DAVE'S DIARY - 4/9/2017 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 9 - SERIES 33
JOE NICHOLS HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Arkansas star Joe Nichols headlines Nu Country TV on Saturday September 9 at 9 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44 with a cameo by a hip-hop hombre.
Old Crow Medicine Show made their 2009 Australian debut at CMC Rocks The Snowys at Thredbo with Joe and Taylor Swift and return to the program repeated Monday at 8 am.
Bluegrass stars Rhonda Vincent, Daryle Singletary and New Town appear in Behind Bars on the show filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Port Macquarie born singer-songwriter Aleyce Simmonds returns and Louisiana man Dylan Scott debuts with a song penned by expat Novocastrian Morgan Evans.
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.
JOE NICHOLS JUDGED BY SIR MIX A LOT
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Joe Nichols performs a humorous version of a song made famous by hip hop rapper Sir Mix A Lot.
Joe, now 40, was judged by Sir Mix A Lot on his classic Baby Got Back from his 10th album Never Gets Old.
Nichols didn't expect to “go viral” with his Baby Got Back music video that has scored more than 5 million views
Joe wasn't sure the cover of the now-iconic early '90s rap would make his album.
“I wouldn't say the song was an afterthought, but it was sort of the last thing we cut for the record,” Nichols revealed.
“We had a little bit of time left in the studio to cut one more song.”
Nichols has been playing the song, revamped with Western swing melody, in his live sets.
They laid it down but Nichols didn't believe it would survive on the album released on July 28.
“The label's probably gonna go, ‘You guys weren't serious, were you?'” he recalled.
“But we were surprised pleasantly.”
Nichols version of Baby Got Back , with guest Darren Knight, aka Southern Momma , closes his 12-track album.
He performed it for Sir Mix-a-Lot in the video.
“The guy's super cool,” Joe says of Sir Mix-a-Lot whom he calls Mix “and just very willing to do whatever to help the song and the video.”
Joe says the rapper told him he received calls from friends who attended his shows that Sir Mix A Lot was a big fan of Nichols song The Impossible .
“That's pretty great,” Nichols explained.
“That's a pretty cool deal. That was nice that he kind of gave his stamp of approval. That was really cool for him to say, ‘that's being authentic for you, so I dig that.'”
Nichols sees Never Gets Old as a statement - “part of somewhat of a movement in country music back toward more traditional country music and a chance to go back to how I started, why I started, where I started - traditional, fun, country.”
Joe has made three Australian tours including a 2001 Forum gig with Fawkner filly Jasmine Rae.
CLICK HERE for a Joe Nichols interview in The Diary on November 18, 2009.
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW BEHIND BARS
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Old Crow Medicine Show make the most of time off for good behaviour at decommissioned Tennessee State Prison near Nashville in their humorous video with use of hacksaw blades and disguises for a fast escape.
Their characters enjoy a sexual romp in Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer from Grammy winning eighth album Remedy.
Marty Stuart, Dom Flemons and J P Harris appear as comic characters for the band who debuted at CMC Rocks The Snowys at Thredbo in 2009 and return to the Forum on October 1 with Memphis singer Valerie June to promote new CD/DVD 50 Years Of Bob Dylan .
Bandleader Ketch Secor says he was careful not to make light of prison life or its infamous namesake.
“ Brushy Mountain is one of those epic prisons,” he revealed.
“It's one of the most famous prisons in the South and it just sounds like an imposing place. It's up there with Sing Sing, Alcatraz, Attica. There's a respect that has to be paid when you're going to make your video inside a prison's walls, actually in prison jumpsuits.
“A lot of our activities were right around the death row area, and it's just really intense. It's really heavy.”
Country music and prison time share a long history - Johnny Cash's prison concerts and songs by former convicts David Allan Coe and Merle Haggard.
“There's a whole life going on behind bars in the United States, and it's so important that country music jump that fence,” Ketch said.
The song isn't about reflecting on mistakes or becoming a better person.
It's about a wacky escape plan that seems right out of O Brother, Where Art Thou ?
“It's funny, you send out your song to a couple of producers in Nashville, and the video treatments come back basically like Bikini Prison Break ,” he said.
“You know, it was all about the girls that are washing your cell block down or whatever. But we really pride ourselves on the fact that there's not a single woman in this video, except the man who plays one.”
Ah yes, the old cross-dressing accomplice ruse.
“We wrote this treatment that just felt like it was fun,” he said.
“And if you were on the inside and you got to see this, hopefully you'd be rooting for Cory Younts and his escape, and you'd be rooting for Chance McCoy and his lipstick and hacksaw.”
CLICK HERE for Old Crow Medicine Show Remedy CD review in The Diary on April 6, 2015.
CLICK HERE for a previous CD review in the Diary on August 14, 2012.
RHONDA VINCENT AND DARYLE SINGLETARY
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Missouri bluegrass queen Rhonda Vincent and Georgian Daryle Singletary return with their live version of Above And Beyond from new Top 5 album American Grandstand .
Rhonda, 55, has released 18 solo albums and two duet discs with Singletary and veteran Texan honky tonk hero Gene Watson.
Singletary, 46, has also released eight solo albums with humorous hits including I'm Living Up To Her Low Expectations and Jesus And Bartenders.
Singletary and Shotgun Willie Nelson, 84, also guest on Rhonda's two-disc set Only Me that combines her love of bluegrass and country.
