DAVE'S DIARY - 11 MARCH 2019 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 4 - SERIES 39
TOBY KEITH-CLINT EASTWOOD HEADLINE NU COUNTRY
Oklahoma singing actor Toby Keith headlines Nu Country TV on Saturday March 16 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/44 with a song he wrote for golfing mate Clint Eastwood's latest movie The Mule.
Mid-West Farmer's Daughter Margo Price also returns to the program repeated Monday 7:30 am and Thursday 12 am.
Berwick dual Golden Guitarist Andrew Swift, Novocastrian Catherine Britt and former Jindabyne jackeroo Brad Cox boomerang to the show filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Highett bluegrass duo Weeping Willows and Allan Caswell also return to the program featuring Knoxville singer-songwriter Rodney Atkins
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
TOBY HONOURS CLINT
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Toby Keith helped Clint Eastwood celebrate his 88th birthday by writing a song for his latest box-office smash movie The Mule.
It was inspired by a Clint quip during a round of golf.
Toby asked Clint why he was making a new movie.
Clint replied "I just don't let the old man in."
Don't Let The Old Man In is in the final scene of The Mule, released in January.
Eastwood frequently used country songs in his movies dating back more than 50 years.
Toby, now 57, toured here for our late benefactor Rob Potts in 2014.
Willie Nelson, 85, and his famous guitar Trigger joined Keith and band as they explored perils of bus travel on the legendary lost highway in a previous video.
Waccy Tobbacy - sequel to Toby's historic hit Weed For Willie - was on Keith's 21st album.
Willie and Toby appeared with Texan comedian Rodney Carrington in 2008 movie Beer For My Horses.
Keith wrote Wacky Tobaccy with Scotty Emerick and shot the video on his bus before Sing Me Back Home: The Music of Merle Haggard tribute concert in Nashville .
Emerick and fellow singer-songwriter Mac McAnally had video cameos.
“Wacky Tobaccy is a slogan, a saying, that's been around forever, and no one has ever put it in a song,” Keith revealed.
“When we were working on this song, somebody asked if the saying has ever been written in a song, and I said, ‘No, but they will now.'”
Keith said the song “is written to the screws, and it fits in with what we do every night with the party crowd,” and sequel to Weed With Willie .
“Weed With Willie was a true story,” Keith explained.
“This is just more of a bunch of fact-based laundry list of different things you can do and different kinds of people that do it. When you literally say you will never smoke weed with Willie again, you mean it - you know till the next time.”
CLICK HERE for a Toby feature in The Diary on January 18, 2014.
MARGO PRICE ALL AMERICAN MADE
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Margo Price returns with a vibrant video for the title track of second solo CD All American Made.
Price used a collage of images to contrast vast gaps between rich and poor.
She performed her strident social comment from a tiny house on the back of a flat-bed truck.
The 35-year-old filmed in eight cities including New Orleans , Detroit and Nashville.
Amid footage of luthiers, barbers, high school cheerleaders and blue-collar workers are clips of Leona Tate - one of the McDonogh Three.
They were the first black students to integrate into a white school in New Orleans in 1960.
She also included members of Nashville 's Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
As the Nashville Children's Choir fades out at song's end, a swirl of background voices takes their place - snippets of speeches by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou and others.
The message of Price's video is clear and echoes her song: This is America , and these are Americans; more unifies than divides us.
Margo and guitarist husband Jeremy Ivey won wide acclaim after selling their wedding rings and cars to finance first solo album Mid-West Farmer's Daughter at Sun Studios in Memphis.
She played piano, sang in a church choir and studied dance and theatre in tiny Ohio town Aledo before moving to Nashville at 20.
Margo started Buffalo Clover with Jeremy, released three albums and fronted Margo & The Price-Tags whose members included Sturgill Simpson and Kenny Vaughan.
She announced her pregnancy during a Nashville concert with Jack White in November.
"I've been hiding something behind my guitar," Price told the audience.
"We're expecting a baby this May."
It will be Price's third child with husband Ivey.
In 2010 she gave birth to twins Ezra and Judah but Ezra died in infancy because of a heart condition - subject of her song Hands Of Time.
She also appeared on Nu Country with A Little Pain, Desperate & Depressed, Weakness, Hurting on the Bottle, Leftovers, Hands Of Time and It's Not Drink Driving If You Are Riding a Horse.
CLICK HERE for a Margo interview in The Diary on September 17, 2018.
ANDREW SWIFT AND CATHERINE BRITT
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Berwick singer-songwriter-dual Golden Guitarist Andrew Swift returns with prolific peer Catherine Britt. Swift wrote Fire & Ice with Kiewa Valley singer and frequent touring partner Gretta Ziller Andrew and Catherine filmed in a factory in Britt's home town Newcastle. Fire & Ice is on Swift's second CD Call Out For The Cavalry that won two Golden Guitars in January. |
Failed relationships are a common theme on the album.
