona singing pilot Dierks Bentley also returns to the show filmed and edited by Laith Graham and repeated Monday 8 am and Sunday at 1 am.
Another singing actor Kiefer Sutherland and Californian Devin Dawson adorn our Behind Bars segment by performing in prison.
Kentucky country singer comedian Wheeler Walker Jr returns to the bluegrass state in his Nu Country debut.
Melbourne band Rattling Cane , who honoured a pioneer progressive community country radio show on their second album, take us into the bush for some cricket and front porch picking.
We also remember four times wed Arkansas born singing actor Glen Campbell who died at 81 on August 8, with a cameo of his biggest hit Rhinestone Cowboy .
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
Viewers can access new and previous Nu Country TV shows at the same link.
BLAKE SHELTON AND OAK RIDGE BOYS GET ANIMATED
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Blake Shelton the Oak Ridge Boys get animated in their new video at a honky-tonk on the shores of Lake Shelton.
Shelton is reimagined as the six-pointed Blake Buck as he prepares for a show with the Oaks' Duane Allen (wolf), Joe Bonsall (beaver), William Lee Golden (possum) and Richard Sterban (frog).
Running on country radio and strong coffee, Buck and the furry band take the stage and deliver a night live country music for all their woodland friends in Doing It Live To Country Songs .
The former singing spouse of Texan Miranda Lambert said working with the Oak Ridge Boys was a dream. “It's crazy so I've been doing this now as far as touring and stuff since 2001,” Shelton , 41, revealed.
“And very rarely maybe once in the last 16 years have I crossed paths with the Oak Ridge Boys. I heard this song and I instantly thought, ‘Wouldn't it be cool if the stars would align and if I could get those guys into the studio and record that song with me?' And they did it.”
The first time they performed it together on live TV was 2016 CMT Music Awards.
“This year, we've probably performed that song nine or 10 times live at places like festivals all over the country when we're playing the same days,” Shelton added.
“We've been having a blast doin' it to country songs.”
It's a vast contrast to the Austin Lounge Lizards historic parody Put The Oak Ridge Boys in The Slammer .
Shelton opens his own honky tonk Ole Red on Lower Broadway in Nashville .
It's a sibling of his other Ole Red opening in October in his hometown Tishomingo , Oklahoma .
The Tishomingo Ole Red locale is on Main Street in a former dentist's office and the building that housed ex-wife Miranda Lambert's Pink Pistol boutique.
Shelton bought the dentist's office three years ago and the Pink Pistol in 2016 after Lambert closed the store.
He filmed his She's Got a Way With Words video there.
CLICK HERE for a feature on Blake's 12th CD If I'm Honest in The Diary on May 27, 2016.
CLICK HERE to win Blake's CD on our membership page.
DIERKS BENTLEY PLANES, TRAINS AND BLUEGRASS
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When Dierks Bentley toured here in 2012 with Australian of The Year Lee Kernaghan they attracted former St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt and Carlton stars Andrew Walker and David Ellard to their Palais concert.
Saint Nick, 34, may be retiring this season but Bentley, 41, broadened his career by fronting his Bolo Boys bluegrass band as his opening act at some concerts.
Dierks is also dressed as a pilot in his plane in his new video for What The Hell Did I Say that follows his 10 th album Black.
It also Bentley partying with fans at pre-concert tailgates, meet and greets, and fans dancing in concourses and singing along to Dierks.
Black is the family name of his wife Cassidy - mother of the couple's three children including two daughters.
She joined him in his previous video for the Black title track in Iceland during a storm, featuring a derelict plane on the desolate surface.
Bentley follows Blake Shelton by opening a Nashville Lower Broadway locale for his Whiskey Row bars that will expand his chain outside of Arizona .
“It's where the Eric Church and Miranda Lambert fans go when those guys aren't in town,” Dierks said.
“That's where those younger fans go to hang out, because they like that younger sound of country.”
Bentley and Lambert also share a penchant for rescuing dogs from shelters.
Dierks welcomed another female to his family after the death of his beloved dog Jake who joined him in Nashville long before his career took off.
Jake appeared in Dierks videos and earned a verse in his song Can't Be Replaced after he died of cancer at 15 in July, 2016.
Dierks adopted a female surrogate from the Nashville Humane Association and his eldest daughter Evie, eight, showcased her puppy on the Internet and sang “we got a dog, we got a dog.”
CLICK HERE for a Dierks Bentley CD feature in The Diary on July 25.
CLICK HERE to win a Dierks CD on our Membership Page.
GLEN CAMPBELL ADIOS AT 81
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Arkansas born singing actor and TV show host Glen Campbell died at 81 on August 8 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
The seventh of 12 children of a Delight cotton share farmer was a famed session musician before he became a major international star.
He recorded more than 70 albums that produced 80 plus hits on pop, country and adult chart with sales exceeding 45 million units.
Glen also won six Grammys from 17 nominations and was a major mentor for expat Australasian superstar Keith Urban and helped land Georgian Alan Jackson his first publishing and recording deals with expats Barry and Jewel Coburn.
Campbell starred with John Wayne in 1969 movie True Grit and sang the theme song, nominated for an Oscar.
Other movie roles included Norwood with Joe Namath and Kim Darby, Strange Homecoming with Robert Culp and Leif Garrett, Any Which Way You Can with Clint Eastwood, Uphill All the Way with Roy Clark and Mel Tillis and the animated Rock-A- Doodle .
