DAVE'S DIARY - 27/4/2020 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 10 - SERIES 43
LEE ANN WOMACK AND AUBRIE SELLERS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Texan mother and daughter Lee Ann Womack and Aubrie Sellers headline Nu Country TV on Saturday May 2 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/ Digital 44.
Fellow Texans Cody Wayne and Randall King return to the show hosted by Mid-Pacific Bob Olson and repeated Thursday at 5 am.
Expatriate Canadian Tracy McNeil and Brisbane singer-songwriter Pete Cullen also appear on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
LEE ANN ANIMATED IN HOLLYWOOD
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Texan singer-songwriter Lee Ann Womack is animated as her character drives her topless car on the mean streets of tinsel town in her latest video.
Womack loses her partner before the end of her Hollywood video on her 11th album - The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone.
Grammy winner Lee Ann, now 53, hails from Jacksonville in Cherokee County , East Texas , where her dad was a country music DJ.
Lee Ann won her Grammy for her duet with fellow Texan Shotgun Willie Nelson on 2002 hit Mendocino County Line.
She also performs two songs on Lone State singer Rodney Crowell's 21st album Texas.
Lee Ann first charted in 1997 with Never Again, Again, followed by The Fool, The Fool, You've Got to Talk to Me, A Little Past Little Rock, I'll Think of a Reason Later and her #1 hit I Hope You Dance.
She scored Top 5 and Top 10 singles with Ashes By Now in 2000 and I May Hate Myself in the Morning in 2004.
Womack has recorded with Vince Gill, George Strait, Asleep at the Wheel, Dolly Parton, Don Henley, Alan Jackson, Gene Watson, Rhett Akins, Joe Nichols, Randy Houser, Martina McBride, Mark Wills, Blind Boys of Alabama , Jamey Johnson, David Nail, Jim Lauderdale, Brothers Osborne and John Prine.
Lee Ann appeared on Nu Country with videos for Send It On Down and Chances Are from her eighth album The Way I'm Living.
In 2010 during her recording hiatus she sang Liars Lie on Tim McGraw-Gwyneth Paltrow Country Strong movie soundtrack.
Lee Ann played sheriff Chief Deputy Claire Wades in a small East Texas town in another movie Noble Things.
It's a far cry from Belmont University , Nashville , when she met and wed singer-songwriter Jason Sellers in 1990.
They divorced in 1996 - five years after having daughter Aubrie Lee.
Womack gave birth to second daughter, Annalise, in January 1999 after marrying Frank Liddell.
The six-time CMA winner scored her first CMA award 15 years ago for I Hope You Dance.
That same year George Strait and Alan Jackson's version of Larry Cordle-Larry Shell penned satiric Murder on Music Row , featuring her harmonies, won Song of the Year.
CLICK HERE for a Lee Ann CD review in The Diary on March 28, 2005.
AUBRIE SELLERS PERFORMS ON CAR
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Aubrie Sellers - daughter of Lee Ann and Jason Sellers - has vastly different uses for her car than her mum when it breaks down.
It becomes her stationary stage to perform acoustic and live at sunset - in her video for Drag You Down - one of her 12 original songs on second album Far From Home .
The video, directed by Chloé Aktas, features Sellers on guitar on her convertible - a serene departure from the gritty recorded version.
It's first in a series of acoustic performances that promote the album.
Sellers said they were "meant to feel like little snapshots of life, or little movie scenes pulled for a bigger picture. We tried to keep them as raw and real as possible, with life still going on in the background."
Aubrie, now 29, produced it with Lee Ann's second husband Frank Liddell at the Sonic Ranch studios near El Paso way out in West Texas .
She's now touring with another Texan - Tanya Tucker
Aubrie performed a live version of Light Of Day from debut album New City Blues in Behind Bars.
She was featured on Dr. Ralph's 2015 album, Ralph Stanley and Friends: A Man of Constant Sorrow , where she sang White Dove with her mother, Lee Ann.
Many of the 14 songs on New City Blues were co-written with Adam Wright - nephew of Georgian born superstar Alan Jackson.
Further info - http://www.aubriesellers.com/
CODY WAYNE BAD INFLUENCE
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East Texan Cody Wayne learned guitar and wrote songs as he served as a marine in Iwakumi, Japan, and Iraq.
Wayne previously honoured fellow warriors with his marine homage - Remember The Lost Ones.
This time Cody performed the title track of latest album Bad Influence live on stages in bars.
It follows hits Makin' Love In The Moonlight, Footprints On My Windshield, Take Me Drunk, Fly High, Addicted and Good Old Country Song .
Further info - https://codywayne.com/
HAY HAULER RANDALL KING AND HEY COWGIRL
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Fellow Texan Randall King - a fourth generation hay hauler from Hereford west of Amarillo - returns. The Lubbock singer-songwriter Randall name-checked fellow Texan star George Strait in Hey Cowgirl on his self-titled, self-produced third album that features Taking Me A Heartbreak. The dream-soaked tune follows Old Dirt Road and Another Bullet . King was raised listening to the soulful, classic country voices of Keith Whitley, George Strait and Alan Jackson - neo-traditional country artists. “There's a lot of people that want country music to come back around and there's a lot of people that will say you have to sell out and play radio hits to make it,” says King who studied sound engineering in college. |
Further info - https://www.randallkingmusic.com/
PETE CULLEN ODE TO FARMERS
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Brisbane singer Pete Cullen debuts with his ode to farmers suffering droughts and bushfires.
He used a bridge locale to propel his impassioned rural drought anthem with daughter Lily.
Destroy It All is on his fifth album High Tide.
“ Destroy It All came to me in late January 2019 when I was reading stories of farmers facing yet another endless drought in Australia ,” revealed Cullen who tours at Pete Cullen and The Hurt .
“Around this time a natural disaster hit north Queensland . Farmers went from hand-feeding their stock to watching them being washed away in record level floods. Living in the city it can be difficult to fully fathom the reality of these heart-breaking stories and the effect on our rural communities. As the song developed I started to realise that I was in fact the fortunate boy who lives in the luckiest country on the planet.”
Further info - https://www.facebook.com/petecullenmusic/
TRACY MCNEILL STARS
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Melbourne singer-songwriter Tracy McNeil was soaked with her band The Good Life in her Stars video from her fifth album You Be The Lightning.
Tracy left Canada for Australia in 2017 and wed Raised by Eagles guitarist Luke Sinclair who was also in The Good Life.
But they divorced and he left her band in 2017 while she was writing the album.
Change is a dominant theme on You Be The Lightning.
“It's been a big year and I've had some big changes in my life and gone through a separation recently and it's all in the record really,” McNeil revealed.
“Either people around me, their relationships falling apart or myself and the things I've been going through and working out where I need to be in life.”
So she explored another theme in her single.
“Stars needed to be poppy,” McNeil explained.
“Cosmic country or indie-Americana is what we're throwing around. Who knows? They're just labels to classify stuff, but we need them. At the end of the day each song speaks for itself.”
“I guess it's about astrology in a cynical way. Looking if that stuff has any meaning because life just happens. You go through changes. Things come together, and things fall apart.
“You're often in the throes of looking for answers when you're trying to make big decisions in your life.”
CLICK HERE for a Tracy CD feature in The Diary on June 22, 2016.
We need your support in Nu Country TV's 43rd series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
You can join Watling & Bates as members and win their 13 track CD Small Town Tales.
Also Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker.
We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing your 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 details.