Rhonda also appeared on Nu Country with vocal and video support of singing actor Dolly Parton in her video for Heartbreaker's Alibi from her 12th album All American Bluegrass Girl .
The banjo-playing mother of two has won a brace of major bluegrass awards since her debut in her family band at the age of five.
Rhonda, co-producer of her albums, is a major inspiration for younger peers Alison Krauss and Alecia Nugent.
She harmonized on three songs on Georgian superstar Alan Jackson's 18th album Freight Train including hit single It's Just That Way .
It's one of three Top 5 hits co-written by expatriate Port Douglas singer-songwriter and former Starmaker winner Kylie Sackley.
CLICK HERE for a Rhonda Vincent feature from the Diary on April 20, 2004.
CLICK HERE for a Vincent CD review on September 25, 2006.
NEW TOWN TRAVEL DOWN HARLAN ROAD IN KENTUCKY
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Bluegrass band New Town take us on a trip down that famed Harlan Road in their native Kentucky in Behind Bars. The Tyler Childers penned song is title track of their second album produced by Union Station bass player Barry Bales. New Town are based in Lexington, Kentucky, and fronted by award-winning vocalist/fiddler Kati Penn Williams and singer/banjo-picker husband, Jr. Williams. The band was formed in 2009 when Jr left bluegrass band New Found Road to play full-time with his wife in what became New Town. |
Since then it has gained a strong following playing festivals with Rhonda Vincent & the Rage and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver .
New Town has often played the legendary Station Inn in Nashville and twice at showcases at the IBMA's World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The ensemble also opened shows for John Cowan Band and recorded Harlan Road at studios of its label, Mountain Home Records , in Arden, North Carolina.
Further info - http://thenewtownband.com/www/
ALEYCE SIMMONDS DROPS ANCHOR
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Port Macquarie born singer-songwriter Aleyce Simmonds gives sweet solace to peers during time travel in Anchor - latest single from her third album More Than Meets The Eye.
Anchor was penned about a pivotal relationship that helped erase a bad past and move to a better future.
“People enter our lives for different reasons,” Simmonds revealed.
“Some stay a while, some come and go. Sometimes the impression that they make far outlives the physical presence. At the time of writing Anchor I was in love and happy. Most of all, I was grateful that my life had been changed for the better and I wanted to put it into song that regardless of the fate of the relationship, I'd be forever thankful for that. Maybe I did that so that I couldn't change my mind and become bitter. Come what may and come whatever, and the wrongs we can't undo. I'll be the blanket at the dawn for you."
Six time Golden Guitars finalist Aleyce Simmonds, now 30, wrote previous song Defeated with Wollongong singer-songwriter Jeremy Edwards.
"This album is quite a journey because, to be honest, I went from a place of darkness and I found someone who changed my life, I moved into the light, we went through the ups and downs of the relationship and spat out the other side when we broke up and into the darkness again and then finding my way back to Tamworth,” Aleyce revealed.
“You can try with all your might to hold a strong woman down. You'll give all to the fight, to hear a heart break. If just one person who is either effected by domestic violence or is an offender puts an end to the situation they are in after listening to my song I will have done what I have set out to do. We won't be defeated.”
Inspired by personal experiences and her role as hands-on ambassador for Tamworth Family Support Services, Aleyce says the full chorus section was written in a dream.
Aleyce also appeared on Nu Country when she honoured her brother, who died 23 years ago as a baby, in her evocative video for Joshua from second album Believe in 2015.
“I had feedback from Van Morrison that Joshua was the most heartfelt song that he'd heard in recent times after its showcase on BBC2 in the UK,” said Aleyce after winning three Southern Star indie music awards in Mildura.
“I'm extra happy about this announcement because the song I was nominated for was Joshua that I wrote about my baby brother who would be 21 years old if he was alive today.”
Further info - www.aleycesimmonds.com
DYLAN SCOTT HOOKED AT COYOTE JOE'S
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Louisiana singer-songwriter Dylan Scott, just 26, filmed his live video for new single Hooked at Coyote Joe's night club in Charlotte, North Carolina . Hooked was written by expat Newcastle singer Morgan Evans - fiancé of recent tourist Kelsea Ballerini - with fellow expat Australian Lindsay Rimes and Seth Ennis It's one of three new tracks on the Deluxe Edition of Dylan Scott's self-titled album released on August 4. Scott first visited Nashville with his dad when he was 15. It was the same year Scott, now 26, met wife Blair who inspired his breakthrough hit and video My Girl. |
Their wedding was a month before his debut album release.
Dylan's father played guitar with country artists Freddy Fender and Freddie Hart, while his great aunt was Emmylou Harris Hot Band ace and producer Tony Brown's piano teacher.
Another relative, Marie Jarvis, played piano with the Blackwood Brothers and the Stamps.
Scott co-wrote seven of the 13 tunes - it's no surprise they are among the best from entrée Lay It On Me to nostalgic finale Do You Think About Me .
Passenger Seat , previous hit Crazy Over Me and fraternal paean Beer Buddies are credible pages from his recent past.
So is anthemic My Town , penned by collaborator Matt Alderman.
He finds redemption with reflective I Lost You , sensual Rules and Freak Show - an atmospheric and almost psychedelic flashback that crosses genres.
Further info - http://sweeps.tweematic.com/hooked
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.