He also starred in his prime-time, weekly variety series, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour , on CBS from 1969-72 with regular star guests including Jerry Reed, John Hartford and Dom DeLuise.
Those shows featured his dexterity on guitar, banjo, mandolin and bagpipes before he boomeranged with 24 episodes of The Glen Campbell Music Show in 1982-83.
Campbell is survived by four wives, eight children and Texan former lover-duet partner Tanya Tucker.
Acclaimed 2014 documentary Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me featured his final tour and last recorded song, the Oscar nominated I'm Not Gonna Miss You.
We feature it next week.
This week our show ends with a cameo of his biggest hit - the Larry Weiss penned Rhinestone Cowboy .
His final album Adios , produced by Carl Jackson and released in June, features duets including Nine Stone Cowboy Willie Nelson, now 84.
Vince Gill and three of Glen's children guest on the album recorded after his 2012 farewell tour.
CLICK HERE for a Glen Campbell feature in The Diary on September 13, 2009.
KIEFER SUTHERLAND BEHIND BARS
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Singing actor Kiefer Sutherland returns Behind Bars on Nu Country with Robert Knepper who plays T-Bag in TV series Prison Break.
They filmed their video for Kiefer's song Shirley Jean in a prison.
The heart-wrenching, timeless tune is in the tradition of dark and visceral storytellers Hank Williams Sr. and Johnny Cash and tells the tragic story of a man imprisoned on death row whose hard life was made brighter only by the love of one woman: Shirley Jean.
As he spends his last night on Earth, preparing for his death, he writes a final letter to his long lost beloved.
“I never had love, but the closest was you,” he sings.
Shirley Jean is on 50-year old Kiefer's 2016 album Down In a Hole he is promoting on his Not Enough Whiskey tour.
The British born Canadian is renowned for his role as Jack Bauer in TV show 24 but recently appeared with dad Donald in the movie Forsaken and returns in new TV series Designated Survivor .
Sutherland's 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.”
Further info - http://kiefersutherlandmusic.com/
DEVIN DAWSON ALSO BEHIND BARS
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Californian country singer Devin Dawson and director Justin Clough filmed his new video for All On Me at the old Tennessee State prison.
The prison is featured in the 1999 The Green Mile movie and Eric Church videos Homeboy and Lightning.
It's also in spring tourists Old Crow Medicine Show's clip for Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer.
Orangevale born Devin, now 28, grew up near the gates of infamous Folsom Prison where Johnny Cash recorded a live concert disc.
Devin heard the sirens at night so he related to the song sentiments.
“The video was like the world's about to end, and it's just me and the girl,” Dawson revealed.
“I wanted the visuals to contrast this bouncy, summer kind of driving song. It's playing off of that first line of like, 'Hey, I know the woes and the weight of the world can get you down, but don't let it.' So essentially, it's like, 'Hey, I know it's the end, and there's nothing we can do about it, so I'm here for you, come lean on me."
All On Me is Devin 's debut album title track - he co-wrote all songs.
“The whole idea was to take this upbeat, positive love song and insert this aesthetic, this darker vibe that I love, which is really in contrast to this song,” Dawson said of All On Me .
Producer Jay Joyce cut the album with the same live band Dawson played with since his Belmont University college days.
Twin brother Jacob produced his previous single Blind Man.
Dawson began touring with Texan Maren Morris early this year before joining Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul Tour
Further info - http://www.devindawsonmusic.com/
RATTLING CANE HIGH IN THE SADDLE
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Melbourne sextet Rattling Cane take a nostalgic trip to the bush to compete in their form of ashes cricket and front porch picking.
The lads lower the demographic with guest cameos from younger clan members in their video for Who I Am on their debut album What We Are.
Our Vice President Rod Browne reports he heard the band's live version at a Williamstown gig of another original song High In The Saddle for their new album.
Yes, it was inspired by the radio show of the same name that ran for 20 years on Melbourne community stations 3RRR-FM, 3PBS-FM and Nu Country .
Band members are lead guitarist Stephen Biddlestone, Sam Crowe guitar and vocals, bassist John Dynon, John Joyce on pedal steel and harmonica, Greg Prow guitar and vocals and drummer Greg Ratten.
Further info – http://rattlincane.com/
WHEELER WALKER JR SPENT SUMMERS IN KENTUCKY
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Wheeler Walker Jr debuts on Nu Country with his video for Summers in Kentucky from his second country album Ol' Wheeler.
Walker , now 42, also records as comedian Ben Hoffman.
As a country music singer-songwriter, his debut album Redneck Shit , produced by Dave Cobb was released February 12, 2016.
It debuted at #9 on the Billboard Country Chart, #1 on the Comedy Chart and #127 on Billboard Top 200.
It was the first album to debut in both the top ten of the comedy and country charts for a decade.
Ol' Wheeler was released June 2, 2017 via Thirty Tigers/Pepper Hill Records .
It debuted at #10 on the country chart with 7,800 copies sold in its first week.
Further info - http://www.wheelerwalkerjr.com/
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 33rd series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
We have Kasey Chambers 11th CD Dragonfly and Blake Shelton's 12th CD If I'm Honest from Karen Black and Tony Midolo at Warner Music.
We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing membership.
They include singing actor Tim McGraw, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and more.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.