“When I looked at my songs in hindsight there is a common theme about someone asking for help and it's ignored,” Swift revealed.
“They're not all help me songs but there is an underlying theme, there's also songs on there about failed relationships.
“There's a song where I pretend to miss someone to practice what it felt like to miss someone again.”
Swift took breaks from his caravan park day job for previous videos Reckless Desires and Runaway Train.
Further info - https://www.andrewswift.com.au/
BRAD COX HITS RED LIGHT
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Former Jindabyne jackeroo-singer-songwriter and 39th Tamworth Starmaker winner Brad Cox returns with help from friends.
Cox, 23, let dancers and divas do the hard work at famous big city locales in Red Light - fourth video on his self-titled debut album.
Brad's parents were swimming teachers at Jindabyne but he soaked up country music in four years mustering cattle in the Northern Territory.
It inspires Water On The Ground - his second video.
“In 2015, after spending a lot of time in rural NSW, I decided to head to the Northern Territory for work,” Cox revealed.
“It was dry as I drove through Central Queensland , and when I say it was dry, the grass was beyond grey. There was no grass, just dirt - dirt for hundreds of kilometres. The few mobs of livestock you did see were poor. They were being fed just enough by the farmers to keep them alive in the hope they wouldn't have to sell off the last of their mob to sustain their livelihood.
“This song is very close to home and probably the song I am most proud of on my album which I released this year.
“I wrote it in late 2015 in the hallway of a hotel in Nashville . I didn't write down the song. I just started playing the riff, turned my phone recorder on and sang it. It was all but completed, and at that moment I realised the importance of people hearing this song.
“The Australian public needs to realise the importance of looking after our rural community and I will do all I can to help.”
Cox filmed first video Lake House near his Snowy Mountains lakes home.
“ Lake House is about a woman I met and never saw again,” said Brad.
Cox wrote 11 songs for his album produced by Matt Fell.
CLICK HERE for a Brad Cox CD review in The Diary on September 3, 2018.
WEEPING WILLOWS JOIN BLUE MOUNTAINS BARD
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Award winning expat English singer Allan Caswell lives in the Blue Mountains and celebrated 52 years living down under last year.
This week Highett bluegrass duo The Weeping Willows join floral tribute The Roses Fall from his 2Oth CD Mexico.
The Roses Fall is a beautiful and traditional song about the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War 1 from the view of a couple separated by the war.
The love song tells the story of the couple in the song and impact of the war on Australian people.
Damian Cafarella produced The Roses Fall at his End Of The Road studio in Melbourne.
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Caswell, now 65 , was born in Chester, arrived here at 14 and has written more than 500 songs for a vast cast of peers.
Weeping Willows - Laura Coates & Andy Wrigglesworth - joined Caswell in his previous video for Golden Days from his 19 th album 50 Years In Oz.
They appeared on Nu Country with The Pale Rider and Travelling Man from second album Be fore Darkness Comes A-Calling that followed Till The North Wind Blows.
Caswell and Sydney protégé Michael Carpenter took a wry look at life after 40 in previous video Back When I Was Older .
Carpenter recorded guitar pop solo disc The Big Radio and alt. country project The Cuban Heels album Ain't Nothing Left To Say .
He also leads The April Family who recorded 2107 debut album What We Know Now and four singles.
CLICK HERE for a Caswell feature in The Diary on September 19, 2016.
Further info - http://www.theweepingwillows.com.au/#home
RODNEY ATKINS CAUGHT UP IN THE COUNTRY
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Knoxville born Rodney Atkins makes the most of life in paddocks and on stages in this week's show. It's a far cry from his turbulent childhood when he was rescued three times from orphanages. Atkins celebrates his 50th birthday this month with his second wife - fellow singer Rose Falcon He was joined by Fisk Jubilee Singers on Caught Up In The Country on his seventh album. Atkins first wife Tammy Jo played his love interest in previous video Farmer's Daughter and his son Elijah appeared in Watching You. |
Atkins graduated from Tennessee Tech, Cookeville , with a psychology degree. It was a fitting reward for a singer who was returned by two families after living in an orphanage.
It was third time lucky for Atkins, named Jimmy Holston, when Allan and Margaret Atkins proudly raised him.
Jimmy Holston was the name given to him by the Holston Home in Greenville , Tennessee .
Now the Holston United Methodist Home for Children has a renovated campus and residence hall with a new name: The Rodney Atkins Youth Home.
CLICK HERE for a previous Atkins feature in the Diary on August 9, 2010.
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 39th series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
You can win Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker, 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 Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.
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